
KH-11 spysat design revealed by NRO’s telescope gift to NASA (2012) - flyinglizard
https://www.americaspace.com/2012/06/06/top-secret-kh-11-spysat-design-revealed-by-nros-twin-telescope-gift-to-nasa/
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billyhoffman
My favorite KH-11/Hubble story is that during the design of the Hubble Space
Telescope, NASA originally wanted a 3 meter mirror. However when they began to
design and budget the satellite they were quietly told they should reconsider
and use a 2.4 meter mirror, as this would be significantly cheaper since they
would be able to leverage existed machinery capable of created mirrors of that
size and precision. That infrastructure and manufacturing process had already
been created a decade earlier for Keyhole.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennen)

~~~
oh_sigh
30 years later with Hubble still in service, I think I definitely would have
taken the 3m mirror(which is >50% bigger than a 2.4m mirror). Couple that with
the fact that despite all the cost savings, Hubble's mirror was famously
flawed for the first 3 years of its life and required special missions and
attachments to fix the problem.

~~~
echelon
> I think I definitely would have taken the 3m mirror(which is >50% bigger
> than a 2.4m mirror)

Opportunity cost. That budget might have been passed over, and we might not
have gotten Hubble at all. We're lucky we got the discount.

Thinking ahead, it's not a bad idea to mix in many smaller budgeted projects,
such as the Discovery and New Frontiers programs seek to accomplish.

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chunger
I did not realize that the Keyhole line of spy sats had a resolution of 4"
from 200 miles away! That tech is at least a decade old, so imagine what
exists today.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Atmospheric scattering puts a bound on the practical lower limit. It's not
much less than 4".

~~~
flyinglizard
Can that be overcome with computational photography?

~~~
bobmoretti
No matter what you do, you still have to deal with diffraction [1], which
means the resolution is inversely proportional to the aperture. I think the
Trump/Iran release was estimated to be pretty close to the diffraction limit.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution#Explanation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution#Explanation)

~~~
stefanpie
Just took a radars course and we definitely spent a whole section on just
atmospheric effects / defraction. My only guess about how you could maybe
lower the error is by monitoring and measuring the condition of the atmophere
and building a model that can use that data to apply corrections and reduce
error to your image.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
If there was a _known_ object in an image could a high resolution image of the
known object be used to compensate for atmospheric diffraction effects?

~~~
bronson
One example is a laser guide star:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star)

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gumby
> which NASA now hopes can be outfitted to look up instead of down

Ah! Long ago I had a (then) gf who was a Gamma ray astronomer. For part of her
PhD she worked at Livermore labs. I couldn't have lunch with her because the
section she worked was classified.

I asked her about it and she said that she did astronomy, and there were a lot
of amazing gamma ray physicists there, but they were worried that anybody who
could build or operate such a telescope could probably turn it to point down,
which they very much did not want.

I still wonder if she was pulling my leg.

~~~
epiphanitus
What could anyone hope to see pointing a gamma ray telescope at earth?

I thought gamma rays were filtered out though the atmosphere.

~~~
gumby
Nuclear weapons testing I have always assumed.

~~~
xxpor
I assume not just testing, but the existence of a stockpile of fissile
material in general, right? Obviously it'd need to be more sensitive but id
have to assume if you observe a moving gamma ray source on earth that's really
valuable information

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dsl
These were late-70s era KENNAN satellites. I wouldn't say they were "revealed"
as much as they were declassified and donated.

There have been 4 new generations of imagery platforms since, up to the
current MISTY system that started launching in 1990.

~~~
SiempreViernes
Are you saying there are big innovations in the optics for the newer ones?

I mean, we saw what the current capability was last year, and it that didn't
seem like it's hugely better than the picture they put in the article.

~~~
dsl
Spy satellites aren't like camera phones. The killer feature isn't always
higher resolution or being able to zoom in on a licence plate.

Imagine having a big enough sensor and lens array to be able to see every
individual boat in the Strait of Hormuz and track them all in real time. Or
being able to pinpoint a spot on the planet and over the course of multiple
passes by different birds, be able to construct a photo realistic 3D model of
an oil refinery for a SEAL team to walk through in VR.

~~~
SiempreViernes
the Strait of Hormuz in a single frame? That's around 100 km, not gonna be a
lot of pixels per meter in that image...

~~~
CalChris
Commercially, we have gigapixel imagers [1].

    
    
      (100 km^2) / (1 billion) = 0.1 m^2
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapixel_image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapixel_image)

~~~
ArnoVW
1 gigapixel means 32768 pixels per side (assuming a square image).

~~~
TeMPOraL
So you now have 3 pixels per meter in each direction of the 10km x 10km
square.

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NotSammyHagar
I'd like to read more about the failure of Boeing to make the next gen after
the Lockheed KH-11. Giant too big to fail Boeing is struggling with parts of
the SLS and their version of a new human rated capsule for the space station.
Being has many successes but also failures - yet I've never heard of this
KH-11 successor failure?

