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Giant Chinese Desert Mystery Structure Solved

Posted by samzenpus on from the that-settles-that dept.

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."

43 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. spy satellite calibration targets by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by CmdrPony · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, they don't match any other places. They're just for calibration. US has similar ones in Arizona.

    2. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by n5vb · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, they don't match any other places. They're just for calibration. US has similar ones in Arizona.

      And Texas. (Although that one was a NASA photogrammetry calibration target, I think..)

    3. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Luecke is used for calibration, but it was not originally intended for that.
      IIRC it was done due to a land dispute with the state.

    5. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Informative

      So... they correspond to something on the ground they want to match, I betcha.

      I betcha not. I betcha they send the satellite up with an image of what to look for on the ground and where to find it, the satellite heads above it, and then orients itself until the view on the ground matches the image. The purpose is for the satellite to calibrate its own position and orientation in space. Once that's done then they can just tell the damn thing where to go to look at whatever the hell they want to look at.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    6. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      An old friend of mine told a story of developing fake fighter jets for the Airforce. Lightweight, easily deployed, looks like a plane from 1000 feet or farther away, and must withstand winds of up to 50 knots "from any direction." Thought being, three guys in a truck could drive to an existing airfield and "deploy" a squadron of jets there in a matter of an hour or less.

      The fun part came with the review by the brass... "Very impressive solution with the lightweight canvas and all, but what about the wind requirement?" "Yes, sir, General, these decoys have been tested to withstand 60 knot gusts and 50 knot continuous winds for over an hour from all sides." General looks like he's found a gotcha and says: "But what about from a 50 knot wind from underneath? The requirements say "from any direction."?"

    7. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Informative

      Inflatable tanks were used in WW II. Of course, they also camouflage to hide their real tanks.

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    8. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

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    9. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      The actual resolution of a spy satellite is classified. The use of smaller and smaller targets gives away the resolution of the satellite you're using it with. The fact that the targets have been getting smaller and smaller (and it's measurable) just means that they can ballpark the resolution easier.

      The Chinese "huge targets" doesn't reveal a thing about the quality of their optics. It could be (as assumed) extremely bad. Or it could be extremely good and they're now focusing on parts of the design. Hell, the other test targets around the world are known - the Chinese could simply be targeting using those targets as well, and using these to throw everyone off.

      Part of the role of a good spy is providing disinformation, after all.

    10. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by rioki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Makes complete sense to me. You want a pattern that exists nowhere else on earth, so when your satellite sees the pattern it knows exactly where it is. Then you give it a different pattern, say for example the pattern a ICBM missile silo looks like from space and the satellite will tell you where they are all located.

    11. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by Serpents · · Score: 2

      I remember reading somewhere that after the war the Soviet military even fitted such decoys with hot air fans so that they would have IR signatures similar to real tanks.

    12. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by jmac_the_man · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      Confirmation bias. The targets you see are only the ones big enough to be seen clearly on Google Maps. If we (or the Chinese or the Russains or whoever) had a spy satellite that could read the year off a quarter, the quarter would just be placed in the correct place and they'd take pictures of it. The fact that you can't see the quarter on Google Maps because GOOGLE doesn't have that kind of resolution doesn't mean nobody does.

    13. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Because people come and go, planes fly overhead, clouds roll in, too many constant changes for it to make a good target. if you look at both the USA and the Chinese targets they are built in areas with almost zero clouds or rain, so that nothing ever changes. its always there, its always the exact same shape, size, color, etc.

      Its like that test pattern they used to show at sign off, by giving you the exact same pattern every single time they made it easy for the techs to spot problems with just a glance, whereas with a changing target closer scrutiny would be required.

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    14. Re:spy satellite calibration targets by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 2

      If you successfully send up a spy satellite, you know exactly where your satellite is - it is where you put it, and it is pointing where you asked it to point. Otherwise you didn't successfully send up a spy satellite.

      I'm not sure I follow how your post follows as a counter-argument to what amicusNYC said:

      the purpose is for the satellite to calibrate its own position and orientation in space.

