> Modern stealth aircraft, such as the F-117 Nighthawk attack jet and B-2 Spirit bomber, are painted in matte black or dark grey and are flown at night to limit their visual signature.
Can't really do that in space; you've got a day/night cycle ever 90 minutes or so.
The F117 is black and only flew at night, at lower levels. The bottom of the B2 isn't actually black, more a dark grey with a bit of blue in it. And the top of the aircraft is more sea blue than black at most angles. Someone thought long and hard about those colors, about not just painting it all black like the F117.
It sure heats up fast, though. Radiating enough heat not to roast the electronics is already an issue for satellites with shiny coatings to keep heat from the sun out.
There's a good, detailed explanation of how hard stealth in space is at https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/23313/stea....
There've been efforts towards stealthier craft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(satellite)
The ISS is way bigger than a highly classified satellite, but I'd guess a lot of nation states have way better capability than some guy with a telescope in his back yard in New Zealand.
It has a visual cloaking device too. It isn't terribly complicated. The bottom of the aircraft is a particular color. If you fly at an altitude that the sky above is the same color as the bottom of your plane, people on the ground cannot see you. So a tiny camera pointed up can be used to calibrate the altitude to best hide.
Also see counterillumination, a trick used by many sea creatures to hide from things below them. I doubt the B2 uses this but the military has studied it as an option in the past.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29543/the-visible-hist...