French Threat To ID Secret US Satellites 355
SkiifGeek brings to our attention a story that ran on space.com a few months back but didn't get much wider notice at the time. "The French have identified numerous objects in orbit that do not appear in the ephemeris data reported by the US Space Surveillance Network. Now, the US claims that if it doesn't appear in the ephemeris data, then it doesn't exist. The French insist that at least some of the objects they have found boast solar arrays. Therefore it seems that the French have found secret US satellites. While they don't plan to release the information publicly, they do intend to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris."
Headline (Score:3, Informative)
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The French Aren't Threatening Anyone (Score:2)
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"French discover secret US sattelites, but will not disclose the information, unlike the US does."
It's even in the summary: "While they don't plan to release the information publicly, they do intend to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris."
And I was thinking reading the article was difficult for some. Apparently just reading the summary is to hard for some people here. Yeah, i'm looking at you kdawson...
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US? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US? (Score:4, Insightful)
a little distraction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spy vs Spy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spy vs Spy (Score:5, Funny)
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but they don't know that you probably wouldn't.
Jim Hacker: They probably do.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn't. But they can't certainly know.
Jim Hacker: They probably certainly know that I probably wouldn't.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that, although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would.
Re:Spy vs Spy (Score:5, Insightful)
We did, and it was. The difference is that the missiles could hurt us, even if the Russians had no idea that we knew about them. If we made an attempt to attack them, there was a great chance we would miss some that may well then be launched. Similarly, they might see us coming to attack the missiles and launch. The only way to resolve that safely for the US was to get the missiles out, and we accomplished that with worldwide political pressure (and some backroom deals).
The only way a spy satellite hurts you is if it sees something it isn't supposed to. If we know where it is and can track it, we can ensure that it never does. We may even be able to ensure that it sees the opposite of what we're actually doing if we do want to get up to something. It may even help us directly; if the Chinese think they have a secret satellite to help get the drop on us and it turns out they don't, that is our advantage.
Telling them not only removes that advantage, it puts us at a disadvantage. Almost certainly, they would move the satellite and we would have to locate it again. The game loops again and again. In that sense it's the same as breaking an enemy's cipher; you don't want them to know because you want them to use a code you can read instead of developing a code you can't.
Did you RTF? (Score:3, Informative)
Thus the French are saying, "if you don't keep ours secret, then we will not keep yours secret." A sort of quid pro quo negotiation tactic.
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Nice strategy....
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Re:US? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You might want to put a flag on it, just not your flag on it. If you really wanted to confuse people you'd use the flag of somewhere like Zimbabwe.
Secret US Satellites? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Secret US Satellites? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think so (Score:5, Informative)
* If it's geostationary, it's designed to look at or communicate with whatever is right underneath it. It's also unlikely to be a photorecon satellite, because your km-per-pixel sucks from 36,000 km away.
* If it's in a polar orbit, it's probably designed to look at big swathes of the Earth as the latter rotates under it. Polar orbits are too expensive otherwise.
* If it's in a low orbit with just enough inclination to get up to your latitude -- why, that sounds like it might be a photorecon satellite designed with you in mind...
* In which case, if you know when it's over you, and when it's not, then you have a rough idea of when you're in the crosshairs. That can be handy.
I don't necessarily disagree that the main way you keep your capabilities secret is to keep what the satellites do secret. But it probably helps, at least a little bit, to keep the existence and orbit of the thing secret, too.
Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Funny)
that's no joke (Score:3, Interesting)
By doing this all over the place, they forced the Americans to spread out their intelligence resources covering all kinds of bogus chaff, thus increasing the chance t
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Just a random thing, and I know exactly what you meant, but that bit conjured up an image of a limited national resource of secretiveness that should be used sparingly lest it run out.
"What is the state of our secretiveness store?"
"Not good sir, only 23 units left in the warehouse, and we aren't expecting our next shipment until October!"
