Analysis of the Nahid-1/Safir launch failure satellite image
github.com
github.com
For more context: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
I don't know much about telescopes, but some googling seemed to reveal earth based telescopes with similar resolutions. Hence, it seems within the range of possibility.
[1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20cm+%2F+382+km+radian...
Edit. 224 is supposed to be a variation of this guy [1], which has a 2.4 metre mirror (which should be more like 7cm on the ground).
orbital altitude of 250 km corresponds to a ground sample distance of 0.06 m (6 cm, 2.4 inches). Operational resolution should be worse due to effects of the atmospheric turbulence.[34] Astronomer Clifford Stoll estimates that such a telescope could resolve up to "a couple inches. Not quite good enough to recognize a face"
*there are tricks to get super-resolution, but ignore that stuff.
I think the answer is obvious now.
I want to add that usa-224 flies at a remarkably high altitude for a spy sat, and certainly higher than previous gen sats with perigees below 250km
Edit: Argh, it's in the article..."The product of national empowerment". Interested though, if that's accurate or has alternate interpretations. Seems intended to be read by spy satellites...
That seems like a stretch. If it was meant for spy satellites wouldn't it be in English and have a message that's a little less generic?
That’s impressive.
Under promise, over deliver.
So, it seems possible that the military bureaucracy doesn't do a very good job of supervising the work done by armaments manufacturers, while the spy-satellite bureaucracy does an admirable job. I'm surprised!
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/cxmfjd/president_...
tldr; potentially 15-20cm resolution taken on this angle. And if it's the KH-11 (or later advanced kennen/kh-12), it is the first image since 1984 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Janeskh1...)
Surely the answer can't be that no one ever considered a sitting President would expose classified intelligence just to shitpost on Iran?
Just curious, how do you know this was tweeted from a SCIF?
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/31/...
Lots of people saying this was not a good move by the USA to publish this image. But why? Yes, it's a fascinating image. But these high resolution capabilities are pretty well known and expected...
I do think people are exaggerating how bad this leak is to make it worse that Trump leaked it.
And really, we should not be blowing Trump mistakes up. Because when he really does do something horrible, we need the other side with us. If we keep blowing things out of proportion, the other side will just be pushed into immediately dismissing us every time.
It reveals that we were monitoring the launch, either by violating Iranian airspace with a drone, or with a satellite whose optical capabilities appear to be worthy of discussion.
It also reveals the likely position and identity of that satellite, which reveals likely other candidates for American spy satellites.
>I do think people are exaggerating how bad this leak is to make it worse that Trump leaked it.
The fact that he tweeted slides from a classified intelligence briefing is already very bad. The fact that his justification amounts to "I had the right to, so I did" is very bad. It shouldn't even matter whether the material leaked is "revealing." Do you think Trump actually cares?
FFS, people wanted Hillary Clinton sent to the electric chair for treason for far less.
>If we keep blowing things out of proportion, the other side will just be pushed into immediately dismissing us every time.
The other side is composed of people like yourself willing to dismiss any degree of outrage or anger at Trump as simply "jumping on the bandwagon of 'trump bad'." They already immediately dismiss us every time.
But... and I say this irrespective politics... Trump is bad.
That's not liberal or Democratic sour grapes, or panic from the deep state or leftist media establishment desperate to stop Trump from disrupting the status quo, that's not jumping on a bandwagon because he's politically incorrect and the country is full of SJWs clutching their pearls at the sight of a man who tells it like it is. It's literal, documented, established, objective truth at this point. Donald Trump is not a good person. He's not a good Republican. He's not a good Conservative. He's not a good President.
Even if you support his populist agenda, wear a MAGA hat with pride, and would bring your own hammer to build the damned wall yourself if you could, it should be obvious at this point that continuing to support Trump is a fool's errand. Anyone still drinking the Trump Kool-Aid has clearly gotten to the poison and it's eaten their brains away.
Firstly, I'd like to emphasize the following. I want trump out of the presidents office. My point here is not that trump isn't that bad. My point here is that we should try to avoid the "We've got him" moments. Moreover, we really should avoid playing up issues to make those moments more effective.
If we are going to get rid of trump, we will need to affect people on the other side. As such, lets assume the other side is open to reason. We want to make the argument as effective on them as possible. Bombarding them with many stories, some of which don't quite hold up when, does not help us convince them.
Such performances might help us feel better, it might make us feel like we are helping by exposing how bad trump is. But that is essentially preaching to the quire. We need a focus on things that are actually immensely bad, and not politically disputed. 'Grab em by the pussy', setting up concentration camps for foreigners, that kind of stuff.
> Even if you support his populist agenda, wear a MAGA hat with pride, and would bring your own hammer to build the damned wall yourself if you could, it should be obvious at this point that continuing to support Trump is a fool's errand.
Lets make it easier for these people. People don't easily change their views when challenged by facts. If there are mitigating circumstances, they grab on to them. So we need to point out things without any mitigating circumstances. Things like I mentioned above. Besides that, we should keep up on the bad stuff, rather than moving on when a few days of the bad stuff doesn't seem to change any minds. Then again, staying with old stuff isn't "news".
Welp... now the world knows the satellite's capabilities and that said satellite was probably USA-244[0].
This is just a picture of the ground. I would be very surprised if the image by itself were classified. It may have been part of a classified intelligence package, but by itself this image does not seem sensitive.
That's a rather peculiar interpretation that begs new questions, given that it was an image that was shown to POTUS in a briefing. Why would his briefings use the cleared/redacted imagery and/or information? Is the IC redacting information from presidential briefings? And if so, why such a remarkable change? It's not as if the briefers expected Trump to be the one to actually publish the image; you'd hand the redacted materials off to the communications team(s) to publish as part of whatever messaging strategy was decided on.
> Lots of people saying this was not a good move by the USA to publish this image. But why? Yes, it's a fascinating image. But these high resolution capabilities are pretty well known and expected...
There are a couple of alarming concerns. First, it's confirmation of imaging capabilities, the satellite that was used to capture it, and can be used to extrapolate a lot of information about its tasking. Analysts can pull a lot of unexpected insights from something like this. Even when some of those insights (or at least the top-level ones) are "well known and expected," confirmation of those expectations is something altogether different and can have far-reaching implications. It lets them go back through previous information, sources, etc. and revise previous conclusions in light of that confirmation. What might confirmation of this satellite's capabilities and purpose mean about other satellites, based on other information foreign intelligence services already have? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a great deal. We don't know, because we don't know what information they already have.
Second, what does this say about the current president and his handling of intelligence data? This isn't the first time Trump has apparently mishandled classified information and then defended himself by saying he has an "absolute right" to declassify information however he wants to. It's--arguably--the fourth known instance[0]. If you're an allied intelligence service, that's kind of terrifying and could have a chilling effect on cooperation. We also now know he's got one of his regular phones[1] with him during at least some of his briefings, and that he managed to take a photo during at least one of them. Plus, if staffers are routinely redacting information they show to Trump--if that's what this image is--that sends yet another very scary message about trustworthiness.
Politics aside, there are a lot of reasons why this is alarming to people.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_disclosures_o...
1. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/21/trump-phone-securi...