Launch News NovaSAR: UK radar satellite to track illegal shipping activity

[Notebook]

The first all-British radar satellite is set to go into orbit on an Indian rocket.
Called NovaSAR, it has the ability to take pictures of the surface of the Earth in every kind of weather, day or night.
The spacecraft will assume a number of roles but its designers specifically want to see if it can help monitor suspicious shipping activity.
Lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota is at 17:37 BST.
NovaSAR will be joined on its rocket by a high-resolution optical satellite - that is, an imager that sees in ordinary light.
Known as S1-4, this spacecraft will discern objects on the ground as small as 87cm across. Both it and NovaSAR were manufactured by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of Guildford.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45523677

Shame we don't have a launcher for it!

N.

 

[Notebook]

Well, its gone!

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/09/indian-pslv-launch-two-british-satellites/

 

[Urwumpe]

Oh fun. How do they want to tell legal from illegal shipping in space, if telling so from sea level to 500m altitude is already impossible...

 

[Notebook]

As far as it says, its checking for IFF and alerts if off/faulty. Than it launches the ant-ship missiles....

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

As far as it says, its checking for IFF and alerts if off/faulty. Than it launches the ant-ship missiles....

N.

Yeah, checking AIS. Sadly most small ships in the world are not required to use AIS. And guess who sets the data in the class A, class A inland (EU) or class B transceivers...

If I wanted to, I could make the CVN-68 Nimitz travel upstream the Rhine and nobody could stop me... at least they would think twice about it. :lol: It would not even require hardware modifications, after all: Who knows the MMSI of the Nimitz without looking it up on Wikipedia?

 

[Notebook]

I think someone has already done it:
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:110005/mmsi:205294590/imo:0/vessel:NIMITZ

 

[Urwumpe]

I think someone has already done it:
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:110005/mmsi:205294590/imo:0/vessel:NIMITZ

Yeah, like I said. :lol: If he really wanted to, he could have configured some more values to be transmitted. I am pretty sure, with a software-defined radio and some Raspberry Pi madness, you could even pretend to be a full carrier taskforce. And that from your home... after all, who checks that reported GPS location and radio signal direction and strength make sense? Could maybe result in a small fine here because you spammed reserved radio bands... but you can't be caught for breaking maritime laws, if you do it from land.

 

[Notebook]

NovaSAR: UK radar satellite returns first images
By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46312874