Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran, RQ-170 drone
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:47 AM
1 comments
Based on an interview with an Iranian engineer, the Christian Science Monitor is reporting that Iran brought down the United States' RQ-170 drone by reconfiguring its GPS. Previous reports had claimed that the drone strayed from a mission in Afghanistan, and later that the drone had 'malfunctioned.' Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.Read the whole thing.
Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.
"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran's "electronic ambush" of the highly classified US drone. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain."
The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.
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Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.
"Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology is there.”
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US officials skeptical of Iran’s capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far can't explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst ridiculed Iran’s capability, telling Defense News that the loss was “like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”
Yet Iran’s claims to the contrary resonate more in light of new details about how it brought down the drone – and other markers that signal growing electronic expertise.
A former senior Iranian official who asked not to be named said: "There are a lot of human resources in Iran.... Iran is not like Pakistan."
“Technologically, our distance from the Americans, the Zionists, and other advanced countries is not so far to make the downing of this plane seem like a dream for us … but it could be amazing for others,” deputy IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami said this week.
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Perhaps as easily exploited are the GPS navigational systems upon which so much of the modern military depends.
"GPS signals are weak and can be easily outpunched [overridden] by poorly controlled signals from television towers, devices such as laptops and MP3 players, or even mobile satellite services," Andrew Dempster, a professor from the University of New South Wales School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, told a March conference on GPS vulnerability in Australia.
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Iran displayed the drone on state-run TV last week, with a dent in the left wing and the undercarriage and landing gear hidden by anti-American banners.
The Iranian engineer explains why: "If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird's home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude," says the Iranian engineer. "There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird's underbelly was damaged in landing; that's why it was covered in the broadcast footage."
Prior to the disappearance of the stealth drone earlier this month, Iran’s electronic warfare capabilities were largely unknown – and often dismissed.
"We all feel drunk [with happiness] now," says the Iranian engineer. "Have you ever had a new laptop? Imagine that excitement multiplied many-fold." When the Revolutionary Guard first recovered the drone, they were aware it might be rigged to self-destruct, but they "were so excited they could not stay away."
Labels: GPS-guided, RQ-170 drone, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:28 AM
1 comments
The English-language Tehran Times reports that Iran claims to have four Israeli drones that it has shot down, and that it says that it will put them on display, along with an American RQ-170 that mysteriously fell in Iranian territory two weeks ago and two other American drones. According to the source close to the Tehran Times, the foreign unmanned aircraft that Iran has are four Israeli and three U.S. drones.Seeing is believing. And in the case of the Israeli drones, they could well be drones that were sold to Turkey....
The most advanced spy drone in Iran’s possession, which was recently downed, is RQ-170 unmanned U.S. plane, which the Islamic Republic announced on December 4 had been brought down by the country’s armed forces.
The first video footage of the RQ-170 Sentinel, nick-named the Beast of Kandahar, was broadcast on Iranian television on December 8.
The drone had entered Iran from the eastern neighboring country of Afghanistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in a recent exclusive interview with Fox News, said that the stealth drone campaign along the Iran-Afghanistan border will “absolutely” continue.
The interview was published on December 13.
A number of countries have reportedly asked for permission to inspect the aircraft.
According to the source, the four Israeli drones that are now in Iran’s possession had violated the country’s airspace along the eastern borders, and the three U.S. unmanned aircraft had penetrated into the country’s airspace along either the eastern or southern border.
In an interview published on January 2, 2011, the commander of the Aerospace Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, announced that the Iranian military forces had brought down two foreign spy planes over the Persian Gulf, not mentioning the exact date and location of the events.
“They (the Westerners) have made limited aggressions against the country and we have shot down a number of their highly advanced spy planes so far. For example, we have brought down two spy planes over the Persian Gulf,” Hajizadeh said at the time.
“We have constant clashes with the enemy’s surveillance and reconnaissance aircrafts,” Hajizadeh stated, adding that the Iranian experts had reverse engineered and manufactured some of the planes that had been shot down.
In addition, Hajizadeh announced on June 28, 2011 that Russian experts had inspected the two foreign spy planes, which he said belonged to the United States.
Hajizadeh said at the time that Russian experts had requested Iran to inspect the places where the planes were shot down.
