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A carrier battle group can easily be seen and tracked by commercial satellite constellations. At minimum they travel with 6 or 7 ships and leave a wake a mile

A carrier battle group can easily be seen and tracked by commercial satellite constellations. At minimum they travel with 6 or 7 ships and leave a wake a mile long and they only go tens of miles an hour, it isnt a speed boat. Here is an Indian carrier (formerly Russian) on google maps and the US ones are large https://www.google.com/maps/place/14%C2%B044'30.3%22N+74%C2%B006'37.9%22E/@14.7417429,74.1095604,512m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d14.7417584!4d74.1105396?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDQxNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/14%C2%B044'30.3%22N+74%C2%... I think people forget how many satellites are pointed at all parts of the planet. They are used for crop reporting and weather and all sorts of shit. It isnt the 1960s where only the super powers have them and they drop rolls of film.

Schiendelman 6mo ago
Satellites aren't pointed at "all parts of the planet". They're generally taking regular photos of known locations, when the right type of satellite passes over. That's where you get lucky shots like the one you noticed. Then that satellite has to orbit, and there isn't another one nearby just ready to take another photo. Then the carrier changes direction...
- tempest_ 6mo ago
  Sure any single one but there are many companies, some with hundreds of satellites in orbit at any given time who will point it where ever if you pay them enough Which is why you get things like this https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/05/satellite-firm-planet-labs-to-indefinitely-withhold-iran-war-images.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/05/satellite-firm-planet-labs-t... An aircraft carrier is not that fast, if you see it once you know roughly what radius of circle it is going to be in for a while (ignoring the fact that they are likely going somewhere for a reason its not their job is to say out of sight) edit: aha that company literally lists it on their website https://www.planet.com/industries/maritime/ https://www.planet.com/industries/maritime/
  - wredcoll 6mo ago
    This is literally the point: it's easy to tell them to point a satellite at beirut and get pictures every 3 hours or whatever, it's much more difficult to tell them to point at a location in the middle of the pacific ocean... because you don't know the location in the first place. Beirut doesn't move around a lot. Carriers do. While there are a lot of satellites pointing at the earth at any one moment, this isn't some kind of Hollywood super screen showing a real time image of the entire pacific. You just see whatever small patch the satellite happens to be pointing at. And again, ignoring the part where america would probably start shooting down satellites.
    - shmeeed 6mo ago
      >because you don't know the location in the first place Do you seriously think China doesn't track US carrier movements?
      - wredcoll 6mo ago
        Do you seriously think the US Navy doesn't avoid Chinese tracking? What kind of a question is that? Like, there's probably a magazine that lists the cruising destinations of most of the carriers, what ports they're going to stop at next, etc, because, you know, they're not at war and trying to maintain secrecy.
        Jensson 6mo ago
        > Do you seriously think the US Navy doesn't avoid Chinese tracking? How would they avoid having a Chinese satellite continuously track their movement? They have the capability to do that, there is nothing USA can do about it except shoot down all the Chinese satelites. https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/china-three-satellites-track-us-warships-pentagon-end-of-naval-stealth/ https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/china-three-satellites-tr...
        shmeeed 6mo ago
        US carrier groups probably pose the #1 strategic threat to the PRC in the Pacific. You can safely assume they throw whatever resources are necessary at the task of knowing their whereabouts. I mean, you can try all you want, but there's limits to hiding a fleet of ships on the open sea. They are huge, emit immense heat signatures, and produce miles-long wakes while moving. As long as there are satellites overhead, they will be able to find them. I suspect we might be talking past one another because we have different degrees of precision in mind: I'm not saying the Chinese could have a missile target lock on a carrier whenever they wanted, much less in wartime. Far from it. But I highly doubt you can reposition a carrier group without them catching wind of it within hours.
- amluto 6mo ago
  Now I’m contemplating just how small and light of an instrument could be carried on a Starlink-style satellite that could detect a large ship. A smallish COTS telescope, e.g. a Celestron 8SE ($1700 retail) could easily see a ship from the Starlink constellation altitude. Never mind that the Starlink radio arrays are, well, radio arrays that quite effectively cover the whole planet. If you think of each satellite as a radio telescope, its resolution is crap and probably cannot disambiguate a carrier group from anything else (at least according to disclosed specs). But it would be quite interesting to build a synthetic aperture array out of multiple satellites. This would rely on emissions from the ships themselves, but I bet it could be done and could locate ships quite nicely.
  - Schiendelman 6mo ago
    Seeing it isn't the issue. Scanning the oceans is the issue. Carrier groups also don't emit radio when they aren't interested in being detected!

