There's also the ORS-1, a low-orbit reconnaissance satellite that takes just 90 minutes to circle the globe.

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When the US government has struck terrorism on the basis of satellite reconnaissance, its bombs and missiles have destroyed empty mud huts.

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And that case has been bolstered yet again, as scientists studying images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that takes pictures of the Martian surface from orbit using a variety of different tools.

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Other agencies are responsible for satellite and other high-tech reconnaissance, and the FBI does domestic intelligence.

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In 2007, they destroyed an aging weather satellite operating in an orbit similar to those used by U.S. photo-reconnaissance spacecraft.

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The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has sent up a reconnaissance flight to investigate how the ash is distributed in the cloud, something that is impossible to assess from satellite imagery.

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