NASA Moves Forward With Mission Using Spy Satellite Telescope (spaceflightnow.com)

NASA has formally approved plans -- a year ahead of schedule -- for an infrared space telescope launching around 2024 to record unique wide-angle views of the cosmos, seeking answers to questions about mysterious dark energy and searching for habitable worlds around other stars, the space agency announced Thursday. The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope is projected to cost approximately $2.3 billion and should operate for at least six years. WFIRST's centerpiece is a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) telescope originally built to allow U.S. intelligence officials to spy on adversaries. Instead of turning the powerful telescope toward Earth for a clandestine surveillance mission, NASA plans to repurpose the hardware for cosmic research.

Comments

Langley

[WarJolt]

Something tells me Langley launched a better spy satellite and said "what the fuck are we going to do with this old piece of shit?" And then they gave the scientists a new toy. Aren't spies great?

Re:Langley

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically they had this device laying around on a shell and decided to give it to nasa because they don't need it anymore. They have enough of those in orbit already.

Think about that. For Nasa it is a big thing to have a Hubble-class telescope in orbit. The intelligence agencies have them lying on a shell as a leftover..

Re:Langley

[Richard_at_work]

Thats pretty much what happened with Hubble - its an adapted KH-11 design using much of the infrastructure the NSA set up for that program, with NASA having to supply the optics and support systems.

The NSA has also offered NASA redundant mirrors and systems that are pretty much identical to the Hubble layout but with better capabilities.

Re:Langley

[phayes]

From comments in TFA, the gift is limited to the mirror itself and not the rest of the systems around it leaving me wondering why Nasa doesn't use the defect free Kodak produced mirror for yet another project instead of leaving it at the Smithsonian. Surely there is another project that could benefit from another 2.4 meter mirror.

Re:Langley

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Wasn't the case of the Hubble a slightly less severe version of the same thing? If memory serves, it was substantially derived from the KH-11; and its spook origins ended up being the reason that the PerkinElmer got the job to produce the mirror, having done so for the KH-9s; and ended up beating out Kodak's(actually correctly shaped) mirror.

Re:Langley

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm sure that NRO would love to have more satellites up there if it were free, even if they are older tech, but mirrors aren't the most expensive part of the process (there's still assembly, and all the control systems, and launching it, and the ground setup once it's up there).

Re:Langley

[nojayuk]

One problem with the large-mirror spy satellites is that they can only look at one place on the ground in detail in a single pass since they only carry one large mirror. I suspect modern spy satellites carry multiple independently-targettable imaging systems with the ability to digitally combine images for higher resolution where needed on a case-by-case basis. This is similar to the way the largest land-based astronomical telescopes are now all multiple-mirror designs but without the requirement for on-the-fly reconfiguration during observation campaigns.

Re:Langley

[Anonymous Coward]

the ability to digitally combine images for higher resolution

Combining signals from two apertures to form a higher-resolution image is called interferometry. In radio interferometry, we digitise the signals from multiple apertures and combine them digitally. In optical interferometry, we directly combine the original signals - using mirrors to reflect them to a common focal plane - before recording them. The reason [1] for this is that the frequency of optical light is too high - around 10^14 Hz - for digital electronics to handle.

So, you may be right that modern spy satellites combine the signals from multiple apertures to achieve higher resolution - but they don't do so *digitally*.

[1] Well, one of the reasons.

Re:Langley

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think independently targetable mirrors in one spacecraft make sense - they can't look too far to the sides (a few 100 km max, the image quality probably suffers way below that due to the longer distance through the turbulent atmosphere), and the pass of "all" mirrors across "enemy" territory is all at the same time. It's better to have multiple vehicles which can pass closer to the actual target, and at multiple different times to make it more difficult for the enemy to hide their "stuff" just for the easy to predict satellite pass.

I suspect that the old Keyhole hardware was outdated because newer spacecraft use adaptive optics or optics that are otherwise significantly improved in ways that cannot be retrofitted to the existing system.

Re:Langley

[Solandri]

Doesn't work like that. You can't increase resolution by combining images. Only aperture works. So you cannot replace a large telescope with multiple independently targetable smaller telescopes.

You can combine multiple smaller scopes by using them as if they were part of the mirror of a large telescope (imagine covering up all of the mirror of a large telescope except for two spots near the edges). That makes an interferometer and gives you the angular resolution of the larger scope (assuming the smaller scopes are positioned near the edges of the mirror of what would be the larger scope - i.e. they still have the aperture of the larger scope), but the light gathering area of the smaller scopes. The light from the two scopes has to be combined optically though. The phase information is crucial (the two mirrors have to be aligned to a fraction of a wavelength of light).