~~~
rbanffy
I don't think we would. Disclosure of non-readiness is a big no-no.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
this was many years ago, so like the kh-11 details its not so sensitive. this
is probably a management failure, perhaps on top of technical failures. So no
details?

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Quai
What does current generation spysats collect?

I mean, it looks like the optical and near optical was the focus for spysats
from the early days an up to the 80's. What are the frequency domain for the
current sats? Can they listen to cellphone traffic, wifi-routers and bluetooth
devices?

The capacity to target cellphones seems like a given. Being able to collect
location and unique ids from wifi and bluetooth devices seems like a useful
tool. Maybe even collect network traffic from and to specific networks and
devices.

~~~
rocqua
My first instinct was that atmospheric attenuation would be the biggest issue
here. But some preliminary searches suggest that is not really the case.
Figure 4 from here [https://globaljournals.org/GJRE_Volume13/4-Propagation-
Power...](https://globaljournals.org/GJRE_Volume13/4-Propagation-Power-Loss-
Analysis.pdf) gives an attenuation of at most 0.2db for 3Ghz atmospheric
attenuation (0.2db at an angle of 10 deg, 0.02db when a satellite is directly
overhead.

This means that essentially, power loss from distance is the only real issue
power-wise. Which could be compensated for with large enough directional
antennas. Next thing I'd be worried about is angular resolution. As I recall,
lower wavelengths have more of an issue with diffraction. So it might be hard
to design an antenna that is able to listen to a small enough area that you
can distinguish individual devices.

Cause if you are getting a 100m resolution, that means receiving all BT
transmissions in a 100m diameter circle. Doing that in a city would probably
give to many overlapping signals to do anything with. It might be nice for
tracking people in the wilderness though.

I have no idea how optimistic or pessimistic the 100m number is. I get the
feeling that with phased array antenna's you could probably get higher
resolutions that you'd think. I would guess it might be worth it if you want
to trace signals out in the open (say, in middle-eastern deserts)

~~~
rocqua
So, taking the standard diffraction limit calculation, I get a resolution of
15km using an orbital height of 250km and an aperture of 2.4m (as the KH-11
uses).

That resolution is inversely proportional to the aperture. So you could get it
down by taking larger apertures. The best way to do that would be a phased
antenna array, but that is computationally very expensive. It would be very
cool though.

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runeb
Could you turn the spy sats around and use them for astronomy? Or is the
hardware specifically for looking at the earths surface?

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supernova87a
You can tell from my username that I have some opinions in this area.

My questions are these:

NASA can barely keep JWST on a delayed schedule without massive cost overruns.
What is another telescope good for? How many astronomers and support staff do
we need in this industry? How do we measure and know that it's enough? What's
the breakthrough that another telescope at the cost of $Bs would achieve? (and
please be specific if anyone is going to reply, not just the old "because it's
worth doing" argument -- that could justify any amount of spending)

