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Satellite takes image of another satellite
- johnea 4y agohttps://flightsoftware.org/img/spacecraft.51afe3c2.jpg https://flightsoftware.org/img/spacecraft.51afe3c2.jpg
- gus_massa 4y agoThey look very close. Are they going to dock? Do you have some context for the image?
- colechristensen 4y agoI don’t have context but if that’s real they are most certainly next to each other intentionally. Being miles away from each other with velocities hundreds of miles an hour different is considered an extremely close call.
- mk_stjames 4y agoThose are the Van Allen Probes A and B, and that is just a render, not a photo. [0]. There are two of them that flew in an identical orbit, but with one following the other at a distance, because a single probe would not be able to detect the difference between a transient EM field locally vs. a moving event along the orbit, but two craft spread apart but following the same path could. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_Probes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_Probes
- JCharante 4y agoif it was real it would imply there's a third satellite trailing behind
- bmsleight_ 4y agoThe satellite appear to have lights on - or is this just reflections from the Sun ?
- tantalor 4y agoThose are so it can see where it's going
- bhaney 4y agoSatellite-headlights: because the space-streetlights keep floating away!
- bagels 4y agoAluminized insulation reflecting the sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsat_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsat_8
- AnotherGoodName 4y agoAnd sharp lines of reflection as there's nothing to diffuse the light from the sun which is why it's more sparkly than you may expect.
- wkat4242 4y agoSatellites don't have lights. It must be reflection. Especially a photographic sat wouldn't have lights, all it could do is light up nearby dust and debris and make it more visible.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dilippkumar 4y agoWhat do the s, n and v coordinate labels stand for?
- parsimo2010 4y agoN is nadir and points to the closest point on the Earth under the satellite. V is the velocity vector, it's the direction the satellite is heading. S is the vector pointing to the sun.
- dilippkumar 4y agoThanks. The Nadir vector moved more “right to left” than “down to up” in that video, but the velocity vector is very clearly pointing just “downwards”. Is this mostly because of the velocity of the camera bearing satellite w.r.t the imaged satellite and earth?
- parsimo2010 4y agoThe satellite taking the picture had to slew to be pointing at Landsat-8 for a couple of frames. It is the relative positions between the satellites that changes, the vectors themselves don’t move that much in a short period of time- the nadir and velocity vectors rotate 360 degrees in one revolution around the Earth (relative to an earth center inertial reference frame). The Maxar satellite and Landsat-8 are in different orbits. It appears from the video that the Maxar satellite passed under Landsat-8, as evidenced by the nadir vector pointing straight at the screen toward the end of the video, and because we got a broadside view of the white Earth shield for the thermal imager.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cryptoz 4y agoI like this one: https://www.space.com/16946-mars-rover-landing-seen-from-space.html https://www.space.com/16946-mars-rover-landing-seen-from-spa... Mars Rover Landing Spotted by Orbiting Spacecraft
- WestCoastJustin 4y agoMakes you wonder. There must be a massive archive of satellite on satellite images somewhere and teams of people figuring out engineering capabilities/secrets from them.
- bagels 4y agoIntelligence satellites are definitely doing this. https://time.com/5779315/russian-spacecraft-spy-satellite-space-force/ https://time.com/5779315/russian-spacecraft-spy-satellite-sp...
- MichaelZuo 4y agoMaybe all this secret tit-for-tat contributes to why the pentagon is so willing to send all their old equipment to Ukraine.
- kube-system 4y agoSpending 5% of their budget to cut Russia's military in half is an amazing value. And without putting any US lives into the conflict. Sending over weapons is a no-brainer. https://cepa.org/article/its-costing-peanuts-for-the-us-to-defeat-russia/ https://cepa.org/article/its-costing-peanuts-for-the-us-to-d... On top of that, the Pentagon gets to see how that equipment performs in the real world.
- hackernewds 4y agoAll of Russia's human military dwindled does not negate their military capabilities.
- mrguyorama 4y agoIt's also incredible advertising for western arms manufacturers, especially after several decades of them basically being the bad guys in the public's eyes.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
- RecycledEle 4y agoThis reminds me of stories of WW1 pilots trying to photograph each other just before they started shooting at each other.
- pelagic_sky 4y agoAny published stories you can link to? Would love to read more about it.
- RecycledEle 4y agoI'm sorry. I only have vauge memories from when I was a teenager or pre-teen of stories that were probably on the Discovery Channel back then.
- akadruid1 4y agoWe have some of those photos, such as this one showing a British Sopworth Camel engaging German Albatros fighters at extemely close range: https://www.alamy.com/aerial-combat-between-british-and-german-airplanes-in-the-first-world-image68839380.html https://www.alamy.com/aerial-combat-between-british-and-germ...
- ftxbro 4y agothe two spidermans pointing at each other
- runarb 4y agoDuring World War II many aircrafts had a camera to record kills of enemy aircrafts: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_camera https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_camera
- sargun 4y agoKinda blows my mind that it was in focus, and the Maxar satellite can focus that close.
- throwaway8503 4y agoThe distance to the earth might have been coincidentally the same as the distance to the other satellite. LEO isn't that far up, the one that took the photo was only ~600km AGL.
- wkat4242 4y agoBut then the resolution can't have been that high, or the other satellite would have been as big as the ISS. It must have been a lot closer than earth.
- throwaway8503 4y agoThey've got 0.3m on World View 3, more than enough for what was shown in the gif Edit: you're probably right, actually.. the silver square on the lower section of landsat 8 is ~1.5m high (guessing from the image on wikipedia), so there should only be ~5-6 pixels for it, but there are clearly more.
- ThisIsTheWay 4y agoThe sample distance (SSD) is noted on the GIF, and ranges between 6.5 and 4.6 cm for the images shown here.
