7 ms·

Analysis of the Nahid-1/Safir launch failure satellite image

156 points by bb88 7y ago

DangerousPie 7y ago
Very interesting analysis! For more context: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
- rocqua 7y ago
  Combining the height of 382km from the notebook with the supposed resolution of 20 cm from that link gives an angular resolution of 0.00003 degrees [1]. That is about 2.5 * the angular resolution of the Hubble telescope. However, as that article notes, this image was taken through atmosphere. I don't know much about telescopes, but some googling seemed to reveal earth based telescopes with similar resolutions. Hence, it seems within the range of possibility. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20cm+%2F+382+km+radians https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20cm+%2F+382+km+radian...
  - salty_biscuits 7y ago
    The interesting thing you can derive is what the lower bound is on the diameter of the imaging system via the diffraction limit. I get about 1 meter (but have fat fingers and sleep deprivation). Which is big, but not crazy big. Edit. 224 is supposed to be a variation of this guy [1], which has a 2.4 metre mirror (which should be more like 7cm on the ground). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen
    - rocqua 7y ago
      Does that 7cm figure include the effects of atmospheric dispersion?
      - anonu 7y ago
        From the wiki article: orbital altitude of 250 km corresponds to a ground sample distance of 0.06 m (6 cm, 2.4 inches). Operational resolution should be worse due to effects of the atmospheric turbulence.[34] Astronomer Clifford Stoll estimates that such a telescope could resolve up to "a couple inches. Not quite good enough to recognize a face"
      - salty_biscuits 7y ago
        That is the minimum possible resolution* (hence the lower bound on the diameter). Atmospheric stuff will make it worse and be variable from day to day (and depends on the length of the exposure, which would be a bigger problem looking at stars than the earth). I think that is around 2 microradians for astronomical telescopes. *there are tricks to get super-resolution, but ignore that stuff.
      - baybal2 7y ago
        Lockheed famously hires a lot of adaptive optics people for "god knows what." I think the answer is obvious now. I want to add that usa-224 flies at a remarkably high altitude for a spy sat, and certainly higher than previous gen sats with perigees below 250km
atdt 7y ago
Wikipedia article on USA-224: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-224 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-224
- credit_guy 7y ago
  “USA-224 - the first of these two - was completed by Lockheed US$ 2 billion under the initial budget estimate, and two years ahead of schedule” That’s impressive.
  - philjohn 7y ago
    Depends if the initial budget and schedule were accurate, or massively padded. Under promise, over deliver.
    - credit_guy 7y ago
      Sure, but have you ever heard of a procurement project where this happened? At least to me it seems that you always hear delays and cost overruns of the type of F35, Zumwalt, Osprey. The usual explanation is that this is the natural outcome of a cost-plus modus operandi. How can a multi-billion project end up 2 billion below budget and 2 years ahead of schedule. We are talking about the same manufacturer that brought us the F-35 after all...
      - jessaustin 7y ago
        My experience with highway construction is that a lot depends on the highway inspectors (who are employed by the highway department, not by the firm doing the construction). If they're lazy the highway will seem fine on day one, but will be quite rough within a year. If they're diligent it will remain smooth for a long time. So, it seems possible that the military bureaucracy doesn't do a very good job of supervising the work done by armaments manufacturers, while the spy-satellite bureaucracy does an admirable job. I'm surprised!
      - mikeash 7y ago
        Does it make the news when a project is on time and budget?
joering2 7y ago
I’m actually all for it. I don’t think it would be a big deal if unarmed Iranian drones are flying above US airspace zone or above the orbit high enough to consider it being outside of what atmosphere is considered. I mean US drones fly above Afgqnistan skies all the time and they are even armed, so I don’t see a problem so long as its done on some common agreed rules.
- throw_this_one 7y ago
  Did you even think deeply before you wrote this?
- adestefan 7y ago
  For everyone down voting this framework already exists as the Treaty on Open Skies. It was finalized in 1989, but started as a mutual agreement between NATO and the USSR.
  - spamuel 7y ago
    Yeah, it appears that Iran is the country not wanting in on this one. Go figure.
drmpeg 7y ago
More discussion on the author's Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/cgbassa https://twitter.com/cgbassa
skunkworker 7y ago
Here's a good associated reddit comment analyzing the resolution of the satellite. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_trump_tweets_sensitive_surveillance/eymf0w0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_... https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_trump_tweets_sensitive_surveillance/eymxym2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_... tldr; potentially 15-20cm resolution taken on this angle. And if it's the KH-11 (or later advanced kennen/kh-12), it is the first image since 1984 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Janeskh11leakedphoto.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Janeskh1...)
- makomk 7y ago
