Could Also Be
... a testing site for the optical targeting sensor of a missile.
The grids of white lines in China's Gobi desert that have got the world's conspiracy theorists in a lather for a week, are actually calibration targets used to help China's spy satellites, says a NASA researcher. Since the 65ft-wide white line patterns were spotted on Google Earth, it has been speculated that they were …
Granted, the day is young, but still -- the only way what you've said could even possibly make sense is if you were talking about an ICBM, and the idea of optical targeting on an ICBM-delivered warhead is risible to say the least.
Next time you're moved to comment, distract yourself with another bong hit or two instead. We'll all thank you for it.
Do a little reading. 'Fast' doesn't begin to describe the terminal profile of an ICBM-launched warhead, which is unguided -- hence "ballistic" -- anyway; even if someone were mad enough to build fins and optics into one, which they wouldn't because it'd be a waste of mass better used for payload or RV structure, it wouldn't have time to maneuver before fusing.
As for the rest, it is every sensible person's responsibility to shame arrant ignorance out of blithely opening its uninformed mouth in public.
Tricks could be done shifting the aerodynamic response of a fast-moving shell by shifting around the center of mass, for instance - no fins needed (or wanted at that speed). In fact, terminal evasiveness is supposed to be a characteristic of warheads from the superpowers nowadays.
Apparently the Indians can do it to.
from https://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/rumsfeld/pt2_tanks.htm
Agni. The 2500-kilometer Agni technology demonstrator uses the SLV-3
booster for its first stage and a liquid-fueled Prithvi for its second
stage. Three test shots were conducted before the U.S. successfully
pressured India into suspending testing (1994). Of particular
interest, the Agni tests demonstrated that India can develop a
maneuvering warhead that incorporates endo-atmospheric evasive
maneuvers and terminal guidance in the reentry vehicle.
errm... Aaron, m'lad, you don't seem to have heard of 'maneuverable re-entry vehicles'. Look 'em up, Google is your friend. There _are_ RVs which can, and do, modify their flight path from a purely ballistic path, and apparently at least one such type of RV uses an optical system, not for targeting guidance, but to help evade possible intercepting missiles. (Google is your friend with that one, too.) Note that you are the only one who mentioned 'fins', which almost certainly wouldn't work at RV velocities. Methods which would work include gyroscopes and reaction control thruster packages. (Yes, really.) (Google is your friend there, too.)
I leave as an exercise for the student the matter of exactly who should take a hit off his bong before ever again blithely opening its uninformed mouth in public.
Because a regular pattern would be 100% useless for orientation purposes. To fully orient a camera in 3 dimensions from a two-dimensional image, you need an image that appears unique however it is rotated in any of those three dimensions, If there are any two rotations that create the same (or roughly similar depending on the effective resolution) two-dimensional image, then the camera can't be sure how it's oriented.
It's also important that the image be unique in comparison to other subjects of the camera, so that, for example, a satellite camera doesn't mistakenly try to orient itself to the ridge patterns of a mountain range or the street patterns of a major city.
After all, you can sit home all day doing bong hits and babbling conspiracy-theory nonsense about something some red-eyed twat found on Google Earth when he had nothing better in mind to do at three in the morning last Wednesday.
Speaking as somebody who's been working his very testicles off for the last month without a break, I have to say the thought comes with a certain appeal, even if I would chop my own balls off with a cleaver in public before I'd sink so low as to haunt conspiracy theory forums.
Yes the UK uses a circular target with lines about the thickness of a road. For secrecy these are combined with the normal road network - the use of 1000s of them suggest a massive fleet of UK spy satelites.
however the Hanger Lane gyratory is still believed to be a message to aliens
Seeing as how there are also a number of interesting painted "airport shapes" nearby, and some large squares that appear to be covered in craters, could this be to do with developing a system that can target bombs or shells based on visual cues rather than GPS? The crazy-paving patterns could be the start of getting a system to be able to track location based on city streets.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=40.491071,93.468995&spn=0.001611,0.003484&t=h&z=19&vpsrc=6
The whole area 14Km ENE (east north east) 40.490N 93.468E is fully of bomb craters and missile grazes. Looks like they had a whole load of whoosh bang blow things up fun there.
If I was to guess you got a bombing range with areas of ground marked out to simulate airfields and towns.
Calibrations targets??? Utter BUNK. Orient satellite? Hahahahahahahah. Ever heard of star sensors? Paint? If you check it out with Google Earth and drop back to 2005 historical imaging the "paint" is stored in a large pile near some buildings. If you followed the link to the LLM site Mr Hill also gives another "example" of a "satellite calibration target" located in Arizona. It's a Maltese cross near what is now a trap shooting range that appears to have a long disused helicopter runway. Yes, many helicopters use runways for safety reasons. The Maltese cross is a standard FAA symbol for a holding point for helicopters landing. If the runway is occupied they are directed to the cross to wait until the runway is clear.
It is clear that Mr. Hill either doesn't want to say what it is or just doesn't know and doesn't want to appear ignorant. I strongly suspect the latter.
I have no idea what it is but I do know what it isn't. It most certainly doesn't have anything to do with "calibrating" satellites. They don't require "calibration". Orientation is done by other means and has nothing to do with something on the ground passing by at 5 miles per second every 32nd orbit.
<A ground target is useless since it isn't visible most of the time.>
math illiterate yourself.
The star field is a 2-D map. One might thus figure out angles with respect to the ecliptic plane, but the field would look the same translated *very far* in Z perpendicular to the plane, since the stars are so far out.
A calibration only has to be done when doable, as for most instruments. Error accumulates due to the the limited precision of the calibration, over time, as one calculates positions using dynamics and the result of the last calibration.
In other words (and angles with respect to some other plane than the ecliptic can be used - you are possibly confused by the difference between that and what you get as an end result, that is, that the satellite lies on some *line* through the solar system which can be characterized by the angle it makes through some arbitrary plane. You cannot add information by specifying a different plane - it will be the same line described by different angles, which could have been calculated from math once you know the orientation of one plane with respect to the other. Thus, you get two degrees of freedom, regardless. The third degree has to come from elsewhere.