How does the Enterprise stay undetected when in orbit of a civilized pre-warp culture?

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Random thought of the day for me.

What measures can the ship take to avoid being detected, when they orbit a planet with a species with eyes, let alone telescopes?
we had enough instances where the Enterprise was even orbiting contemporary Earth.

The ship is a good deal bigger than the largest objects we have in orbit.
The ISS can easily be spotted when it’s flying overhead and gets him by sun light.
In fact in those instances it’s the brightest object in the sky with the possible exception of the moon.
So a ship like the Enterprise with a much wider profile and more surface area would shine incredibly bright.

anyone with eyes would spot it if looking up at the time.
Any hobby astronomer with a camera and a tripod could get pretty detailed images.
Professional astronomers with state of the art telescopes would have no difficulty getting highly detailed images.

And we have never seen the Enterprise going into any sort of Stealth mode that somehow prevents light reflection.

 

[Stuart Wilson]

The ISS is in very low orbit, 250 miles or so. The Enterprise could be much higher up. I assume there is some sort of EM shielding or jamming to deal with any electronic detection, at least that which a pre-warp tech civilisation could manage.

 

[blssdwlf]

In "Tomorrow is Yesterday"

SPOCK: We've achieved a stable orbit out of Earth's atmosphere. Our deflectors are operative, enough to prevent our being picked up again as a UFO.​

and again in "Assignment: Earth"

KIRK: ...We are now in extended orbit around Earth, using our ship's deflector shields to remain unobserved.​

Presumably the deflectors work well against radar technology of the late 1960's although TOS Earth is a little bit more advanced as in 1968 they already had orbiting nuclear platforms.

 

[matthunter]

It pops on a pair of glasses and slouches. Then everyone thinks it's a comet.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Space Magic!

 

[fireproof78]

Reflectors. And then they spread a story about swamp gas reflecting the light from Venus.

 

[BK613]

It pops on a pair of glasses and slouches. Then everyone thinks it's a comet.

trenchcloak. you can't forget the trenchcloak...

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Staying out of visual range? Hide behind a moon, or in dense cloud. Or use camouflage plating - not a cloak, but changes colors based on the sky color

 

[publiusr]

It would just seem to be a slowly moving light…then too, the Galactica could be overhead and folks on cell phones would never notice.

 

[Forbin]

One thing you absolutely should NOT do is try to hide in the goddam ocean.

 

[matthunter]

One thing you absolutely should NOT do is try to hide in the goddam ocean.

Well, not in 20th/21st Century Earth's oceans, at least.

We know what humanity dumps in those.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Futures End

KIM: According to astrometric readings the year is 1996.
CHAKOTAY: The late twentieth century.
PARIS: Captain, they had surveillance satellites during this time.
JANEWAY: Maintain a high orbit. And modulate the shields to scatter their radar. We don't want to alarm the natives.

It seemed possible to hide from early intersteller ships too

PICARD: Report.
WORF: The moon's gravitational field obscured our warp signature. The Vulcans did not detect us.
LAFORGE: Captain, I've reconfigured our warp field to match the chronometric readings of the Borg sphere.
PICARD: Recreate the vortex, Commander.

However we did see in FC that a relatively small backyard telescope could get a good view of the Enterprise in standard orbit assuming you knew where it was, and the naked eye could see it departing into a chronometric vortex, although predicting the latter would have been tricky

 

[Imaus]

Futures End



It seemed possible to hide from early intersteller ships too



However we did see in FC that a relatively small backyard telescope could get a good view of the Enterprise in standard orbit assuming you knew where it was, and the naked eye could see it departing into a chronometric vortex, although predicting the latter would have been tricky

Plus the 90s is awash with UFO claims; so I don't think Voy got off scott free and clean but a best some Army or Air Force unit got a eventual blip that leaked to Coast to Coast AM but nothing else...

 

[fireproof78]

Well, not in 20th/21st Century Earth's oceans, at least.

We know what humanity dumps in those.

Yes, but I would definitely hide in an alien ocean. Way cooler!

 

[Henoch]

However we did see in FC that a relatively small backyard telescope could get a good view of the Enterprise in standard orbit assuming you knew where it was, and the naked eye could see it departing into a chronometric vortex, although predicting the latter would have been tricky

Do we know what "standard orbit" is? How high?

From Obsession, the max. range of transporter beaming is 30,000 kilometers. Geocentric orbit for Earth is 35,786 kilometers.

How to defeat a 21st Century Space Detection Network from detecting the Enterprise? USA's Space Control Center (SCC) relies on the Space Surveillance Network or SSN which is a network of sensors located at two dozen sites worldwide:

1. Conventional Radars: it can detect objects crossing the 32nd parallel or greater out to a distance of more than 25,000 kilometers.
2. Phased-Array Radars: it can track space objects in excess of 40,000 kilometers in range.
3. Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance system or GEODSS: It can track objects as small as a basketball more than 32,000 kilometers in space, and plays a vital role in tracking space objects, particularly those in deep space. It can image objects in space 10,000 times dimmer than can be seen with the unaided human eye, but as with any optical system, GEODSS can only be operated at night and in clear weather.
4. Possibly, a space-based visible (SBV) sensor on satellites.

Since radars are blocked by the Enterprise's deflector shields, that leaves dodging a GEODSS system and any SBV's which can be done by orbiting overhead (the higher the better) during the day or maneuvering behind cloud cover for ground based systems. If SBV's are a problem, then I assume the Enterprise is capable of temporarily jamming its electronics and communications.

 

[Geargoose]

Maybe federation starships is allowed to have simple cloaking devices and pre-warp species rarely posess a techology to detect such vessels, and romulan or klingon ones are much more advanced

 

[trekshark]

shields probably can absorb radar so that there is no return
visually they can be spotted, First Contact for example. although maybe in that case they didn't or couldn't do their normal visual trick
maybe shields can do stuff to visual wavelengths too to prevent lower tech from seeing them, just not enough to get around other spacefaring races sensors like romulan and klingon cloaks do

 

[Paul Weaver]

maybe shields can do stuff to visual wavelengths too to prevent lower tech from seeing them, just not enough to get around other spacefaring races sensors like romulan and klingon cloaks do

The idea of a clock making you invisible to sensors has always been a cat and mouse game. The Romulans were invisible in Balance of Terror. Until the Enterprise worked out they could track them through a comet. Chang could fire while invisible, until they could detect the tailpipe, etc.

 

[fireproof78]

The idea of a clock making you invisible to sensors has always been a cat and mouse game.

Then you have to beat the clock