These are the things you think about after you leave a field and are not
beholden to it any more.

~~~
Rebelgecko
> What is another telescope good for?

My understanding is that WFIRST is more of a replacement for Hubble as it
slowly dies (or suddenly dies at the end of a fiscal year due to $$$). However
compared to both JWST and Hubble, it has a much higher field of view (the
example that NASA gave at one point is that took the Hubble several years to
survey the Andromeda Galaxy in IR. WFIRST could do that same job in a few
hours). This has a lot of benefits if you want to do things like look for
exoplanets. WFIRST will of course be very expensive, but for a number of
reasons it is unlikely that it will be even close to the cost of JWST (like
JWST it will be going to the L2 Lagrange point, but it won't have to make as
many design compromises as JWST to get there)

The last decadal survey of astronomers[1] determined that WFIRST was a #1
priority because:

"...WFIRST will settle fundamental questions about the nature of dark energy,
the discovery of which was one of the greatest achievements of U.S. telescopes
in recent years. It will employ three distinct techniques—measurements of weak
gravitational lensing, supernova distances, and baryon acoustic oscillations—
to determine the effect of dark energy on the evolution of the universe. An
equally important outcome will be to open up a new frontier of exoplanet
studies by monitoring a large sample of stars in the central bulge of the
Milky Way for changes in brightness due to microlensing by intervening solar
systems. This census, combined with that made by the Kepler mission, will
determine how common Earth-like planets are over a wide range of orbital
parameters. It will also, in guest investigator mode, survey our galaxy and
other nearby galaxies to answer key questions about their formation and
structure, and the data it obtains will provide fundamental constraints on how
galaxies grow. The telescope exploits the important work done by the joint
DOE/NASA design team... and expands its scientific reach. WFIRST is based on
mature technologies with technical risk that is medium low and has medium cost
and schedule risk... WFIRST will complement the targeted infrared observations
of the James Webb Space Telescope. The small field of view of JWST would
render it incapable of carrying out the prime WFIRST program of dark energy
and exoplanet studies, even if it were used exclusively for this task. The
recommended schedule has a launch data of 2020 with a 5-year baseline mission.
An extended 10-year mission could improve the statistical results and further
broaden the science program. The European Space Agency (ESA) is considering an
M-class proposal, called Euclid, with related goals. Collaboration on a
combined mission with the United States playing a leading role should be
considered so long as the committee’s recommended science program is preserved
and overall cost savings result."

>How many astronomers and support staff do we need in this industry?

I'm going to be honest, this comes across as a bit of a loaded question.
Obviously we don't "need" any astronomers at all (or most scientists for that
matter). But more theoretical research can still have tremendous payoffs. I'm
a big fan a letter[2] that a paperclip'd director at NASA Marshall wrote to a
nun in Zambia who asked why the US spends billions going to the moon while
children on Earth starve to death.

>How do we measure and know that it's enough?

I don't think humanity will reach a point in any scientific endeavor where we
decide that it's enough and we don't need to understand any more. I suppose it
would be when we have a complete understanding of the entire universe.

[1]: [https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/special-
events/astro20...](https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/special-
events/astro2010-astronomy-and-astrophysics-decadal-survey/)

[2]: [https://lettersofnote.com/2012/08/06/why-explore-
space/](https://lettersofnote.com/2012/08/06/why-explore-space/)

~~~
supernova87a
Thanks for a high quality response.

My questions are sparked very much by having departed the field and being able
to look back more objectively (I think) than someone who's advocating from the
position of needing the funding. I'm very familiar with the granting and
budgeting process in astro.

So I actually have the goal of trying to help astronomers really think about
how to justify their existence to the taxpayers who support them. Because most
arguments are so "soft" that they could justify any $ amount of spending on
astronomy, telescopes, students, postdocs, professors. And you can be pretty
sure that anyone working in the field feels that the money is worth it -- and
how can someone object? Or as in other replies, people will ask, why are you
against fundamental science or some BS like that.

If you don't have any hard metrics to point to that some level is needed, what
defense do you have against being cut, or on the other hand letting budgets
run wild by the people who benefit from the employment?

One really famous professor in the field told me his belief was that "the
current goal of astronomy research is to employ astronomers". How do we refute
that?

On #1, how do we get a signal from the astronomy community that a certain
research finding is of value? (and all the cost that went into it?) Everything
is "worth it" from the typical point of view of astronomers. Even the 10th
paper of the single halo white dwarf star luminosity function is "worth it"?
Really? Or did it only justify the spending on that space telescope with UV
capabilities because the money was already spent? I know it's unpleasant to
crap on someone's research topic, but is it _all_ worth it?

On #2, how many astronomers, telescope support astronomers, staff scientists,
Northrup Grumman engineers, data archive specialists, etc etc etc are really
needed? I guess it goes back to whether the science being done is worth it.
But the people in those positions will find endless ways to justify their need
to exist.

I suppose astronomy does have one big benefit -- you can quantify the popular
appeal of it by how many people watch shows about astronomy, swipe right on
astronomy Instagram posts, etc. But whether we need another multi-billion $
telescope to keep that going?

I frequently have my doubts, having left.

~~~
Rebelgecko
Appreciate you sharing the perspective of someone who was part of that field.
I think to some extent anything that isn't a for-profit endeavor is subject to
some measure of "feed the beast". Kinda like how bureaucracy has a tendency to
expand in order to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

While I'm sure there's plenty of waste, I think that's just a fact of life. A
positive way to think of it is that the 10th paper on white dwarf luminosity
is just ensuring that previous work is reproducible :)

Even if someone takes the absolute most jaded view that it's all just a big
federal jobs program, I think you could make the argument that it beats
throwing more billions at the military industrial complex (of course there's
plenty of synergies, like these 2 mirrors)

~~~
supernova87a
I appreciate that perspective. And I will be the first to say that astronomy
is far from the extreme end of any measure of a bad use of funds.

I simply try to combat the intellectually lazy position that some people fall
back on, that any questioning of scientific merit (or resource intensiveness)
is an affront to the whole thing and cannot be done. It's usually stated by
people who have never had to do it, or don't know how.