Giving up light gathering area is not a trade-off astronomers usually want to make, but probably isn't an issue for spy satellites viewing targets bathed in sunlight. And there's been remarkable progress in the sensitivity of light sensors in the last two decades, so loss of light-gathering area probably isn't an issue for the spy satellite guys. That's probably what happened. The next gen spy satellites are probably interferometers using a synthetic aperture larger than the old 2.4 meter mirrors to achieve higher target resolution (the 2.4m mirrors were already good enough to resolve down to about 5 inches). And it was a waste of money for them to send up another spy satellite using the "older" technology, so they donated the components to NASA, where the light-gathering area might still be useful.

Re:Langley

[nojayuk]

The light from the two scopes has to be combined optically though. The phase information is crucial (the two mirrors have to be aligned to a fraction of a wavelength of light).

That's not totally correct; if the processing system knows what the alignment error is at any time it can correct the image data collected, it doesn't have to have the mirrors in "perfect" mechanical alignment at all times. It's not a trivial thing to do but it's feasible. It recovers resolution at the expense of light grasp and that is a tradeoff that might be worth paying in some cases.

Re:Langley

[DanielRavenNest]

I worked for Boeing in the early 1980's, and our division supplied the carbon-fiber structure for Hubble. Hubble's optics and instruments were new, but the *spacecraft* (all the other parts) were derived substantially from spy satellites. When our guys visited Lockheed during the spacecraft integration, they saw *four* high-bay clean rooms, one of which was being used by Hubble. One of our engineers asked if they (Lockheed) had done this before, and the Lockheed guys just smiled and didn't say anything. Obviously they couldn't, because it was super-secret.

Note on the carbon fiber truss: This is what held the main mirror, secondary mirror, and the science instruments in place. They didn't want them to move when the telescope came in and out of the Earth's shadow. Carbon fiber has a negative thermal expansion coefficient (it shrinks when it gets warmer), and the epoxy matrix has a positive expansion coefficient. With the right percentage of each, you could get nearly zero expansion. But "nearly" wasn't good enough. So we made a bunch of truss pieces, measured each one, then put together a set whose "nearly zeros" cancelled out. That trick worked out great. Somewhere I've got one of the scrapped pieces as space memorabilia.

Re:Langley

[delt0r]

Hubble is diffraction limited. Unless you can change the laws of physics you can't add a better mirror without making it bigger.

The NSA can't break the laws of physics.

Re:Langley

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do this with super-resolution. This technique has been applied to Mars orbital imagery by combining images over multiple passes (improving from 25cm -> 5cm resolution). It wouldn't work for a moving target, but for a static target like a building it's ideal.

Backronyms

[Whiternoise]

I guess calling it W-FIST would have been a bit edgy?

Swords into ploughs

[Bearhouse]

Excellent! I wonder how much extra science could be done if the all under-utilised kit lying around in the world's militaires was donated...

Re:Swords into ploughs

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope that this time they remember to adjust the focus from 300 miles away to approx infinity.

Re:Swords into ploughs

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

No need for that; aliens are only a concern if they get too close to our border...

Re:Swords into ploughs

[Anonymous Coward]

These re-purposed instruments have a bad tendency of seeing Bin Laden in the stars. Optical bias, they call it.

Re:Swords into ploughs

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much extra science could be done if NASA has the best of breed NSA kit whilst the NSA gets the old hand outs...

Oh wait we're talking about a brainwashed population that'd rather be spied on because 'national security' than further our understanding of the cosmos and all the benefits that will come from it.

Re:Swords into ploughs

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you're talking about illegals not aliens... unless you actually consider ET a threat...

Re: Swords into ploughs

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be difficult one of the Elect having to live amonst creatures who are neither perfect nor odor free.

Re:Swords into ploughs

[Tablizer]

Von Braun once said something like, "I don't regret designing (V2) rockets. What I regret is they were pointed at the wrong planet."

Re:Swords into ploughs

[Anonymous Coward]

I question the intelligence of any race that encounters humans and doesn't decide we need to be exterminated.