Schiendelman 6mo ago

Satellites aren't pointed at "all parts of the planet". They're generally taking regular photos of known locations, when the right type of satellite passes over. That's where you get lucky shots like the one you noticed. Then that satellite has to orbit, and there isn't another one nearby just ready to take another photo. Then the carrier changes direction...

tempest_ 6mo ago
Sure any single one but there are many companies, some with hundreds of satellites in orbit at any given time who will point it where ever if you pay them enough Which is why you get things like this https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/05/satellite-firm-planet-labs-to-indefinitely-withhold-iran-war-images.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/05/satellite-firm-planet-labs-t... An aircraft carrier is not that fast, if you see it once you know roughly what radius of circle it is going to be in for a while (ignoring the fact that they are likely going somewhere for a reason its not their job is to say out of sight) edit: aha that company literally lists it on their website https://www.planet.com/industries/maritime/ https://www.planet.com/industries/maritime/
- wredcoll 6mo ago
  This is literally the point: it's easy to tell them to point a satellite at beirut and get pictures every 3 hours or whatever, it's much more difficult to tell them to point at a location in the middle of the pacific ocean... because you don't know the location in the first place. Beirut doesn't move around a lot. Carriers do. While there are a lot of satellites pointing at the earth at any one moment, this isn't some kind of Hollywood super screen showing a real time image of the entire pacific. You just see whatever small patch the satellite happens to be pointing at. And again, ignoring the part where america would probably start shooting down satellites.
  - shmeeed 6mo ago
    >because you don't know the location in the first place Do you seriously think China doesn't track US carrier movements?
    - wredcoll 6mo ago
      Do you seriously think the US Navy doesn't avoid Chinese tracking? What kind of a question is that? Like, there's probably a magazine that lists the cruising destinations of most of the carriers, what ports they're going to stop at next, etc, because, you know, they're not at war and trying to maintain secrecy.
      - Jensson 6mo ago
        > Do you seriously think the US Navy doesn't avoid Chinese tracking? How would they avoid having a Chinese satellite continuously track their movement? They have the capability to do that, there is nothing USA can do about it except shoot down all the Chinese satelites. https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/china-three-satellites-track-us-warships-pentagon-end-of-naval-stealth/ https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/china-three-satellites-tr...
      - shmeeed 6mo ago
        US carrier groups probably pose the #1 strategic threat to the PRC in the Pacific. You can safely assume they throw whatever resources are necessary at the task of knowing their whereabouts. I mean, you can try all you want, but there's limits to hiding a fleet of ships on the open sea. They are huge, emit immense heat signatures, and produce miles-long wakes while moving. As long as there are satellites overhead, they will be able to find them. I suspect we might be talking past one another because we have different degrees of precision in mind: I'm not saying the Chinese could have a missile target lock on a carrier whenever they wanted, much less in wartime. Far from it. But I highly doubt you can reposition a carrier group without them catching wind of it within hours.
amluto 6mo ago
Now I’m contemplating just how small and light of an instrument could be carried on a Starlink-style satellite that could detect a large ship. A smallish COTS telescope, e.g. a Celestron 8SE ($1700 retail) could easily see a ship from the Starlink constellation altitude. Never mind that the Starlink radio arrays are, well, radio arrays that quite effectively cover the whole planet. If you think of each satellite as a radio telescope, its resolution is crap and probably cannot disambiguate a carrier group from anything else (at least according to disclosed specs). But it would be quite interesting to build a synthetic aperture array out of multiple satellites. This would rely on emissions from the ships themselves, but I bet it could be done and could locate ships quite nicely.
- Schiendelman 6mo ago
  Seeing it isn't the issue. Scanning the oceans is the issue. Carrier groups also don't emit radio when they aren't interested in being detected!