China's Small Satellites

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2004-12-15 01:51pm

From CNN

Small satellites a big deal in China
Wednesday, December 15, 2004 Posted: 10:01 AM EST (1501 GMT)

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China, which put its first man in orbit last year, has built a national engineering and research center for small satellites, paving the way for large-scale production, state media said on Wednesday.

The centre had a designed production capacity of six to eight small satellites a year, the People's Daily said.

"It is the largest small satellite development and experiment base in the world at present," Xinhua news agency quoted an official with the centre as saying.

Last month, state media said China planned to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020 to watch every corner of the country.

A "large surveying network" would be set up to monitor water reserves, forests, farmland, city construction and "various activities of society," it said.
The new complex, on the northwest outskirts of Beijing, consisted of a design base and an assembly, test and experiment centre, Xinhua said.

"It will strengthen the cooperation with foreign and Chinese institutions, promoting the industrialization of micro-satellites," the People's Daily said.

China regularly sends research satellites into orbit and in October last year became the third nation successfully to put a man in space.

China and the United States held their first space cooperation talks this month, planning a series of exchanges.

The meeting signaled an acknowledgement the United States cannot afford to ignore China's ambitious space plans, after initial reluctance to recognize its achievement in sending former fighter pilot Yang Liwei into space in October last year.

It's the underlined part that gets me. "Various Activities of Society" Is it just me, or does this smell of BigBrother watching you?

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2004-12-15 03:10pm

I seriously doubt that the Chinese have sufficient technology to play Big Brother from low Earth orbit, nevermind miniaturise them to an extent where they can be mounted on microsats.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2004-12-15 03:29pm

kheegan wrote:I seriously doubt that the Chinese have sufficient technology to play Big Brother from low Earth orbit, nevermind miniaturise them to an extent where they can be mounted on microsats.

How big does a camera have to be? The US had the tech to photograph people from space in the 80's.

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2004-12-15 03:55pm

You need a resolution of around 0.5m to resolve a person from above. From 200km up, this means an angular resolution of 2.5E-6 rad, or half an arc-second. The minimum mirror diameter that can resolve this is D = λ/θ a bit more than half a meter for the visible wavelength. And because you're looking at something that isn't too faint, you want a reasonable f-ratio, so the telescope itself has to have a focal length of at least a few meters.

And this is completely neglecting the technological challenges of being able to operate the thing in a space environment.

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2004-12-15 03:58pm

LadyTevar wrote:
How big does a camera have to be? The US had the tech to photograph people from space in the 80's.

And in any case, China's current level of space tech is probably equivalent to mid 60s USA.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-12-15 04:05pm

LadyTevar wrote:
kheegan wrote:I seriously doubt that the Chinese have sufficient technology to play Big Brother from low Earth orbit, nevermind miniaturise them to an extent where they can be mounted on microsats.
How big does a camera have to be? The US had the tech to photograph people from space in the 80's.

We had the tech to photograph things from space. To do a decent job of photographing people, you need something about the size of the Hubble.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2004-12-15 04:24pm

I see.

However, do you think that the Chinese Govn. would try to use the satellites to spy on their own people?

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2004-12-15 04:32pm

LadyTevar wrote:I see.

However, do you think that the Chinese Govn. would try to use the satellites to spy on their own people?

I think 'spying' on someone from orbit is next to impossible. While it's possible to identify humans on a satellite image, I doubt you can actually identify a single person and track his/her activities. I may be wrong on this and the state-of-the-art in US spysats might be capable of this, but almost certainly the Chinese are incapable of it.

However, as far as intent is concerned, the Chinese most certainly wouldn't hesitate for a moment to spy on their own people (although a 1.2 billion population means that they would only concentrate on a few dissidents). As it is, they already have the most comprehensive Internet monitoring and firewalls in existence for any country (you can't even access the BBC website from within China).

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2004-12-15 04:36pm

Haven't you seen Enemy of the State. They've had the technology for years. They can track your movements, they can kill you, the only way to survive is to find Gene Hackman and some Italian mafia.

Brian

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 2004-12-15 06:09pm

As it is, they already have the most comprehensive Internet monitoring and firewalls in existence for any country (you can't even access the BBC website from within China).

That scares me more than the Chicoms getting spy sattelites.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-15 06:18pm

In other news, a small Chinese satellite, inexplicably clad in a re-entry pod, fell out of orbit unexpectedly over the western United States. Actor Gene Hackman is presumed dead after his house was struck by the out-of-control satellite, reportedly obliterating it completely. Officials in the Chinese space program were unavailable for comment.