North Korea says its new spy satellite photographed White House, Pentagon

Waldowal@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 174 points –
North Korea says its new spy satellite photographed White House, Pentagon
reuters.com

In unrelated news, Google Maps site traffic from North Korea sees odd spike.

32

Pics or it didn't happen.

Cool, Google maps has that too, glad they’ve reached the year 1998!

Gmap data is dated around sensitive sites and they have to request DoD clearance to update that type of sat imagery, and even then objects can be blurred or even photoshopped by the DoD before google is allowed to post the update, and by then any intel even unedited is OBE. It makes sense that a country would want their own, up-to-date system.

Ok, release a pic with better resolution than a commercial photo sat

Narrator: They didn't because they don't have it

Even if they did, they wouldn't. Analysts would jump right on analyzing the image to as high details as possible to figure out capabilities of their satellites and they don't want that. Kind of like how Russia faked their military capability number of times, especially with airplanes.

Kim Jong Il launches a lot of little rockets to make sure the word can see what his capabilities are, haha.

I kind of think he has put his county in the position where it must prove it before anybody considers it a threat. Or else he would not have felt the need to tell everybody he can take pictures now.

Oh they can't do that, wouldn't want anyone else getting their top secret information they clearly got from the photos.

I've photographed the White House too, but my tour didn't include the Pentagon.

The satellite itself is not a threat but the rocket that launched it is concerning.

It would be a real shame if some random "debris" knocked it out of orbit. A real shame.

A sattelite is only as good as your ability to maintain it.

We don't need anymore anti satellite missile demonstrations. It makes way too damn much space debris.

Knocking things around in orbit is a terrible idea that only adds to the current near crisis we have with space junk. So yes, it would be a real shame if something messed with the orbit of any satellite, one that could cost hundreds of millions in damages or even loss of life.

Was it China that destroyed a satellite in orbit and everyone got mad because it flung so much shit at other satellites

To be fair Google maps is not real time.

Neither is their satellite. They can download data only when their satellite flies over NK or one of their partners if they have partnerships at all.

I know absolutely nothing about this subject, but I saw the saveitforparts youtube channel guy try to listen for this sat and he didnt pick anything up. Does anyone know if its likely that if the sat was up and functioning, hobbyists would at least have a good chance of detecting it?