* Astronomy

Confidential data about two Japanese government spy satellites were found to have been published on Web sites operated by astronomers overseas in a move to fix the satellites' location.
According to the scientists, by using this data, the satellites' exact locations over the Earth can be pinpointed, making it possible for activities that may be considered a threat to Japan to be covered up.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which is chaired by prestigious U.S. scientists, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics publicised the information on a database of satellites in orbit. The detailed information of the Japanese satellites--referred to by the government as information gathering satellites--were kept secret for security reasons.

On Saturday, the UCS added detailed and accurate data on the two satellites--such as their altitude, inclination and period of orbit--to its online database, which was established late last year to carry information on about 800 satellites from various countries.
Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre originally decoded data from two space objects that had been published by the North American Aerospace Defence Command in the form of encrypted codes. The scientists found the data corresponded to the two satellites and released the results online.

Since the online information came from accurate orbit data, any activity conducted in the area where the satellites do reconnaissance could be suspended by calculating the orbit period to know when the satellites and overhead. In such circumstances, Japanese authorities would have to increase the number of satellites to counter possible hindrance.
After the satellites were first launched in March 2003, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration temporarily published information on the satellites. However, the data was reloaded onto other sites by some amateur sky watchers, leading NASA to remove the data for security reasons.
But it is difficult to follow the same practice and force the removal of the data from the UCS's Web site because the site's owners advocate space as a common property.

Data on U.S. military satellites have also been publicised on the UCS' site. It had once been revealed that there are military satellites in orbit camouflaged as space debris.

Source

The UCS Satellite Database is a listing of operational satellites currently in orbit around the Earth. It is available as both a downloadable Excel file and in a tab-delimited text format, which are updated roughly quarterly.

UCS Satellite Database