Hey bro can I bum a hubble from ya?

[steve000]

Have a read of this, things are so wrong. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/06/hey-brother-can-you-spare-a-hubble-dod-sure-have-two/258061

[gary]

These are stock-piled backup KH-11 Kennan reconnaissance satellites, which also had the codename of
"Key Hole".

As I mentioned some time back in this thread (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=747561&postcount=3), the dimensions of the Shuttle, in particular the payload bay,
was specifically designed to accommodate them.

The Hubble was built by primarily the same contractors who engineered the KH-11.

Ironically the KH-11's ended up getting launched on Titans.

Like the Hubble, they had mirrors of around 2.4m in diameter but are reportedly f/8
rather than f/24 and have movable secondaries.

[joe_smith]

hmm what do they have?

When are they going to put them to use? they should put one in low mars orbit. The views should be like google earth and they will be able to zoom in for a good close up view, as they are designed for surveillance use, that way we could watch the rovers doing their thing.

[gary]

http://www.spacenews.com/military/nro-director-defends-plan-for-electro-optical-spy-satellites.html

Further background including the surrounding controversy of the prime contract for the
Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) being taken from Boeing and given to Lockheed
when they failed to deliver on time and on budget -

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/ecs.htm#