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UK launches its first Earth-imaging military satellite
- andsoitis 2y ago> The first signals from Tyche were received a few hours after lift-off on Friday night, confirming the successful launch from Vandenberg space force base, in California, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Transporter-11 mission. And this particular launch carried 116 satellites: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cvg495lr8pjo https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cvg495lr8pjo
- mytailorisrich 2y agoThis is what it looks like: https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D4D22AQGbFrotEJ8sDA/feedshare-shrink_1280/feedshare-shrink_1280/0/1723812476984?e=1726704000&v=beta&t=YRuw2HECMWdBJB4ptHP6L8txpGE8SraenYSVdCG0ZH0 https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D4D22AQGbFrotEJ8sDA/fee...
- Luc 2y agoTyche is the cube on the bottom left, facing away from the camera. The odd-looking satellite on the top right is blurred, I wonder what it is.
- buildbot 2y agoIn jest, the orange tank like thing attached to that satellite looks sorta like a stargate ZPM haha.
- icegreentea2 2y agoSome folks at the NASA space flight forum have it pegged as Acadia-5. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58043.msg2616315#msg2616315 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58043.msg2... Acadia-5 is a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) earth observation satellite operated by Capella Space. The orange bundle would be the radar antenna all folded up (see render in link below). https://www.exolaunch.com/news_95.html https://www.exolaunch.com/news_95.html
- Luc 2y agoThank you, that makes sense.
- dhx 2y ago"It's designed to capture 5km-wide spot scenes on the ground and have a best resolution of 90cm."[1] Some sample ~90cm-ish imagery from Airbus Vision-1 (20km swath 87cm resolution) is available at [2]. It looks like it'd be used for knowing when a warship is in port (but perhaps having to guess which one), or when a warship under construction has been floated, or when a large military construction project has started or completed, or when ground for a new military forward operating base has been cleared, etc. Then more expensive higher resolution imagery could be ordered if it were worthwhile to do so. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1d77yq9zz2o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1d77yq9zz2o [2] https://intelligence.airbus.com/newsroom/satellite-image-gallery/vision-1/ https://intelligence.airbus.com/newsroom/satellite-image-gal...
- mjburgess 2y agoDo we have good reasons to suppose this isn't a lie? Absent that, I would expect the 2-3x on what's made public.
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- Tostino 2y agoAbout military satellites specifically? I'd say most governments are lying about something about them just about every time they mention them (possibly by omission)
- pjc50 2y ago> The washing machine-sized satellite, was designed and built in the UK under a £22m contract awarded to Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and is the first to be fully owned by the MoD. Win for the UK satellite industry here. Also a win for NATO capability that can operate independently of the US if needed.
- Rinzler89 2y agoI dunno much bout satellites but 22m for a new satellite developed from scratch seem pretty cheap
- wkat4242 2y agoYes the US ones are supposedly over 1 billion each.
- ianburrell 2y agoVastly different kinds of satellites. The KH-11 satellites weigh 17,000 kg, these weight 150kg. KH-11 has 2.4m mirror and resolution of 6cm. The UK ones are resolution of 90cm. Both kinds are useful, cause the UK ones are small and cheap and good for general surveillance. While the big ones are useful for detail. My feeling is that the US should launch some small ones, but I think they buy that from Planet Labs and others.
- wkat4242 2y agoI know, my point was that this can't really be anything else than a commercial off the shelf model with minor modifications. Still useful but I wouldn't expect magical resolutions from it. People expect a lot these days because Google maps "satellite view" but the highest zoom levels are generally aerial.
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- beardyw 2y agoSSTL do amazingly good value space work.
- mytailorisrich 2y agoSomewhat ironically, the BBC article illustrates the "similar capability" with a picture taken by a commercial British satellite launched in 2018 and built by the same private British company. So there is nothing ground breaking there in term of capability. The point is just that this is apparently the first reconnaissance satellite owned by the MoD, which probably means much faster reaction times and more independence. Interesting factoid: "One interesting feature is its propulsion system which manoeuvres the satellite using water. The water goes through a thruster that heats it up to make superheated steam. That's how we get thrust and do station-keeping," explained chief technology officer Andrew Haslehurst." [1] [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d77yq9zz2o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d77yq9zz2o
- azornathogron 2y agoI wonder what delta-v they get and what the expected lifetime of the satellite is.
- icegreentea2 2y agoThe press release (as well as product sheet of the Carbonite line that this is based on) say 5-7 years. Resistor jet thrust and specific impulse is heavily influenced by how much electric power you supply. We don't know what performance specs for this satellite is, but we can estimate using modules from this other company as a stand in - their PBR-50 seems to be about the right size for Tyche (100-200kg class). https://pale-blue.co.jp/product/pbr-50/ https://pale-blue.co.jp/product/pbr-50/ and it claims 70s of specific impulse. Using the 160kg mass from the BBC article and 10kg of water as propellant, you'd get a delta-v of about 45.