  It sounds like, from the description of the previous image and non-classified information about KH-11 such as that released when two surplus satellites were released to NASA for possible conversion to telescopes, this pretty much just matches up with what we already knew about its capabilities. If amateur satellite-watchers hadn't already figured out this was a Keyhole satellite and tracked its orbit closely this might have given that away and helped Iran stage their launches to avoid its watchful eyes, but as it is I don't think any great secrets are being revealed here.
nichol4s 7y ago
Well done! It would be interesting to look at the angle and length of the shadow of one of those towers to estimate the time of day the picture has been taken and verify the hypothesis that the picture has been taken around 09:44UTC
tyingq 7y ago
The shadow Trump and his cellphone are casting on the image is the best part. Guess nobody had the balls to tell him pictures aren't allowed in a briefing of this nature?
- anonu 7y ago
  The top left portion of the image is redacted. Which suggests it was cleared for publishing. Lots of people saying this was not a good move by the USA to publish this image. But why? Yes, it's a fascinating image. But these high resolution capabilities are pretty well known and expected...
  - tyingq 7y ago
    That someone might have, in a hurry, tried to crop a picture of a picture doesn't mean this was the plan.
  - rocqua 7y ago
    I think it is mostly people jumping on the bandwagon of 'trump bad'. That is, the news here is not the secret info revealed, but that trump revealed secret info.
    - krapp 7y ago
      Why do you think it isn't a problem that Trump revealed secret info?
      - rocqua 7y ago
        I do think that Trump is a problem. His treatment of classified material is a good indicator of that. It's just that, in this case, the classified material is not very revealing. I do think people are exaggerating how bad this leak is to make it worse that Trump leaked it. And really, we should not be blowing Trump mistakes up. Because when he really does do something horrible, we need the other side with us. If we keep blowing things out of proportion, the other side will just be pushed into immediately dismissing us every time.
tyingq 7y ago
Any Farsi literate readers here? What's the writing on the concrete circle at the bottom say? Edit: Argh, it's in the article..."The product of national empowerment". Interested though, if that's accurate or has alternate interpretations. Seems intended to be read by spy satellites...
- knolax 7y ago
  > Seems intended to be read by spy satellites... That seems like a stretch. If it was meant for spy satellites wouldn't it be in English and have a message that's a little less generic?
  - tyingq 7y ago
    I'll bite. What other reason for such huge letters facing upwards? Based on the trucks, they are 1-2 meters high.
    - jvanderbot 7y ago
      Launches are often filmed from aircraft for promotional purposes. So yes, they are probably intended to be read from above, just nothing so drastic as spy sats.
      - gus_massa 7y ago
        Just like the X in the SpaceX landing pads https://www.google.com/search?q=spacex+landing+pad&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=spacex+landing+pad&tbm=isch
        ygra 7y ago
        They also had the drone ship names around the landing circle in the earlier days. Seems pretty much to be the same point.
  - mehdix 7y ago
    This is a common observation in Iran, specially regarding governmental activities. The whole country is littered with ads and propaganda.
chvid 7y ago
What’s the deal here? Is this a case of US high tech sabotage (like the famous stuxnet) and Trump making a joke about it on Twitter?
- rocqua 7y ago
  The fact that this reveals something about the optical surveillance capabilities of the US. And notably, the fact that a sitting president is sharing this (sensitive) information on twitter for apparently non-strategic goals.
krapp 7y ago
OK. I have what is possibly a dumb question, but why is it even possible to connect to the open internet, much less send a tweet, from what I assume is supposed to be a SCIF or some similarly secure room? Surely the answer can't be that no one ever considered a sitting President would expose classified intelligence just to shitpost on Iran?
- rdtsc 7y ago
  > but why is it even possible to connect to the open internet, much less send a tweet, from what I assume is supposed to be a SCIF or some similarly secure room? Just curious, how do you know this was tweeted from a SCIF?
  - krapp 7y ago
    I don't actually know, I just assume any classified briefing like this has to take place in a SCIF or someplace at least shielded from RF leakage. I may be naive, though.
    - rdtsc 7y ago
      I was wondering, as I thought it was something in one of the other article that I had missed. But yeah that would be pretty serious if it was the case.
    - bb88 7y ago
      I'm not sure this is true. As the president is the original authority for classified information, he can probably ask for classified briefings in non classified areas or terminals.
- mwfunk 7y ago
  That’s exactly what the answer is, unfortunately. Nobody ever thought things could get this stupid. As an American and as someone who’s had to deal with classified materials, this really sucks.
alins 7y ago
Lucky for them the satellite (Nahid-1) was not loaded at the time of the incident (which likely happened during fueling), and is in a lab ready for another launch.
everybodyknows 7y ago
More, including technical history of Iran's satellite program: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/31/mysterious-iran-rocket-blast-draws-trump-tweet-tehran-response/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/31/...

