pv04+@andrew.cmu.edu (Philip Verdieck) (04/07/89)
This maybe the stupidest question, especially if its allready been asked and answered since the point where I saw an article here mentioning it (early march/late feb). So if its been discussed, ignore this cause I'll catch up, but..... What are the capabilities for rotating this baby and using it for spying purposes???
ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.EDU (Matthew T. DeLuca) (04/07/89)
In article <wYCugSy00Ui0E0kWMI@andrew.cmu.edu>, pv04+@andrew.cmu.edu (Philip Verdieck) writes: > > What are the capabilities for rotating this baby and using it for > spying purposes??? According to the NASA material I have, the HST is a low-light telescope, meaning that it cannot view bright objects like the sun, moon, or the Earth. However, the KH-12 reconaissance satellite (wasn't this launched recently?) is a close cousin of the HST, except it can view the earth. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matthew DeLuca : Georgia Institute of Technology : Remember, wherever you go, there you are. ARPA: ccoprmd@pyr.gatech.edu : --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gsh7w@astsun1.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) (04/07/89)
In article <wYCugSy00Ui0E0kWMI@andrew.cmu.edu> (Philip Verdieck) writes:
#
#What are the capabilities for rotating this baby and using it for
#spying purposes???
Not much, since the detectors are sensitive enough to burn out. A
KH-11 or KH-12 will do the job for you though.
-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu
UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7wmbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel) (04/08/89)
In article <1343@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gsh7w@astsun1.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes: >In article <wYCugSy00Ui0E0kWMI@andrew.cmu.edu> (Philip Verdieck) writes: ># >#What are the capabilities for rotating this baby and using it for >#spying purposes??? > >Not much, since the detectors are sensitive enough to burn out. A >KH-11 or KH-12 will do the job for you though. > >-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia > USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA > Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu > UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w My father, who is on various NASA committees, claims that a KH-11/12 is essentially a Hubble Telescope pointing down. 2-3 meter primary, >2 gigadollars, many tons. I suspect that it's not the optics on the space telescope that make it unsuitable for spying, but the lack of encryption for the beamed-down data. Does the space telescope have cryostats? By "burn out" do you mean boil away? (i.e. does do IR?) Or are CCD's damaged permanently from high fluxes? What happens if a 10 GeV proton decides to deposit its energy in the CCD chip? Matt Kennel mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu
berry@stsci.EDU (Jim Berry) (04/08/89)
From article <1343@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>, by gsh7w@astsun1.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy): > In article <wYCugSy00Ui0E0kWMI@andrew.cmu.edu> (Philip Verdieck) writes: > # > #What are the capabilities for rotating this baby and using it for > #spying purposes??? > Not much, since the detectors are sensitive enough to burn out. A > KH-11 or KH-12 will do the job for you though. Funny how we seem to go through this every six months or so. In general, the instruments on board will not 'burn out' if they get pointed at the Earth, although I don't think that either the Faint Object Camera or the Faint Object Spectrograph would fare very well... In fact, the current method for flat-fielding the Wide Field/Planetary Camera is to take several 'smears' of the cloud covered Earth at different angles as it goes by under the telescope, trying to get a flat gray. A couple people have toyed around with linear deblurring algorithms, but just for fun, though. HST simply isn't equipped to take pretty pictures of Grandma's House. Put the right gadgets onto an HST frame and you get a KH-12. They use us to test all of the equipment before they use it on the KH-12 - I think that's why nobody ever got upset about us sitting around at Lockheed taking up space - people were getting experience handling a "KH-12". - Jim -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Berry | UUCP:{arizona,decvax,hao}!noao!stsci!berry Space Telescope Science Institute | ARPA: berry@stsci.edu Baltimore, Md. 21218 | SPAM: SCIVAX::BERRY, KEPLER::BERRY
sims@stsci.EDU (Jim Sims) (04/12/89)
HST will OFTEN be pointed at the Earth (the HSP even has an EARTH-CALIB mode)
You won't 'burn-up the sensors' unless you point it at the sun...
(of course the data probably won't be worth much since it won't focus at
-only- 200 miles & the target is REAL bright compared to most of what it was
designed to look at)
--
Jim Sims Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, MD
UUCP: {arizona,decvax,hao,ihnp4}!noao!stsci!sims
ARPA: sims@stsci.edu SPAM: SCIVAX::SIMS