Publicly available data suggests that a Russian inspector satellite has shifted its position in orbit to bring it relatively close to a U.S. KH-11 spy satellite. Russia has a number of what it calls "space apparatus inspectors" in orbit, which the U.S. government and others warn the Kremlin could use to gather intelligence on other satellites or function as "killer satellites," using various means to damage, disable, or destroy those targets.
The National Reconnaissance Office released Oct. 22 a trove of declassified records —including this silent video and photos below — from the 1960s about a military human spaceflight program.
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) would have sent military astronauts to a small space station.
The cover story of MOL was that the U.S. Air Force was testing the “military usefulness” of humans into space, but the real purpose of the program was to operate a reconnaissance satellite for the NRO.
President Nixon cancelled the program in June 1969, before its first flight, because of its increasing costs and the improved performance of unmanned reconnaissance satellites.
NASA is considering requesting money in next year's budget to eventually start using two space telescopes it received from the United States' spy satellite agency, a senior official told Space.com.
NASA received the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 2012. They have the same resolution as the agency's famous Hubble Space Telescope, but a field of view 200 times wider.
The telescopes are being eyed for use in a potential space mission called WFIRST-AFTA (the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets), which could launch as early as 2024 if it gets the final go-ahead. WFIRST-AFTA's science goals include learning more about the mysterious dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.
The intelligence community is on the verge of “revolutionary” technical advances. Spy satellites and other systems will be able to watch a place or a person for long periods of time and warn intelligence analysts and operatives when target changes its behavior. Satellites and their sensors could be redirected automatically to ensure nothing is missed.
Light detection and ranging (lidar), one of the latest sensor technologies to get a boost thanks to the Afghanistan war, could make its way to space.
Lidar could follow in the footsteps of wide-area motion imagery, full-motion video and hyperspectral technologies that have also garnered interest and funding due to their ability to be tested and prove their value in Iraq and Afghanistan.
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Director Betty Sapp highlighted the High-Altitude Lidar Operational Experiment (Haloe) program as a success for quickly providing three-dimensional, high-resolution mapping of areas in Afghanistan. Though she did not directly say NRO has lidar sensors in orbit, she introduced the Haloe project after noting that her agency often test-flew payloads for satellites in airborne applications to validate them prior to launch.
Developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the payload has been deployed to both Africa and Afghanistan. It was originally deployed on a WB-57 in 2010 to survey 72,000 sq. km of land there. This was roughly 10% of Afghanistan, according to Darpa Director Arati Prabhakar in recent testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The opportunity to increase the aperture and resolution on NASA’s planned Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) would significantly expand the scientific capabilities of the mission, but the risk of cost growth is significantly higher than for NASA’s original design, says a new report from the National Research Council.
WFIRST was ranked the top-priority large space mission in the National Research Council’s 2010 decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics research. WFIRST would probe the nature of dark energy – the as yet unexplained driver behind the accelerating expansion of the universe; study the architecture of other solar systems; and advance understanding of how galaxies, stars, and black holes evolve. This science program, together with the mission’s moderate cost, low technical risk, and mature design were key factors in its top ranking among large space missions.
NASA initially considered a design of WFIRST with a 1.3-meter aperture. In 2012, the National Reconnaissance Office gave NASA hardware for two 2.4-meter telescopes -- the same size as the currently operating Hubble Space Telescope. NASA dubbed these the Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (AFTA) and began to study an alternative to the original telescope design. After the NRO telescopes were acquired, NASA also began to consider the addition of a coronagraph, an instrument that would advance goals in the study of exoplanets.
The new Research Council report compares the WFIRST/AFTA design both with and without a coronagraph to the original mission concept, on the basis of their science objectives, technical complexity, and programmatic rationale, including projected cost. The report does not recommend which design NASA should adopt.
The committee that wrote the report found that the larger aperture provided by the 2.4-meter design “will significantly enhance the scientific power of the mission” for cosmology, exoplanet surveys, and general infrared survey science, such that the mission is consistent with the scientific goals described in the decadal survey. This new design also makes inclusion of a coronagraph attractive.
However, the inherited hardware was designed for another purpose, and the degree to which changes to the hardware must be made to accommodate a different launch vehicle and scientific requirements is uncertain at this time. This uncertainty contributes to higher technical risk and a greater likelihood that costs will increase beyond current estimates, the report says. The WFIRST/AFTA without the coronagraph was estimated to cost $2.1 billion, up from an estimate of $1.8 billion for an earlier design which was more similar to the mission recommended in the 2010 survey report.
Even though budgets are tight, this is an exciting time for NASA’s astrophysics division. New life has been breathed into NASA’s next flagship-class space telescope, the Wide Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope (WFIRST), thanks to the unbidden “gift” to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) of two Hubble-class telescope mirrors. They appeared on NASA’s doorstep in early 2011 and the agency, to its credit, has not ignored them.
