US embassy cable - 04ANKARA5005

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 005005 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO NP/ECNP AND EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/03/2014 
TAGS: MASS, MARR, PINR, TSPA, ETTC, PARM, IS, KS, FR, TU, UK 
SUBJECT: TUAF RESPONSE TO USG POINTS ON SATELLITE REMOTE 
SENSING COOPERATION QUESTIONNAIRE 
 
REF: A. STATE 186962 
     B. ANKARA 4440 
 
Classified By: PolMilCouns Timothy A. Betts for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) 
. 
 
1. (SBU) On September 1, Deputy PolMilCouns delivered Ref. A 
talking points to the MFA's Americas Desk and the Turkish Air 
Force (TUAF) Aerospace Division.  The MFA's Americas Desk 
Deputy Director professed to be unaware of the TUAF 
questionnaire and accepted the points without comment.  While 
promising to share our position with the appropriate MFA 
officials, she referred Deputy PolMilCouns to TUAF for 
specific action. 
 
2. (C) Embassy's TUAF counterpart on aerospace issues, Col. 
Goker, was recently replaced as a result of the annual August 
TGS promotion and reassignment process.  His successor, 
Colonel Dingersu, claimed to be unfamiliar with the 
questionnaire and referred us to the specific project 
manager.  (Note: This is a change.  Goker handled all 
communication with the Embassy.)  Possibly due to the staff 
turnover and unfamiliarity with the topic, the TUAF rebuffed 
our request for a meeting and submitted the written response 
provided below. 
 
3. (U) In its response TUAF offered a few additional details 
on the proposed sensing capabilities and commercialization 
plans, and acknowledged TUAF willingness to meet with USG 
counterparts later in the year.  However, any meeting would 
be predicated on prior receipt of our responses to the 
questionnaire contained in Ref. B. 
 
4. (U) Begin Text of TUAF Response: 
 
RESPONSE TO US EMBASSY'S QUESTIONS REGARDING QUESTIONNAIRE OF 
TuAF 
 
Q1. What remote sensing capabilities are envisioned, i.e. 
spacecraft size, imaging instruments and resolutions, 
intended applications, and space and ground-based systems 
operations? 
 
A1. Turkish Armed Forces considers developing a space-based 
system to improve her capability in the field of image 
intelligence.  The system will comprise of space and ground 
segments.  Space segment includes the spacecraft placed at an 
altitude that is optimized for conventional sun-synchronous 
orbits and the launch services to place it in this orbit. 
 
     Imaging Instrument and Resolution:  The imaging 
instrument of spacecraft is suggested to be an 
electro-optical (E/O) camera system that provides sub-meter 
resolution panchromatic and multi-spectral imagery in 4-5 
bands (i.e. Red, Green, Blue, Near IR). 
 
     Spacecraft Size:  Spacecraft size is not assumed as a 
critical design parameter.  Turkish Armed Forces focuses on 
obtaining high accuracy, while minimizing system weight and 
power consumption.  On the other hand the main consideration 
is the resolution that is designated to be better than 1 m. 
and with resolution, intended applications will set the size 
requirement. 
 
     Space and Ground-Based Operations:  The ground segment 
will perform telemetry, telecommand and control of 
spacecraft, tasking, image reception and processing.  The 
ground segment is also considered to be expandable to 
download images from determined commercial imaging satellites. 
          Another consideration of TuAF regarding the 
space-based imaging capability is the Synthetic Aperture 
Radar (SAR).  TuAF is interested in a SAR system with 
resolution in the order of the E/O system for all weather day 
and night image intelligence. 
 
Q.2  Does your government anticipate commercializing its 
systems' data and, if so, how such commercialization would 
take place? 
 
A2.  The whole system basically will serve military and 
government users.  But the excessive capacity is planned to 
be commercialized.  The commercialization is intended to take 
place via a commercial company on the basis of selling 
imaging minutes not the image itself. 
Note:  Turkish Armed Forces apprehends the "Cooperation" as a 
co-development program, not as a procurement program.  In 
other words both countries are suggested to have cooperative 
minds as partners and share the risks such as export license, 
design change, path finding, etc., which are inherent in 
space development program and come from state-of-the-art 
technology development. 
 
       At first TuAF aims to get the US authorities' general 
impressions about developing a cooperation program including 
technology and know-how transfer to Turkey in pre-determined 
technology areas, localization of sub-system level items in 
the field of high resolution imaging satellite.  Then we will 
have an internal evaluation process that will clarify the 
further step.  We would like to receive a response to the 
questionnaire as soon as possible so as to be able to make 
arrangements for a meeting in Ankara as you proposed. 
 
End Text of Response. 
 
 
EDELMAN