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"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 s
by 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.
- throwaway290 2y ago[flagged]
- switch007 2y ago[flagged]
- throwaway290 2y ago[flagged]
- 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)
- throwaway290 2y agomilitary topic could be a fair exception on occasion I suppose.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- switch007 2y ago[flagged]
- pjc50 2y agoZircon passim, the UK security services have a specific track record of secrecy about satellites.
- petesergeant 2y ago[flagged]
- Sirizarry 2y agoYou believe your government? The track record on transparency for most western governments has been so bad the last 25+ years that trusting them is kinda psychotic honestly
- hulitu 2y ago"Mother, should i run for president ? Mother should i trust the government ?" Pink Floyd
- throwaway290 2y agoPop culture is certainly a good source of trustworthy information. Let's quote sex pistols next.
- sitkack 2y agoDon't be told what you want Don't be told what you need God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols
- throwaway290 2y agoI was being sarcastic. Please tell me you know they all will say whatever public want to hear to make record companies money and profit from concerts ?
- sitkack 2y agoNot with that attitude you wont!
- toyg 2y agoActually, I think the opposite is likely true: the track record has been exemplary compared to previous periods, precisely because now we get to see through lies almost instantly. Until the mass-internet made this possible, governments actually got away with it pretty much all the time. In some cases we got to know decades later, as documents were declassified or people confessed on their deathbeds. In most cases, we likely never got the truth. That's really not possible now, as long the internet stays up. (Also, big shout out to FOIA laws. With all their limitations and imperfections, they were a massive step forward towards transparency in government. They would arguably have become a historical necessity at some point, but the anglosphere - Clinton, Blair - was definitely at the forefront of that shift.)
- pjc50 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_affair TLDR: GCHQ spend 500million on a satellite, and decide that not only is it too secret for the BBC to talk about it's too secret for Parliament to know about. Huge row ensues. Matrix-Churchill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Report a number of people are given permission by the MOD to supply weapons to Iraq. These are stopped by UK customs. In the subsequent prosecution, those involved attempt to raise the permission they were given .. but the government signs a number of Public Interest Immunity Certificates, making it illegal to mention that, including at their own criminal trial in their defense. Important information is still redacted by the D-Notice system. The MOD have free reign to lie about things and have people prosecuted for revealing the truth. There are a few incidents where Americans and Brits on social media have radically different views on what happened because of what is and is not legal to report. There is a very long history of critical information on weapons systems and capabilities being kept secret. (Despite that, their Ukraine war briefings to the public are pretty reliable)
- wkat4242 2y agoWow I can imagine those people couldn't make that deal public but why wasn't the prosecution of their case simply blackholed? Weird.
- semi-extrinsic 2y agoWow, this is some next-level bullshit: <<The Matrix-Churchill trial collapsed when former minister Alan Clark admitted he had been "economical with the actualité">>
- pjc50 2y agoIt's difficult to imagine the era when lying to the public and misleading Parliament were considered serious matters. But yes, Clark was next-level BS in all matters. Wikipedia: When Clark was Minister for Trade, responsible for overseeing arms sales to foreign governments, he was interviewed by journalist John Pilger who asked him:[31] JP "Did it bother you personally that this British equipment was causing such mayhem and human suffering (by supplying arms for Indonesia's war in East Timor)?" AC "No, not in the slightest, it never entered my head. You tell me that this was happening, I didn't hear about it or know about it." JP "Well, even if I hadn't told you it was happening, the fact that we supply highly effective equipment to a regime like that is not a consideration, as far as you're concerned. It's not a personal consideration. I ask the question because I read you are a vegetarian and you are quite seriously concerned about the way animals are killed." AC "Yeah." JP "Doesn't that concern extend to the way humans, albeit foreigners, are killed?" AC "Curiously not. No." Also Wikipedia: While involved in the Matrix Churchill trial he was cited in a divorce case in South Africa, in which it was revealed he had had affairs with Valerie Harkess, the wife of a South African barrister, and her daughters, Josephine and Alison.
