BritainA UK telescope array will photograph satellites every 10 seconds.
Britain’s military is working with civilian astronomers to close its spy-satellite tracking gap.
Narrow beams mean eavesdropping requires flying close, so astronomers read reflected light from the ground to infer a satellite’s structure.
“It’s a very murky pool,” said James Blake, a University of Warwick astronomer, of defence funding.
Intelligence agencies want to discuss how academics and observatories can supply a sovereign capability, researcher Mark Norris says.
How each outlet framed it
- New Scientist
- attributes the monitoring effort to a capability gap, noting the UK cannot match US, Chinese and Russian counter-surveillance and is working with civilian astronomers on ground telescopes
Sources: New Scientist