The mention of a "thermal signature" has me wondering if they are able to do a spectral analysis of the fireball as seen from the satellite
oleostrut, very interesting. Until you raised this, I assumed they would just be monitoring infrared, in which case the spectral info you would need would not be captured. However, we are obviously talking military sats here, so who knows... I suspect we are more likely to learn info from GC/HPLC-MS due to availability of testable fragments and desire to preserve secrecy about capabilities.