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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: 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"