Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), is an intelligence gathering discipline Categories: Intelligence gathering disciplines | Open source intelligence which collects information via satellite and aerial photography Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or triggered automatically. Platforms for aerial. As a means of collecting intelligence, IMINT is a subset of intelligence collection management Intelligence Collection Management is the process of managing and organizing the collection of intelligence information from various sources. The collection department of an intelligence organization may attempt basic validation of that which it collects, but is not intended to analyze its significance. It is a blurry line between validation and, which, in turn, is a subset of intelligence cycle management The intelligence cycle is a investigation process used by end users , which allows that user to gather specific information, understand the possibilities of that information, and the limitations of the intelligence process. IMINT is especially complemented by non-imaging MASINT electro-optical and radar sensors.
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Aerial
Aerial intelligence goes back hundreds of years. Long in the past (the American Civil War Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi – Pacific Coast for example) hot air balloons On Nov 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air balloon created on Dec 14, 1782 by the Montgolfier brothers. Recently, balloon envelopes have been made in all kinds of shapes, such as hot dogs, rocket ships, and the shapes of were used to observe enemy formations far in the distance. In 1888 Amedee Denisse (France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian,) studied the possibility of cameras attached to rockets to obtain photographic evidence over great distances; unfortunately this vision was likely never achieved in full[1]. Shortly after the turn of the century, the introduction of pigeons with small cameras attached to their chests became a short-lived long-distance reconnaissance option, but with obvious flaws and difficulties[2]. On the other hand, the 19th century use of fixed balloons survived into World War I World War I was a military conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 15 million people were, when it was accompanied by observation from airships An airship or dirigible is an aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms. Unlike other aerodynamic aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, which produce lift by moving a wing, or airfoil, through the air, aerostatic (zeppelins A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899. Given the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term) and the newly invented airplane A fixed-wing aircraft, typically called an airplane, aeroplane or plane, is an aircraft capable of flight using forward motion that generates lift as the wing moves through the air. Planes include jet engine and propeller driven vehicles propelled forward by thrust, as well as unpowered aircraft . Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from ornithopters. In WW2 a Joint Imagery Intelligence unit was set up in Danesfield House, Medmenham in Buckinghamshire The area under the control of Buckinghamshire County Council, or shire county, is divided into four districts—Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe. The Borough of Milton Keynes is a unitary authority and forms part of the county for various functions such as Lord Lieutenant but does not come under county council control. The, UK for British and US Intelligence Officers to exploit imagery gathered on the Germans.
Low- and high-flying planes have been used all through the last century to gather intelligence about the enemy. At the start of the Cold War, foreseeing the need to observe the enemy in peacetime as well as war, the U.S. developed high-flying reconnaissance planes. The first, the Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency. It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather surveillance. The aircraft is also used for electronic sensor research and, is still in service; its successor, the newer, much faster SR-71 Blackbird The Lockheed SR-71 is an advanced, long range, Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft by the Lockheed Skunk Works as a Black project. The SR-71 was unofficially named the Blackbird, and called the Habu by its crews, referring to an Okinawan species of pit viper. Clarence "Kelly", was retired in 1998. These planes have the advantage over satellites that they can usually produce more detailed photographs and can be placed over the target more quickly, more often, and more cheaply, but have the obvious disadvantage that they can be shot down. (However, there is no evidence an SR-71 was ever shot down.)
A new generation of unmanned reconnaissance planes has been developed for imagery and signals intelligence. Known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV; also known as a remotely piloted vehicle or RPV, or Unmanned Aircraft System ) is an aircraft that flies without a human crew on board the aircraft. Their largest uses are in military applications. To distinguish UAVs from missiles, a UAV is defined[by whom?] as a reusable, uncrewed vehicle capable of controlled,, these drones are a force multiplier Force multiplication, in military usage, refers to a combination of attributes or advantages which make a given force more effective than another force of comparable size. A force multiplier refers to a factor that dramatically increases the effectiveness of an item or group by giving the battlefield commander an "eye in the sky" without risking a pilot An aviator is a person who flies or travels via aircraft for pleasure or as a profession. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887 as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin 'avis' (meaning bird), coined 1863 by G. de la Landelle in "Aviation ou Navigation Aérienne" ('Aviation or Air Navigation'. The term aviatrix (aviatrice in. The US Army The United States Army is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven uniformed services. The modern Army has its roots in the Continental Army which was formed on 14 June 1775, before the establishment of the is significantly increasing the size of its current UAV force as part of the Future Combat System initiative.
Satellites
Though the resolution of satellite photographs, which must be taken from distances of hundreds of kilometers, is usually poorer than photographs taken by air Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or triggered automatically. Platforms for aerial, satellites offer the possibility of coverage for much of the earth, including hostile territory, without exposing human pilots to the risk of being shot down.