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It wouldn't be very hard or expensive to find sats. They are easily seen by backyard astronomers.
So even hard to see ones would, I'd imagine, would be well within the abilities of nearly every nation on the planet should they want.
let 'em (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:let 'em (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:let 'em (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:let 'em (Score:5, Informative)
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Very true. But even larger governments do not have unlimited military resources.
If you make them spend those resources finding something you didn't tell them for free, they can't use those resources for some other purpose.
Always make it more expensive for the other guy. Don't give them something for free needlessly.
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Fine for a State... (Score:2)
Oh.
It's a French website, isn't it?
Okay, here's a new idea: nobody teach French to terrorists.
But you don't get it, they "don't" exist! (Score:5, Interesting)
So shooting a laser beam to blind something non-existent shouldn't be a problem. If you can knock this non-existent "thing" from the sky even better, now it would "doubly" not exist!
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The French detect a spy plane flying over their territory and on suspecting that it belongs to the US contact them:
French: We have an unidentified plane flying over our territory and believe it is yours
USA: I don't think so
French: Are you sure?
USA: Yes
French: So you won't mind if we shoot it down
USA: Uh um, you had better hold off on that one
Apparently the French Thompson radar are meant to be that good.
The actual situation is rather more complicated. (Score:5, Interesting)
First consideration: It is a fairly involved and expensive process to catalogue these objects. Maybe some crazy EE guy could mess with them with a ground based laser for an affordable $20k or whatever (I honestly don't know the feasibility of that) but having to go back and classify near-earth space objects on top of that would probably push it being the range of feasability for any small scale endeavor.
And, another *big part* of defense/offense is simply making it more expensive to engage youl. This is the definition of why defense is always more difficult than offense--the defender has to defend every avenue of attack, the aggressor need only choose the most favorable to themselves. Sure, it might be possible for any modern nation to invest a few billion to making the identifications, and that might nullify the advantage you would have otherwise, but getting them to spend the money is itself an advantage. Even countries that starve their citizens to pay for missiles (ala, north korea) only have limited budgets. The thinner you can spread them, the better off *you* are.
Second consideration: In as much as identifying satellites is a statistical process, i.e., "We've looked at 70% of the objects in the sky, and have identified +/- 20% of those which are satellites " then sharing data is always beneficient in giving you more certain results. This is relevant not only because it means you get more satellites, but especially because the satellites you do get are more defintie to be representative of the whole. If you were going to organize some strategic strike against America's defense satellites, you'd want to get all of them. Otherwise you might waste a bunch of money to get the tactical advantage of taking out the satellites and America will just be like "Whoops, they got some of our satellites, time to change to the backups. Cool, our network is fully functional again. Let's go nuke whoever did that."
Third consideration: I don't think the location of all the 'public' satellites are disclosed. The French are able to identify which are secret satellites because we told them the ones that weren't. Anyone who didn't know that could certainly identify satellite objects in the sky, but they would be unable to distinguish between commercial GPS satellites and secret military missile-commanding GPS satellites.
Now, I don't really know how much any of those come into effect on their own, but my point is that just because it is possible for someone else to gain knowledge without your disclosing it does not mean that it doesn't make a difference whether you simply disclose it or make them work to figure it out.
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I'm not concerned about amateur efforts to identify the satellites, they're irrelevant.
Any country of consequence, who would be capable of affecting our satellites in orbit,
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Moreover, changes in the telemetry will tell the 'bad guys' when the US is interested in something and hence they will have a better sense if their activities have aroused US suspicion.
I'd wager that
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But if they're not there, it's...serious?
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Those are very small satellites in a very, very big sky (it's not called "space" for no reason). If you're lucky, you might see it with the naked eye go by near sunrise or sunset, so that it catches sunlight against the dark sky, but otherwise you'd have to use magnification, which means limiting your field of view dramatically to look for an object that is in your stretch of sky for less than a minute while it passes through your field
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You need to know when the streak was made, preferably to the nearest second (at least). From the ground, LEO satellites move through the sky faster than a passenger jet at cruising altitudes (especially the "interesting" satellites in polar orbits). You'd also have to know in what direction it moved.
