Giant Chinese Desert Mystery Structure Solved

Velcroman1 writes "Slashdotters read Monday about strange symbols in the Gobi Desert recently imaged and indexed by Google Maps. Alien landing zones? Some military thingy? Bizarre art project? Nope. The grids of zigzagging white lines seen in two of the images — the strangest of the various desert structures — are spy satellite calibration targets, according to one NASA scientist."

Comments

spy satellite calibration targets

[ackthpt]

So... they correspond to something on the ground they want to match, I betcha. They may have added a few lines to mask their intent, but the drawings to the west look like airfieds and I imagine the two which look like random stuff in a rectangle do match some city roads, somewhere.

Re:spy satellite calibration targets

[MozeeToby]

They're just using it as a controlled environment to test out some new radar based spy satellites and possibly to test countermeasures against similar satellites orbited by other nations. The quasi-random grid layouts are the most visually striking, but I think the fighter jet surrounded by carefully positioned radar reflectors is more interesting. In theory you could mess up the image enough to camouflage your planes from satellite based radar. I could imagine the same being true for some of the qausi-grid layouts as well, they could be testing for multi-path effects or any number of other things.

Re:spy satellite calibration targets

[hairyfeet]

Nope just use Google images to check out the AZ desert and White sands in NV and you'll see similar targets like bullseyes and zig zag and all kinds of other targets. It is simply a cheap and easy way to calibrate a spy sat since all you need is a piece of desert and some white paint. IIRC there are also some bombers and fighters left in the middle of the desert in NV near an abandoned runway that is used for practicing taking shots of aircraft on the ground, its easy practice since its always in the same place and same position so it is easy to compare.

If anything to me the interesting part is how much more poor the resolution on the Chinese sats are to the Americans since the Chinese targets are fricking huge and the bullseyes they have in AZ go down to some pretty tiny center targets. I'm sure in another decade though they'll have it tight enough they'll be able to read the license on a car, they'll just need a GUI in VB like the CSI guys.

Painted roads and buildings

[BitZtream]

The 'structures' are lines painted on the ground used for target practice.

Its a documented bomb range with an airport and a simulated airport to bomb as well.

If you bother to zoom out on Google Maps you can figure it out fairly quickly, oh and a few Google searchs will reveal that we've known this for years.

Re:Why Needed?

[X0563511]

Because you have corps that build things that need exorcise too? Might as well have one big project with multiple uses.

Logistics guys get practice... logisticing?
Engineer guys get practice building.
Sat guys get free calibration and practice doing their stuff.
Bombardiers and other munitions guys get practice shooting at it.
Intel guys get practice doing damage assessments.
R&D probably gets a chance to test a bunch of stuff, too.

The list goes on. The question is "why not?"

Re:Bombs..

[Jarik C-Bol]

you never repurposed anything? Perhaps the area once was a bomb range (cold war era perhaps) and they have repurposed these vast tracts of government owned land into satellite calibration areas. Hell, look at this:
http://g.co/maps/39mhb
That is near where i live. On google earth it looks like an air base mockup. from the ground, you can't even see the thing. That *was* an air base about 50 years ago. Now its a few foundations and a crumbling runway. Things look a lot different from above.