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It was only a matter of time: the amateur detectives think they have found the satellite that took a high resolution image of the aftermath of a disaster caused by an Iranian missile.
President Donald Trump tweeted on the photo on August 30, writing: "The United States of America was not involved in the catastrophic accident in the preparations for the final launch of Safir SLV launch at Semnan Launch Site One in Iran, and I wish Iran all the best. good luck in determining what happened on Site One. " Intelligence experts immediately noticed the high resolution of the photo and ranked as probably ranked – ranked, that is to say until the president declassifies it with his tweet. Many experts told news agencies that they feared that the declassified photo could reveal unknown information about US drones or satellite surveillance.
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Apparently, they were right. The amateur satellite trackers reversed the image and found that it probably came from the highly ranked USA 224 satellite. USA 224 is suspected to be a KH-11 surveillance satellite, classified equipment on which the public is scarcely informed.
"It's a very large telescope, much like the Hubble Space Telescope," followed the Marco Langbroek satellite-range finder, from the Netherlands says MPR News. "But instead of looking at the stars, he looks at the surface of the Earth and produces very detailed images."
Even classified satellites are easy to spot, said Michael Thompson, a graduate student at Purdue University, who tracks satellites in his spare time. Thompson told MPR News that once a satellite is spotted, calculating its position on its orbit at a given moment takes only a few simple calculations.
According to the online network of trackers, the shadows in the images that Trump tweeted allowed the detectives to determine what time the photo was taken. Langbroek was also able to calculate the viewing angle by looking at the obliquity of the circular launch pad. From there, he and his co-followers linked the photo to the nearest satellite at the time, USA 224.
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The United States of America has not been involved in the catastrophic accident that occurred during the preparations for the final launch of the Safir SLV launch at Semnan's launch site number 1 in Iran. I wish Iran all the best and good luck for what happened to Site One. pic.twitter.com/z0iDj2L0Y3August 30, 2019
This revelation is surprising, as many experts felt that crystal-clear images in the launchpad photo were to come from a drone. Getting such a clear view of the Earth's atmosphere is a challenge, "said Melissa Hanham, an expert in satellite imagery and Deputy Director of the Vienna-based Nuclear Network at MPR News.
"I imagine that the adversaries will look at this image and proceed with reverse engineering to understand the operation of the sensor itself and the type of post-production techniques that they use," Hanham said.
In a blog post, Langbroek detailed the analysis that led to the identification of the satellite. He also questioned the choice of the president to tweet the images. "KH-11 satellites are classified, as are satellite images, and if an adversary gets hold of KH-11 images, they provide information about the optical capabilities of these space assets," Langbroek wrote. "In 1984, a Navy intelligence analyst was sent to prison for disclosing three KH-11 images to the press."
Originally published on Science live.
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