"Enough cameras to cover the horizon."
An object reflecting sunlight while overhead need not still be catching sunlight near the horizon. On top of that, at t
Re:let 'em (Score:4, Interesting)
This is, literally, rocket science.
oh god... (Score:5, Funny)
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ground control to major tom (Score:5, Funny)
If they're referring to the moon, that's been ours for a while (finders keepers), and it's not exactly a secret. unless you're referring to man-made satellites only?
i've got a bad feeling about this (Score:2)
If you're referring to man-made satellites only, then, the U.S. will probably be forced to admit, that's no moon.
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Nothing left but for a demonstration of its capacity . . .
Hey, what's that coast with the guy with bad glasses?
'Lost' satellites (Score:3, Funny)
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They tend to fall out of orbit and burn up in re-entry and/or are placed in geosynchronous orbit, not the globe-spanning polar LEO's favored by the spook community.
Also, for the kind of money involved in launching, using and maintaining one, you do not lose one casually.
"Others may be a secret alien monitoring network..."
"What, haven't the hairless apes wiped themselves out yet?" Alien monitoring requires that we actually be, y'know, intere
Dupe? (Score:3, Informative)
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Tweenies (Score:2)
Now they just have to duplicate GEODSS (Score:5, Informative)
The US has had the Ground Based-Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance [fas.org] system since the early 1980s. GEODSS is an automated sky search telescope system. Multiple sites with multiple 40-inch telescopes search the sky automatically every night, looking for anything that isn't in the catalogues. GEODSS will even detect dark objects that occult stars. Everybody has automated astronomy now, but it started with GEODSS, around 1980.
GEODSS has an unusual feature for a telescope - illumination. The system can use one of the telescopes at a site to aim a laser light source, while the other telescope looks at the target with the imager. This allows a good look at low-orbit satellites.
The original test installation for GEODSS, at White Sands, NM, is now used by MIT to look for near-Earth objects. They've found 1622 so far. It wouldn't hurt to have more systems working on that problem. A French version of GEODSS would be a win for everyone.
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The French are serious about space operations, both commercially and militarily. Arianespace, a French company (in essence) launching from French territo
Easy to replicate (Score:5, Informative)
vik
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That's been a function of military maneuvers, both operational and training, for a long, long time. "Don't move sensitive stuff when other peoples sats are overhead".
Re:Easy to replicate (Score:5, Informative)
It's not about knowing where the satellites are so much as understanding that, altogether, all the spy satellites will only be able to photograph your little corner of the world for a total of maybe 1 minute out of 1440. Make sure that the trucks from Habib's Fissionable Material Shipping Service are always parked in the same place, in the same position after you're done with them and the odds are in your favor that Langley won't see any difference between two consecutive satellite passes. The rest is basic camouflage techniques that had been used to counter reconnaissance aircraft long before Sputnik.
Realistically, the odds are in your favor if you want to do something small that you don't want satellites to catch and you think a little about what you're doing. They satellites are mostly there to catch gross, macro changes in another country's borders ("Gee, they just moved this tank brigade to their border and a surface fleet has left port!"), but the hopes of catching a single, solitary nuclear device on the move is a crapshot at best. Of course, it may not be an acceptable risk when the stakes involved are you clandestinely testing your first nuclear device, and Langley surely hopes that the fear of "We might see you do it!" gives them second thoughts, but unless they have the Hubble parked at geostationary above your sorry ass, "we have teh sattelitez!" is a bogeyman at best
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And my point is that it wasn't "the whole time." An individual satellite only has scant seconds to photograph an area on a pass and won't be able to do it again for at least a day (probably longer). Multiple satellites give you a few more handfuls of seconds to observe during the course of any given day, but the odds are strongly in favor that no satellite will be making a pass at the random time you decide to move
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In the specific examples of the surprise tests of India and Pakistan in 1998, none of that was hidden. India set off its first nuclear device in the 1970's and Pakistan finished building the required infrastructure in the 1980's. India alre
uh hem... (Score:5, Funny)
"No, it certainly does not."
