Thread

The top secret URSALA, RAQUEL, and FARRAH satellites (2025)

306 points · 162 comments · Bluestein

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. monocasa · 1790813494 · focus · HN ↗
  Way longer than that. The first KH-11 satellites that Hubble shares its design with were in orbit in the late 1970s.
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN
  1. underlipton · 1790817465 · focus · HN ↗
    It occurs to me that projecting the image of NASA struggling (but always successfully) to deploy this kind of tech might intended be a part of the cover.
    eks391 · 1790820736 · focus · HN ↗
    I doubt it. The NRO was a classified department until very recently, and NASA doesn't classify its programs, so there's no reason for NASA's employees to have clearances. Therefore, NASA leadership and strategists wouldn't have even known that the NRO existed, and independently came up with their lesser satellites, no agenda needed to pretend to have an inferior space sector
    15155 · 1790831585 · focus · HN ↗
    > NASA's employees to have clearances.
    Launch vehicles are effectively ICBMs and a significant body of NASA staff is former USAF. I wouldn't say there's "no reason" A huge number of NASA employees and contractors absolutely have clearances (even if just incidentally.)
    aetch · 1790833912 · focus · HN ↗
    Most veterans don’t have security clearances after getting out of the military if their next job doesn’t need it

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