Screwed up the focal plane on that one as well huh

[Anonymous Coward]

So bury the embarrassment by dumping it on the civilians

Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Ecuador]

Am I the only one surprised that the US intelligence has a bunch of space telescopes the size of Hubble? I mean, I get spy satellites etc, I did expect a lot of money to go there, but they have enough scopes THE SIZE OF HUBBLE to give away 2 of them like that? Perhaps they have even larger ones, and the HST that was made into a big deal about how expensive complex and unique it was, was never close to being the largest space telescopes, just the only one pointed at the right things?

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize Hubble itself is a modified government satellite, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#See_also

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The details are easier to come by for the oldest gear(since they've had the most time to diffuse and in some cases have been formally declassified because they are obsolete); but there are a lot of spy satellite launches.

KH-1's had 10 launches, KH-2 7, KH-3 9, KH-4 26, KH-4A 56, KH-4B 17, KH-5 12, KH-6 3, KH-7 38, KH-8 54, KH-9 20. KH-10 didn't go anywhere; but kindly donated 6 72-inch optical mirrors to the Multiple Mirror Telescope. KH-11 superceded KH-10 and saw 16 launches. Information about 'Misty' and 'Enhanced Imaging System' is new enough to be... spotty. And those are just the ones with some substantial optical component that makes them a crossover with astronomy.

One thing to note, in fairness, is that pre-KH-11, these satellites actually used film, with various re-entry pods to send it back to earth for processing, so their missions were of necessarily limited duration. Only the more recent digital imaging satellites even have the option of long term operation, with mission lifespans depending on what orbit you want, whether anything goes wrong, fuel supply, and so on.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[jfdavis668]

The spy satellites are no where near as complicated as Hubble. They weren't designed for use by multiple instruments, they don't have to track objects for hours, and they weren't designed to be serviced in space. They are designed to perform a single purpose, making it much easier to operated and control. Hubble takes pictures of some of the dimmest objects in the universe. The spy satellites take pictures of objects only a few miles below them in broad daylight.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize Hubble itself is a modified government satellite, right?

Of course Hubble is a government satellite. NASA is a government agency.

I think what you meant to say was that Hubble was a modified reconnaissance satellite. Not really. Perkin-Elmer was chosen as the manufacturer of the primary mirror, however, because they had experience in making mirrors of this size for the NRO program.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Dude they had a fully functional parallel space shuttle program, for god's sake.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[thermopile]

NASA's annual budget is about $18.5 billion, but what they actually spend on satellites is a small fraction of that.

NRO's annual budget is estimated to be about $16 billion, according to Wikipedia. And their main mission is spy satellites.

And the Air Force spends about $3.7 billion annually in space-related R&D and execution.

So, NASA has a lot of well funded, US-based "competition" on the satellite front, although the budgets of its competitors is usually classified. I'm glad to hear that the US government is agile enough to share resources, when appropriate.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Solandri]

The primary reason for the Space Shuttle program's existence was to service these spy satellites in orbit. Originally in the design phase it was to reload film, but as digital sensors became realistic the mission changed to refueling, upgrading, and maintaining. That was the design criteria which dictated the size of the payload bay.

I don't think it worked though. Most spy satellites are launched into a polar orbit to maximize coverage of the earth's surface. An equatorial orbit like out of Kennedy only covers about a 30% band near the equator. You can still see stuff further north or south, but only at oblique angles and greater distances. U.S. polar orbit launches happen out of Vandenberg, California. The USAF spent a couple billion dollars upgrading the facilities there so the Shuttle could launch out of there, but never actually did a Shuttle launch.

The loss of these USAF maintenance missions is partly what doomed the Shuttle. The economics of the Shuttle were calculated assuming almost weekly launches. That way you could amortize the cost of the facilities and support staff across all those missions, and the cost per mission became lower than having your rockets burn up on re-entry. But the Shuttle only averaged about 8 launches per year, meaning these amortized costs were over 6x higher than planned, turning the Shuttle into the most expensive launch system ever built.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[LWATCDR]

These are failed spysats. The program to build them was cancelled when the cost went up and improvement over existing systems went down.
These are left over hardware from the program and where offered to NASA. It is not the first time after all NASA got hardware like this. NASA flew the YF-12a and the F-107 for many years after those programs shutdown.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

The spy satellites take pictures of objects only a few miles below them in broad daylight.

A few hundred miles below them. I'd be pretty concerned if I saw a spy satellite cruising a mile overhead my house. Of course, it'd probably also be a flaming ball of metal and no longer a "satellite" at that point.