      Yeah, obviously the launcher will know where the bloody satellite is. But that has nothing to do with calibration of the artifact itself. The bloody think still needs to calibrate itself (orientation, lensing, etc.) independently of the launcher's knowledge of its position. In fact, the satellite needs to calibrate itself to confirm his position and trajectory down to base. Then you know the thing is working as intended. Then you know - as you said it - where exactly the satellite is. People do several forms of deployment confirmation (to see that shit is working as expected, where they should be) for simple CRUD web apps. One would imagine aerospace agencies would do at least that much with expensive shit flung into space, me thinks.

  2. Bombs.. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Doesn't explain why some of the structures have heavy bomb damage.

    Assuming no foreign power has been bombing China- I can't fathom why China would bomb their own calibration units.

    (unless it was to test what would happen- before an enemy did it to them)

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:Bombs.. by kvvbassboy · · Score: 2

      Assuming their long term plan is autonomous aircraft fighters (as is with other military superpowers), they wouldn't want entire fleets to fail because their calibration site was sabotaged or damaged.

    2. Re:Bombs.. by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, they drop bombs there.

      Its a bombing range. Used to practice bomb drops by the Chinese military.

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    3. Re:Bombs.. by demonbug · · Score: 4, Funny

      Doesn't explain why some of the structures have heavy bomb damage.

      Assuming no foreign power has been bombing China- I can't fathom why China would bomb their own calibration units.

      (unless it was to test what would happen- before an enemy did it to them)

      Could just be for training in photo/radar interpretation for damage assessment, etc. Seems reasonable to set up a few "known" scenarios so you can train the people (or software) that will be dealing with the actual intelligence product. Probably helpful to see the results of a few known explosions when you are trying to determine how big a bomb France dropped on Libya that one time (actually, France didn't drop any ordnance on Libya; they merely surrendered it from altitude).

    4. Re:Bombs.. by icebike · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Doesn't explain why some of the structures have heavy bomb damage.

      Assuming no foreign power has been bombing China- I can't fathom why China would bomb their own calibration units.

      (unless it was to test what would happen- before an enemy did it to them)

      Its pretty clear this is a heavily bombed area, the whole vicinity is riddled with bomb craters. Just a few clicks away from the strange lines is a
      runway mock-up, with a shadow mock-up offset from it. Exploring this area you can zoom in on this target ad see what appears to b missile booster stages laying around, generally facing east-to-west. They can't be tanker trucks, because they are narrower than the nearby dirt road tracks.

      Zooming out from that link shows the two mock airfields.

      I'm sure all the major intelligence agencies of the world have very much better photos than these.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    5. Re:Bombs.. by anubi · · Score: 2

      Yes. I am convinced this is a bomb target for calibration of "smart bombs".

      Basically, you would feed images into your bomb, showing it the path it is to follow and exactly where it is to end up.

      In the event of a war, you really cannot expect your enemy to continue to broadcast GPS and homing information for you.

      I would suspect all "space-based" assistance would be quickly rendered useless by a few tons of pea-gravel launched into an elliptical polar orbit.

      I could see where smart bomb guidance systems could be a by-product of the 3D video gaming industry. Since they have the foundries and production factories in China, this may pose quite a problem for countries who have exported and laid off their technical talent.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

    6. Re:Bombs.. by marcosdumay · · Score: 2

      Then you'd see a city sized crater, not an exploded buiding.

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    7. Re:Bombs.. by Martin+Blank · · Score: 3, Interesting

      GPS is now so heavily used by so many segments of the civilian world that no nation can afford its loss unless it was about to be annihilated. The more precise signals can be re-encrypted, as they were for a long time, but the basic signal is too ingrained for the US to completely shut down GPS (or remove all access to it).

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    8. Re:Bombs.. by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
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    9. Re:Bombs.. by Patch86 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A big chunk of the US war machine is GPS driven, and if you have a capability to operate without GPS and still hit your targets then you have an advantage.

      That's a big "if". Much of the US military uses GPS, but is capable of falling back to more traditional methods. The Chinese military is likely to be just as reliant on GPS, and just as able to utilise fall backs.

      The advantage of destroying GPS would probably be relatively minimal, but the disruption it'd cause to civilian operation (including in China) would be huge.

