Oops! Civilian Satellite Data Inadvertently Pinpoints Military Radars
X literally marks the spot for U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries.
By Kyle Mizokami
Oct 24, 2018
An independent researcher has discovered that certain types of military radars can be detected from space. Harel Dan, a self-described “geodata junkie," realized that radar waves generated by the U.S.-made Patriot missile system become visible when viewed from a satellite radar system, pinpointing their location.
In a post on Medium, Dan describes working with data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite constellation. The two satellites that make up Sentinel-1 use synthetic aperture radar to image the entire Earth every six days, transmitting the data to ground stations in Italy, Spain, and Norway. The data is freely available on the internet for anyone to use as they choose.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a24177291/oops-civilian-satellite-data-inadvertently-pinpoints-military-radars/