Then there's also the Russian satellite that has no respect for personal space.

Re:Seriously, am I the only one surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, could there actually be a mirror larger than Hubble's in orbit currently?

We're #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Even our military surplus does making science.

Re:We're #1

[jfdavis668]

The Atlas and Titan rocket boosters were originally ICBM designs, so we have been doing that for a long time.

What is wrong?

[Brookechloe]

I mean wow! How much technology and power NASA got that they are moving forward mission using spy satellite. Great to read.

IC and NASA have always had a relationship

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at the early history of satellite reconnaissance
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/collections.html

From the early days, there has always been 3 prongs of the US space program: NASA is the public one with stated science goals, etc.; DoD has theirs which is a bit less public: ICBMs, Weather satellites, Communications; and then the intelligence community, which is very obscured.

The NSA had nothing to do with the KH-11

[wiredog]

Keyhole is a NRO operation.

Re:Screwed up the focal plane on that one as well

[speedlaw]

Y'know, I'd always suspected this one.

Duration and cost

[fyngyrz]

...so their missions were of necessarily limited duration...

From TFS:

...$2.3 billion and should operate for at least six years...

Unless I've slipped a digit, that's about $43,000 an hour. That seems to me to be both limited duration and very expensive for what amounts to just more IR photos of the universe.

I am pro-space, and I make no bones about it. However:

I think that deployment of this kind of observation tool would make more sense at a later date when instruments like it (and of a certainty, better than it) could be produced outside our gravity well.

Right now, were it up to me, I'd be concentrating on trying to get a maintainable infrastructure established - living space, food production, manufacturing, mining.

Re:Duration and cost

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that lifespan is dictated by how long they think the coolant will last

Re:Duration and cost

[Martin Blank]

Remember that Spirit and Opportunity were expected to operate for at least 90 days. There's the conservative estimate for how long something should last, and there's how long it actually lasts after the mission starts.

There is work being done on the maintainable infrastructure, but it's mostly being done by private companies like Bigelow.

Re:Duration and cost

[delt0r]

Who knew pushing the limits of science can't be done in your basement, and is expensive. Especially if you want to do it space. A shuttle launch, just a launch use to cost 500M!

beating...

[Anonymous Coward]

swords into plowshares

Re:Langley and original Hubble optics

[Steve1952]

And then, rather amazingly, after having presumably made the various KH-11 optics correctly, PerkinElmer somehow mysteriously did the main Hubble mirror optics wrong. I have always been suspicious of this...

Renewable energy will continue to grow

[ventsyv]

Make sense that the production capacity for wind is growing. The wind is free - once you pay the fixed costs, there is virtually no variable costs. Nuclear and coal on the other hand have to pay for the fuel and also have to deal with the waste. Same is valid for solar. Once we have reliable storage options, the renewables will explode.

Re:Langley and original Hubble optics

[Geoffrey.landis]

Wasn't the case of the Hubble a slightly less severe version of the same thing? If memory serves, it was substantially derived from the KH-11;

Partly. Perkin Elmer won the bid to make the mirror (in part) because they were able to emphasize their extensive experience in making mirrors of similar size for reconnaissance satellites. The telescope itself, however, and the satellite, weren't the same.

and its spook origins ended up being the reason that the PerkinElmer got the job to produce the mirror, having done so for the KH-9s; and ended up beating out Kodak's(actually correctly shaped) mirror.

And then, rather amazingly, after having presumably made the various KH-11 optics correctly, PerkinElmer somehow mysteriously did the main Hubble mirror optics wrong. I have always been suspicious of this...

No suspicion needed: the fact that their experience was in classified satellites was, to a large part, the cause of the problem: They had a null corrector tool for the Ritchey–Chrétien mirror, which, as it turns out, they did not have the right expertise to use. Since all their mirror experience was in classified projects, they had a strict corporate culture of "don't talk to anybody, ever, about anything." So, instead of asking questions, they basically experimented around with it until they thought they knew how it worked, and didn't talk with anybody about it in any way.

Ironically, if it actually had been a mirror for the reconnaissance satellite, instead of a different (and publicly available) design, they would have already had the tool.

Re:Langley and original Hubble optics

[Steve1952]

Good paranoia level = 0 explanation. Unfortunately I've been operating at paranoia level +1 level lately...

It's a Trap!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Three Letter Agencies want to spy on our alien friends! I kid, I kid...

No but really, can we do that?