Could a satellite laser weapon realistically harm someone?

[GTOM]

Just finished reading Dark rivers of the heart.(SPOILER AHEAD)

Personally i found the ending pretty much irrealistic, i don't think that on contemporary tech level, a satellite laser could do any serious harm to a person.

However satellites that can identify terrorists and even penetrate the atmosphere with ray weapons is a common sf trope.

But what could the power requirements for the later? I guess only low orbit sats could do such things, fire from geo orbit would require even bigger magnitude of power.

I also wonder about the more realistic option of tracking persons and vehicles. As far as i know face recognition is very challenging, either extreme size of telescope is required, or make many many images from different angles and transform them to a higher res image.
But could a vehicle disappear in the wilderness, once it is tracked?
Can sats see through thick clouds without radar?

 

[.Scott]

Just finished reading Dark rivers of the heart.

I have not read - so I will respond only to what you post. I am not sure what you mean by "contemporary tech level".

i don't think that on contemporary tech level, a satellite laser could do any serious harm to a person.

Is this stuff in production or just in the lab. Clearly, no such satellites are in orbit now. The devices that are seen in some videos shooting down drones from a couple of miles away, are fairly heavy devices. Still, in some ways, space is more flexible. Sources of vibration are more controllable. Mirrors will not be warped by their supports and 1G of gravity. So a large reflector can be more easily targeted.
As far as the mass of those devices, they could be sent up in pieces - reflector, laser, power storage, solar arrays.
As to whether they could do serious harm to a person, people are pretty fragile. If you can get a few kilowatts on target for a few seconds, that will ruin someones day.

But what could the power requirements for the later? I guess only low orbit sats could do such things, fire from geo orbit would require even bigger magnitude of power.

Yes, definitely low orbit.

I also wonder about the more realistic option of tracking persons and vehicles. As far as i know face recognition is very challenging, either extreme size of telescope is required, or make many many images from different angles and transform them to a higher res image.

"Tracking" has limitations from low orbit. You will only have the target within your horizons for a few minutes. So you would need to track from geo-synchronous orbit. I will leave it up to others to determine how large an aperture you would need to track a car-size object from geo orbit.

But could a vehicle disappear in the wilderness, once it is tracked?

Do you mean traveling under a canopy? Seeing through canopy is a significant challenge. So would shooting a DEW through canopy.

Can sats see through thick clouds without radar?

I don't believe there are any "non-radar" wavelengths used with satellite remote sensing that can see through a cumulonimbus.