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
    onion2k · 1790840235 · focus · HN ↗
    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.
    That seems unlikely because they'd have been recruiting from the same pool of talent. They'd have been wondering where the best people from specializing in space tech, optics, etc went, and being leadership at NASA means you're probably not stupid, and you go to the same events as them. Also as NASA leadership, it would have been a pretty logical next step for your own career.
    I don't doubt that people outside of the NRO had no idea what they do there, and that people lower down the hierarchy didn't know about it, but NASA leadership must have known there was a shadowy org working on cool satellites.
    jychang · 1790887740 · focus · HN ↗
    You are the comment in this thread of BS speculation that is closest to nailing the truth.
    Hans Mark
    Director of NASA Ames 1969-1977
    Director of the NRO 1977-1979
    Deputy Director of NASA 1981-1984
    I’ll let you take that piece of information and decide if NASA leadership knew about the NRO or not when Hubble launched in 1985.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.