WTF, NRO offers NASA two surplus spy satellites?

[ichy]

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2116436,00.html?iid=tsmodule

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...or-astronomy/2012/06/04/gJQAsT6UDV_story.html

Part of me thinks this is extremely cool, although whatever genius decided to build two spy satellites for god knows how much money and then left them in a warehouse needs to be flogged. I hope NASA can scrape together the money to put them to good use.

 

[sm625]

When taxpayers foot the bill for a satellite, they are doing it to line certain people's pockets in a long stinking unaccountable chain of payoffs, handouts, and all other forms of corruption. So it really doesnt matter what happens to the satellite. It's all about the money. We should be happy we have gotten a few good pics for the hundreds of billions we have handed out.

 

[ichy]

We've gotten more than "a few good pics" from orbital spy satellites. That still doesn't justify building billions of dollars of surplus hardware.

 

[Leymenaide]

Kinda surprised the N.Y.P.D. is'nt jumping at one of these.

 

[Paratus]

Most likely what happens was the NRO was tasked with providing a certain amount of coverage and up time on those satellites and their original estimated failure rate required them to have spares available to launch.

If their orbiting satellites failed less often than they assumed they probably never needed these two spare satellites.

 

[ichy]

Here's something that's good for a chuckle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KH-11Block3assembly.png

That's one of the photos of the satellites that the NRO released.

 

[chucky2]

Why wouldn't we have spare spy sats? I'm sure they don't take 24 hours to build. If we get into a war with someone that can take down our sats, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a spare or two around for when they do and we need one or two back up? I'd view this as a 'cost of doing business', not necessairly waste.

 

[zephyrprime]

Part of me thinks this is extremely cool, although whatever genius decided to build two spy satellites for god knows how much money and then left them in a warehouse needs to be flogged. I hope NASA can scrape together the money to put them to good use.

I think it's not just due to some idiot mistake that they have these. I read the article and in it, the NRO official refuses to say anything about why they even have the satellite. My guess is this. They have two of these suckers, not one, but two. Each is as big as hubble but shorter. I doubt that it was just idiocy that produced these. The most likely scenario I see is that they actually already have A LOT of these satellites already in service - at least 5-10 others. Having two extras hints that there are even more that were actually made and used. Hubble is an old design (20+ years) and it's just become so obsolete now (even the real Hubble was slated for decommissioning) that the national security agencies decided it was no longer a threat to give away these extra satellites they have.

The other possibility I see that that they were in the process of making these but then usage of drones skyrocketed in the last few years and they just don't need as many space based spy satellites anymore. Drones can take better pictures since they are closer to the target and there are so many drones how.

 

[zephyrprime]

If their orbiting satellites failed less often than they assumed they probably never needed these two spare satellites.

Or these 20 year old hubble based designs might have been replaced with newer spy satellites by now.

 

[ichy]

I doubt that it was just idiocy that produced these.

While I'm sure it's more complicated than just accidentally buying a few too many satellites, read up on the catastrophic FIA (Future Imaging Architecture) program if you want a great example of the NRO's capacity for idiocy.

 

[feralkid]

Kinda surprised the N.Y.P.D. is'nt jumping at one of these.

Or Sheriff Joe.

 

[gevorg]

Free? CNN is a joke. Hubble is already outdated and I hope that NASA will make major upgrades to those "reserve" telescopes before launching them (if its even worth it). If the money wouldn't been wasted this badly, NASA could have built the James Webb telescope sooner.

 

[ichy]

Free? CNN is a joke. Hubble is already outdated and I hope that NASA will make major upgrades to those "reserve" telescopes before launching them (if its even worth it).

Realistically it sounds like neither of those two satellites is going to get launched. NASA just gutted its planetary science program, it's not like they have a few hundred million dollars laying around.

From how they've been described the telescopes aren't outdated but NASA would still need to provide the actual cameras plus the money for launching (they'd probably need one of the larger versions of the Atlas V or a Delta IV Heavy) and operations. I don't know if they could recycle camera designs from the newest instruments on Hubble. This whole thing is a nice idea but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Genx87]

Kinda surprised the N.Y.P.D. is'nt jumping at one of these.

They are trying to figure out how to make it hover 10 feet off the ground and see into peoples homes making sure they arent consuming bigger than 16 oz soda drinks.

 

[werepossum]

They are trying to figure out how to make it hover 10 feet off the ground and see into peoples homes making sure they arent consuming bigger than 16 oz soda drinks.

+1

 

[PottedMeat]

Free? CNN is a joke. Hubble is already outdated and I hope that NASA will make major upgrades to those "reserve" telescopes before launching them (if its even worth it). If the money wouldn't been wasted this badly, NASA could have built the James Webb telescope sooner.

sell the spy scope chassis to russia out of spite :twisted:, use the cash to send up the webb telescope, which is practically finished.

 

[gevorg]

sell the spy scope chassis to russia out of spite :twisted:, use the cash to send up the webb telescope, which is practically finished.

Russia have their own space telescopes, latest Radioastron and upcoming WSO-UV

although NASA can probably use Russia to send one of these Hubbles on the cheap, for like $50 mil a pop

they can also sell them to China/Japan

or place them in US museums for a low annual fee of $1 million, its free money :whiste:

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I suspect that the NRO has assets far more advanced than the Webb.

Seems like a shame not to take advantage of these sats. For a fraction of new they can upgrade the components and get some serious observing done. Something which seems to be missed is that having one sat no matter how cutting edge is still one sat. The number of objects worthy of observation is always greater than that which can be studied. Put a chronograph on one of these and we have something the likes of which does not exist in scientific research, again for a fraction of the cost of building another. NASA may be gutted, but perhaps a private coalition can chip in to get 'er done.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Oh, I realized these must be sitting at a Kodak facility near me.