There have been hundreds of reconnaissance satellites A spy satellite is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications launched by dozens of nations since the first years of space exploration. While the information about the vast majority of such satellites are strictly classified Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular classes of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation. There are typically several levels of, some information (such as that concerning the US Corona program) has been declassified with the end of the Cold War The Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition existing after World War II (1939–1945), primarily between the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, particularly the United States. Although the primary participants' military forces never.
Early photographic reconnaissance satellites used photographic film, which was exposed on-orbit and returned to earth for developing. These satellites remained in orbit for days, weeks, or months before ejecting their film-return vehicles, called "buckets." Between 1959 and 1984 the U.S. launched around 200 such satellites under the codenames CORONA A corona is a type of plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph. The Latin root of the word corona means crown and GAMBIT, with photographic resolutions as high as 0.6- 1.2 meters (2-4 feet). The first successful mission concluded on 1960-08-19 with the mid-air recovery by a C-119 of film from the Corona mission code-named Discoverer 14 Discoverer 14 was a spy satellite used in the Corona program managed by DARPA and the United States Air Force. On 19 August 1960, usable photographic film images taken by the satellite were recovered by a C-119 recovery aircraft. This was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first mid-air recovery of an object. This was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit.[1] Because of a tradeoff between area covered and ground resolution, not all reconnaissance satellites have been designed for high resolution; the KH-5-ARGON program had a ground resolution of 140 meters and was intended for mapmaking Cartography is the study and practice of making maps (also can be called mapping). Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
Between 1961 and 1994 the USSR launched perhaps 500 Zenit Zenit is the name of a series of military spy satellites launched by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1994. To conceal their nature, all flights were given the public Kosmos designation. Over a 33 year period, over five hundred Zenits were flown making it the most numerous type of satellite in the history of spaceflight.[citation needed] film-return satellites, which returned both the film and the camera to earth in a pressurized capsule.
Satellites for imaging intelligence were usually placed in low-earth A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km. Given the rapid orbital decay of objects below approximately 200 km, the commonly accepted definition for LEO is between 160 - 2,000 km (100 - 1,240 miles) above the Earth's surface, high-inclination orbits, sometimes in sun-synchronous orbits A sun-synchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit which combines altitude and inclination in such a way that an object on that orbit ascends or descends over any given point of the Earth's surface at the same local mean solar time. The surface illumination angle will be nearly the same every time. This consistent lighting is a useful characteristic. Since the film-return missions were usually short, they could indluge in orbits with low perigees An apsis, plural apsides , is the point of greatest or least distance of a body from one of the foci of its elliptical orbit. In modern celestial mechanics this focus is also the center of attraction, which is usually the center of mass of the system. Historically, in geocentric systems, apsides were measured from the center of the Earth, in the range of 100-200 km, but the more recent CCD-based satellites have been launched into higher orbits, 250-300 km perigee, allowing each to remain in orbit for several years .While the exact resolution The ability of a lens to resolve detail is usually determined by the quality of the lens but is ultimately limited by diffraction. Light coming from a point in the object diffracts through the lens aperture such that it forms a diffraction pattern in the image which has a central spot and surrounding bright rings, separated by dark nulls; this and other details of modern spy satellites A spy satellite is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications are classified, some idea of the trade-offs available can be made using simple physics. The formula for the highest possible resolution of an optical system with a circular aperture is given by the Rayleigh John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh OM was an English physicist who, with William Ramsay, discovered the element argon, an achievement for which he earned the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1904. He also discovered the phenomenon now called Rayleigh scattering, explaining why the sky is blue, and predicted the existence of the surface waves now criterion:
where θ is the angular resolution, λ is the wavelength In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave – the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a characteristic of both traveling waves and of light, and D is the diameter of the lens or mirror. Were the Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The, with a 2.4 m telescope, designed for photographing Earth, it would be diffraction-limited to resolutions greater than 16cm (6 inches) for green light ( nm) at its orbital altitude of 590 km. This means that it would be impossible to take photographs showing objects smaller than 16cm with such a telescope at such an altitude. Modern U.S. IMINT satellites are believed to have around 10cm resolution; contrary to references in popular culture, this is sufficient to detect any type of vehicle, but not to read the headlines of a newspaper.[2]
The U.S. KH-11 The KH-11, also referenced by the codenames 1010, Crystal and Kennan, also commonly known as "Key Hole", was a type of reconnaissance satellite launched by the American National Reconnaissance Office between December 1976 and 1990 and used until present.[when?] Manufactured by Lockheed in Sunnyvale, California, the KH-11 was the first series of satellites, first launched in 1976, was made by Lockheed The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995, the same contractor who built the Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The. HST has a 2.4 metre telescope mirror and is believed to have had a similar appearance to the KH-11 satellites. These satellites used charge-coupled devices, predecessors to modern digital cameras, rather than film.
