From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #676 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Friday, 12 July 1996 Volume 05 : Number 676 In this issue: re: A-12 photo observations re:Titan-4 payload Darkstar.....not! Black Technology & White Projects Engine Built to Catch a Comet Begins Endurance Test (fwd) Re: Item in 7/1/96 AW&ST / Spaceplanes &c. Forwarding: Engine Built to Catch a Comet Begins Endurance Test re: Black Technology & White Projects Anybody there? Re: Anybody there? use hear here EOM Re: Anybody there? Anybody there? -Reply RE: Anybody there? Re: Anybody there? Re: Anybody out there. See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 10:48:14  Subject: re: A-12 photo observations Greg, Judging by the fat that they're angled in towards the bend point of the chine, I'd wager that their pupose is to measure direction and velcoity of airflow off the nose/chine to insure that it's within tolerance and won't impinge on the D-21 duirng separation, before the drone clears the launch aircraft. Just a guess. Art Hanley Those that seek to find a relationship between what I've written here and what my employer may believe, seek something that can't be found. ------------------------------ From: Kerry Ferrand Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:24:02 +1200 (NZST) Subject: re:Titan-4 payload I found this on sci.space.shuttle..thought it may be helpful I've also read elewhere that the payload was some sort of mini-TDRS for relaying Spysat data..exactly how this would work in LEO I don't know. - -- From: molczan@fox.nstn.ca (Ted Molczan) Subject: Secret military satellite launched 3 July on Titan 4 Date: 9 Jul 1996 16:45:56 GMT Organization: Nova Scotia Technology Network Please excuse this slightly off-topic post for sci.astro.amateur, sci.space.policy and sci.space.shuttle. These are the three news groups most likely to include some folks with a secondary interest in satellite observation, who might be interested in the following. I am part of an informal group of amateur satellite observers who have been tracking the secret payload launched on 3 July from Cape Canaveral. The orbit of this object is a secret; however, we located both it and the Titan 2nd stage about 24 hours after launch on 3 July. Below are orbital elements in NORAD 2-line format, derived from the group's latest observations, as of 7/8 July: 1 96038U 96038 A 96190.00000000 .00029250 00000-0 99618-4 0 05 2 96038 54.9908 163.4026 0020229 331.5871 115.1135 15.88773242 02 1 96039U 96038 B 96190.00000000 .00044416 00000-0 12112-3 0 00 2 96039 55.0162 163.2023 0020763 236.3645 264.6189 15.93045525 07 These elements should produce predictions accurate to a within about 60 s in time on the night of 9/10 July. It never hurts to allow for 5 minutes uncertainty, especially for the payload, which is manoeuvrable. The payload, 96038A, is about 2nd magnitude on a high elevation, well illuminated pass. It is flashing with a 1 sec period, and many observers have reported that it is reddish in colour. The flash period indicates that the object is spin-stabilized, at about 30 rpm. The flashing is not visible on some passes, probably because the spin-axis is facing the observer at that time. The reddish colour indicates that a large portion of its surface is covered with a gold kapton thermal blanket. The rocket body, 96038B, is about 1 to 0 magnitude on a good pass, and flashing with about a 3 sec period. It can be expeced to decay from orbit in about 1 month. The payload's appearance strongly resembles that of two other secret payloads that were shuttle-launched in Aug'89 and Dec'92, both of which eventually manoeuvred to a Molniya orbit. So we expect 96038A to do likewise. Based on past history, a major manoeuvre, either to Molniya, or a somewhat higher temporary orbit, is due any time now. If anyone reading this message has experience observing artificial satellites and has ephemeris software that can use the above elements, then we would welcome your participation in tracking these objects. We are especially interested in the payload. At a minimum, we need to know whether or not you saw it, and the date and time of your observation, and your observing cooordinates, i.e latitude, longitude and height above sea-level. If you can time the object's passage within a few degrees of any star that you can identify, that would be helpful too. Please state dates and times in UTC, and indicate the estimated accuracy of the timing. Please forward your observations to: Ted Molczan molczan@nstn.fox.ca Observing U.S. spy satellites is not illegal, but some U.S. citizens may be shy about going public with their obs. If you are employed in a job that requires a military security clearance, or hope for such employment some day, perhaps it would be best to keep a low profile. I do not believe that it is too far fetched to believe that someone could be denied security clearance for having participated in observing spy sats, on the grounds that they might have a propensity too leak information. Let your own paranoia and common sense be your guide. Happy hunting! ------------------------------ From: JMTN47A@prodigy.com (MR DEAN W SMEATON) Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 21:47:36, -0500 Subject: Darkstar.....not! On Friday, July 5th at approximately 9:58 A.M., I monitored the following brief radio conversation on my scanner: 1st voice: "Darkstar radio check." 2nd voice: "Loud and clear." Where? In the Nevada desert near Queen City Summit on Highway 375, about 20 minutes North of the town of Rachel. Frequency? 