How Americans seek to spy on distant satellites

On August 30, 2017, a video broadcast online showed images of each satellite operator's worst nightmare: an anomaly. This is the type of word space used when they mean a bad thing, especially they may not understand and may want to minimize their appearance.

In the video, an orb – a satellite known as Telkom-1 – hovers in the center of the image as stars spin to the screen in the background. It shines softly over the seconds. Then, apparently without warning, the satellite spits a cloud of debris. It ignites, then a slower plume of pieces comes off and lazily floats.

"When this point of light begins to light left, right and down, it's clear that it was an event," says Gerard van Belle, astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, who uses a another euphemism favorite of aerospace. "There are a lot of questions."

In theory, there is a way to answer these questions for future events and anomalies, although it is too late for Telkom-1 (RIP). You simply need an instrument called optical interferometer: a set of smaller telescopes that together can produce detailed portraits of sun satellites in geosynchronous orbit, more than 30,000 km from the surface of the Earth. The telescopes act as a single instrument and could, hypothetically, give the blurred spot of the Telkom-1 video the appearance of a real satellite, rather than a sphere.

This is a difficult problem. Many satellites are in low earth orbit and Earth-bound instruments can monitor them closely. But geosynchronous orbits can be more than 20 times farther apart, giving the material a much smaller and much darker appearance.

You have to force staves small enough to work together, and you can take a detailed picture of a geosynchronous satellite, which is a little like being able to read the "Sunkist" label on a New York orange since a place located in Arizona, or be able to distinguish someone's face on the moon. For example, you could separate the solar panel arms of a satellite from his torso. Satellite owners can diagnose old broken satellites or understand why new satellites have not deployed correctly.

These capabilities are of interest to space societies, of course. But they are also of interest to military and intelligence circles, who might want to keep an eye on the orbital actions of other countries, especially now that the Pentagon is in the state of the idea that space is a " disputed area ".

Ghosts and spies are not wrong: we live in a time of anti-satellite tests, satellites that can track other satellites, directed energy weapons, cyber interference. Meanwhile, people and societies are increasingly dependent on a stable, simple infrastructure.

Until now, however, no interferometer of this type is operational. And the existing versions are all more expensive than IARPA would have liked, Intelligence's advanced research project activity. That's why, in 2017, he launched a program called Amon-Hen. Amon-Hen aims to develop on the ground "innovative and inexpensive" telescopes capable of taking high definition images (ish) of satellites in distant orbits.

If you are a nerd, remember that Amon-Hen is the name of a particular hill in the universe of J. R. R. Tolkien. On this summit, the elders built the seat of vision. Sit aboard the seat of Seeing – a chair with special powers – and you'll see what's happening far, far away.

IARPA declined to comment on the program, and the companies that are part of it – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Honeywell and Applied Technology Associates, according to SpaceNews-Shall refuse to interview or not respond to requests for comment. Nevertheless, you do not need a consultation seat to determine what IARPA wants, some of which is public information. The agency – the Darpa version by the intelligence community – wants interferometers of less than $ 25 million, which can collect data on a given satellite in an hour or less, and convert all snapshots of an evening in Insta-ready images before the next night. . IARPA estimates that the R & D program will last about 33 months, at the end of which a team could have the opportunity to set up a complete system.