Labels: Iran, RQ-170 drone, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:45 PM
3 comments
And I thought Republicans were smarter than this...."I will say without hesitation that this is not something that anyone had anything to do with coming down with, other than a technical problem," US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers was quoted as saying by AFP.Dude.... How do you know how long it will take them to reverse engineer it? The bottom line is that they have the drone and there is nothing that the Obama administration will do about it.
Rogers stated that, while "it's not a good day for the United States" when a hostile nation obtains US technology, the threat of Iran "reverse-engineering" the technology and mass producing the drone, as it has promised, does not pose that great a threat to the US.
""The good news is, while they're spending time re-engineering, we will be spending time engineering, and that's the biggest difference," Rogers stated.
"They're very proud that they're going to re-engineer this, and I hope they spend five, six, seven, eight years doing that, that would be great, because we'll be long past that," he added.
Labels: Iran, RQ-170 drone
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:29 AM
1 comments
Also during the meeting with Maliki, Obama acknowledged differences between Washington and Baghdad on how to deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad's government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators but said Maliki was acting in Iraq's best interests.And for this 4,500 Americans have lost their lives?
Maliki raised concerns about the risk of sectarian violence in Syria spilling into neighboring Iraq and said he wanted the Syrian situation resolved peacefully.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Iraq, RQ-170 drone
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:06 AM
0 comments
Iranian state television has shown a picture of a downed American unmanned aerial vehicle that went missing on Sunday. The picture is at the top left of this post. Revolutionary Guards Commander Ali Hajizadeh said on state TV that Iran's military had tracked the unmanned aircraft, which had entered Iran's eastern territory in order to carry out "spying missions."What could go wrong?
"After it entered the eastern parts of the country, this aircraft fell into the trap of our armed forces and was downed in Iran with minimum damage," he said according to semi-official FARS news agency.
"With God's help, we were able to bring down one of America's most advanced planes... with minimal damage," Hajizadeh told state television, standing in front of the drone.
The Revolutionary Guards commander said that the drone was controlled from ground in bases in Afghanistan and the United States.
A NATO spokesperson had said shortly after Iran announced it was in possession of the drone that the RQ-170 Sentinel may have been the same one that had gone missing during a mission in Afghanistan.
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, RQ-170 drone
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:57 PM
2 comments
Remember when I said that the story about the US drone wandering off from Afghanistan didn't sound good? Well, it wasn't good. According to a senior U.S. military source with intimate knowledge of the Sentinel drone, the aircraft likely "wandered" into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be intact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.Let's go to the videotape.
"This is a big prize in terms of technology," a senior U.S. military source told Fox News.
The spy plane uses the same stealth technology as the drone used to monitor the compound during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden, U.S. military sources told Fox News on Monday.
Military sources confirmed that the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, which is so advanced that the U.S. Air Force has not distributed even a photo of it. However, they did not say that the Iranians shot down the spy plane, as was reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency.
IRNA quoted an unidentified Iranian military official saying Sunday that the spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces and suffered minor damage.. The official also warned of strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.
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The RQ-170 Sentinel is made by Lockheed Martin and is equipped with stealth technology. The $6 million stealth aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin has an RQ in its name to indicate it is unarmed.
Neither the Air Force nor manufacturer Lockheed Martin has released much information about the plane, dubbed "The Beast of Kandahar" in 2007 when its existence was finally confirmed.
"The RQ-170 Sentinel, a low observable UAV, was built by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs," Major Cristin L. Marposon, a public affairs officer for the USAF at the Pentagon, finally told FoxNews.com in 2009.
Sources said that the plane was designed for surveillance, not for attack.
Little is known about the plane beyond its intended goals, however, with no official images released or details about its composition. Leaked photographs purportedly of the craft depict a sleek, biwing design, intended to present a stealthier, harder to hit profile that other drones or other aircraft.
"The USAF has not issued any public release photos of the RQ-170," Melissa Dalton of Lockheed Martin told FoxNews.com
Early reports suggested that plane -- which supposedly has a wingspan of about 65 feet and can fly at around 50,000 feet -- would be made almost entirely without metal to help it dodge radar, and special paint provides additional stealth.
Labels: Iran, RQ-170 drone, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:51 AM
0 comments
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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