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#21
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
Handheld cameras don't. Not true at least inso far as digital cameras are concerned, the image file is accompanied by an associated file that has details such as make and model of camera, date of photo taken, exposure and a few other details but aside from the time stamp, I doubt there's any other militarily useful information. |
#22
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
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#23
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
John Doe wrote: For a picture to have value to the military, it need to be accompanied with precise position, time, attitude and altitude. satellites do that. Handheld cameras don't. If you are doing precision targeting, you may need that, but for just checking up on what's going on on the ground, time and date will be enough if you can locate what the photo is of by recognizable features on the ground. Measuring those will give you its scale. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were checking up on the condition of the British-owned oil pipeline they attacked: http://www.newsweek.com/id/154938 Pat |
#24
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
On Aug 25, 7:44*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
John Doe wrote: For a picture to have value to the military, it need to be accompanied with precise position, time, attitude and altitude. satellites do that. Handheld cameras don't. If you are doing precision targeting, you may need that, but for just checking up on what's going on on the ground, time and date will be enough if you can locate what the photo is of by recognizable features on the ground. Measuring those will give you its scale. I agree that for many purposes, like BDA, precision is a lesser concern: Does the runway have craters in it or not? Is the building still standing? Etc. Also, if you've done your homework, you already know the coordinates of conspicuous fixed points in the image and can use that to determine the coordinates of new features. More also, if you actually need look angles, the time contained in the ISS camera data is precise down to the millisecond (whether it's that accurate is a relevant question). Since the ISS orbital elements are freely available, the time can be used to determine the location of the space station with considerable accuracy. |
#25
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/commu...,7133437.story Cosmonaut's photos of Georgia spur inquiry Robert Block and Mark K. Matthews | Sentinel Staff Writers August 26, 2008 CAPE CANAVERAL - Just days after the Russian army rolled into Georgia, Moscow instructed a Russian crew member aboard the international space station to shoot pictures of the breakaway South Ossetia province from 200 miles above Earth. Russia claims that cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko's photos Aug. 9 were part of a digital-mapping exercise, done for "humanitarian" reasons. But some space experts say it is possible the pictures were part of a military-related reconnaissance exercise that made use of the vantage point of the orbiting lab complex. The incident, referenced in a status report on NASA's Web site more than two weeks ago and first reported by Aviation Week, comes as reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia is threatening to disrupt America's space program. Imperils U.S. space program NASA is depending on Russian rockets to ferry U.S. astronauts to the space station once the shuttle program is shut down in 2010. But using Russian-built Soyuz rockets will require congressional authorization, already problematic because of deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations. A congressional decision that the Russians photographed Georgia for military reasons could derail NASA's plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for Russian transport to the $100 billion station. The international partnership agreement that governs the station says it shall be used for peaceful purposes, though military use is not prohibited. On Monday, NASA played down the incident, saying there is no reason to think Russia wanted the photos for military purposes. But explanations of why they were shot varied. NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the Russians openly requested permission to shoot "water-management" photos. "It was not clandestine," he said. In the run-up to hostilities, Russian news media reported that water was scarce in Tskhinvali, the main city in South Ossetia, because Georgian villagers to the south of the city had diverted sources. Once fighting broke out, there were reports that international aid organizations were struggling to get water to people. Yembrick later declared that the Russians said the photos were part of a long-standing Earth observation program and that Kononenko also photographed other parts of Russia as the space station moved east. Yembrick said the U.S. also has asked astronauts to take pictures of world events, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. "If there is an earthquake, fire, disaster, bombings, a hurricane . . . and [the station is] over it at a good angle, sometimes we take photos of it," Yembrick said. "Just because we are taking photos of Afghanistan or any other area doesn't mean we are doing it for military reasons." Russian space expert Jeffrey Manber, who once worked for the Russian space concern NPO Energia and helped negotiate Russia's involvement with the space station, said it was possible that a Russian decision- maker wanted to assess damage caused by the invasion but had no other way to get images. Russian agencies often don't readily share intelligence information, he said. Taking pictures is a common assignment for crew members. When former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao was aboard the station from October 2004 to April 2005, he said he shot more than 16,000 pictures of Earth with a camera similar to the one used by Kononenko. Among them were pictures of Iraq after the U.S. attacked, he said. But Chiao said the resolution wasn't sharp enough to yield much military value. "I would be surprised if this order came from the [Russian] military," he said. "It's possible, but I would be surprised." Feeney wants to know more U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees NASA, wanted more information before responding. "By definition, the space station is to be used for peaceful purposes," he said. "It is a concern when any of our international space partners use the station . . . for what could be used for strategy or tactics," he said. "But those lines are awfully gray. Are you going to stop our astronauts from taking pictures of the Middle East because there's a conflict there?" An official with the State Department said it was up to NASA to "evaluate whether this [incident] is any kind of a violation." |
#26
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
John Doe wrote:
For a picture to have value to the military, it need to be accompanied with precise position, time, attitude and altitude. satellites do that. Handheld cameras don't. We need to point out that the ISS is a satellite? D. -- Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL |
#27
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
Pat Flannery writes:
If you are doing precision targeting, you may need that, but ... All this conjures up images of a cross-hair overlay added to one of the observation port windows with all the lettering in Cyrillic.... That'd be in the Unity module of course.... ;-) |
#28
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ISS - doing Russian military recon work?
Allen Thomson writes:
Russia claims that cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko's photos Aug. 9 were part of a digital-mapping exercise, done for "humanitarian" reasons. But some space experts say it is possible the pictures were part of a military-related reconnaissance exercise that made use of the vantage point of the orbiting lab complex. I'm pretty sure that Russia has access to better images from military sources. They may not be able to *use* them for less than purely military forces though, while pictures taken on the ISS may be used more openly. I'm also sure that the pictures *will* be looked at by military eyes, but so what? The international partnership agreement that governs the station says it shall be used for peaceful purposes, though military use is not prohibited. I really don't think this is an issue as long as you don't want to make it an issue. In the run-up to hostilities, Russian news media reported that water was scarce in Tskhinvali, the main city in South Ossetia, because Georgian villagers to the south of the city had diverted sources. Once fighting broke out, there were reports that international aid organizations were struggling to get water to people. Yembrick later declared that the Russians said the photos were part of a long-standing Earth observation program and that Kononenko also photographed other parts of Russia as the space station moved east. Yembrick said the U.S. also has asked astronauts to take pictures of world events, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. Naturally. U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees NASA, wanted more information before responding. "By definition, the space station is to be used for peaceful purposes," he said. "It is a concern when any of our international space partners use the station . . . for what could be used for strategy or tactics," he said. "But those lines are awfully gray. Are you going to stop our astronauts from taking pictures of the Middle East because there's a conflict there?" An official with the State Department said it was up to NASA to "evaluate whether this [incident] is any kind of a violation." Make it mandatory to publish all pictures taken off the ISS online ;-) Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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