Materials MASINT
[3] Materials MASINT involves the collection, processing, and analysis of gas, liquid, or solid samples, is critical in defense against chemical, biological, and radiological threats (CBR), or nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC), as well as more general safety and public health activities.
To be more confusing, while MASINT is highly technical and is called such, TECHINT is another discipline, dealing with such things as the analysis of captured equipment.
When the signatures are then correlated to precise geography, or details of an object, the combined information becomes something greater than the whole of its IMINT and MASINT parts.
The Fuchs (German for Fox) NBC reconnaissance vehicle is an example of the tactical state of the art for land warfare.
To assess a modern chemical sensor, several parameters can be combined to create a figure of merit called the receiver operating characteristic (ROC).
ROC curves are commonly drawn to show sensitivity as a function of false positive rate for a given detection confidence and response time.
More complex instrumentation, such as gas chromatographs coupled to mass spectrometers, are standard laboratory techniques that need to be modified for the field.
After Desert Storm field experience, where troops had overestimated the detection capability of the highly selective, but not extremely sensitive, MM-1.
[8] It is based on LASER radar (LIDAR), detects chemical agent aerosols, vapor, and surface contamination, and gives range from the sensor to the threat.
Being built by TRW for the US Marine Corps, the Joint Service Lightweight Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Reconnaissance System (JSLNBCRS) is vehicle-mounted in the HMMWV and LAV.
This system demonstrated several characteristics of modern MASINT: a broad-look capability, as with pushbroom radar, and then a close-look with the disposable sensors.
The sensors are released from an off-the-shelf ALE-47 Countermeasure Dispenser System, which normally holds chaff, flares, or expendable jammers.
The latest Fuchs 2 version, ordered by the UAE in March 2005 for delivery in 2007, will feature an integrated equipment set, to go inside the glove box, for detecting biological weapons.
These methods rarely can instantly identify a biological agent, but can give preliminary results, with an adequate sample, in minutes to hours.
It has complementary trigger, sampler, detector and identification technologies to rapidly and automatically detect and identify biological threat agents.
[16] In keeping with the definition of BW as "public health in reverse," PRC writings on the subject treat the matter more in terms of infectious disease control, an approach that is standard everywhere.
As one would expect, considerable amount of research has been conducted in China on potential BW agents including tularemia, Q fever, plague, anthrax, West and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, psittacosis, among others.
Some specialized equipment has also been fielded in some unspecified numbers to counter the threat of BW to PLA troops: One of the challenges of preventing the proliferation of biological warfare capability is verifying that a legitimate bioengineering facility is not producing weapons.
Since many completely legal processes involve trade secrets, production facilities can be reluctant to allow detailed inspection and sampling of what might be a commercial advantage.
The Henry L. Stimson Center has done a good deal of conceptual work on an inspection regimen, in which inspectors would use biological tests that looked for genetic materials associated with known weapons.
[17] Even when a potential weapon, such as Clostridium botulinum exotoxin (Botox or "botulinus toxin") is discovered, the amounts or preparation may be such that it can be established the use is for legitimate medical, veterinary, or research applications.
U-2R aircraft, in Operation OLYMPIC RACE, flew missions, near Spain, to capture actual airborne particles that meteorologists predicted would be in that airspace.
Another portion of this program involved a US Navy ship, in international waters, that sent unmanned air sampling drones into the cloud.
In the context of the North Korean tests, one proposed method involved measuring xenon concentrations in the air.