This comes during a time of confusion and angst in the agency concerning plans for astronomy missions after the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The Astro 2010 Decadal Survey team had pointed to two top priorities after JWST, namely WFIRST and technology development for an exoplanet direct imaging mission. NASA had made halting progress in fulfilling these objectives in the two years since the Astro 2010 report was issued. NASA had developed a plan for WFIRST, but the scenario of when and how to initiate the mission was a bit murk in the aftermath of JWST’s budget woes. In addition, the exoplanet community has taken a beating in recent years, stunned by the cancellation of the Space Interferometry Mission) and the indefinite suspension of the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPM). How to proceed was the subject of much debate.
In the year since NASA publicly revealed its NRO gifts, things have begun to fall into place. The agency appointed a Science Definition Team (SDT) to evaluate how WFIRST could utilize one of the 2.4-meter NRO mirrors. Now, the SDT has returned with encouraging news. The team’s final report proposes an amazingly capable design for WFIRST. As a bonus, this new WFIRST will be a bonanza for exoplanet studies. It would incorporate a coronagraph that will produce groundbreaking exoplanet science. In one fell swoop, the way forward for the top two priorities of the Astro 2010 team now seems clear.
The primary mission of WFIRST is the study of distant supernova and galaxies. These targets will be used to determine the effect of dark energy on the structure and fate of the Universe. Earlier WFIRST designs had envisioned 1.2-meter optics. The use of the NRO 2.4-meter mirrors means that WFIRST can produce wide-angle, high-resolution views that will be amazing. They will be comparable to HST’s “deep field” views, but cover an area of the sky 100 times greater. There are a number of other astrophysics fields that will benefit immensely from this capability.
The new WFIRST will be a powerful tool in the search for and study of exoplanets in a number of ways. The first is through microlensing, which takes advantage of the bending of space by massive objects, as first posited by Einstein. An exoplanet that passes in front of a distant background star (not its parent star) will cause the star’s light to be slightly magnified because of this space warp. This microlensing search was part of the original WFIRST mission. However, the use of WFIRST’s large 2.4-meter diameter mirror will allow the collection of three times as much light as its original design. This translates into a richer harvest of exoplanets and an increased ability to detect small terrestrial worlds. Overall, the microlensing survey should be able to detect several hundred exoplanets. Together with the results from Kepler, this information will give us a better understanding of the architecture of other solar systems.
Imagine you had a Hubble-class telescope and could use in any way you wanted to explore planets. What would you do with it?A number of scientists have had the chance to explore that question courtesy of an American spy agency. A year ago, NASA received a surprise phone call from the National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO), which flies spy satellites, asking if it would like two spare, Hubble-class space telescopes. NASA’s managers said,”Yes!,” and now the agency is looking for the best uses for the telescopes. The highest priority is to see if one telescope could be used to meet the needs for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) to study dark energy. That potentially leaves a second telescope for other deep space or solar system studies.Before I describe the concepts discussed at a recent conference, a truth in advertising statement is required. Each telescope represents $250M worth of hardware. However, not all the systems needed for an actual satellite are included, instruments are not included, and the whole lot would need to be launched. Figures I’ve read suggest that turning each telescope into a working observatory would cost approximately $1B, depending on the specifics of the mission. NASA’s current budgets have no room to fund a single mission, much less two. In a few years, there may be room for a mission or two, so the space agency is soliciting ideas.
When astronomer Alan Dressler was invited to see what might be the future of NASA’s astrophysics programme, he had to leave his mobile phone behind, lest he be tempted to grab a quick snapshot. As he and a dozen others passed through the ITT Exelis facility in Rochester, New York, a guide held up a flashing red light, to warn working Exelis engineers to seal their lips in front of people without security clearance.
Their destination was the cavernous clean area of Building 1230, where two 2.4-metre telescopes, each as big as the Hubble Space Telescope and never flown, rested on low pedestals. “It seemed almost too good be true,” says Dressler, an astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California. “Things like this just don’t drop on your doorstep.”
The unexpected gift comes from the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a secretive surveillance agency that built the telescopes to peer down on Earth. In June, NASA revealed that the NRO had bequeathed the scopes to the space agency because they were no longer needed. Now NASA has to figure out what it will do with them — and whether it can afford the cost of kitting them out with instruments and sending them into orbit.
This month, NASA plans to announce a science-definition team that will embark on that assessment. The team will report by April 2013 to NASA administrator Charles Bolden on the pros, cons and costs of adapting one of the telescopes for a mission to investigate dark energy, the phenomenon thought to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe. But astronomers are already encouraged. As the veil of secrecy surrounding the telescopes lifts, astronomers are beginning to size up the devices’ capabilities. And so far, they are liking what they see — so much so that they are now talking about tacking on an instrument that would detect extrasolar planets directly. “I think the enthusiasm has only increased as time has gone on,” says Dressler.
