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UK Plans Space Based Radar System

Posted by samzenpus on from the pings-in-space dept.

First time accepted submitter peepster84 writes "The UK government is to kick-start an innovative project to fly radar satellites around the Earth, with an initial investment of £21m. NovaSar-S would have a number of viewing modes that could enable it to perform a wide range of roles, from flood monitoring and land cover management to disaster mapping and maritime enforcement — notably ship tracking and oil spill detection."

14 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Space-based anti piracy tracking by Animats · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This may be the answer to the Somalia pirate problem - space-based tracking.

    Now adding a moderately powerful laser, say 10KW or so...

    1. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by peterindistantland · · Score: 2, Funny

      Can they track and destroy software pirates from space?

    2. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      Ignoring the issues of powering such laser, how do you plant to pierce the atmosphere and retain enough of the energy in the beam to do more then make people wonder "what's this weird light show?"

      Also, if you think that space tracking from satellite would solve Somalia's piracy issues, you think it wouldn't have been done already? We have absolutely ridiculous spy satellite capacity, and that was one place where essentially every major nation in the world wanted for the problem to end.

      The real issue is that there is no way to tell a "pirate ship" from thousands of fishing vessels in the waters until you step aboard and check it for weapons.

    3. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by perpenso · · Score: 2

      This may be the answer to the Somalia pirate problem - space-based tracking. Now adding a moderately powerful laser, say 10KW or so...

      Actually just route commercial ships away from suspected pirates. Much like convoys were routed away from enemy submarines during WW2 when Ultra was up and running and decoding communications to and from the subs.

      Yeah, not nearly as fun as lasers.

    4. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by loustic · · Score: 2

      How long before the satellites are able to send speeding ticket directly to your home? Initial investment of £21m ... huge profits !

    5. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by Luckyo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Considering that it's illegal to have weapons on a civilian vessel, yes it does actually. That's why when they inspect a vessel and find weapons, they usually confiscate weapons, rather then wait for an attack.

    6. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      That depends on the nation under which the ship is flagged (and possibly the crew's nationalit[y|ies]). The UK was recently considering whether we should allow specific vessels flagged as British, to carry small arms when travelling through Somali waters specifically to defend against pirates, but I don't think a decision has happened yet (or it's been quietly dropped).

    7. Re:Space-based anti piracy tracking by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      Most ports will simply not allow you to dock if you have weapons, unless you're a military vessel with a permit. Also, if you're not a military ship, and have weapons, you will not be able to enter Suez, which cuts down the potential reasons for sailing near Somalia quite a bit.

  2. The US already does this by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    The US has SAR in orbit for military and intelligence reconnaissance.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill_(satellite)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacrosse_(satellite)

    So does Germany

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAR_Lupe

  3. Re:Is it allowed? by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    The US, Japan, Canada, EU, Germany and Russia all have or had satellite based radar systems some with very high resolution.

  4. Re:Is it allowed? by dumfrac · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are quite a few space-borne radars. For example, TerraSAR-X, Radarsat-2.

  5. Canada's got a couple too. by Jason+Pollock · · Score: 3, Informative

    Canada's got two of them, with really imaginative names. :)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radarsat-1
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radarsat-2

  6. Re:Heard this before. by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They had Skynet in 1969, but the GCHQ got most of its bandwidth :)
    The classic 1980's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite) shows what "initial investment of £21m" can really mean.
    The New Statesman trial showed what happened when the UK lost close to 1 billion pounds into 1980's UK "satellite" tech.
    In the end they used US tech for 500 million pounds.
    So with any UK space effort watch the cash flow :)

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  7. I TOLD you! by Jawnn · · Score: 2, Funny

    And you all laughed. Now who's laughing at my tin foil hat? Huh?