156 points by bb88 7y ago

Very interesting analysis! For more context: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...

rocqua 7y ago
Combining the height of 382km from the notebook with the supposed resolution of 20 cm from that link gives an angular resolution of 0.00003 degrees [1]. That is about 2.5 * the angular resolution of the Hubble telescope. However, as that article notes, this image was taken through atmosphere. I don't know much about telescopes, but some googling seemed to reveal earth based telescopes with similar resolutions. Hence, it seems within the range of possibility. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20cm+%2F+382+km+radians https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20cm+%2F+382+km+radian...
- salty_biscuits 7y ago
  The interesting thing you can derive is what the lower bound is on the diameter of the imaging system via the diffraction limit. I get about 1 meter (but have fat fingers and sleep deprivation). Which is big, but not crazy big. Edit. 224 is supposed to be a variation of this guy [1], which has a 2.4 metre mirror (which should be more like 7cm on the ground). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen
  - rocqua 7y ago
    Does that 7cm figure include the effects of atmospheric dispersion?
    - anonu 7y ago
      From the wiki article: orbital altitude of 250 km corresponds to a ground sample distance of 0.06 m (6 cm, 2.4 inches). Operational resolution should be worse due to effects of the atmospheric turbulence.[34] Astronomer Clifford Stoll estimates that such a telescope could resolve up to "a couple inches. Not quite good enough to recognize a face"
    - salty_biscuits 7y ago
      That is the minimum possible resolution* (hence the lower bound on the diameter). Atmospheric stuff will make it worse and be variable from day to day (and depends on the length of the exposure, which would be a bigger problem looking at stars than the earth). I think that is around 2 microradians for astronomical telescopes. *there are tricks to get super-resolution, but ignore that stuff.
    - baybal2 7y ago
      Lockheed famously hires a lot of adaptive optics people for "god knows what." I think the answer is obvious now. I want to add that usa-224 flies at a remarkably high altitude for a spy sat, and certainly higher than previous gen sats with perigees below 250km

atdt 7y ago

Wikipedia article on USA-224: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-224 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-224

credit_guy 7y ago
“USA-224 - the first of these two - was completed by Lockheed US$ 2 billion under the initial budget estimate, and two years ahead of schedule” That’s impressive.
- philjohn 7y ago
  Depends if the initial budget and schedule were accurate, or massively padded. Under promise, over deliver.
  - credit_guy 7y ago
    Sure, but have you ever heard of a procurement project where this happened? At least to me it seems that you always hear delays and cost overruns of the type of F35, Zumwalt, Osprey. The usual explanation is that this is the natural outcome of a cost-plus modus operandi. How can a multi-billion project end up 2 billion below budget and 2 years ahead of schedule. We are talking about the same manufacturer that brought us the F-35 after all...
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      My experience with highway construction is that a lot depends on the highway inspectors (who are employed by the highway department, not by the firm doing the construction). If they're lazy the highway will seem fine on day one, but will be quite rough within a year. If they're diligent it will remain smooth for a long time. So, it seems possible that the military bureaucracy doesn't do a very good job of supervising the work done by armaments manufacturers, while the spy-satellite bureaucracy does an admirable job. I'm surprised!
    - mikeash 7y ago
      Does it make the news when a project is on time and budget?

joering2 7y ago

I’m actually all for it. I don’t think it would be a big deal if unarmed Iranian drones are flying above US airspace zone or above the orbit high enough to consider it being outside of what atmosphere is considered. I mean US drones fly above Afgqnistan skies all the time and they are even armed, so I don’t see a problem so long as its done on some common agreed rules.

throw_this_one 7y ago
Did you even think deeply before you wrote this?
adestefan 7y ago
For everyone down voting this framework already exists as the Treaty on Open Skies. It was finalized in 1989, but started as a mutual agreement between NATO and the USSR.
- spamuel 7y ago
  Yeah, it appears that Iran is the country not wanting in on this one. Go figure.

drmpeg 7y ago

More discussion on the author's Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/cgbassa https://twitter.com/cgbassa

skunkworker 7y ago

Here's a good associated reddit comment analyzing the resolution of the satellite. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_trump_tweets_sensitive_surveillance/eymf0w0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_... https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_trump_tweets_sensitive_surveillance/eymxym2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_... tldr; potentially 15-20cm resolution taken on this angle. And if it's the KH-11 (or later advanced kennen/kh-12), it is the first image since 1984 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Janeskh11leakedphoto.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Janeskh1...)

