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I find this passage quite amusing: "Schöfbänker has also cross-haired with his equipment the "KH-11 Kennen" electro-optical satellites that were first introduc

I find this passage quite amusing: "Schöfbänker has also cross-haired with his equipment the "KH-11 Kennen" electro-optical satellites that were first introduced in 1976. "They are somewhat similar to the Hubble Space Telescope, but optimized to look down to Earth, instead of studying space," he said." It's fairly well documented that the Hubble was effectively a US spy satellite pointing towards space, not the other way around. Or at least, it used all of the infrastructure in place to manufacture spy satellites. Same maximum mirror size, same set of contractors/facilities, etc. It had a very different set of sensors, data systems, and focal range, but more or less demonstrated the US's spy satellite capabilities at the time.

Loughla 2y ago
So that was how long ago? I guess the super zoom satellite footage from movies might not be unrealistic like I thought. . .
- sbierwagen 2y ago
  There's a hard physical limit (the Rayleigh criterion) on the resolution of an optical system by how big the open end is. You won't get "super zoom" capabilities without a satellite the size of a stadium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN#Resolution_and_ground_sample_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN#Resolution_and_gr...
  - alganet 2y ago
    What about multiple satellites working to get one image? Like the arrays we have on Earth pointing to space, but instead, arrays on space pointing to Earth. I know there probably isn't that many KH-style satellites to do it, but would it be possible?
    - GlenTheMachine 2y ago
      The alignment has to be better than half a wavelength. That's doable for RF, but for optical telescopes you're talking nanometers. That's not possible (currently or in the foreseeable future) for a spacecraft constellation.
      - sbierwagen 2y ago
        Amusingly enough, there's been some groundwork laid here by gravity wave interferometer constellations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant... You could imagine a deep-infrared mission (longer wavelength, to soften the alignment requirements) launched into deep space (Jupiter+) where both the solar wind density is lower (reducing space weather perturbations) and reduced solar flux would reduce heat loads on the structure, (objects in Jupiter orbit get 3.6% as much light as in Earth orbits) making cooling easier. An interferometer design would also improve resolution. A not-widely advertised feature of the JWST is that, due to the same Rayleigh limits, its far infrared modes have dramatically lower resolution than its near infrared camera. A problem with a 6 meter mirror, less of a problem with a kilometer mirror.
      - wuming2 2y ago
        I remembered European Southern Observatory employing optical interferometry on the ground. And indeed it does: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1905/ https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1905/
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Cool to see Clifford Stoll mentioned there, he was also the one detecting one of the first international state-sponsored hacking attacks on the US and wrote a book about it, The Cuckoo's Egg.
- coolspot 2y ago
  In 2022 Trump declassified this satellite picture showing amazing resolution of current generation: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/09/05/ap_19243153034473_custom-c1ad60c7bc2267a1eae7e449ed88497dde3d33d4-s1100-c50.jpg https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/09/05/ap_1924315303447...
  - pests 2y ago
    By declassified, you mean accidently tweeted a cell phone picture of the image printed out. Which is his right, just wanted to add context.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      It wasn't on accident.
      - riedel 2y ago
        Depends on what you call the accident. However, we will only know after November 5th.
        pests 2y ago
        No no, he is actually correct and I misspoke. He definitely tweeted on purpose (haha) but did he intend to declassify the image or just didn't realize?
        adastra22 2y ago
        Yes he quite possibly unintentionally revealed US spy satellite capabilities with an otherwise purposeful tweet. I say the not out of niceness to give him the benefit of the doubt, but because he's probably too stupid to understand the implications of what he was doing.
        me-vs-cat 2y ago
        According to NBC[1], attempts were made to explain the ramifications to him. At that point, he knew he was declassifying the photo and knew he was revealing what his experts told him shouldn't be revealed. He simply didn't care. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-office-incident-2019-perfectly-illustrates-trumps-approach-state-rcna43293 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-offi...
- philistine 2y ago
  Trump famously tweeted images from an Iranian launch facility that had exploded. They were incredibly revealing of US satellite capabilities, even though that was probably not as zoomed-in as they could go. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-office-incident-2019-perfectly-illustrates-trumps-approach-state-rcna43293 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-offi...
mandevil 2y ago
The size being the same was not because of design reuse, but because that's the size limits imposed by the Space Shuttle payload bay. (1) Many of the contractors were the same, but that's because they won a competitive bidding process with a CCD design against a different set of contractors vidicon tube technology. Now, their experience with CCD's did come from the KH-11 process, but their bid did have competition. 1: Speculation but reasonably informed: in 1970 when the USAF was asked to set the size of the payload bay (in exchange for USAF political support on a program that had just survived by one vote, their parameters became the design guidelines for the STS) they basically went with their latest design at the time, the KH-10 Manned Orbiting Laboratory, which had already been canceled but was the latest thing anyone had. If the people at NRO who provided the specs had known how the future was going to go, they would have probably wanted a shorter but wider payload bay, so you could put bigger main mirrors into space. But, and this is total speculation, in 1970 when they are committing to this the KH-11 is far enough in the future that they don't have a good understanding of what it should be like. The KH-11 was designed to be carried into space by the STS, but the STS was delayed so its first flights were on unmanned rockets, and then after Challenger the NRO tried to get all of their satellites off the STS and go fully unmanned. A couple of satellites were far enough along that they were committed to the Shuttle after Return to Flight, but no more were committed after that point.
red369 2y ago
I think also part of the KY-11 were the two telescopes the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) donated to NASA in 2012. I forget the details I read, but as I remember they were roughly equivalent to Hubble, but obselete for the NRO.
- jmward01 2y ago
  If only we could give our obsolete scientific satellite tech to the NRO instead of the other way around.
- thedrexster 2y ago
  The details :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...
yencabulator 2y ago
Akshully, the spy satellites are known to outperform Hubble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...
krunck 2y ago
https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/