- WrongAssumption 2y agoCorrect, why would the uk government ever lie? https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-s... “The Post Office was determined to keep a lid on the Horizon problems. To do this, it instructed staff in its call centre, which was the first contact point for subpostmasters having problems, to tell callers they were the only ones experiencing problems. It went further than this by using its legal teams and deep pockets to defend itself against accusations, in court if necessary. It bragged about stopping subpostmasters from “jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon” when it silenced them. It also lied to journalists, politicians and anybody else who questioned the robustness of the Horizon system.”
- throwaway290 2y agoThe best way to tell a government is lying is to NOT find news about its lies. In a country with government that is pathologically lying more than 50% of the time those would simply be suppressed, newspapers closed, journalists jailed. Russia where I'm from is a great example of that because I witnessed it and I personally know some journalists currently rotting in jail.
- somat 2y ago"Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies." Found in the fortune database, I have my doubts about it's universal validity, But I am a sucker for a good quote. For free, another quote I found while looking for this one. "The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper" -- -- Thomas Jefferson
- throwaway290 2y agoThe first quote is water, no wisdom or any useful statements. News at 11, lying people exist. The last quote is between wrong to idiotic on many levels. Ads are a compromise needed for free media to exist and journalists to eat and are the least trustworthy part.
- 2y ago
- lm28469 2y ago[flagged]
- puszczyk 2y agoWhat about Irak!
- icegreentea2 2y agoThe vendor tells us that Tyche is supposedly derived from their existing carbonite satellites. The carbonite product page broadly lines up with the claimed specs (~5km swath, ~1m resolution). At the claimed orbit (500km), a ~0.5m aperture (see "washing machine sized") is diffraction limited at about 0.7m, so there doesn't appear to be too too much wiggle room. Side note - carbonite doesn't just do imagery - it does video too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf_zd9MvW44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf_zd9MvW44). https://www.sstl.co.uk/space-portfolio/missions-in-build/2024/project-tyche https://www.sstl.co.uk/space-portfolio/missions-in-build/202... https://www.sstl.co.uk/getmedia/b38389d7-cb07-4308-944a-a91604deb47e/SSTL-CARBONITE.pdf https://www.sstl.co.uk/getmedia/b38389d7-cb07-4308-944a-a916...
- wkat4242 2y agoThe effective resolution is limited by the atmosphere as far as I understand. Eddies etc. Also this satellite was very cheap at 22 million, the US cutting edge ones are rumoured to cost over a billion (and they're much bigger than washing machine size). So I wouldn't expect it to be a lot better than what's commercially available.
- ianburrell 2y agoWhy would you think it is a lie? Planet Labs' SkySat satellites have been flying for a decade and have 30cm resolution. The UK ones are based on existing Carbonite satellite that do 90cm. If anything, having only 90cm when could be better is the odd thing.
- krisoft 2y ago> If anything, having only 90cm when could be better is the odd thing. Seems you found the answer to your own question: it would be odd for it to be not better. The other reason why it might be a lie is because the exact specs of spy gear is often kept secret. It is very hard to disguise the fact that you have launched a satelite, but comparatively easy to keep it secret what exactly is on it.
- lonelyasacloud 2y agoWith peacetime military and government procurement cycles what would be odd would be that it was close to current best in class, not other way around.
- causi 2y agoAnybody remember what the estimated resolution was on those undoctored satellite images Trump leaked a few years ago?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sandworm101 2y ago90cm resolution is more than enough to identify a ship. There arent manu military ships in this world. All appear in public regularly . 90cm is enough to get overall hull dimensions and thereby separate a ship from its neighbours in port. They dont need to be read license plates. Ships are very big.
- cma 2y ago90cm would maybe be more susceptible to decoys (like the WWII inflatable tanks but with ships?)
- Sayrus 2y agoDecoys are harder to fake, for instance an inflatable tank doesn't emit much infrared compared to a real tank. This was not an issue for camera that only capture visible light such as what was available in WWII or the naked eye.
- cm2187 2y agoPlus the ship can't appear suddenly in the middle of the ocean. And where do you hide the original ship?
- m4rtink 2y agoWell... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_Abraham_Crijnssen_(1936)#/media/File%3AHRMS_Abraham_Crijnssen_disguised_as_a_tropical_island.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_Abraham_Crijnssen_(193...
- cm2187 2y agoBut my point is that when you have a satellite tracking a slow moving ship every 3-4 hours, it's impossible to hide it.
- 2y ago