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[infowar.de] Space Today The Satellite Wars - Afghanistan and Yugoslavia
Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/YugoWarSats.html
The Satellite Wars:
Afghanistan and Yugoslavia
2001: Afghanistan
Dozens of satellites from the United States and its international coalition supported the American military campaign against terrorists in the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 2001.
The military action was in a region of Asia slightly smaller than the state of Texas. Located in Southern Asia, to the north and west of Pakistan, and east of Iran, Afghanistan borders China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Locally known as Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan,it used to be the Republic of Afghanistan. However, there had been no functioning central government in recent years. The country had been administered by factions including the self-proclaimed Taliban government, which referred to the country as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
A rugged land. Before the start of military action against Usama bin Ladin and the Taliban, Afghanistan was divided along ethnic lines. The Taliban controlled the capital of Kabul and two-thirds of the country including the predominately ethnic Pashtun areas in the south. The opposition rebels had their stronghold in the ethnically diverse north. Afghanistan's 28 million people are mostly either Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, or Uzbek, although there are some Aimaks, Turkmen, Baloch, and others.
The military action was in terrain that is mostly rugged mountains with plains in the north and southwest. The climate ranges from arid to semiarid with cold winters and hot summers.
To feed the troops' voracious appetite for intelligence information, more than a dozen different kinds of American, British, French and Russian satellites gathered intelligence via photography, infrared and radar imaging, and radio and television intercepts; measured and reported weather conditions; communicated command and control messages and data; and pinpointed targets and located people on the ground.
Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
The types of spy satellites. The National Reconnaissance Office operates satellites for the U.S. military and the intelligence community. American reconnaissance spacecraft, including the major equipment used by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), are launched by the U.S. Air Force and are known by a variety of code names. Spysats include these general types:
* optical satellites that use a large mirror to gather light for photography -- like a Hubble Space Telescope pointing down at Earth rather than looking out into deep space,
* radar imaging satellites that uses microwave signals to peer through cloud cover and scan Earth's surface,
* combo radar and optical satellites that see wider areas of Earth's surface with more detail than the separate types,
* signals intercept and detection satellites that tune in on radio, telephone and data transmissions,
* ocean observation satellites used to locate and determine the intent of ships at sea.
A fusillade of new spysats. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States left thousands dead. By coincidence, in that time period, the NRO was able to launch a pre-planned series of new and replacement spy satellites. The 2001 launches took on new significance in the post-attack atmosphere.
Milstar Satellite Communications System August 17 A Titan 4B rocket was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying what probably was a Lacrosse radar imaging spysat for the NRO. Titan 4B is built by Lockheed Martin and is the most powerful, expendable space launch vehicle in the United States inventory, capable of launching hush-hush cargo payloads weighing 38,800 pounds into low-Earth orbit around the planet's poles.
September 9 International Launch Services (ILS) -- a joint venture of U.S.-based Lockheed Martin and Russian companies Khrunichev and Energia -- launched an Atlas 2AS rocket carrying an NRO payload into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellite probably was equipped for signals detection.
October 5 A Titan 4B rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying an imaging spysat to a sun-synchronous Earth orbit. The spysat payload probably was a Keyhole photo-electronic satellite. The new satellite, labeled USA-116, probably replaced a six-year-old Keyhole. A Keyhole satellite is a telescope pointed at Earth. It has vision powerful enough to see objects as small as four inches across in visible light. The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin and TRW, probably also has infrared and thermal imaging capabilities. it may resemble the Hubble Space Telescope with a lens barrel and solar wings. However, it would have a propulsion module with engines and fuel for maneuvering in orbit. Such optical satellites help military strike planners monitor movements of groups in Afghanistan.
October 10 ILS luanched an Atlas 2AS rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a communications relay satellite.
Military launches planned for the immediate future included a DMSP weather satellite from Vandenberg and a Milstar communications relay satellite from Cape Canaveral.
Ikonos-2 commercial imaging satellite
Private sat pressed into military service. To prevent the general public from peeking at the war zone from space, the U.S. military began on October 7 paying for the exclusive rights to commercial satellite imagery of Afghanistan even though the nation's spysats were able to take far better pictures.
To prevent the commercial firm from selling its pictures of the war zone elsewhere, the U.S. government entered into a multimillion-dollar contract with Space Imaging -- a company that sells Earth imagery and information to business, consumer and government customers.
The federal agreement, which the company called "a wonderful business transaction," gave the Pentagon exclusive rights to all of Space Imaging's Afghanistan imagery as well as all of the time that its Ikonos-2 satellite was over the target area. Of course, having the rights doesn't mean the government actually would use the photos.
Ikonos-2 satellite images are said to be among the best available to the public. They were added to photographs already being collected by military satellites and airplanes for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. That agency provides combat support services to the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. Payment for commercial photos comes out of a classified budget.
