Did the DA’s office ever subpoena key records from the National Reconnaisance Office or, more likely, from US/European commercial satellite firms for the night of the Nicole Simpson/Ron Goldman slayings?
There is no doubt that orbiting spy or commercial satellites equipped with sophisticated IR technology could have detected O.J.'s white Blazer had it been driven to Nicole’s home on the night of the murders. The heat signature from a recently driven vehicle would make it stand out like a bonfire in a field–and the size of the Blazer is well within the resolving capability of most commercial satellites, IIRC.
Most likely, NRO would have told the DA’s office to take a leap. (It’s also doubtful that the orbits of its satellite pass over L.A. and, more germane, it probably does not spy on U.S. cities.)
But what about commercial satellites? What am I missing here?
If they suspected something beforehand, I suppose they could have pointed one of the satellites at Nicole’s home. Otherwise there would be no data. High-resolution sensors have narrow fields of view, and high resolution images require a lot of bandwidth to transmit. If you try to cover the entire earth at 8-inch resolution, that’s about 10^16 pixels. Assuming a 100:1 compression rate, 8-bit color depth and only one wavelength band, you’re looking at 100 terabytes of data.
scr4 is on the right track. Yes, this was easily within the technical capability of US spy satellites. But you have to know to look. It would be more sensible to ask why there wasn’t a cop that witnessed the crime. We have millions of cops but only a few Keyhole satellites. So you could equally have asked why there were no police witnesses, and the answer of course is, because they weren’t looking.