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Cut and paste, cut and paste, but kinda interesting.


Swords Into Plowshares: Can U.S. Spy Satellites Be Turned To Science?
By James Carter
Community Contributor
And William Brooks
Contributing Editor
posted: 09:45 am ET
06 March 2002



The U.S. intelligence agencies' fleet of spy satellites with exotic code names such as CRYSTAL, MAGNUM and TRUMPET are the most powerful and expensive satellites ever put into orbit. Their intelligence-gathering capabilities enable them to monitor everything from missile launches and troop movements to mobile phone calls and walkie-talkie transmissions.

But could these spacecraft be turned around to peer out into space to collect deep space images similar to those of Hubble Space Telescope?

There's a very real chance they could. While it's highly unlikely, the technology exists to enable the CIA, National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to do just that.

Looking Through the KEYHOLES

The CIA's KH-11 KEYHOLE reconnaissance satellite (codenamed CRYSTAL), has been at the forefront of space-based photography ever since the first KH-11 was orbited on December 19, 1976. Similar in size to the Hubble Space Telescope, the KH-11's measure approximately 64 feet long, 10 feet in diameter and weigh in at around 30,000 pounds.

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Featuring the latest in charged-coupled device (CCD) imaging technology, the original KH-11's had a primary mirror 7 feet 8 inches (2.33 meter) wide, although more recent models feature larger mirrors. The secondary mirror, more than one foot in diameter, sharply focuses the light coming off the primary mirror to produce images with a resolution of 10 centimeters (3.93 inches).

The latest KEYHOLE's reportedly feature a resolution of just 3 centimeters. Putting it simply, if you were to place a matchbox in the middle of a suburban street a KH-11 would be able to photograph it.

Keeping an Ear to the Ground

Ever since the 1970's, the NSA has also operated constellations of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) satellites in a variety of orbits. The Signals Intelligence satellites orbit the earth picking up all manner of radar, cellular telephone, missile telemetry, microwave and ground radio emissions. These satellites feature massive antennas that sources say are between 100 and 200 meters in diameter with a surface area of close to 10,000 square meters.

The first-generation RHYOLITE satellites featured antennas of around 10-20 meters in diameter. These were soon followed by the VORTEX series with antennas 40-50 meters in diameter. The most recent constellation is the MAGNUM series orbited in 1985, 1989 and 1990. Their 100-meter in diameter antennas make extremely low-power emissions from earth even easier to receive. With the giant 150-to-200 meter in diameter Trumpet series currently under development, there'll be no limit to what the NSA is capable of receiving.

Former CIA Expert: It Can Be Done

According to an anonymous former CIA reconnaissance-satellite expert the KH-11 could easily be used for observing the moon or perhaps near-earth orbit asteroids.

"The focal ratio is fixed, so the 10 centimeter resolution it gets from 500 kilometers in space would have to be scaled to the distance of the observed object," he observed.

Given that the moon is around 400,000 kilometers (248,548 miles) away from the satellite, a quick calculation equates to a resolution of 80 meters on the moon.

"Basically the KH-11 is a diffraction-limited telescope of around 2.5 meters aperture. It's limited in looking at objects of low surface brightness, because it was designed to look at the sunlit surface of the earth. Tweaks to the pointing mechanism might get longer exposures, but there's a limit," the former CIA expert observed.

But given that the moon is almost constantly bathed in sunlight, especially during a full moon, surface brightness shouldn't be an issue.

Some Mixed Signals on SIGINTs

And what about the SIGINT satellites? Could they in fact be used for radio astronomy?

The answer is yes. Space based radio astronomy is nothing new. The Japanese Space Agency launched their HALCA radio astronomical satellite in February 1997. Working in conjunction with ground based telescopes, HALCA has produced some remarkable images of quasars in the 1.6GHz to 5GHz frequency range -- well within the capabilities of the SIGINT satellites.

NASA too is looking to produce their own space-based radio telescope scheduled for launch in 2008. ARISE (The Advanced Radio Interferometry between Space and Earth) will make the best use of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), to achieve high-resolution images of various astronomical phenomena.

"The U.S.'s very large signals intelligence satellites in geosynchronous orbit would seem to be very well suited as radio telescopes in the 100 MHz to a few GHz range," the former CIA analyst noted, "particularly if they were used in conjunction with ground-based instruments as parts of an interferometer."

But before getting too excited, the technical limitations such as pointing accuracy and receiver capabilities (known only to a handful of personnel at the NSA), is cause for some caution.

"It is an interesting idea. I imagine that the limitation on the SIGINT satellites would be the receiver sensitivity, said Dr. Lewis Ball, the Deputy Officer in Charge of Australia's Parkes Radio Telescope.

"Mind you, I find the suggestion of 100-meter antennas in space pretty amazing," Ball said. "That's as big as the largest steerable telescope on Earth." Without knowing precise intelligence satellite specifications (something the general public is never going to have access to), we can only speculate on their potential.

Penny-Wise, But Sounds Foolish...

With the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) forecast to cost somewhere in the order of $1.3 to $2 billion and other programs such as ARISE expected to cost $350 million, could not some of the billions of dollars worth of hardware already in orbit be utilized?

Convincing the NSA that you'd like to borrow their multi-billion dollar intelligence satellite that's currently carrying out duties in Afghanistan to study say, the coronae of active star systems.

Of course there's the added dilemma of whether the agencies concerned would sacrifice valuable resources in the name of science. Their satellites are tasked for around-the-clock intelligence gathering, so finding windows of opportunity will be difficult. Given the current situation in places such as Afghanistan, the satellites will be working overtime for the foreseeable future. And since intelligence satellites have a fixed life, the agencies probably wouldn't allow precious fuel to be used up re-orientating their spacecraft for cosmic observations.

The idea of intelligence agencies becoming involved in star-gazing probably won't fly for now. But given some of the dubious operations they have been involved with in the past, there's some hope if political conditions can catch up to the technical achievements and scientific aspirations.

James Carter is an Australia-based writer.