[Const-me]

Just one word: clouds.

Satellites can't see through them.

There’re satellite images of the launch site taken on 16 of July 2014, and on 21 of July, but unfortunately, not on the 17 of July.

[vladimir-y]

I think there should be a chance to track down the trail of a missile event in case of a cloudy weather, at least partially.

[Const-me]

Publically and commercially available imaginary (google earth, DigitalGlobe, etc.) just couldn’t see anything.

They only sense some visible light, and/or near IR (a.k.a. short-wave infrared). You can view some specs there: https://www.digitalglobe.com/resources/satellite-information The clouds are completely opaque in those spectrum, so the land below clouds is completely invisible from those satellites. And the segment of the missile trail above the clouds is very volatile, there’re strong winds there.

Nothing can be seen on those images. And in the video uploaded by Netherlands’ public prosecution office, they told satellite imaginary between 16 and 21 of July is unusable, because clouds.

[vladimir-y]

I didn't mean publicly and commercially available imaginary, but military, very well focused on the specific tasks.

[Const-me]

Why are you certain military has those thermal images?

As far as I know, for many of their tasks (such as detecting missile launches) an infrared MASINT is sufficient.

If that’s the case, the system doesn’t produce images at all.

[vladimir-y]

I'm not familiar with such kind of stuff, the point is - I'm sure they do have strong evidences but for some reason those evidences are not yet revealed.

[vladimir-y]

Also what about thermal photos (detecting thermal emission), is it possible?

[Const-me]

Technically, I think that might be possible.

The problem with that, no one except the US military and government knows for sure, whether they have far IR aka thermal imaging sensors on their satellites, or they don’t.

Fortunately, there’s a solid body of evidence even without that secret data.

[vladimir-y]

> Fortunately, there’s a solid body of evidence even without that secret data.

I doubt that, at least at the current state.

[Const-me]

Have you seen this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf6gJ8NDhYA

It includes a lot of photos, videos, intercepted phone calls, and other related data. The video is official, meaning the investigation team has evidences backing every statement made.