Downlink Intercept - REC-0005.02

Downlink collection aims to harvest housekeeping telemetry, event logs, ephemerides, payload data, and operator annotations that reveal system state and procedures. Even when payload content is encrypted, ancillary channels (beacons, health/status, low-rate engineering downlink) can disclose mode transitions, battery and thermal margins, safing events, and next-pass predictions. Community ground networks and public dashboards may inadvertently provide stitched datasets that make trend analysis trivial. Captured framing and coding parameters also help an adversary build testbeds and refine timing for later actions.