392.1000 The best identification I have for this frequency is Nellis Control- Caliente MOA. Although I was scanning about 50 different frequencies, I heard several more short 'sound bites'- (with Darkstar clearly mentioned), on this same frequency over the next 30-60 minutes. All were brief, were by the 1st voice, and seemed related to Darkstar attaining a desired altitude. They were not acknowledged (at least that I heard) by the 2nd voice. At one point I heard something like: "cleared to range" by the 1st voice, but can't swear that it was on 392.1000. A little more detail: A Red Flag was on at the time, and although several other frequencies were quite active, I never heard Darkstar mentioned on any of them. Aside from the usual types of low/high level aircraft in the area and their associated engine noises, I never saw or heard anything unusual or 'dark'. Any thoughts? ------------------------------ From: Mark Loney Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:38:35 +1000 Subject: Black Technology & White Projects The issue of how technology and expertise originally developed for black or compartmented projects can be usefully transferred to other projects, whether they be black, white or brindled, is one that has exercised the mind of a number of senior managers in the US intel community. I'm not sure when it started but certainly by the early 1990s a number of different organizations realized that they had paid several times for the same technology. And this was duplication within an organization, I'm not sure that anyone has a handle on duplication across organizations in the black world. The problem comes in several variations; one company may work on essentially the same problem under a number of contracts that have originated from different sections of the customer organization. The customer organization may not be sufficiently self aware to realize that it is doing this or it could be that the different sections see their projects as different; not realizing that their are commonalities to the problems they are trying to solve. The company doing the contracts may not even realize that it is doing the same job twice; internal compartmentation to satisfy customer security requirements can mean that the different company teams never interact in a meaningful way. It gets worse, of course, if the same work is contracted out to different companies by different organizations. And this can mean serious money, I know of at least one example where the fortuitous placement of an engineer on a project team saved the US tens of millions of dollars (he had worked on a compartmented version of the same problem several years before and was dedicated enough to go back to the original customer, work through the security issues and then satisfy the requirements of the new customer with the original work - costing his company a contract in the process (who knows what his management thought of what happened!). So, what is being done. My knowledge is now a little out of date but, in the intel community, there was a recognition at a senior level that they couldn't afford to operate that way any more. Better internal coordination and improved interagency communications were seen as one way of dealing with the issue (email and intranets can be resource multipliers!). But, probably more importantly, there was an increasing understanding of and commitment to the fact that the technology and expertise that enables a compartmented undertaking does not need to be or remain classified. And, even if it does need to remain classified, that doesn't mean that it can't be shared with other potential users of the technology. To this end at least one outreach team has been set up at a major US agency; it's sole job is to ferret out technology developed for agency purposes and make it available to other intel agencies, the services, law enforcement and so on. So, a little abstract when compared to the original X-33 question, but I think that the answer is that, yes, you can expect transfer of technology originally developed for black programs. But it might not have happened ten years ago. Back to lurking. TSW ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:37:18 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Engine Built to Catch a Comet Begins Endurance Test (fwd) Forwarded NASA press release here. Not exactly skunky, but I thought that you might be interested in advanced propulsion methods generally... - --Brett - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:26:41 -0400 From: NASA HQ Public Affairs Office To: press-release-other@venus.hq.nasa.gov Subject: Engine Built to Catch a Comet Begins Endurance Test Jim Cast Headquarters, Washington, DC July 9, 1996 (Phone: 202/358-1779) Jim Doyle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (Phone: 818/354-5011) RELEASE: 96-130 ENGINE BUILT TO CATCH A COMET BEGINS ENDURANCE TEST A new NASA spacecraft engine that begins flight at less than a snail's pace but builds up enough speed to catch a comet will soon be used to push exploring spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system. A prototype of a xenon ion engine, which fires electrically-charged atoms from its thruster, began a nearly year-long endurance test April 30 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Once validated by the test, a similar engine will power the first New Millennium mission, called Deep Space-1, to an asteroid and a comet in 