So the story is: Iran has a satellite, and like any other satellite it's not very risky and this leads to the other story: is blocking Iran from science and research in space actually helping? And the answer is probably not, and also nobody is going to unwind this kind of stupidity very soon.
I think it would achieve more to help Iran with payloads than get snitty about a cubesat.
And say they did get high resolution imaging into space and started looking at US or Israeli or Saudi military and strategic assets.. isn't that kind of normal? Might it not actually help pacify things by giving them incontrovertible evidence there isn't a risk of invasion?
The powers that been do not give a toss about Iran having access to cubesat tech. That isn't the end of the rocket they are worried about. It is the booster, the thing that can also throw bombs around as easily as cubesats, that really worries them. The bans on payload-specific tech are just a tiny extension of the more meaningful bans on core rocket technology.
The likelihood of a US ban preventing ICBM development when the basics are inherent and already known?
Nothing in the story really related to this risk. But, you are probably right it's the latent fear. The ban only drives Iran closer to Russia. Why buy US tech when you can cut out the middleman and go to the same source the US does for engines? (I know they don't buy much any more but they did for a while, and presumably the Iranians can operate a Russian engine as well as the Americans can)
The ban is about delay, not the absolute of prevention. That much is working. Iran is having to develop technology locally as opposed to simply importing it. Without any restrictions, Iran would simply purchase ICBMs and deploy them in a matter of weeks.
A delay would be logical if it provided time to develop a countermeasure. But other than point-defence ABM systems there is no universal countermeasure, practical or in development.
The delay isn't about just about technical countermeasures. It's about giving time for other options to work. These could have included: engagement and diplomacy, regime change, or direct action.
In addition, by increasing the cost of developing these systems, you force hostile (or non-friendly) governments to split their resources. Every bit of funding that went into building a rocket is a bit of funding that doesn't go to Quds Force.
I believe the game plan is to starve the population during the delay, fostering dissent (or just chaos) so a puppet government will be in place before the icbms.
Because that went so well the last time, after all.
All the powers that be might be happy to step into the gaps left by the others, but I'm not sure that automatically means they throw them ballistic missile tech outright. That would also not be in the Russian's interest to some extent too.
The terminology in this hobby confused me a little bit, because it wasn't what I expected. From the context it seems that "recovery" means locating, identifying, and capturing data from the satellite.
Annoyingly, the actual legitimate terminogy for this is "acquiring" (ie as a target or signal) which is just as confusing from a colloquial perspective.
There are lots of "this" in that article. There is SDR, satellite downlinks, Amateur Radio protocols, and receiving equipment.
My path started when I bought one of the RTL-SDR bundles from Nooelec (https://www.nooelec.com/store/). It came with four different antennae and some adapters to connect it to your own antenna.
I spent some time reconstructing projects that people had posted on rtl-sdr.com (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/). I installed Gnuradio companion (and various Gnuradio bits) and built an FM receiver as well as a receiver that could see the signals coming from a wireless light switch.
I decided I wanted to transmit too so I bought a HackRF-one (https://www.nooelec.com/store/hackrf.html). It covers way more spectrum than the RTL-SDR and it has great support in a lot of packages. What I wasn't able to do very successfully with it was look at cellular signals so when Crowd Supply ran a campaign for the Lime SDR (https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr) I got one of those. I recreated the cell basestation setup that the Myriad folks did using an old GSM phone I had in my drawer (marked "Cingular" :-))
I realized I wanted to be able to send more complex things at different frequencies so I took a detour and studied for, and received, my Amateur Radio "Extra" license (AI6ZR). Which allows me to transmit at much higher powers on many more bands.
There was a company near me that was making SDRs and they needed software help, I offered to help if they would let me use their very well equipped lab of RF gear. That gave me both access to and training on "real" RF gear and helped me understand what would be useful and what wasn't needed in my own explorations. Then I started haunting ebay, swap meets, and various auction sites to track down the gear I was missing. (A spectrum analyzer, a vector signal generator, and a vector network analyzer).
