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. palmotea · 1790830542 · focus · HN ↗
    > Way longer than that. The first KH-11 satellites that Hubble shares its design with were in orbit in the late 1970s.
    I'm not sure if it actually "shares its design" with KH-11, but has a more indirect connection, e.g.:
    <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23150092">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23150092:
    > 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.
    monocasa · 1790833328 · focus · HN ↗
    Except that's not the only connection. Which is why a lot of the pictures in the wiki page I posted are actually of Hubble.
    ra · 1790838309 · focus · HN ↗
    I often see Hubble in the twilight, it's one of the few big satellites you can readily see with the naked eye - not quite as bright as the ISS but pretty close.
    Why have i never seen these, is it simply that I wasn't looking for them?
    stanac · 1790840843 · focus · HN ↗
    If I was to repurpose Hubble to be a spy satellite I would paint it black... I know it's not that simple due to sun radiation (including heat), they where probably coated with some mat black material or something to avoid this kind of detection. I'm just guessing since Hubble looks like it's wrapped in aluminum foil.
    monocasa · 1790873524 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, and block v also have straight up stealth coatings in addition to not being as bright.

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