[HN Gopher] KH-11 spysat design revealed by NRO's telescope gift...
___________________________________________________________________
KH-11 spysat design revealed by NRO's telescope gift to NASA (2012)
Author : flyinglizard
Score : 43 points
Date : 2020-05-11 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.americaspace.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.americaspace.com)
| supernova87a wrote:
| You can tell from my username that I have some opinions in this
| area.
|
| My questions are these:
|
| NASA can barely keep JWST on a delayed schedule without massive
| cost overruns. What is another telescope good for? How many
| astronomers and support staff do we need in this industry? How do
| we measure and know that it's enough? What's the breakthrough
| that another telescope at the cost of $Bs would achieve? (and
| please be specific if anyone is going to reply, not just the old
| "because it's worth doing" argument -- that could justify any
| amount of spending)
|
| These are the things you think about after you leave a field and
| are not beholden to it any more.
| zrail wrote:
| A new space telescope will not be subject to Starlink
| interference. SpaceX will be happy to launch it for you at very
| competitive prices.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Some of us wants to see further than the local neighbourhood
| man, why you gotta be so salty?
|
| In any case it's not like NASA funds ground based telescopes,
| so I'm not sure what you would want to happen instead, just
| more rockets in space with blinkenlights to mess up the Rubin
| frames?
| justaguy88 wrote:
| If starship becomes a real-go-to-orbit rocket, the cost to put
| this telescopes up there will go down, and they can likely use
| larger heavier materials to make the telescopes themselves,
| also reducing the cost a lot
| flyinglizard wrote:
| 1. Broader observation spectrum (IIRC JWST is visible red to
| infra red)
|
| 2. Machine time for researchers (I don't know how congested
| Hubble is but humanity could use more than a single telescope)
|
| 3. Redundancy in case JWST goes up in flames and we're left
| without a space telescope
| dsl wrote:
| > What's the breakthrough that another telescope at the cost of
| $Bs would achieve
|
| Neither will go to space. They are late-70s early-80s spy sats.
| This was a technology transfer so NASA could learn how NRO
| solved specific challenges they faced.
|
| There was talk at the time about one of them being sent up in
| 2024, but that hasn't even been discussed seriously in the last
| 8 years.
| [deleted]
| dsl wrote:
| These were late-70s era KENNAN satellites. I wouldn't say they
| were "revealed" as much as they were declassified and donated.
|
| There have been 4 new generations of imagery platforms since, up
| to the current MISTY system that started launching in 1990.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Are you saying there are big innovations in the optics for the
| newer ones?
|
| I mean, we saw what the current capability was last year, and
| it that didn't seem like it's hugely better than the picture
| they put in the article.
| dsl wrote:
| Spy satellites aren't like camera phones. The killer feature
| isn't always higher resolution or being able to zoom in on a
| licence plate.
|
| Imagine having a big enough sensor and lens array to be able
| to see every individual boat in the Strait of Hormuz and
| track them all in real time. Or being able to pinpoint a spot
| on the planet and over the course of multiple passes by
| different birds, be able to construct a photo realistic 3D
| model of an oil refinery for a SEAL team to walk through in
| VR.
| ThisIsTheWay wrote:
| +1. The GEOINT and IMINT communities are investing heavily
| in multi-source collocation and automated analysis. In the
| past the focus was to improve resolution, now the goal is
| to improve the analysis of the images with additional data.
| Short wave infrared, synthetic aperture radar, creation and
| maintenance of digital elevation models, and frequent
| revisit rates to aide in computer/AI monitored change
| detection are all high priority.
|
| Great reading here:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/31/20746926/sentient-
| nationa...
| chunger wrote:
| I did not realize that the Keyhole line of spy sats had a
| resolution of 4" from 200 miles away! That tech is at least a
| decade old, so imagine what exists today.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Atmospheric scattering puts a bound on the practical lower
| limit. It's not much less than 4".
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Can that be overcome with computational photography?
| Afforess wrote:
| You don't have to imagine. Trump leaked a satellite photo from
| a spy satellite last year. Wired has a great piece on it:
| https://www.wired.com/story/trump-tweeted-a-sensitive-photo-...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-05-11 23:00 UTC)