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

306 points · 162 comments · Bluestein

  1. Almondsetat · · 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. reacharavindh · · focus · HN ↗
      The thing that always leaves me flabbergasted when I read such fascinating facts of such great technological power held by the US is that they seem to always waste it.... :-(

      If they had such "eyes" on our earth, couldn't they have clearly spotted those Methane emissions from Turkmenistan well earlier than the UN MARS program did? or many "beneficial" to humanity things I cannot even think of right away.

      Even militarily... US wanted to avoid the Hormuz Strait closure.. I think that was a clear enough military goal. Could nt they spot where the mines are, and where the attacking positions are from their mighty tech instead of this prolonged war? As in, the strikes they did already - couldnt they have taken out all attacking capacity right away if they had such powerful tech eyes?

      1. Cthulhu_ · · focus · HN ↗
        > If they had such "eyes" on our earth, couldn't they have clearly spotted those Methane emissions from Turkmenistan well earlier than the UN MARS program did?

        Yes, but that would "show their hand" - secrecy has always been paramount.

        Of course, then Trump came in and freely shared sattelite photos of idk, an Iranian launch site or something which revealed the US's current day spy sattelite capabilities.

        1. kulahan · · focus · HN ↗
          You're right in a sense, but that's not necessarily how this works. Sources and methods are classified, but information is not necessarily so. If it could theoretically be obtained in multiple ways, you can release it without showing your hand. The USAF's Office of Special Investigation (used to, at least) informs companies and orgs of the fact that they were hacked, often before the company/org knows itself.
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