- caf 4y agoThe range to the imaged satellite is overlaid on the images - it's between 90km and 130km over the sequence.
- ThisIsTheWay 4y agoAgreed. The focal range is something like 90KM to 1400KM based on this image and other off nadir images that have been shared by DigitalGlobe/Maxar, and it really makes you wonder what the focusing mechanism is fully capable of.
- throwaway8503 4y agoI always feel a little dirty when I click on twitter links these days.
- kristianp 4y agoIt does make me think, isn't there another way to easily share things? But twitter is the one to beat for network effect.
- throwaway8503 4y agoI'd just like to throw in a plug for what I think is the best-looking satellite: GOCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Field_and_Steady-State_Ocean_Circulation_Explorer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Field_and_Steady-State... It's a gravity survey satellite. They get better measurements if they fly closer to the earth, so there's a motivation to lower the orbit. GOCE flies so low that it needs to take aerodynamics into account, so it is sleek, like an aircraft.* * It is, of course, actually an aircraft, like all satellites, to some degree, at least in the layman's definition of the word.
- hackernewds 4y ago> Its sleek, aerodynamic design led it to be dubbed the 'Ferrari of space great compliment for Ferrari!
- canadianfella 4y ago[dead]
- wkat4242 4y agoIt's more of an aircraft when there's air around, be it only a very small quantity :) Can't be much at 250km though.
- rob74 4y agoEnough to cause some drag, and because of that it needed to have an aerodynamic shape and a continuously operating ion engine to avoid orbital decay because of that drag. But not enough air to actually produce lift, so no wings, just fins for stabilization. So the sleek shape which led to it being perceived as beautiful was actually technically motivated. To me it looks more like a rocket than an aircraft TBH...
- orbital-decay 4y agoThe weight of the spacecraft in orbit is also extremely small, so the lift produced from the free flow hitting the surface at an angle is non-negligible. But as all weight is created by the drag from the same flow, reducing the cross-section is more beneficial. That's why it was designed to match the perfect orbital velocity at zero AoA, instead of using the lift.
- iancmceachern 4y agoI once worked on a project for Ball aerospace that was classified and all they could tell us was it was a spy satellite that spied on other satellites.
- trollerator23 4y agoANGELS?
- rzimmerman 4y agoPlanet once used a Dove satellite to take a series of stills (that is stitched into a video) of a rocket launch of other Dove satellites. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afiLd4zPoLQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afiLd4zPoLQ.
- TechBro8615 4y agoIs this a thinly veiled "we see you" threat to US adversaries with satellite constellations?
- trollerator23 4y agono
- KennyBlanken 4y agoSeems unlikely given it's one of our own satellites, a "civilian" satellite, and doesn't demonstrate (I don't think?) any capabilities against satellite stealth techniques? 'Hostile' foreign governments, even the really incompetent ones, know lots of information our own government won't tell us. A lot of 'classified' stuff is more about hiding the budget from public oversight than actual "keep the other guys guessing." I'm sure most of the other nations who want to play games with what their satellites look like / can do, are already fairly aware of the US government's capabilities in that regards. Certainly some of our terrestrial capabilities after a certain someone advertised them to the world a few years ago...
- ThisIsTheWay 4y agoNo. Countries of the world have been imaging each others satellites for decades. The only thing that has changed recently is that now companies can do this commercially in an unclassified manner. https://blog.executivebiz.com/2022/12/noaa-adds-non-earth-imaging-capability-to-maxars-license/ https://blog.executivebiz.com/2022/12/noaa-adds-non-earth-im... https://www.maxar.com/non-earth-imaging https://www.maxar.com/non-earth-imaging
- cuSetanta 4y agoAs someone who builds spacecraft I wonder how the engineers who built this particular one might feel. One of the odd things about this industry is that once its built and launched, it is basically understood that it is never seen again by human eyes. I know I would deeply appreciate being able to see one of mine in orbit. Sort of a pride in knowing it is working away.
- Thlom 4y agoThe MEV-2 Mission that docked with Intelsat 10-02 to extend it's life did take some photos of the satellite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=369DZc2mKo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=369DZc2mKo0
- PrairieFire 4y agoA long time ago if one had a Dish Network / Echostar access card with the engineering guide byte set, you could see a couple live channels of each of the Echostar birds in space with key vitals overlaid on the feed. It wasn’t an image of a sat taken by another sat per se, but cameras on arms pointed back at the sat, a satellite selfie so to speak. The engineering guide byte also allowed unrestricted access to all pay per view, adult channels, every local news channel from every US market, dish’s foreign satellite that had a wide breadth of international news channels (100+, from nearly every country on the planet)(iirc that bird was at 63.5 degrees?), and a live image of Dish’s control room with a wall of small TVs showing what appeared to be every channel playing at once.
- elteto 4y agoWas the engineering byte easy to set/change?
- PrairieFire 4y agoYeah, relatively easy. You had to get an iso7816 smart card reader / writer and interface it to a pc. Then use a hex editor to find and flip the necessary bit. Pop the access card back into your sat tv receiver and now the system thinks you’re an echostar satellite engineer with everything on so you can test. This has been dead for a long time, I’m thinking around 20 years ago now, but it was pretty cool to read about and watch from the sidelines back in its heyday when there was an arms race between the sat tv services and folks doing things like this.
- codetrotter 4y ago> with the engineering guide byte set, you could see a couple live channels of each of the Echostar birds in space with key vitals overlaid on the feed. It wasn’t an image of a sat taken by another sat per se, but cameras on arms pointed back at the sat, a satellite selfie so to speak. Wish someone out there has some old VHS or DVD recordings of those and can post them to the Internet Archive and share a link. I love things like that.
- GistNoesis 4y agoHow does the poor thing fly with only one wing ? /s