Under the month-to-month contract, which started Oct. 7, 2001, the agency paid for exclusive access to Ikonos photos of the area involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, the military code name for the strikes in Afghanistan.
Buying exclusive rights was an attempt to keep the Taliban and Osama bin Laden from knowing where the U.S. military might be looking. For instance, pictures of the Kandahar airfield on Space Imaging's Web site might offer a clue to U.S. plans.
In other circumstances, Ikonos pictures cost buyers up to $200 per square kilometer of imagery plus an extra $3,000 for quick turnaround work. News media had been paying $500 per picture.
One meter resolution. Ikonos-2 has a camera on board that, when shooting black-and-white photos, can see objects on Earth as small as one meter square (three feet or one yard). The company claims, "You can count the cars in a parking lot, tell which are pickups and sedans, and tell what color they are."
One-meter photos might show trees, buildings, cars or boats, but that resolution is not good enough to recognize individual people or read automobile license plates, which are popular benchmarks for the spy trade. Photographs taken from airplanes also can achieve one-meter resolution.
Ikonos' color images have a resolution of four meters (13 feet).
The exact resolution attained by U.S. military satellites is a secret, but experts suggest it is ten times better than the resolution provided by Ikonos. Intelligence analysts estimate that military satellites can take pictures in which objects as small as 10 centimeters in size can be distinguished.
Keeping news media out. American news media often buy satellite pictures of areas of high news value. The act of buying up all rights denies the public an important tool for oversight of government activities. Media suggest that, if the Pentagon were to be the sole source for battle assessment, there would be no independent channel for assessing conduct of the war. Relief workers also could have used Ikonos photos to track refugee movements to plan delivery of food supplies.
Ikonos in polar orbit. Space Imaging launched the 1,600-pound satellite to an altitude of 400 miles in September 1999 on a Lockheed Martin Athena 2 rocket from Vandenburg Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. The company began selling its pictures to the public in January 2000.
The Ikonos satellite travels around the Earth at a speed of four miles per second at an altitude of 423 miles. It crosses over the North Pole, then the South Pole, and back to the North Pole again every 98 minutes.
Under other circumstances, customers use Ikonos pictures for mapping, land-use planning, urban planning and zoning, environmental analysis, oil and gas exploration, agricultural monitoring, insurance and risk management, emergency preparedness and disaster assessment, and many other purposes. The impact of natural disasters can be assessed quickly by comparing before and after images.
Right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the company made its photos of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon available free on its <http://www.spaceimaging.com/>Web site.
The first Ikonos satellite was lost in the Pacific Ocean when a protective shroud failed to come off the rocket as planned after launch.
Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite
Following the GPS. War machines have become so sophisticated that many of the bombs dropped by B-1, B-2and B-52 bombers home in on their Afghan targets follow signals from Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.
Lacrosse. Spysats are very important. The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) operates a clutch of radar-imaging satellites known as Lacrosse. Each weighs 15 tons and is as big as a school bus. They orbit 400 miles above Earth's surface.
Each Lacrosse crossed the south Aisa twice a day, peering down through bad weather to show commanders where to strike and what damage was caused by strikes. They could see objects as small as a foot across at night and in bad weather. Big objects on the ground, like tanks or surface-to-air (SAM) missiles, could be seen even if hidden in a woods.
KH-11. NRO also several digital-imaging satellites known as KH-11. They deliver very high resolution pictures in visible light and infrared. They can't see through foliage, but they can see at night in good weather.
The KH-11 satellites are in egg-shaped elliptical orbits ranging from a low of 175 to a high of 625 miles above Earth. They flew over South Asia twice a day. In addition, NRO may have used other spysats crossing over the area. There also were Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites.
How did the satellite info get to commanders in the field? NRO personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) packaged the data and sent it on via American command and control satellites to strike planners on ships at sea, and at naval and air bases and army forts in the Near East, South Asia, in the United States and elswehere.
Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite
DMSP. Weather conditions in South Asia vary widely, which highlighted the importance of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, as well as other civilian weather satellites, used to read conditions in target areas. Weather not only affected the timing of air strikes, but also the timing of damage assessments by overflying spacecraft.
At least ten American, European and Russian weather satellites delivered images of South Asian conditions. Four DMSP satellites in polar orbits 500 miles above Earth snapped pictures that showed areas as small as 1,000 feet in diameter.
In additon there were four weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administartion (NOAA) flying in polar orbits -- NOAA-10, -12, -14 and -15.
European Meteosat and Russian weather satellites were in geosynchronous or stationary orbit.
GPS. How did commanders know where things were? There were 24 Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites orbiting Earth. Cruise missiles and some smart bombs were guided by precise timing signals received directly from those GPS satellites. Planes and ships navigated the globe following the same GPS signals. Even troops and trucks located themselves with GPS receivers.
