A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night

Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by arkh on Thursday December 17, 2020 @10:22AM (#25456332)

> Another innovation, he says, is the resolution at which Capella’s satellites can collect imagery. Each pixel in one of the satellite’s images represents a 50-centimeter-by-50-centimeter square, while other SAR satellites on the market can only get down to around five meters. When it comes to actually discerning what you’re looking at from space, that makes a huge difference.

If that's what is available to civilians, I'd like to see what 2020 spy satellites can do.

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Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by capekwasright on Thursday December 17, 2020 @10:28AM (#25456399)

This is likely the best recent example (from last year):

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29634/trump-tweets-int...

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Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by SoapSeller on Thursday December 17, 2020 @10:35AM (#25456467)

It doesn't looks like SAR to me(there are shadows, for example).

More like standard optical image(the resolution and details are amazing, if it's a satellite, which is doubtful given the angle).

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Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by sq_ on Thursday December 17, 2020 @10:50AM (#25456614)

IIRC, the conclusion at the time was that that particular image was taken by an NRO KH-11 satellite - roughly equivalent to a Hubble Space Telescope pointed at earth and definitely not SAR.

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Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by Someone1234 on Thursday December 17, 2020 @11:17AM (#25456931)

Supposedly this was taken by a KH-11 Block 4 (USA-224) which means this is cutting edge as of 2005. We're currently on Block 5 as of 2018.

The biggest secrets within US Reconnaissance Satellites isn't really optical clarity anymore, it is their capabilities in other spectrums (and have supported at least infrared for 30+ years, but with signals intelligence well beyond that since).

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Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by capekwasright on Thursday December 17, 2020 @12:48PM (#25458030)

Correct; optical, not SAR. Should have made that clear in my original post.

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Re:A New Satellite Can Peer Inside Buildings, Day or Night by jjoonathan on Thursday December 17, 2020 @10:48AM (#25456599)

100GHz is really popular with DoD. I wonder what those SAR images look like.

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