1998. The comet will be West- Kohoutek-Ikemura and the asteroid will be McAuliffe, named after the school teacher Christa McAuliffe who died in the Challenger accident. "NASA has been experimenting with ion drive engines for 30 years," said Jack Stocky, manager of the ion propulsion system project. "However, this test will be the most extensively instrumented endurance test of an ion engine ever performed." In space, the 11.8-inch diameter engine will use the heavy but inert xenon gas as fuel and be powered by more than 2,000 watts from large solar arrays provided by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The actual thrust comes from accelerating and expelling the positively-charged atoms, called ions. The thrusting action is similar to that of chemical propellant engines which expel burning gases, except that such engines can produce up to millions of pounds of thrust. The engines in rockets that lift the Space Shuttle, for instance, combine metal-warping heat with an Earth- shaking roar and quickly lift the Shuttle to more than 17,000 miles per hour. An ion engine, however, starts with only about 20- thousandths of a pound of thrust. There's no roar, just an eerie blue glow. While the atoms, charged by an electric arc which removes one of the 54 electrons around its nucleus, are fired in great numbers out the thruster at more than 70,000 miles an hour, their accumulative mass is so low, the spacecraft moves only millimeters per second in its early stages of flight. Still, ion propulsion is more propellant efficient than chemical propulsion because it expels molecules from the engine at a much higher speed, Stocky said. A chemical propulsion engine has an exhaust velocity of 10,400 miles per hour while ion propulsion exhaust is 70,200 miles per hour. Built at NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH, the engine will be tested for 8,000 hours (330 days) in the space-like environment of JPL's vacuum chamber. "Ion engines have such low thrust they cannot operate in an atmosphere and have to be tested in a vacuum," said Dr. John Brophy, user validation assessment manager for the project. "JPL has the technical expertise and the cost-effective facility for the test." The test is designed to run full power for two days and then shut off for one hour and restart. This stressing process will be repeated until 8,000 hours of operation have been accumulated. After Deep Space-1 is launched by an expendable rocket with sufficient power to escape Earth's gravity, it will be in orbit around the Sun moving at the same speed the Earth moves in its orbit. That means that relative to Earth, the spacecraft will not be moving at all. But slowly, the low- thrust ion engine will increase and the spacecraft's velocity over time to greet its celestial target at more than 22,000 miles per hour, fast enough to rendezvous with a comet or asteroid. The prototype ion engine carries 176 pounds of xenon in a tank, which in flight would last from one to two years, depending on its destination and the amount of total thrusting required, Brophy said. Deep Space-1 will consume only 99 pounds of xenon during its mission. -end- ------------------------------ From: fmarkus@nyc.pipeline.com (Frank Markus) Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:15:29 GMT Subject: Re: Item in 7/1/96 AW&ST / Spaceplanes &c. On Jul 09, 1996 11:06:35, 'Brett Davidson ' wrote: > > >On Sun, 7 Jul 1996, Frank Markus wrote: > >> Not only is the inclination too low, but the altitude is also too low for >> an effective spy satellite. Granted the payload has its own engine, it >> seems silly to use that engine to duplicate the normal upper stage of the >> Titan booster. The price of the payload seems to preclude a low -level >> one-shot satellite to observe something (what?) near the equator. Also >> that the launching was apparently long planned rather than in response to >> an immediate need. > >Curiouser... I'm going to indulge myself in some completely unwarranted >speculation here, which need not be specifically linked to this launch: > >Equatorial regions are still interesting -Iran, Iraq for example. > >Low payload tho'? Would an ELINT satellite be particularly massive? > >An engine could be used for orbital plane changes, but low initial alt...? > >Hmmmmmmm..... OK, haven't got my references handy, but something like SWERVE >(Sandia Winged Entry Research Vehicle) from the 80s perhaps? > >Possibly something associated with the BMDO? (Star Wars) Target or >interception? > >There's been a lot of speculation about a small USAF spaceplane, not to >mention a lot of practical research by the USAF... it is a very tempting >interpretation. > >One technology that I imagine that the intelligence community would be >interested in is aerobraking. If a recon satellite has to make frequent >orbital changes, aerobraking would be very handy and there would >probably be a requirement for a low or elliptical orbit. > >Fuel is a problem for spysats. The KH-12 was designed to be launched and >serviced/refuelled in orbit by Space Shuttles. After Challenger, the >USAF? (which accronym is appropriate here?) went off having to depend on >the Shuttle and a lighter version sometimes refered to as KH-11+ was >launched by Titan IV. That could not be serviced in orbit. > >One of the missions proposed for the Soviet minishuttle (Uragan "Hurricane" >- see "Spaceflight" series on the Soviet Shuttle programme, four issues in >1995) was servicing satellites; likewise with Black Horse. > >Now, I