Communications. A wide array of communications satellites around the world were used to relay messages and data. The American spacecraft included the U.S. Defense Satellite Communications Systems (DSCS) satellites, the so-called UHF Follow-On satellites, the Fleetsatcom satellites, and Milstar Satellite Communications System satellites.
Communications satellites from other nations included Great Britain's Skynet satellite and France's Telesat Syracuse satellite and the NATO-4 satellite. All of these coordinated land, sea and air forces.
Russian spysats. Russian spysats were peering down on the scene. Even though it was reported that the Russians had only one digital-image spysat and one radio-receiving sypsat in operation, the data provided a different perspective to military commanders planning operations.
The Russians launched a replacement military satellite during the U.S. Afghan military action period. A Proton-K rocket blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan on October 6, 2001, carrying a Raduga-1 communications satellite.
Islamic State of Afghanistan
Afghans use satellites. Space satellites had been used in the past by Afghans. They have had non-military international satellite earth stations and a commercial satellite telephone center in Ghazni. They used an Intelsat communications satellite over the Indian Ocean to link with Iran and an Intersputnik communication satellite serving the Atlantic Ocean region.
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1999: Yugoslavia
Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite
Four dozen satellites from nearly two dozen nations supported the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in southeastern Europe.
It was the largest armada of spacecraft ever brought to bear on a single war in history.
The military action was in a region of Europe known as The Balkans. The name comes from the major mountain chain extending 350 miles across southeast Europe from eastern Yugoslavia through central Bulgaria to the Black Sea. The mountains rise to almost 8,000 feet. The Balkans are a continuation of the Carpathian Mountains. The territory has many challenging peaks and forested valleys.
More than a dozen different kinds of American, British, French and NATO satellites gathered intelligence via photography, infrared and radar imaging, and radio and television intercepts; measured and reported weather conditions; communicated command and control messages and data; and pinpointed targets and located people on the ground.
Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
War machines have become so sophisticated that even the bombs dropped by B-2 bombers home in on their targets with signals from Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.
Spysats were very important. The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) operated two radar-imaging satellites known as Lacrosse. Each weighs 15 tons and is as big as a school bus. They orbit 400 miles above Earth's surface.
Each Lacrosse crossed the Balkans twice a day, peering down through bad weather to show commanders where to strike and what damage was caused by strikes. They could see objects as small as a foot across at night and in bad weather. Big objects on the ground, like tanks and surface-to-air (SAM) missiles, could be seen even if hidden in a woods.
Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite
NRO also has three digital-imaging satellites known as KH-11. They delivered very high resolution pictures in visible light and infrared. They couldn't see through foliage, but they could see at night in good weather.
The KH-11 satellites are in egg-shaped elliptical orbits ranging from a low of 175 to a high of 625 miles above Earth. They flew over the Balkans twice a day. In addition, NRO may have used other spysats crossing over the area. There also were Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites.
How did the satellite info get to commanders in the field? NRO personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) packaged the data and sent it on via American command and control satellites to strike planners on ships at sea, and at naval and air bases and army forts.
Weather conditions in Europe vary widely, which highlighted the importance of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, as well as other civilian weather satellites, used to read conditions in target areas. Weather not only affected the timing of air strikes, but also the timing of damage assessments by overflying spacecraft.
Milstar Satellite Communications System
At least ten American and European weather satellites delivered images of Balkan conditions. There were four DMSP satellites in polar orbits 500 miles above Earth. Their pictures showed areas as small as 1,000 feet in diameter.
In additon there were four weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administartion (NOAA) flying in polar orbits. They are known as NOAA-10, -12, -14 and -15.
Two European Meteosat satellites were in geosynchronous or stationary orbit over the area. Meteosat-6 and -7 peered down continuously from the same place in the skies over Europe.
How did commanders know where things were? There were 24 Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites orbiting Earth. Cruise missiles and some smart bombs were guided by precise timing signals received directly from GPS satellites. Planes and ships navigated the globe with the same GPS signals. Even troops and trucks located themselves with GPS receivers.
A wide array of communications satellites around the world were used to relay messages and data. The American spacecraft included the U.S. Defense Satellite Communications Systems (DSCS) satellites, the so-called UHF Follow-On satellites, the Fleetsatcom satellites, and Milstar Satellite Communications System satellites.
Communications satellites from other nations included Great Britain's Skynet satellite and France's Telesat Syracuse satellite. And the NATO-4 satellite was used. All of these coordinated land, sea and air forces.
Russian spysats were not supporting NATO operations, but were peering down on the scene. It was reported that the Russians had only one digital-image spysat and one radio-receiving sypsat in operation.
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