Subject: Tracking and imaging spysats: not a worry?
From: thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson)
Date: 1996/08/14
Message-Id: <thomsonaDw52sK.ML3@netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,alt.politics.org.cia,sci.space.tech
The recently developed capability for amateur observers to
image satellites in LEO was featured in a story in the current
Space News and elicited an interesting reaction from Space
Command.
New Software Enables Amateurs to Track Satellites
By Leonard David
Space News, August 12-18 1996, p. 8
[EXCERPTS]
WASHINGTON - Off-the-shelf telescopes, sensors and software are
now so powerful that amateur skywatchers are able to track and
photograph orbiting spacecraft with a degree of detail
previously available only to the military. Satellite sleuthing
equipment and techniques have reached a new level of maturity,
spurred by work conducted at the Boston Museum of Science's
Gilliland Observatory in Massachusetts.
At the museum's observatory, modest-sized ground telescopes
have been outfitted to track satellites precisely as they move
across the horizon. Images are then taken using a video camera
... The videotape recording of a spacecraft can later be
analyzed, frame by frame. Typically, some of those frames are
nearly free of atmospheric distortion and show a surprising
amount of detail, said Ron Dantowitz... [who] has spearheaded the
satellite tracking effort.
"It's amazing what amateurs can do with advents in technology
and computers," Dantowitz told Space News in a July 26 phone
interview. "It's a great project to work on. It has taken <
about a year from start to where we are now... <
Imagery also has been collected of... a number of U.S.
scientific, military and intelligence-gathering spacecraft.
"We actually have been able to observe the Lacrosse and <
other spy satellites at extremely high resolution. But we're <
not interested in publishing any of those pictures," Dantowitz
said. Lacrosse is a radar imaging satellite operated by the
National Reconnaissance Office.
So far, the ability of amateurs to peek in on classified
satellites does not have the military concerned.
"The U.S. Space Command is not concerned about the amateur <
capabilities for any of the satellites that we control," said <
Franki Webster, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Space Command at
Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo. Dantowitz said
that the satellite tracking software for telescopes is now being
sold to other amateur astronomers and observatories.
Either Ms. Webster is being evasive -- it may be that the NRO
exercises separate control of its satellites --, or lawyerly --
obviously the issue is the ability of hostile countries, not
amateur observers, to track and image satellites -- or the U.S.
reconnaissance community has decided that foreign knowledge of
the orbits and appearance of the satellites isn't a threat to
their systems -- which is incorrect. Tracking and
identification are fundamental first steps in developing space
denial capabilities, and it should be worrisome that an ability
to do both can be developed so readily. I wonder if the NRO
shares Space Command's opinion.
BTW, I'm not saying that the folks in Boston have done
Something Awful. The video cameras and computer controlled
mounts needed for the kind of imaging they're doing have been
available throughout the world for many years, albeit at higher
prices than amateurs could generally afford. It would be
surprising if a dozen or so countries (make up your own list)
haven't been imaging U.S. spysats for a decade or more.
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