April 14,
2008: Commercial photo satellites are making intelligence analysis a popular
sport. Recently, the precise location and layout of Iran's ballistic missile
test facility was discovered using commercial satellite photos. In this case, the
images came from the 2.5 ton QuickBird photo satellite. QuickBird went into
orbit last September, and became available for commercial use this past
January. This is a half meter (20 inch) resolution satellite. The first
QuickBird to go up, in 2001, had .6 meter (24 inch) resolution (for black and
white, color stuff tends to be two meter, or greater, resolution.)
Using
Google Earth images of North Korean missile facilities, for comparison, it's
pretty obvious that the Iranian missile center was built with North Korean
help. Iran gets a lot of its missile technology from North Korea. Iran is
currently developing a multi-stage, solid fuel ballistic missile with a range
of 4-6,000 kilometers. This would enable Iran to threaten all of Europe.
