- Sputnik International
Asia
Find top stories and features from Asia and the Pacific region. Keep updated on major political stories and analyses from Asia and the Pacific. All you want to know about China, Japan, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Ghost Imaging: China Could Track B-2 Stealth Bomber From Space in 10 Years

© REUTERS / Stringer The Long March-5 Y2 rocket takes off from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Wenchang, Hainan Province, China July 2, 2017.
The Long March-5 Y2 rocket takes off from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Wenchang, Hainan Province, China July 2, 2017. - Sputnik International
Subscribe
The Chinese government is working to deploy spy satellites within 10 years that could track stealthy targets like US B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, the South China Morning Post reported Sunday. Researchers have embarked on a project to send satellites into space capable of taking pictures with the assistance of ghost imaging research.

Ghost imaging is a process that could allow satellites to take pictures through semi-translucent or opaque objects like clouds. Physicists at the University of Baltimore, Maryland, campus in 1995 conducted an experiment where "one photon passed through stenciled patterns in a mask to trigger a detector, and another photon was captured by a second detector. Surprisingly, an image of the pattern between the two detectors appeared," the US Air Force said in 2008 when announcing new funding for research to apply ghost imaging to satellites.

The Chinese researchers plan to equip satellites with a quantum sensor that would enable them to identify and monitor the movements of aircraft that are otherwise invisible at night from space, such as the US Air Force's stealthy B-2 Spirit, according to researchers. Among the B-2's stealth characteristics is a special outer coating designed to deflect and absorb the waves produced by cameras on satellites in orbit.

A B-2 stealth bomber taxis at Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, Mo. - Sputnik International
Incoming: US B-2 Nuclear-Capable Bomber Arrives in Asia Ahead of Trump Visit

The researchers are working to develop technology tailored toward catching B-2s, Gong Wenlin, researcher at the Key Laboratory for Quantum Options at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai told SCMP Sunday. The project seeks to complete the prototype satellite in the next two years, test the high-tech spacecraft by 2025, and implement the applications on a large scale by 2030. "The theory of ghost imaging has been well established and understood," says Xiong Jun, physics professor at Beijing Normal University. "The speed of application very much depends on the government and the amount of money it's willing to spend."

The B-2 Spirit was commissioned in 1997 and may eventually be replaced by the secretive B-21 Raider, a stealthy, long-range strike bomber slated to take flight in 2025.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала