Harry, the divers have returned from examining the wreck of the rocket.
There isn't much left and not a lot to tell. From what you told them
and what they saw it looks like the second stage of the rocket failed
to separate from the first so there wasn't enough lift to make orbit.
When the fuel ran out the whole thing crashed and burned. I guess the
beacon was thrown clear. The fact that the rocket was staged must mean
it was intended for orbit so your guess that the beacon is a satellite
seems good.
While at the surface we pulled in signals from a Soviet weather station
on the Lomonosov. Seems to be using the same encryption systems as the
Leninsky Komsomov and I've told the guys in the radio room to keep tabs
on them when they can. We also spotted a Soviet plane patrolling the ice
- probably a tupolev ninety five (we call them 'Bears'). Intel. say
this might be the 'pritok' variant, a prototype for locating landed
space-craft but we didn't think that was flying ops yet.
By the way, our cipher guys in the NSA tell us to expect the soviets to switch to a
more secure system. They picked up a weather broadcast using a
transposition cipher and reckon the sub may follow suit.








