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Close encounters of the classified kind

thespacereview.com

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Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#31

Post by WJW »

exhilaration wrote: post #28
onion2k wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would there be a necessity to get close to a satellite to destroy it? Some sort of rocket could be launched from quite far away without needing much fuel if it was already in a similar orbit.

No need for such a complex solution, the Chinese just launch a missile from the ground: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_...

So do the Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost .

If you can get close to a satellite however, you can take photo's from up close or from arbitrary angles. Spy agencies might be very interested in this. You could conceivably also put in inside your cargo bay and bring it back to the surface for 'disassembly', though its owners would probably be unhappy about that.

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#32

Post by heartbreak »

marcuslager wrote: post #29
quakeguy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there, and that was exactly how most of the audience did react after 15 min. into his talk.

Many people need to watch this. It reformatted much of my belief system in a disruptive way. That guy is something else.

The guy thinks a CIA front company got sued and then provided documents during discovery that revealed covert operations.

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#33

Post by dkersten »

lallysingh wrote: post #14
dkersten wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was confirmed that this satellite had extraordinarily high communications bandwidth and was speculated to be used either for SIGINT or for operating UAVs. Given that the recently launched civillian satellite Viasat-2 has a bandwidth of 300Gb/s and a reported expected latency of about 25ms, its not hard to imagine that a classified satellite like this may have crazy high bandwidth and low latency, perfect for rec…

Passive sigint doesn't care about latency. Any sigint capabilities here involve man in the middle. Edit: unless you're doing sigint in something very fast, like a missile launch.

I was thinking for something like real-time UAV control, but yeah I guess you’re right that for most use cases latency may not be important.

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#34

Post by sliverstorm »

WJW wrote: post #31
exhilaration wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for such a complex solution, the Chinese just launch a missile from the ground: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_...

So do the Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost . If you can get close to a satellite however, you can take photo's from up close or from arbitrary angles. Spy agencies might be very interested in this. You could conceivably also put in inside your cargo bay and bring it back to the surface for 'disassembly', though its owners would probably be unhappy about that.

You mean like they did with the space shuttle? :)

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#35

Post by Hasknewbie »

heartbreak wrote: post #32
marcuslager wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people need to watch this. It reformatted much of my belief system in a disruptive way. That guy is something else.

The guy thinks a CIA front company got sued and then provided documents during discovery that revealed covert operations.

That is incorrect. He first mentions CIA fronts, but then goes on to discuss real companies that occasionally do business with the CIA 'on the side'. Two of these (Sportsflight and Richmor) sued each others on activities that happened to be tied to the CIA.

He did not make that claim out of thin air, but produced documents that were publicly available.

The New Yorker provided more details on this topic in a piece they did on Paglen:

"More than fifteen hundred documents were made public in the case: invoices, e-mails, cell-phone logs, receipts. These contained financial data—a typical rendition itinerary seems to have cost the government about three hundred thousand dollars—and structural details of the rendition program."

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/22/prying-eyes

The article also notes that he is recognized by other journalists for his work on renditions.

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#36

Post by dboreham »

nabla9 wrote: post #17
dooglius wrote: post #16

Huh, I thought that orbit details of all satellites was tracked. If not, collisions probably become much more of an issue.

They are. Not everything is published. In US tracking is done by military, not NASA.

In North Dakota, at Concrete.

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#37

Post by slandersson »

elfchief wrote: post #15

Anyone know what software they use to do the Vimeo video in that article? I've been wondering for a while, when I've seen videos like that...

Often either STK (expensive, but there is a free version) or CNES VTS (free)

Source: I use them both at work.

Links:

https://www.agi.com/products/engineering-tools

https://logiciels.cnes.fr/content/vts

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#38

Post by AndrewKemendo »

lallysingh wrote: post #14
dkersten wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was confirmed that this satellite had extraordinarily high communications bandwidth and was speculated to be used either for SIGINT or for operating UAVs. Given that the recently launched civillian satellite Viasat-2 has a bandwidth of 300Gb/s and a reported expected latency of about 25ms, its not hard to imagine that a classified satellite like this may have crazy high bandwidth and low latency, perfect for rec…

Passive sigint doesn't care about latency. Any sigint capabilities here involve man in the middle. Edit: unless you're doing sigint in something very fast, like a missile launch.

Passive sigint doesn't care about latency

"Active SIGINT" really only applies to CNE and not the traditional COMINT where MITM is used for translation and interpretation. In which case latency does matter, but not on the order of ms.

unless you're doing sigint in something very fast, like a missile launch.

That's FISINT/ELINT/MASINT though and has a completely different PED chain. Almost 100% automated.

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#39

Post by Teever »

kryptiskt wrote: post #26
nabla9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to hide anything in leo from Russians or Chinese. They have their own radar and telescope surveillance networks. They always notice.

Stealth satellites aren't impossible given that all the tech has already been developed for Earthbound use, and unlike aircraft you only have to make the Earth-facing side stealthy.

How do you make the stealth satellite not block star light as it passive in front of them from the perspective of a ground based observer?

Re: Close encounters of the classified kind

#40

Post by pjc50 »

marcuslager wrote: post #29
quakeguy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there, and that was exactly how most of the audience did react after 15 min. into his talk.

Many people need to watch this. It reformatted much of my belief system in a disruptive way. That guy is something else.

Can you summarise this for those of us who haven't watched the video?
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