SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the security-is-NOT-revealing-capabilities-of-secret-spy-sats dept.
We had two Soylentils write in about President Trump's posting on twitter an image of a failed Iranian attempt to launch a satellite. Analysts were stunned at the resolution and clarity of the picture since it appears to have been taken from a US Spy satellite. A commercial-quality image of the same site is shown in the article from Ars Technica and the difference is striking.
President Trump Tweets Picture of Sensitive Satellite Photo of Iranian Launch Site
President Trump tweets picture of sensitive satellite photo of Iranian launch site
President Donald Trump posted a photo today via Twitter of Iran's Imam Khomeini Space Center in northern Iran, showing the damage done to the facility by the explosion of what appears to have been a Safir rocket during launch. The rocket was apparently being used in the attempted launch of Iran's Nahid-1 satellite.
Commercial satellite imagery from Planet Labs made available this morning showed a plume of smoke rising from the space center's launch pad. But the photo posted by President Trump was a much higher-resolution, black and white photo—a resolution that suggested it came from a National Reconnaissance Office satellite.
The United States of America was not involved in the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations for the Safir SLV Launch at Semnan Launch Site One in Iran. I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened at Site One. pic.twitter.com/z0iDj2L0Y3
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2019
Amateurs Identify U.S. Spy Satellite Behind President Trump's Tweet
The image almost certainly came from a satellite known as USA 224, according to Marco Langbroek, a satellite-tracker based in the Netherlands. The satellite was launched by the National Reconnaissance Office in 2011. Almost everything about it remains highly classified, but Langbroek says that based on its size and orbit, most observers believe USA 224 is one of America's multibillion-dollar KH-11 reconnaissance satellites.
[...] The image tweeted by Trump on Friday, showing the aftermath of an accident at Iran's Imam Khomeini Space Center, was so detailed that some experts doubted whether it really could have come from a satellite high above the planet.
[...] a small community of amateur satellite trackers was far more interested in the picture than the words. These individuals use backyard telescopes to watch satellites whizzing across the sky, and they know where most of them are — even classified ones like USA 224. "They're super bright in the sky and are easy to find," says Michael Thompson, a graduate student in astrodynamics at Purdue University who spots satellites in his spare time. Once a satellite is seen, it's relatively easy to work out exactly where it will be at any point in the future. "Using math to calculate an orbit is really easy," he says.
Thompson was one of the first to use an amateur-curated database of known satellites to point the finger at USA 224. He showed that it flew over the Iranian space center shortly after the accident.
Langbroek went further still. He was able to reconstruct the picture taken by USA 224 by matching the obliqueness of the circular launch pad in the image tweeted by Trump. His calculation showed that the photo was taken from the vantage of USA 224. Langbroek and another online researcher, Christiaan Triebert, also used shadows cast by towers around the launch pad as sun dials—allowing them to verify the time at which the photo was taken.
Both techniques suggest the pictures were snapped by USA 224, which flew near the site at 2:14 p.m. local time. "The match was perfect, basically," Langbroek says.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @04:48AM (28 children)
It's not like everyone doesn't already know we can read a license plate from orbit. The man is the President. He can declassify and release anything he fricken wants to. Get over it already.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Thursday September 05 2019, @04:59AM (10 children)
Now do if Obama did it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @07:43AM
But what about her emails?!?!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @07:57AM
Obama isn't permitted to declassify that photo for two reasons:
1. USA 224 took that photo in 2019, when Obama was not employed by the government or even a contractor. Obama doesn't get to declassify stuff in 2019, especially stuff created in 2019.
2. Even if this had happened before Trump became president, it still wouldn't have been OK, because you can't legitimately be the US president unless you were born in the US.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by khallow on Thursday September 05 2019, @11:46AM (6 children)
Ok, I'll give it a try.
Seems to work for me. Have you checked that the argument is plugged in?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 05 2019, @10:28PM (5 children)
That's a stupid way to run a country.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday September 06 2019, @09:23AM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 08 2019, @08:22PM (3 children)
So he can spew any classified thing he wants onto Twitter then?
Cool.
Still a a stupid way to run a country.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 08 2019, @09:26PM (2 children)
Yes.
Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not stupid.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday September 08 2019, @09:33PM (1 child)
Because what's the worst that could happen?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Monday September 09 2019, @06:03AM
There are plenty of ways those people can slack off, and be negligent, but within legal parameters. After all, if the president doesn't care, why should I? Just cut some corners when nobody's looking. Or don't notice when things aren't done to spec.
In other words, this particular act of stupidity has a multiplier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:03PM
Obama used the military and CIA to help al-Qaeda overthrow America's allies, shipped billions of dollars to Iran for no apparent reason other than that they would launder some of it back to the Democratic Party, and put Islamists from the Bin Laden network in charge of police training and education in exchange for campaign funds from Saudi Arabia and Iran. No one would give a shit if he declassified a picture.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:10AM (10 children)
Probably not. There is a fundamental physical limitation in optics called the Diffraction Limit. In plain English it means that, no matter how good your adaptive optics or clever widgets are, you are ultimately limited by the size of your telescope's mirror or lens. A hubble sized mirror (2.4meters) can't read a license plate from orbit. A 4 meter mirror (the next logical step up based on fairing sizes) can't do it either.