The primary purpose of most spy satellites is to monitor visible ground activity. While resolution Image resolution describes the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail and clarity of images has improved greatly over the years, this role has remained essentially the same. Some other uses of satellite imaging have been to produce detailed 3D maps for use in operations and missile guidance systems, and to monitor normally invisible information such as the growth levels of a country's crops or the heat given off by certain facilities. Some of the multi-spectral sensors, such as thermal measurement, are more electro-optical MASINT Electro-optical MASINT is a subdiscipline of Measurement and Signature Intelligence, and refers to intelligence gathering activities which bring together disparate elements that do not fit within the definitions of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), or Human Intelligence (HUMINT) than true IMINT platforms.
To counter the threat posed by these 'eyes in the sky', the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (help·info), tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, IPA [sɐˈjʊs sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɪ/Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal, China China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity and possibly others, have developed systems for destroying enemy spy satellites Anti-satellite weapons are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for strategic military purposes. Currently, only the United States, the former USSR (now Russia) and the People's Republic of China are known to have developed these weapons. On September 13, 1985, the United States destroyed US satellite P78-1 using an ASM-135 (either with the use of another 'killer satellite', or with some sort of Earth- or air-launched missile).
Since 1985, commercial vendors of satellite imagery have entered the market, beginning with the French SPOT SPOT is a high-resolution, optical imaging Earth observation satellite system operating from space. It is run by Spot Image based in Toulouse, France. It was initiated by the CNES (Centre national d'études spatiales — the French space agency) in the 1970s and was developed in association with the SSTC (Belgian scientific, technical and cultural satellites, which had resolutions between 5 and 20 metres. Recent high-resolution ( 4 - 0.5 metre) private imaging satellites include TerraSAR-X TerraSAR-X, a German Earth observation satellite, is a joint venture being carried out under a public-private-partnership between the German Aerospace Center DLR and EADS Astrium GmbH; the exclusive commercial exploitation rights are held by the geo-information service provider Infoterra GmbH. TerraSAR-X was launched on June 15, 2007 and has been, IKONOS IKONOS is a commercial earth observation satellite, and was the first to collect publicly available high-resolution imagery at 1- and 4-meter resolution. It offers multispectral and panchromatic (PAN) imagery. The IKONOS launch was called by John E. Pike “one of the most significant developments in the history of the space age”. IKONOS imagery, Orbview, QuickBird QuickBird is a high-resolution commercial earth observation satellite, owned by DigitalGlobe and launched in 2001 as the first satellite in a constellation of three scheduled to be in orbit by 2008. QuickBird uses Ball Aerospace's Global Imaging System 2000 that collects the fourth highest resolution commercial imagery of Earth after WorldView-1, and Worldview-1 WorldView-1 is a commercial earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. It was launched September 18, 2007, and DigitalGlobe plans to launch another, similar satellite after its construction is finished in late 2008. First imagery from WorldView-1 is expected to be available prior to October 18, the six-year anniversary of the launch of, allowing any country (or any business for that matter) to buy access to satellite images.
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Main article: Unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV; also known as a remotely piloted vehicle or RPV, or Unmanned Aircraft System ) is an aircraft that flies without a human crew on board the aircraft. Their largest uses are in military applications. To distinguish UAVs from missiles, a UAV is defined[by whom?] as a reusable, uncrewed vehicle capable of controlled,UAVs have developed until they span a spectrum of literally handheld imaging platforms for infantry tactical use, up to large multisensor platforms such as Global Hawk. Global Hawk, with its long loiter time and global reach, has some of the attributes of a satellite in a lower earth orbit than would be feasible for a true orbiter.
See also
- JARIC at RAF Brampton (UK interpretation center)
- MASINT: Measurement and Signature Intelligence
- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (U.S. interpretation center)
- RAF Intelligence: Royal Air Force Intelligence Branch
- GEOINT: Geospatial Intelligence
- Dino A. Brugioni
- Arthur C. Lundahl
Notes
- ^ "Discoverer 14 - NSSDC ID: 1960-010A". NASA. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1960-010A.
- ^ "Imint resolution comparison". Federation of American Scientists. http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/resolve5.htm.
Further reading
- Maya Quiñones, William Gould, and Carlos D. Rodríguez-Pedraza. United States Department of Agriculture Geospatial Data Availability for Haiti (February 2007) (Study on availability of commercial imagery in 2007 which summarizes collection systems and data products.)
External links
- Imagery intelligence, pictures interpretation
- Introduction to Imagery Intelligence via globalsecurity
- Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station, Geraldton
- Joint Australian-US intelligence facility - Pine Gap
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Categories: Intelligence gathering disciplines | Military acronyms | Intelligence (information gathering)
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