don't see much of a need yet for a fully fledged crewed space shuttle >in the black sector - crewed vehicles, especially spacecraft, are EXPENSIVE >- but something like the Japanese HOPE (maybe a bit more advanced). With >modular payloads, it might be handy for simple logistics, one-off recon, >in-orbit inspection and interception missions. If there is a black >spaceplane project, maybe that is what it is and does - or will. It >actually seems a bit more useful than "Aurora" would be: more versatile and >less predictable than a Keyhole and less vulnerable than a Blackbird. >Economical launch would be a hell of a problem though, and I don't think >that expendable boosters would be the way to go - something like the X-34 >in its original incarnation. That was cancelled because it was deemed to >be commercially non-viable, not technically. A Black Horse-type "1 1/2 >stage" solution would make sense, but there would be control problems with >mid-air refuelling of a drone (?). > >Obviously, I'm just indulging myself here, and saying that a possible need >for a piece of hardware is not the same as saying that it actually exists >or is under development, or has been done that way. If that launch has >anything to do with such a programme (why the hell don't they use >transparent payload shrouds?! ;-) , it would be at the level of technology >demonstartion. > >If you don't mind, I'll go and take my medication now. > >--Brett A newer issue of AW&ST has come (and gone) but I am on the road (in Boston waiting for a much-delayed USAir Shuttle) and the magazine is at home in New York. To summarize what Irecall from the latest issue: (1) the launch was successful (2) the most likely explanation of the odd charactaristics of the payload was that it was a relay for data from Keyhole satellites that was boosted into a highly-eliptical orbit. There was also some speculation about the payload being an advance Keyhole. But it seemed rather weak. If someone has the article that I am trying to remember, please feel free to correct my poor recollection. ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 06:17:52 PDT Subject: Forwarding: Engine Built to Catch a Comet Begins Endurance Test (This is a MIME multi-part message.) - --=+=+=+=boundary=+=+=+= This follows some of the discussion on high energy propulsion systems we have touched on. I think it demonstrates about where our capability is today. Chuck - --=+=+=+=boundary=+=+=+= Content-Type: message/rfc822 Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 11:26:36 PDT XNS-Originator: owner-press-release-com2@venus.hq.nasa.GOV Sender: owner-press-release@venus.hq.nasa.GOV From: NASANews@luna.osf.hq.nasa.GOV Subject: Engine Built to Catch a Comet Begins Endurance Test To: press-release-com2@venus.hq.nasa.GOV Message-ID: <9607091826.AA18389@luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov> MIME-Version: 1.0 <----RFC822 headers----- Received: from venus.hq.nasa.gov ([131.182.1.29]) by alpha.xerox.com with SMTP id <14828(5)>; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:24:46 PDT Received: (from majordom@localhost) by venus.hq.nasa.gov (8.7.1/8.7.1) id OAA18573 for press-release-com2-outgoing; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:27:40 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: venus.hq.nasa.gov: majordom set sender to owner-press-release using -f Received: from luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov (luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov [138.76.52.1]) by venus.hq.nasa.gov (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id OAA18561 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:27:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: by luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA18389; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:26:36 -0400 From: NASANews@luna.osf.hq.nasa.gov (NASA HQ Public Affairs Office) Precedence: bulk - -----RFC822 headers----> Jim Cast Headquarters, Washington, DC July 9, 1996 (Phone: 202/358-1779) Jim Doyle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (Phone: 818/354-5011) RELEASE: 96-130 ENGINE BUILT TO CATCH A COMET BEGINS ENDURANCE TEST A new NASA spacecraft engine that begins flight at less than a snail's pace but builds up enough speed to catch a comet will soon be used to push exploring spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system. A prototype of a xenon ion engine, which fires electrically-charged atoms from its thruster, began a nearly year-long endurance test April 30 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Once validated by the test, a similar engine will power the first New Millennium mission, called Deep Space-1, to an asteroid and a comet in 1998. The comet will be West- Kohoutek-Ikemura and the asteroid will be McAuliffe, named after the school teacher Christa McAuliffe who died in the Challenger accident. "NASA has been experimenting with ion drive engines for 30 years," said Jack Stocky, manager of the ion propulsion system project. "However, this test will be the most extensively instrumented endurance test of an ion engine ever performed." In space, the 11.8-inch diameter engine will use the heavy but inert xenon gas as fuel and be powered by more than 2,000 watts from large solar arrays provided by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The actual thrust comes from accelerating and expelling the positively-charged atoms, called ions. The thrusting action is similar to that of chemical propellant engines