makomk 7y ago
It sounds like, from the description of the previous image and non-classified information about KH-11 such as that released when two surplus satellites were released to NASA for possible conversion to telescopes, this pretty much just matches up with what we already knew about its capabilities. If amateur satellite-watchers hadn't already figured out this was a Keyhole satellite and tracked its orbit closely this might have given that away and helped Iran stage their launches to avoid its watchful eyes, but as it is I don't think any great secrets are being revealed here.

nichol4s 7y ago

Well done! It would be interesting to look at the angle and length of the shadow of one of those towers to estimate the time of day the picture has been taken and verify the hypothesis that the picture has been taken around 09:44UTC

tyingq 7y ago

The shadow Trump and his cellphone are casting on the image is the best part. Guess nobody had the balls to tell him pictures aren't allowed in a briefing of this nature?

anonu 7y ago
The top left portion of the image is redacted. Which suggests it was cleared for publishing. Lots of people saying this was not a good move by the USA to publish this image. But why? Yes, it's a fascinating image. But these high resolution capabilities are pretty well known and expected...
- tyingq 7y ago
  That someone might have, in a hurry, tried to crop a picture of a picture doesn't mean this was the plan.
- rocqua 7y ago
  I think it is mostly people jumping on the bandwagon of 'trump bad'. That is, the news here is not the secret info revealed, but that trump revealed secret info.
  - krapp 7y ago
    Why do you think it isn't a problem that Trump revealed secret info?
    - rocqua 7y ago
      I do think that Trump is a problem. His treatment of classified material is a good indicator of that. It's just that, in this case, the classified material is not very revealing. I do think people are exaggerating how bad this leak is to make it worse that Trump leaked it. And really, we should not be blowing Trump mistakes up. Because when he really does do something horrible, we need the other side with us. If we keep blowing things out of proportion, the other side will just be pushed into immediately dismissing us every time.

tyingq 7y ago

Any Farsi literate readers here? What's the writing on the concrete circle at the bottom say? Edit: Argh, it's in the article..."The product of national empowerment". Interested though, if that's accurate or has alternate interpretations. Seems intended to be read by spy satellites...

knolax 7y ago
> Seems intended to be read by spy satellites... That seems like a stretch. If it was meant for spy satellites wouldn't it be in English and have a message that's a little less generic?
- tyingq 7y ago
  I'll bite. What other reason for such huge letters facing upwards? Based on the trucks, they are 1-2 meters high.
  - jvanderbot 7y ago
    Launches are often filmed from aircraft for promotional purposes. So yes, they are probably intended to be read from above, just nothing so drastic as spy sats.
    - gus_massa 7y ago
      Just like the X in the SpaceX landing pads https://www.google.com/search?q=spacex+landing+pad&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=spacex+landing+pad&tbm=isch
      - ygra 7y ago
        They also had the drone ship names around the landing circle in the earlier days. Seems pretty much to be the same point.
- mehdix 7y ago
  This is a common observation in Iran, specially regarding governmental activities. The whole country is littered with ads and propaganda.

chvid 7y ago

What’s the deal here? Is this a case of US high tech sabotage (like the famous stuxnet) and Trump making a joke about it on Twitter?

rocqua 7y ago
The fact that this reveals something about the optical surveillance capabilities of the US. And notably, the fact that a sitting president is sharing this (sensitive) information on twitter for apparently non-strategic goals.

krapp 7y ago

OK. I have what is possibly a dumb question, but why is it even possible to connect to the open internet, much less send a tweet, from what I assume is supposed to be a SCIF or some similarly secure room? Surely the answer can't be that no one ever considered a sitting President would expose classified intelligence just to shitpost on Iran?

rdtsc 7y ago
> but why is it even possible to connect to the open internet, much less send a tweet, from what I assume is supposed to be a SCIF or some similarly secure room? Just curious, how do you know this was tweeted from a SCIF?
- krapp 7y ago
  I don't actually know, I just assume any classified briefing like this has to take place in a SCIF or someplace at least shielded from RF leakage. I may be naive, though.
  - rdtsc 7y ago
    I was wondering, as I thought it was something in one of the other article that I had missed. But yeah that would be pretty serious if it was the case.
  - bb88 7y ago
    I'm not sure this is true. As the president is the original authority for classified information, he can probably ask for classified briefings in non classified areas or terminals.
mwfunk 7y ago
That’s exactly what the answer is, unfortunately. Nobody ever thought things could get this stupid. As an American and as someone who’s had to deal with classified materials, this really sucks.

alins 7y ago

Lucky for them the satellite (Nahid-1) was not loaded at the time of the incident (which likely happened during fueling), and is in a lab ready for another launch.

everybodyknows 7y ago

More, including technical history of Iran's satellite program: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/31/mysterious-iran-rocket-blast-draws-trump-tweet-tehran-response/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/31/...