"Oh...good. Then I'll just be orbiting this small camera platform over here next to it and...."ZZZzzzZZzzZzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzaaaaaaappppppppppppPPPPPPPP!!!!!!
"I thought you said your secret satellite doesn't fire lasers!!??"
"That's not my secret satellite..."
When will the World War Propaganda End? (Score:2, Insightful)
Please help stop it. Humans could put persons on Mars, yet we still quibble about dumb things.
Brittan created America because they were bitchy.
France helped America become independent.
Americans came to be tired.
Americans think we should all work out our differences. Americans think we should just work it out. Americans think we should not fight unless necessary.
America does not agr
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In their defense.... (Score:5, Funny)
Some pics and (French) text about Graves... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.onera.fr/photos/instexp/graves.php [onera.fr]
http://www.onera.fr/dprs/graves/index.php [onera.fr]
It also appears that a big, big part of the systems is invisible: a real time calculator, the size of which is unknown. But it may guzzle some Watts in my opinion....
As for the political aspects of the affair, well... It is certainly very unelegant from the US space authorities to publicize European spy satellites trajectories, and we cannot get accustomed to the sheer amount of unelegance that has flown eastward to Britanny since 2003.
Next, I doubt amateurs could do what Graves does, especially since trajectories can change, thanks to usefull thrusters. Graves is apparently a real time system...
And by the way, would it detect incomming balistic missiles too? That may be useful for the likes of Aster.
We French are generally too ambitious when it comes to weapon systems (not enough money for so many lethal ideas...), but we provide some amusing toys, indeed. I always wondered what were the real possibilities of this ship (http://www.netmarine.net/bat/divers/monge/photos.htm [netmarine.net]), for instance...
Last but not least: thanks to all Americans that are now bashing French haters, we have heard enough, your support is appreciated. I hope Sarkozy will not be the fool he pretends to be. :-)
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As for the Rainbow warrior "adventure" (Mitterand): this was most unfortunate. Hasty operation, bad execution, no luck and a dead photograph when the idea was to avoid human casualties...
On his side, Chirac has not really sent French troops in an Ivoirian "adventure": in financial terms, it very much looks like an expensive operation, but noting compared to Iraq... Politically, time will tell what will result from that mission.
Blow them up! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Oh no the French are mad (Score:5, Funny)
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You wouldn't win over France
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The point isn't who the French sells their weapons to (which is every thug and terrorist with a pocketbook), it's whether or not they have the capability to use them for themselves. Yes, they're real good at machine gunning groups of unarmed protestors, but militaries tend to fight back...
Re:How many frenchmen does it take to defend paris (Score:5, Funny)
Why do the French plant trees beside the road?
So the Germans can march in the shade.
--
BMO
karma to burn baaaybe, karma to burn...
Re:This is easily winnable for the USA (Score:5, Funny)
the American infantry will drop into Normandy, make a big mess of the coast and head for Berlin at high speed; reaching the operational "goal" in less than 24 hours as they can just take the train instead of grunting it out by foot.
The French will barely notice ; but the Germans will wonder why Checkpoint Charlie was rebuild overnight.Berlin disco's will put on a "retro" 40's theme.
The European Union will then spend the next six months debating who will pay for the environmental damage done to the French coast and whether or not the shrimp industry qualifies for subsidies.
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Re:This is easily winnable for the USA (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. You really think half of the Ospreys won't crash?
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Wow. You really think half of the Ospreys won't crash?
Re:This is easily winnable for the USA (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:5, Interesting)
At least I could seek comfort in the knowledge that the US, in all its world-dominating glory, wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for my country. (plus, can you really expect France to take care of the Germans every time?)