Realistically to read a license plate from space you'd want multiple telescopes in a relatively close array and use synthetic aperture techniques to make the virtual mirror larger and drive down the diffraction limit. Most of the NRO satellites have been imaged from ground telescopes and none are built to do it. It would be very obvious if they were; they'd look like binoculars instead of a telescope.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hopp on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:21AM
I think you should be able to get close with a confederation of 3 or more, stacking and reorthogonalization.
More importantly, lets ponder this. These are multi-billion dollar satellites and this is the fifteenth of this model to make it to space. Seems like a poor use of resources to me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:40AM
Or you could just make the license plates much bigger. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday September 05 2019, @10:14AM (1 child)
Also, license plates are not on the roof/bonnet of our vehicles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:24PM
If you look at the picture, it is not a top down view.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bussdriver on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:01PM
Using advanced signal analysis they do not need the resolution or optics just great precision... like military grade GPS type precision. VIDEO stamped with precise vectors can give you at least 2x the resolution and this is known proven tech that was declassified many years ago. Which means they have better stuff before it was declassified so the inventor could capitalize on their captured patents. Variations on the basic concepts are used in modern video compression.
The concept is that you know the pixel is a blurred average of what is below it; why it is blurred matters a little but optical limitations are very similar or the military wouldn't have been using this classified tech so long past the telescopes were able to reach practical maximums. When you add MOTION vectors and multiple images you can deduct what pixels were being averaged by the changes in the resulting averages. Ironically, this means that a wiggling camera can actually sharpen the image! A satellite is always moving and can be tracked with insane precision; but add an extremely slight vibration... is probably something they've figured out or are still trying to perfect to it's practical maximum (I'd guess they are already there but have not launched it yet since there is quite a delay on building sats.)
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:15PM (1 child)
Why does everybody assume it's way out in space? A high altitude drone or balloon can be used and it wouldn't be around long enough for you to know what they had inside of it. It can apply all the same tricks a sat can as well but it is just closer and money is basically unlimited; they could launch non-stop if they wanted... It's not like we didn't used to constantly fly U2 spy planes before spy sats.
This photo is likely a sat; but to count the hairs on your head they probably have a drone... if there is actually a NEED for that kind of resolution... which they probably have dreamed up.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:35PM
True, it could have been something else (and would have been even more silly for the President to then show that they had drones or spy aircraft over 100 miles inland). But it's no longer assumed, others have already done the legwork to prove it matches up perfectly with USA-224 having taken it. [wired.com] That's why.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:54PM (2 children)
Are you thinking about Geostationary Orbit or something like Starlink with their low earth orbit? How big of a lens do you need for a satellite that's only 250 miles up or so?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday September 05 2019, @10:05PM (1 child)
Pixel Diameter=Orbit Height×sin(1.22∗Wavelength/ Mirror Diameter)
Some reasonable values here are:
250km orbit (250 * 10^3 meters)
450 nm light wavelength (Bluish green color) (450 * 10^-9 meters)
4 meter mirror (this would fit in both the Falcon 9 and Boeing X-37 payload bays without folding.)
That gives a maximum theoretical resolution of 3.4 centimeters or ~1.5 inches without fidgety bits.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday September 06 2019, @02:33PM
Yeah, still quite a ways from Hollywood style Satellite usage. Then again, it'd be much cheaper to follow said "criminals" with drones. Either the military kind or the annoying neighbor kind or perhaps even the Minority Report kind.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 05 2019, @12:45PM
Yes, he can show every nation on Earth what our capabilities are in order to make a point on Twitter. Was that a smart move?
The rest of the public not in love with him can question his intelligence, his impulsiveness in using a social media platform instead of the press apparatus we pay for him to have, whether his negotiating tactics are Presidential or that of a schoolgrader, and whether revealing intelligence capabilities for a really minor issue would be considered a federal crime for any other individual in government to do. We aren't the ones providing the rope he throws us every single day. Get over it already.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:51PM
'Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.' Not fit!" - Donald J Trump, Jul 5 2016
Plus a million other examples of his deep concern about revealing sensitive information, here. [time.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:57PM (2 children)
So can the Secretary of State! [cornell.edu]
I guess she just declassified those 12 emails y'all were so worried about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06 2019, @06:36AM
The link you provide pertains to the Secretary of Homeland Security, not Secretary of State. That said, it appears that the Secretary of State has ultimate authority when it comes to documents classified by the Department of State, though not for documents classified by other departments. This seems fairly reasonable to me, though I may certainly have missed something in my cursory search.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 06 2019, @10:25AM
Not outside her department, like say satellite images.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday September 06 2019, @11:34AM
Except that he didn't knowingly declassify it. He saw a pretty picture, carefully presented to him in printed form so it could be removed from his presence again without him making too much of a mess of things with it, and bypassed the attempt at damage control by photographing it and tweeting it. I know how incredibly careful the NRO is with that stuff and the lengths they go to to keep what they do secret, and was literally speechless when I heard what Trump had done. It's like having a toddler in the White House. Enemies of the US don't need spies to obtain state secrets any more, they just wait for the Toddler-in-Chief to blab them on Twitter. Unbelievable.