Thread

1. Almondsetat · 1790809198 · focus · HN ↗

   The incredible and futuristic technologies the US managed to deploy decades before the competition reminds me of the story of how the NRO gifted NASA a couple of their old decommissioned satellites in 2012 and they turned out to be basically upgraded Hubble telescopes pointed at earth. The US from the 90s to the 2000s had multiple Hubble-level telescopes just for spying while NASA was fighting for scraps to study the entire cosmos.

   1. walrus01 · 1790812512 · focus · HN ↗

      We see a few bits and pieces released to the public of optical/infrared wavelength mirrors and hubble-like hardware from IMINT systems. One thing that's never really been shown to the public, not even 50 year old 1970s era stuff, are photos/examples of the SIGINT systems that the NSA likely has in orbit. Or good details of other things that also fall within the RF engineering domain like synthetic aperture radar satellites to monitor naval activity, construction activity like digging bunkers, etc.

      If you think the public DEM/DSM datasets like the ASTER GDER v3 or SRTM GL1 V3 are pretty good, I would bet that the DoD has things far more accurate than those as digital models of the surface and built environment of the earth's surface.

      1. beerandt · 1790818229 · focus · HN ↗

         The SAR stuff is crazy good and and scary- the publicly released stuff from drones sort of hit a ceiling in quality over a decade ago. And it seems to be rarely released at all now.

         It was good enough then to track individuals movement and 'replay' where they had been over the last few days to figure out where they came from and associate them with other people/ vehicles/ rf signatures.

         I think it's safe to assume that the quality kept quietly improving from orbit since then- it's just too good to publicly release / declassify.

         1. dmd · 1790819583 · focus · HN ↗

            If it's so good - who is using it, and to what effect? Because it sure doesn't seem like it's doing much for the US.

            1. walrus01 · 1790819974 · focus · HN ↗

               You wouldn't see the results when the data is applied successfully, like, a tomahawk cruise missile that goes over a mountain pass at only 20 meters altitude over the terrain and trees and structures on its way to a destination.

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