It's embarrassing that a satellite designed by the ESA can't be used over Europe.
I've read other information about ICBM-detecting satellites being triggered by the sun glinting off lakes having the same signature as an ICBM launch.
Surely the orbit of this satellite will be well known and so false positives alarms can be ruled out?
I suppose it's possible that a bad actor could time a real ICBM launch to coincide with this satellite's orbit to defeat Early Warning Systems, but then again they could just launch submarine-based ICBMs from the southern equator.
Why does the title only mention the US? It can’t do it over Europe either.
Maybe my non-native English is showing but I’m having difficulty reading the article. First, it describes how the satellite can’t be used over the US and Europe and then says:
> Still, this isn't the worst setback. [… stuff how the satellite will be used over southern America …]
I was waiting for the description of an even worse setback, which makes the satellite even more limited, but it seems like „this isn’t the worst setback“ was supposed to mean „it’s not too bad, we can still do other useful stuff“. Was that understandable for native speakers?
A better title would be "Recon satellite jammer launched by ESA".
> "“The primary frequency allocation in P band is for huge SOTR [single-object-tracking radars] Americans use to detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. That was, of course, a problem for us,” Scipal says. To get an exemption from the ban on space-based P-band radars, ESA had to agree to several limitations, the most painful of which was turning the Biomass radar off over North America and Europe to avoid interfering with SOTR coverage."
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/18/1115388/esa-airb...
I guess that's referring to things such as these?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAVE_PAWS ("...The radar operates in the UHF band between 420 - 450 MHz...")