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Science & Technology
NRO gives NASA two Hubble sized Space Telescopes!
2012-06-05
The United States' spy satellite agency is giving NASA two spare space telescopes free of charge, each potentially more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA officials announced.

Both NRO space telescopes have a main mirror nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), rivaling the Hubble Space Telescope, and also carry a secondary mirror to enhance image sharpness, according to press reports.
Posted by:Water Modem

#7  As per #4, RUSSIA TODAY Artic says NASA's prob would be getting its new Telys up into space.

"Atlas" indeed.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2012-06-05 23:44  

#6  NSA doesn't usually have to deal with expansive Congressional interference in who buys, who sales, who constructs, where it all gets paid, and who ultimately gets campaign donations. Usually that's all restricted to those on the double super secret panels who won't talk/deal with their buds in the hallway or restroom in the Capital.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2012-06-05 22:44  

#5  Money for spying but n0t for science!?
This is getting ridiculous when NSA has better space telescopes than NASA. NASA gets their junk out of the recycle bin?


Fuck the MAN!!!
There, I said it.
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2012-06-05 22:25  

#4  Best guess by many on NASA forum is Block-4 KH-11 mod. Optics are there but the NRO pulled the cameras and image sensors.

quote from one of the forum comments:

f1.2 primary!!! F!1!.!2! That's less than 3 meters long! f8 system leads to a 19,200mm focal length (~5x the focal length of the KH-8!) Though to be fair, CCD pixels are much larger than film grain, so it may be a wash. Thermal Barrel and Radiator system included. Mass of only 1700kg! Of course that does not include the sensors, solar panels, batteries, spacecraft bus, and the million other parts I forgot. But still, how much would the rest of the package weigh? Could this fit and be sent to GEO on a large Atlas? Then we get into the geeky stuff of 60nm rms... that better than 1/10 wave. The fancy materials, etc...
Posted by: Water Modem   2012-06-05 20:06  

#3   More on the gift
“This is going to be top-quality hardware,” said the analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic. “They’re not state-of-the-art spy satellites, but they are probably still state-of-the-art optics.”

DeSio, the NRO spokeswoman, said the telescopes were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The spy telescopes have a feature that civilian space telescopes lack: a maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more-focused images, said David Spergel, a Princeton University astrophysicist and a co-chair of the National Academies of Science committee on astronomy and astrophysics.

The new telescopes are “actually better than the Hubble. They’re the same size, but the optical design is such that you can put a broader set of instruments on the back,” he said.

BUT THE KEY PHRASE: “NASA does not have in its current budget the funding necessary to develop a space telescope mission using these new telescopes,”

Posted by: Water Modem   2012-06-05 19:13  

#2  Yea Rich, it's the General Dynamics G8V99 Deep Earch Penetrator (DEP) which was successfully tested recently on 1-3 mile deep tunnels in North Korea. US and Korean paratroopers performed the on-site, ground validation testing.
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-06-05 19:01  

#1  Hopefully that means they (NRO) have something better.
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2012-06-05 18:45  

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