  3. Why Needed? by wisnoskij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And why would these be needed. There are already many structures easily visible form space and static, so why not just use one of those?

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    1. Re:Why Needed? by Hatta · · Score: 2

      Ancient Chinese espionage secret.

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    2. Re:Why Needed? by dido · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, from reading the article, I gather that it's because they might have needed something bigger because the resolution on their spy satellites is not that good. FTFA: "The calibration targets are larger than might have been expected, he said, suggesting that the satellite cameras they are being used to calibrate have surprisingly poor ground resolution."

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    3. Re:Why Needed? by demonbug · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And why would these be needed. There are already many structures easily visible form space and static, so why not just use one of those?

      Lots of reasons for purpose-built ones. You know exact dimensions, they can be made any size/shape/color/material necessary to test the specifics of your imaging system, and they are presumably placed in the desert because there is rarely cloud cover - so good availability. Trying to use various existing objects/places presents all sorts of additional variables that they may wish to avoid.

    4. Re:Why Needed? by dido · · Score: 3, Informative

      Calibration is one thing, and actually seeing shit is something else. Maybe they just wanted to make calibration easy with a big easy target to calibrate against.

      --
      Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
    5. Re:Why Needed? by TWX · · Score: 3, Funny

      Who wants some Wang?!

      --
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    6. Re:Why Needed? by X0563511 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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?"

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  4. Seriously? by OverlordQ · · Score: 2

    This was my first thought when seeing the pictures. It looks like a giant test pattern used for cameras, given the size, likely satellite photography.

    --
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  5. Painted roads and buildings by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:Painted roads and buildings by TWX · · Score: 2

      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.

      I hope they don't get the two confused! That would make for a whole helluva lot of paperwork...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  6. Indian government, take note by sonamchauhan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Free satellite calibration provided over China

  7. I am not fooled. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats what they want you to think. No one can stop me from imagining the most paranoid delusional scenario. It is a free country and I have the freedom to be fearful of future, gays, the 99% hippies, the mexicans. I will not be pacified, I will not be ameliorated, I will not be persuaded from using words like ameliorated, It is my time, It is my mind, and I'm gonna blow it on the most trivial stuff.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  8. Hmmm is the Godi neutral gray as well? by FlyingGuy · · Score: 2

    Talk about your white balance target!

    --
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  9. They're for people, not satellites... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's my theory about the weird assemblage of lines and angles.

    They are to test the people tasked with interpreting imagery from spy satellites -- not the optics of the satellites themselves.

    Here's how it would work:

    1. The powers-that-be paint lines of varying lengths intersecting at varying angles, and over a non-flat surface (note the evidence of water drainage over some of the lines).

    2. They use their spy satellites to capture imagery of the lines at various distances and elevations.

    3. Their interpreters use these images to reconstruct the lengths/angles of the various lines.

    4. The powers-that-be check the interpreters' reconstructions with what they know was actually painted on ground.

    5. The interpreters learn how to accurately reconstruct measurements from spy satellite imagery, and thereby gain knowledge of what other countries are doing.

    6. Profit! (or something) :-)

  10. Re:I'm not buying it by DrgnDancer · · Score: 2

    You know that's great, but what are you going to do about zombies?

    --
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  11. Crash Landing by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are you sure they are Chinese bombs? Perhaps they are UFO crash landings?

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  12. Well, he might be an expert... by DerekLyons · · Score: 2

    Well, he might be an expert in something regarding Mars, but he knows nothing about camera calibration targets.

    Because this (the array of lines) is what a camera calibration target looks like. The lines let you test for distortion, the spacing between the lines lets you test for resolution. Just like TV test patterns they're carefully designed to present exactly the features you want to test for. They aren't semi random fractal patterns, and they aren't allowed to degrade the way the ones in the Chines desert have.

    The same goes for his "radar test target" - it looks precisely nothing like how aircraft normally appear on flight lines or adjacent to hangars.

  13. More oddities by Bazman · · Score: 2

    So can anyone tell me what the circled numbers 1 to 5 are:

    here

    40ft across, irregularly spaced, close to something the size of a soccer/football field.