Thread

1. walrus01 · 1790727565 · focus · HN ↗

   I'd be more astonished if there isn't something superior to the SR71 (likely unmanned) that has been flying around at night from facilities like Groom Lake for years. Look at how long the RQ180 was flying around in semi-public and known about before it became seen in daylight by plane spotters in Greece. And a long time before that there were public relations approved photos of the Lockheed Martin Polecat.

   There were a series of extremely public quotations from senior DoD officially recently about how they plan to aggressively retire the Global Hawk program (which is a mostly non stealth aircraft), reading between the lines it's because they have something much better.

   edit: for those who haven&#x27;t seen the RQ180: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=RQ180+greece" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=RQ180+gre...

   edit 2 (apologies for the X link): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;MechDesignxyz&#x2F;status&#x2F;2041281689838584193" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;MechDesignxyz&#x2F;status&#x2F;2041281689838584193

   1. hilsdev · 1790727775 · focus · HN ↗

      I suspect everything comparable of late has been orbital, which begs the question what is it they’re worried about with orbital? Satellite warfare is already accelerating if the rumors are true, is it that this is untouchable still? Is there some new camera sensor where eliminating that extra atmospheric diffraction or slowing down (lol) is needed?

      1. bob1029 · 1790755607 · focus · HN ↗

         There are some mission profiles that simply don&#x27;t work from orbit. You need too much resolution and frame rate.

         <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;ARGUS-IS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;ARGUS-IS

         Imagine implementing the above from LEO.

         1. m4rtink · 1790768876 · focus · HN ↗

            So you have these LEO Internet satellite constellations with thousands of satellites that have a number of satellites above any place on Earth at any given moment...

            1. bob1029 · 1790779416 · focus · HN ↗

               The optical system required to achieve this is infeasible to deploy at the scale required to compensate for concerns like orbital motion at 15+ fps.

               1. m4rtink · 1790782642 · focus · HN ↗

                  Yeah, that would be the main issue for optical imaging. Still rapid change detection could be doable and of course sigint.

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