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Yesterday, @fab_hinz, @DaveSchmerler, @ian_j_stewart and I were wondering about one of the sites alleged to be a uranium mill in Saudi Arabia, near Al-ula. We were skeptical.
I mentioned to @fab_hinz that the ground around it had changed very dramatically in recent years. He thought it was surrounded by ... rubbish. Then, he looked at the @NASA fire map of the area. Someone does a lot of burning there.
Fabian then checked other fire clusters in Saudi Arabia. And, at 24.629992, 38.440374°, he found a very similar building. The other building is a waste incineration plant.
Then @DaveSchmerler typed in "Al Ula Waste Disposal" and ... there it is.
This is, as @TheGoodISIS itself notes, probably a waste incineration plant, not a uranium mill. This nicely illustrates the value of looking at different sorts of data *not just optical images* to understand what is occurring at a particular site.
I should add, this doesn't mean that there isn't a uranium mill someplace near Al Ula, just that this isn't it and that the search continues. /END
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Jeffrey Lewis
@ArmsControlWonk
For the record, the US has repeatedly refused to discuss proposals to ban anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, partly out of fear that any agreement would constrain missile defenses (which are basically the same thing) and partly because we have our own ASATs. We chose this.
The Bush Administration was so afraid that any discussion of ASATs would require discussing missile defenses, that it didn't even try to stop China from conducting an ASAT test in 2007 -- even though China conducted a number of dry-runs.
nytimes.com/2007/04/23/was…
And even after the EU developed a "code of conduct" on space activities that called on states to refrain from debris-creating ASAT tests, the Obama Administration still rejected it.
nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2012/…
Read 5 tweets
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Jeffrey Lewis
@ArmsControlWonk
North Korea appears to have resumed "pop up tests" at Sinpo. This a big deal -- but one of those cases where we may have to wait. A short thread. Well, not that short.
In a pop-up test, a missile is ejected from a canister or a silo using compressed gas. The missile either has no propellant, the propellant does ignite or it burns for only a very short time. This is step precedes flight testing of the missile.
tass.com/defense/1014008
North Korea has a pop-up test stand at Sinpo. This image, probably from April or May 2016, shows the support structure, a canister held up with an erector arm, and the nose of a missile that was ejected. (There was similar stand near Kusong, but North Korea dismantled it.)
Read 9 tweets
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Jeffrey Lewis
@ArmsControlWonk
A short thread on the shipping container that showed up at an engine test stand in North Korea -- and what it means.
First, a clarification: Rocket engineers conduct static tests (the engine fires on the ground) and flight tests (the missile, er, flies.) We are talking about facility to do static tests on the ground. We are not talking about a missile launch.
The shipping container showed up at a place the North Koreans call Sohae Satellite Launching Station (Sohae means "West Coast"). The the US and South Korea called Tongch'ang-ri after the nearest populated place, although sometimes you might hear it called Yunsŏng (윤성) .
Read 11 tweets

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