The federal govt is warning it may take days to find the objects thought to be wreckage from flight MH370.
What could it be ... the largest object estimated at 24 metres long spotted in the Indian Ocean. Picture: AFP/Australian Government's Department of Defence via the Australian Maritime Safety Authority Source: AFP
SUPER sleuths employed by the government's highly secretive Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO) will spend coming days poring over high-resolution satellite photographs searching for clues about the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The imagery specialists — who can spot an open window from space — identified the flotsam in the southern Indian Ocean which led Prime Minister Tony Abbott to spark fresh hope that one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries might soon be solved.
Official information about the organisation is hard to find, but it is understood to employ several hundred people located in a historic building and attached high-security facility at Bendigo in Victoria and in a bunker at Defence Headquarters at Russell Offices in Canberra.
About a quarter of AGO's staff are analysts whose job it is to examine digital images from aircraft, drones, satellites or other sources that could be as varied as an insurgent stronghold in Afghanistan, an illegal people smuggling or fishing boat in Northern Australia or a small piece of floating debris in the Indian Ocean.
The analysts undertake an intensive six-month course to learn how to examine aerial or satellite photographs and to see what lies behind the image.
"They can tell
Unidentified objects ... satellite images taken by provider DigitalGlobe on March 16, 2014 show objects in the Indian Ocean which may be from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Picture: AFP/Australian Government's Department of Defence via the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Source: AFP
Imagery comes into AGO from numerous commercial and highly classified government sources such as spy satellites orbiting the earth every 90 minutes or so.
The images that provided fresh impetus to the world's most bizarre airline mystery were taken by a commercial American satellite on March 16. The company's DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 satellite imagery comes with a resolution of about 50cm.
Operating from 770km up in space the 2800kg "bird" can collect imagery across one million square kms of the earth's surface every day.
Its altitude explains the grainy nature of the satellite images released to the world's media that appear to show a 24-metre long piece of debris floating just below the surface.
"We can confirm that DigitalGlobe has provided imagery to search officials in Australia, and we have been informed by an Australian government official that it was our imagery Prime Minister Abbott referred to in his recent comments," the company said.
"No conclusions have been reached about the origins of the debris or objects shown in the imagery, and we are not aware that any subsequent search missions have been able to locate it."
According to Professor Ball the next step is for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to task its high-resolution KH-11 low earth orbit imagery satellite to focus on any fresh images from the search area.
The images captured by DigitalGlobal were taken on March 16 and the debris would have drifted hundreds of kilometres since then.
The CIA "bird" orbits at 120km above the earth and can provide resolution down to six cms over an area to 80 degrees south.
It circles the globe roughly every 90 minutes or 17 times in 24 hours, but is of no use in a wide area search or in darkness or cloudy weather.
The spy satellite needs to be focused on a specific area to be able to find the target and provide high-res imagery. That means one of the dozen or more commercial imagery satellites in orbit would need to locate the debris and then pass the coordinates to the KH-11 bird so it can snap away during future passes over the area.
Once captured by the CIA satellite the high-res digital images would be sent to AGO for analysis with details passed to search co-ordinators and eventually to aircraft and ships in the search zone.
As it has unfolded, the mystery of missing flight MH370 and the incredible twists and turns in world news coverage so far
None of the CIA imagery would be publicly released because it would provide America's enemies with vital clues about its capabilities.
Australia has no indigenous satellite capability primarily because the government negotiates high-level access to US signals intelligence and imagery birds thanks to the presence of the top-secret CIA ground station at Pine Gap near Alice Springs.
This unique facility is run by the CIA even though it deals with signals intelligence which is normally under the wing of the US National Security Agency (NSA).
The Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation's mission is "to provide geospatial intelligence from imagery and other sources in support of Australia's defence and national interests."
"Imagery is not going to solve this mystery, it will only be solved when the debris is retrieved and identified," Professor Ball said.
Australian National University senior fellow and former intelligence officer John Blaxland said in his view the satellite images showed a large ISO shipping container. The containers come in six, 12 and 24 metre lengths.
"It could be part of an empty wing but it looks more rectangular like a semi-submerged shipping container," he said.
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