Photos of a KH-12 Kennan Keyhole Secret Military Spy Satellite (2013)

https://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-debris/astrophotography/view-keyhole-satellite/

by _Microft • 5 years ago

81 42 5 years ago

spacesafetymagazine.com

skunkworker• 5 years ago

Article dated September 13, 2013.

_Microft2• 5 years ago

Fixed, thanks!

imglorp• 5 years ago

Superpowers pretend various space assets are secrets, but it's really a pointless waste of their secrecy machines. If the amateurs know this much about everyone's satellite position and appearance, the pros certainly know much more. So who's left? Nobody. So it's only secret on paper.

nonameiguess• 5 years ago

The appearance, existence, and position of spy satellites are not secret. The capabilities and the data coming back from them are secret.

bob10292• 5 years ago

Capabilities and data can be inferred as well. If you know exactly what something is flying over, who launched it and when, you can make some reasonable assumptions.

14• 5 years ago

I assume constant imagery of most areas. We are probably all tracked in great detail but they would not want us to know that. I suspect they already can retrace the steps of any crime and follow it backwards. But they are not worried about crimes but probably are tracking certain people and don’t want them to wise up and deploy anti satellite tracking techniques. Spy vs spy.

groos• 5 years ago

There is tremendous value in knowing the orbits and when they pass over as India demonstrated in 1998 by using awareness of US spy satellite overpasses to keep their preparations secret. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II

mhh__• 5 years ago

We know the US operates the X-37b, we do not know what it is doing.

pvarangot• 5 years ago

Well, "we don't know"...

It's mainly:

- An anti-satellite weapon not unlike the rockets the Chinese launch at satellites, but more refined and capable of retrieving technology before disabling the craft.

- A testing platform for space technology like sensors. It can serve as a makeshift scrappy satellite if you need to quickly deploy a sensor for something.

Like you don't know what it's doing but you know what mostly everything else on space that was not launched on board of that thing is doing so there's not much left to imagination here. It's like saying you don't know what Delta Force is doing, yeah you do, they shoot at people. You don't know what people and for what reason but that's not spooky secret alien stuff or anything.

derbOac• 5 years ago

So... what about the unknown unknowns?

marcodiego• 5 years ago

https://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/... I can't be the only one who thinks the "proposed model" looks nothing like the capture.

_Microft2• 5 years ago

The proposed model and the photograph were made independently by different people by the way.

Solar panels aren't included at all in the proposed model. These are the protrusions towards the bottom left and top right on the photograph. The part at the "upper left" end of the satellite might just be a lid or a sunshade on the opening of the telescope. Beside that the tapering shape of the main structure looks similar, imo. Keep in mind that there is a wide variety of possible shapes for satellites. For that, the proposed shape doesn't look that bad, imo.

meepmorp• 5 years ago

It's hard to say. At very least, the shading in the two pictures doesn't suggest that they're both presented in the same relative orientation.

slowhand09• 5 years ago

Cuisinart blender "Space model", on sale at BestBuy...

Maursault• 5 years ago

There's a closeup of the craft in the last image in the article taken from ISS [1]

[1] https://tinyurl.com/y2jsahgu

TedDoesntTalk• 5 years ago

Are these still in active use?

micah942• 5 years ago

Yes: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/02/756673481/amateurs-identify-u...

dylan604• 5 years ago

we could tell you, but then we'd need an approriate place to dispose of your body.*

*not a threat of violence, just a saying

BrazzVuvuzela2• 5 years ago

NROL-82, launched this year early in April, is likely one of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11#Block_V

michaf• 5 years ago

So, if it's true that these KH-12 spy satellites are basically modified versions the Hubble space telescope, would it be reasonable to assume that Webb will get copied in a similar way for spy satellites?

nyokodo• 5 years ago

would it be reasonable to assume that Webb will get copied in a similar way for spy satellites?

Unlikely. You have the origin mixed up. The spy satellites came first, and then Hubble.

twinge• 5 years ago

Next comes the space telescopes that are based on the KH-11 spy satellites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...

mturmon• 5 years ago

Yes, the spy satellites were first by a long shot. The KH-11 (2.4m mirror, CCD focal plane) was first launched in 1976. Hubble (2.4m mirror, CCD focal plane) was launched in 1990.

The shared mirror size is not a coincidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN#Size_and_mass

The two also share a multi-billion dollar budget.

micah942• 5 years ago

Doubtful, I think Webb only sees in the infrared. Looking at the earth would blind it. This is why it'll be a million miles away protected by a fancy heat shield.

BrazzVuvuzela2• 5 years ago

Looking at the earth would blind it

Wouldn't that depend on how much dynamic range it has? Webb is intended to look at very dim signals in space so Earth would blind it, but if a spy-Webb were intended to track rocket or jet engines, things quite hotter than the rest of earth, perhaps it might be capable of that?

echelon• 5 years ago

The space shuttle was funded and designed to meet Department of Defense specifications. Its cargo bay designed to ferry satellites up and to potentially return them back to earth.

https://www.space.com/34522-secret-shuttle-missions.html

https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/nasas-space-shuttl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Department_of_Defense...

The Hubble design was remarkably close to Keyhole:

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/3448/was-hubble-re...

Keyhole satellites were seriously cool. Photos were taken on film, and the film reels were jettisoned over the ocean. C-130 transports would capture the payloads as they parachuted back to earth:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/us/declassified-spy-satellite...

Photos of a KH-12 Kennan Keyhole Secret Military Spy Satellite (2013)

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