- azornathogron 2y agoThank you! (And I clearly should have read more carefully)
- jolj 2y agoIt sounds like extremely late to the game, we are talking about 1960s tech. Very surprising for a country as large as the UK, I can only assume they used US satellites up until now, and started designing their own due to Trump
- 317070 2y agoAs a Brit, I reckon Brexit, and the restricted access to ESA [0], are the far more reasonable explanations here... [0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-involvement-in-the-eu-space-programme https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-involvement-in-the-eu-space-p...
- jolj 2y agowhich one of these programs constitute of a military reconnaissance satellite?
- 317070 2y agoNone that I'm aware off.
- jolj 2y agoso I assume Britain received its imaging intelligence from the US as part of five eyes. or else I cannot explain how a nuclear armed country has skipped over one of the main prerequisite for missile targeting for 60 years
- mr_toad 2y agoThe UK nuclear arsenal has always been a strategic deterrent. The weapons in the UK arsenal (trident missiles with MIRV warheads) are designed to destroy cities, so unless the Russians have managed to conceal the locations of their major cities, targeting shouldn’t be an issue.
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- 317070 2y ago> It's designed to capture 5km-wide spot scenes on the ground and have a best resolution of 90cm. Does somebody here know the military logic behind making these specifications public? I would imagine you don't want your opponents to know how much you know?
- mytailorisrich 2y agoNothing outstanding with this spec (can buy the same from commercial satellite imaging companies). So either they thought it did not harm to publicise or the actual capability is better than they tell us.
- datahack 2y agoThey can say whatever they want to my friend. It doesn’t mean it’s the real spec.
- gonzo41 2y agoPublic money paid for it and they have a right to know it does at least something useful. Also it 90% can do a lot more than that. It will probably have a higher resolution optic.
- mshockwave 2y agoBecause it’s probably not the real number. The reason why they wanted to release at least _some_ specs is probably because congress / parliament
- knallfrosch 2y agoThere's no harm in making it public because the technical capabilities itself are outdated. As stated in the article, the news is that it's owned by the UK Ministry of Defense.
- dotnet00 2y agoIt's not a particularly advanced capability, and as far as the opponents are concerned, the UK can request imagery from its allies, some of whom do possess imaging satellites capable enough that their exact specifications are a secret.
- kwhitefoot 2y agoThe title is misleading. SpaceX launched it. The title had me wondering when the UK had suddenly developed a launcher.
- asadhaider 2y agoWe have one recently completed in the Shetland Islands, the SaxaVord Spaceport [0], which has been given approval to do up to 30 launches a year. The UK spaceport guide [2] has more details and a few more planned launch sites. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-67741864 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-she... [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/643e6a4222ef3b000c66f3d1/Spaceport_brochure_17.4.23.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/643e6a4222ef3...
- _xerces_ 2y agoThat isn't a launcher, just a launchpad.
- asadhaider 2y agoFrom the spaceport guide- Orbex Prime is a microlauncher planned for flight next year with a 180kg payload capacity, this satelite was 150kg. https://orbex.space/launch-vehicle https://orbex.space/launch-vehicle
- mkl 2y agoVirgin Orbit has unsuccessfully tried to launch satellites from the UK [1], so I thought it might have been that, but it turns out they went out of business a couple of months later [2]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64218883 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64218883 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit
- ffhhj 2y agoHow many years until we have high enery lasers shot on people's heads?
- ben_w 2y agoIt's already just about possible on paper, but directed energy weapons are poorly characterised even on the ground so nobody's going to be in a hurry to mount them on a very expensive easily identifiable platform that covers a very narrow ground path on a very predictable schedule while being extremely vulnerable to counterattack. Kinda the same reason we could have RFGs but don't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVs37rxJL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVs37rxJL0
- casenmgreen 2y agoI may well be utterly wrong, but this seems a bit Maginot Line. Single large satellites are I think going to be sitting ducks for anti-satellite missiles. Be destroyed first five minutes of a war. What you need is something like Starlink - bazillions of tiny satellites.
- lioeters 2y agoReminds me of this map of Starlink satellites covering the globe. https://www.starlinkmap.org/ https://www.starlinkmap.org/
- dyauspitr 2y agoI was in Grand Teton national Park last week and was looking at the sky to view the Perseids meteor shower, and I just saw chains of these Starlink satellites constantly moving across the sky. They look like tiny little stars, moving smoothly in an equally spaced out line.
- mrguyorama 2y agoAlso turns out they destroy the ozone layer. Great. That problem again.
- jeswin 2y agoSurveillance is just as important. In the months and years before a war begins, you need preparation and deterrence. And as a NATO member and nuclear weapon state, UK's wars are not likely to escalate to satellite shooting. I mean, if it does escalate to that point it's going to be with Russia or China and there'll be bigger problems to worry about than losing a satellite.
- casenmgreen 2y agoI would put it to you that with bigger problems to worry about, you'd really rather not have other problems to worry about as well, such as the complete loss of space-borne surveillance capability, which likely would prove very useful with regard to the bigger problems.
- anovikov 2y agoWhat's even the point of such an awful one?
- somat 2y agoA couple of related video essays This Satellite does not exist: The Story of Zircon(lazerpig) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1CKnFqeXkg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1CKnFqeXkg Black Arrow. And why Britain doesn't have a space program(alexander the ok) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0FLy2nI13E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0FLy2nI13E