Bottom line, this rabbit hole just keeps going and going and going ...
Buy an RTL-SDR on amazon (20-30$). Start playing around with the software. Listen in on aircraft and such. Then start reading about catching satellites.
These things are super fun. I use one to track airplanes and weather in flight with the stratux project. (http://stratux.me) It pairs the USB radio receiver with a raspberry pi and broadcast the location of ADS-B equipped aircraft to your tablet with flight tracking maps. No internet for most of us in a bug smasher - the data comes in over radio waves.
A lot of this builds on Amateur Radio experience. If you dont have a licence, start there. You dont need a license to receive radio transmissions, but the learning involved in getting a license will give you a start on taking on more difficult projects.
> This sounded initially ominous as the IRGC is a declared terrorist organization in many western countries and this mission successfully entered orbit.
Looking this up we find.
> The IRGC is designated as a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United States
Well they did say many. How many? One? Is the Middle East part of the West now? Or only allies of the West? I actually don’t even know how to answer that question but I do see your point.
As the risk of getting political, Iran (its leadership) is one of a handful of countries that openly and repeatedly calls for the literal "annihilation" of another country.
Ah, yes. One of the most escalating potential topics there is.
So is it already risky, to say, that most statements, "calling for annihiliation" of israel, are not so drastic, when looked upon closer?
So, for example the famous quote from former president Ahmadinejad, about wiping israel off the map:
"
Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation – "wipe Israel off the map" – suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can "wipe out" U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous."
That still leaves plenty of other statements, though and support of hamas, etc. who are less diplomatic in their words, but on the other side, you have lots of direct war threats from US and Israel, too, who are indeed nuclear armed. So who started it?
Complicated of course. And I don't really have much sympathy for the mullahs, but the iranian people I met, were nice ones. And I doubt collective punishments from the outside, like the ban on space tech, are helping them get rid of the idiots. It just brings them closer together.
Both are Sunni monarchies, the House of Saud and the House of Khalifa. Both are oil and gas economies. Both are geopolitical rivals of Iran. Both have US military presences.
The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization is probably for the purposes of levying sanctions – this is undoubtedly because Iran opposes the US's strategic interests in the region such as its support of (and alliance with) Israel, Turkey‡, and Saudi Arabia.
> Iran’s new military satellite, NOUR 01, most interesting fact may not be that it resembles a college engineering experiment but rather that it may have a connection to a Mexican military payload launched quietly from New Zealand last year.
Arguably the most interesting fact about Noor (this is the spelling that Wikipedia uses† it's Farsi for 'light') is that with the launch Iran became one of a handful of nations that has placed military tech into space with its own launch platform.
“While a number of countries have built satellites, as of 2019, eleven countries have had the capability to send objects into orbit using their own launch vehicles.” (Iran is listed as the 9th such country to do so.)
This implications of this launcher technology should be obvious to anyone.
Well they may for political reason, but for Israel military I guess they do not care. Terrorism, (il)legitimate war, occupation, etc. incoming and outgoing directions are just tactical concepts to them.
Interesting mention of Mexico military sending a satellite. Historically Mexico has been a peaceful country, it even signed the Tlalelolco treaty to not develop Nuclear weapons. Probably in the war against drug cartels?
Many peaceful countries have military satellites that do earth observation by optical and radar. It's not an offensive technology.
I'm pretty sure Mexico isn't out there developing ballistic missiles and then selling them to other countries in violation of a treaty Mexico signed. That's the actual problem with this particular launch.
I think it would achieve more to help Iran with payloads than get snitty about a cubesat.
And say they did get high resolution imaging into space and started looking at US or Israeli or Saudi military and strategic assets.. isn't that kind of normal? Might it not actually help pacify things by giving them incontrovertible evidence there isn't a risk of invasion?