Subject:      Tracking and imaging spysats: not a worry?
From:         thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson)
Date:         1996/08/14
Message-Id:   <thomsonaDw52sK.ML3@netcom.com>
Newsgroups:   sci.space.policy,alt.politics.org.cia,sci.space.tech

   The recently developed capability for amateur observers to 
image satellites in LEO was featured in a story in the current 
Space News and elicited an interesting reaction from Space 
Command.


   New Software Enables Amateurs to Track Satellites
   By Leonard David
   Space News, August 12-18 1996, p. 8
   [EXCERPTS]
   
   WASHINGTON - Off-the-shelf telescopes, sensors and software are 
   now so powerful that amateur skywatchers are able to track and 
   photograph orbiting spacecraft with a degree of detail 
   previously available only to the military.  Satellite sleuthing 
   equipment and techniques have reached a new level of maturity, 
   spurred by work conducted at the Boston Museum of Science's 
   Gilliland Observatory in Massachusetts. 
   
      At the museum's observatory, modest-sized ground telescopes 
   have been outfitted to track satellites precisely as they move 
   across the horizon. Images are then taken using a video camera 
   ...  The videotape recording of a spacecraft can later be 
   analyzed, frame by frame.  Typically, some of those frames are 
   nearly free of atmospheric distortion and show a surprising 
   amount of detail, said Ron Dantowitz... [who] has spearheaded the 
   satellite tracking effort. 
   
     "It's amazing what amateurs can do with advents in technology 
   and computers," Dantowitz told Space News in a July 26 phone 
   interview.  "It's a great project to work on.  It has taken        <
   about a year from start to where we are now...                     <
   
      Imagery also has been collected of... a number of U.S. 
   scientific, military and intelligence-gathering spacecraft. 
   
      "We actually have been able to observe the Lacrosse and         <
   other spy satellites at extremely high resolution.  But we're      <
   not interested in publishing any of those pictures," Dantowitz 
   said.  Lacrosse is a radar imaging satellite operated by the 
   National Reconnaissance Office. 
   
     So far, the ability of amateurs to peek in on classified 
   satellites does not have the military concerned. 
   
      "The U.S. Space Command is not concerned about the amateur      <
   capabilities for any of the satellites that we control," said      <
   Franki Webster, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Space Command at 
   Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo.  Dantowitz said 
   that the satellite tracking software for telescopes is now being 
   sold to other amateur astronomers and observatories. 

   
    Either Ms. Webster is being evasive -- it may be that the NRO 
exercises separate control of its satellites --, or lawyerly -- 
obviously the issue is the ability of hostile countries, not 
amateur observers, to track and image satellites -- or the U.S. 
reconnaissance community has decided that foreign knowledge of 
the orbits and appearance of the satellites isn't a threat to 
their systems -- which is incorrect.  Tracking and 
identification are fundamental first steps in developing space 
denial capabilities, and it should be worrisome that an ability 
to do both can be developed so readily. I wonder if the NRO 
shares Space Command's opinion. 

   BTW, I'm not saying that the folks in Boston have done 
Something Awful.  The video cameras and computer controlled 
mounts needed for the kind of imaging they're doing have been 
available throughout the world for many years, albeit at higher 
prices than amateurs could generally afford.  It would be 
surprising if a dozen or so countries (make up your own list) 
haven't been imaging U.S. spysats for a decade or more.