which expel burning gases, except that such engines can produce up to millions of pounds of thrust. The engines in rockets that lift the Space Shuttle, for instance, combine metal-warping heat with an Earth- shaking roar and quickly lift the Shuttle to more than 17,000 miles per hour. An ion engine, however, starts with only about 20- thousandths of a pound of thrust. There's no roar, just an eerie blue glow. While the atoms, charged by an electric arc which removes one of the 54 electrons around its nucleus, are fired in great numbers out the thruster at more than 70,000 miles an hour, their accumulative mass is so low, the spacecraft moves only millimeters per second in its early stages of flight. Still, ion propulsion is more propellant efficient than chemical propulsion because it expels molecules from the engine at a much higher speed, Stocky said. A chemical propulsion engine has an exhaust velocity of 10,400 miles per hour while ion propulsion exhaust is 70,200 miles per hour. Built at NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH, the engine will be tested for 8,000 hours (330 days) in the space-like environment of JPL's vacuum chamber. "Ion engines have such low thrust they cannot operate in an atmosphere and have to be tested in a vacuum," said Dr. John Brophy, user validation assessment manager for the project. "JPL has the technical expertise and the cost-effective facility for the test." The test is designed to run full power for two days and then shut off for one hour and restart. This stressing process will be repeated until 8,000 hours of operation have been accumulated. After Deep Space-1 is launched by an expendable rocket with sufficient power to escape Earth's gravity, it will be in orbit around the Sun moving at the same speed the Earth moves in its orbit. That means that relative to Earth, the spacecraft will not be moving at all. But slowly, the low- thrust ion engine will increase and the spacecraft's velocity over time to greet its celestial target at more than 22,000 miles per hour, fast enough to rendezvous with a comet or asteroid. The prototype ion engine carries 176 pounds of xenon in a tank, which in flight would last from one to two years, depending on its destination and the amount of total thrusting required, Brophy said. Deep Space-1 will consume only 99 pounds of xenon during its mission. -end- - --=+=+=+=boundary=+=+=+=-- ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 9:58:32  Subject: re: Black Technology & White Projects There's actually a fairly dramatic example of the migration from black to white in the SSTO development process. The DC-X (which evolved into Clipper Graham) was originally part of an effort to develop more economical/fast turnaround launch vehicles for use with SDI. That's why the concept and operations were desinged to be so simple and with a very small ground and support crew. When SDI was cut back to virtually nil, the technology became an orphan and would probably been abandoned if the blasted thing hadn't been so successful that it couldn't be swept under the rug. Art Hanley These thoughts, such as they are, do not represent the thoughts of my employers, if in fact they choose to have any ------------------------------ From: "Joseph F. Donoghue" Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:58:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Anybody there? Did this list self-destruct again? Joe Donoghue ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:36:49 -0700 Subject: Re: Anybody there? >Did this list self-destruct again? Comm. Check! Larry ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:52:20 PDT Subject: use hear here EOM ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:51:28 PDT Subject: Re: Anybody there? just smile if you can here me. Must be all the .edu`s are on summer break. Chuck ------------------------------ From: MICHAEL WEATHERSBY Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 12:59:50 -0500 Subject: Anybody there? -Reply Yep, I am here... anyone else?? >>> Joseph F. Donoghue 7/12/96, 10:58am >>> Did this list self-destruct again? Joe Donoghue ------------------------------ From: JOHN SZALAY Date: Fri, 12 Jul 96 12:06:29 EDT Subject: RE: Anybody there? Nope the list is still here, I checked the subscription list this morning to see.. I thought the same thing, guess its just slowen down for the summer ohn jpszalay@tacl.dnet.ge.com ------------------------------ From: Earl Needham Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:14:30 -0700 Subject: Re: Anybody there? > From: larry@ichips.intel.com, on 7/12/96 9:36 AM: > > >Did this list self-destruct again? > > Comm. Check! > > Larry KD5XB HERE. Earl Needham, KD5XB, in Clovis, NM Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Pi Chi '76 Have you really jumped ROUND PARACHUTES? (Overheard at the Clovis Parachute Center) ------------------------------ From: Side Show Marc Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:31:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Anybody out there. I'm here, finally bobing to the surface like a Mafia Corpse. ___________ Marc Studer ___________________________________________ "Life is a fair approximation of reality." - Jacques Portman "Two plus two equals Duh." - Jacques Portman ______________________________________ mstuder@spu.edu ___________ ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #676 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. 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