BTW, if your country was invaded, you would be cowering behind those "jingoist jerks", you hypocrite.
Somehow I reeally doubt it, for some crazy reason the "jingoist jerks" are never the first ones to line up to grab a rifle and defend the country. Go figure.
Point is, constantly bragging about something that other people did 50 years ago gets tiresome pretty quickly (besides, I'm Russian, so let's not get into the whole "Who won WWII" thing
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
HAHAHAHAHA!
The current crop of jingoists are a bunch of cowards who think war is fine and dandy, as long as it's other people doing the dying. Damn near every top pro-war politician and commentator who was of age to serve during Vietnam found some way to stay out of uniform, and their kids aren't in any hurry to sign up for Iraq either. Oh, how "honest and straightforward" of them!
It's this new, smug, "I'm ashamed of my country" kind of American that I cannot stand
When your country does something wrong -- and when your country is a democracy, in which the leaders are theoretically responsible to the people -- it is good and right to be ashamed. Being ashamed isn't enough, of course; you should also do something to change it. Which, in the civilized world, includes bitching loudly and publicly. The idea that we should keep our mouths shut except to parrot platitudes of support for our Glorious Leaders is repulsive.
I'd hate to know how you'd feel if you were French and actually had to live with the knowledge that not only did your country surrender to Germany without a fight
If you really think France surrendered "without a fight" I'd recommend reading some more history. They were beaten, on the battlefield, by an army which could easily have done the same thing to any other country -- yes, including both the US and Australia -- that had the misfortune to be right next door to Germany at the time. And, in fact, did. The Wehrmacht in its heyday was unstoppable, and it took the Allies years (and a whole hell of a lot of lives) to swamp it in a war of attrition.
BTW, if your country was invaded, you would be cowering behind those "jingoist jerks", you hypocrite.
I served for ten years (two years reserve, eight years active duty, including Desert Storm) and I'm pretty sure that even as a fat old guy with a bum leg, I could still step up and defend US soil if I had to. The "rah rah USA" crowd would be screaming, crying, and pissing their pants.
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Weeeeell, if the grand-parent were French I'm sure his ancestors who were among the 90,000 casualties or the 270,000 wounded would be glad to know that they died without a fight. Not to mention those 45,000-some dead or MIA Germans who probably die
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not ashamed of my country having a lot of power. And I'm not ashamed of my country using it- if you have power, you've got a responsibility to use it. With great power comes great responsibility, as Stan Lee said. I say, if a carefully planned, well thought out military intervention is the best option (not that war is ever a great option, but sometimes it is better than not going to war) then, well, bombs away.
What I'm deeply ashamed of is the shitty job we've done in using it. Bullying our allies, running secret prisons, detentions without trial, torturing people to death, losing much of the headway we made in Afghanistan, and making Iraq into a place so terrifyingly bloody that people actually long for the days when it was merely ruled by a psychopathic dictator... the past few years have been shameful. Anyone who could look at what we've done in the past few years and feel any sort of pride is either deeply in denial or a sociopath. I have no problem with America using its power to advance its own interests and improve the world, but we haven't been doing either.
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Your attitude is what brought America into WW2. America did not go gungho into WW2. It took America a LONG time... But when it did, it did with a mission and attitude! That is why people keep saying, "oh in WW2 we did such and such..."
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you talk about ANZUS, our top politicians (Howard and Downer) don't even have a clear idea of what our obligations are towards that treaty. But then, that was probably just Downer being Downer.
I believe when the GP said "bullying allies" he didn't mean bullying every single person in the allied country. You being a single case doesn't count, and you being safely in some backwater country town probably precludes you from facing that anywa
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That's quite inaccurate, Between Japan's fleet being damn near the biggest on Earth, a willingness to sacrifice millions for victory and the Germans crushing nearly everything that opposed them I don't think we did too bad. we destroyed a lot of Japan's fleet in midway and held out quite outnum
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