Loughla 2y ago

So that was how long ago? I guess the super zoom satellite footage from movies might not be unrealistic like I thought. . .

sbierwagen 2y ago
There's a hard physical limit (the Rayleigh criterion) on the resolution of an optical system by how big the open end is. You won't get "super zoom" capabilities without a satellite the size of a stadium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN#Resolution_and_ground_sample_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN#Resolution_and_gr...
- alganet 2y ago
  What about multiple satellites working to get one image? Like the arrays we have on Earth pointing to space, but instead, arrays on space pointing to Earth. I know there probably isn't that many KH-style satellites to do it, but would it be possible?
  - GlenTheMachine 2y ago
    The alignment has to be better than half a wavelength. That's doable for RF, but for optical telescopes you're talking nanometers. That's not possible (currently or in the foreseeable future) for a spacecraft constellation.
    - sbierwagen 2y ago
      Amusingly enough, there's been some groundwork laid here by gravity wave interferometer constellations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant... You could imagine a deep-infrared mission (longer wavelength, to soften the alignment requirements) launched into deep space (Jupiter+) where both the solar wind density is lower (reducing space weather perturbations) and reduced solar flux would reduce heat loads on the structure, (objects in Jupiter orbit get 3.6% as much light as in Earth orbits) making cooling easier. An interferometer design would also improve resolution. A not-widely advertised feature of the JWST is that, due to the same Rayleigh limits, its far infrared modes have dramatically lower resolution than its near infrared camera. A problem with a 6 meter mirror, less of a problem with a kilometer mirror.
    - wuming2 2y ago
      I remembered European Southern Observatory employing optical interferometry on the ground. And indeed it does: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1905/ https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1905/
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Cool to see Clifford Stoll mentioned there, he was also the one detecting one of the first international state-sponsored hacking attacks on the US and wrote a book about it, The Cuckoo's Egg.
coolspot 2y ago
In 2022 Trump declassified this satellite picture showing amazing resolution of current generation: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/09/05/ap_19243153034473_custom-c1ad60c7bc2267a1eae7e449ed88497dde3d33d4-s1100-c50.jpg https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/09/05/ap_1924315303447...
- pests 2y ago
  By declassified, you mean accidently tweeted a cell phone picture of the image printed out. Which is his right, just wanted to add context.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    It wasn't on accident.
    - riedel 2y ago
      Depends on what you call the accident. However, we will only know after November 5th.
      - pests 2y ago
        No no, he is actually correct and I misspoke. He definitely tweeted on purpose (haha) but did he intend to declassify the image or just didn't realize?
        adastra22 2y ago
        Yes he quite possibly unintentionally revealed US spy satellite capabilities with an otherwise purposeful tweet. I say the not out of niceness to give him the benefit of the doubt, but because he's probably too stupid to understand the implications of what he was doing.
        me-vs-cat 2y ago
        According to NBC[1], attempts were made to explain the ramifications to him. At that point, he knew he was declassifying the photo and knew he was revealing what his experts told him shouldn't be revealed. He simply didn't care. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-office-incident-2019-perfectly-illustrates-trumps-approach-state-rcna43293 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-offi...
philistine 2y ago
Trump famously tweeted images from an Iranian launch facility that had exploded. They were incredibly revealing of US satellite capabilities, even though that was probably not as zoomed-in as they could go. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-office-incident-2019-perfectly-illustrates-trumps-approach-state-rcna43293 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/oval-offi...

mandevil 2y ago

The size being the same was not because of design reuse, but because that's the size limits imposed by the Space Shuttle payload bay. (1) Many of the contractors were the same, but that's because they won a competitive bidding process with a CCD design against a different set of contractors vidicon tube technology. Now, their experience with CCD's did come from the KH-11 process, but their bid did have competition. 1: Speculation but reasonably informed: in 1970 when the USAF was asked to set the size of the payload bay (in exchange for USAF political support on a program that had just survived by one vote, their parameters became the design guidelines for the STS) they basically went with their latest design at the time, the KH-10 Manned Orbiting Laboratory, which had already been canceled but was the latest thing anyone had. If the people at NRO who provided the specs had known how the future was going to go, they would have probably wanted a shorter but wider payload bay, so you could put bigger main mirrors into space. But, and this is total speculation, in 1970 when they are committing to this the KH-11 is far enough in the future that they don't have a good understanding of what it should be like. The KH-11 was designed to be carried into space by the STS, but the STS was delayed so its first flights were on unmanned rockets, and then after Challenger the NRO tried to get all of their satellites off the STS and go fully unmanned. A couple of satellites were far enough along that they were committed to the Shuttle after Return to Flight, but no more were committed after that point.

red369 2y ago

I think also part of the KY-11 were the two telescopes the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) donated to NASA in 2012. I forget the details I read, but as I remember they were roughly equivalent to Hubble, but obselete for the NRO.

jmward01 2y ago
If only we could give our obsolete scientific satellite tech to the NRO instead of the other way around.
thedrexster 2y ago
The details :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...

yencabulator 2y ago

Akshully, the spy satellites are known to outperform Hubble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...

krunck 2y ago

https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/