Raytheon to build low-orbit, disposable satellites for DARPA
The fighter-deployed satellites in DARPA's latest plan - which will deploy them in orbits so low they burn up in a month - will be built by Raytheon, which reckons it can do the job for $2m a pop. SeeMe* was announced last March, as an intermediate step between surveillance drones, which have limited airtime, and spy satellites …
This topic is closed for new posts.
Re: 24 seems conservative
No problem, chuck up some more. The taxpayer's pocket is bottomless, so the inherent waste doesn't matter.
Should have named them
Hazard
Area
Logistical
Forward
Observer
Remotely
Deployable
"Out here in space
Looking down on you
My lasers trace
every thing you do"
Apples and oranges..
Even with $36m only buying 9 predators, I'm pretty sure those can be used more than once.
I'm hoping I'm missing the point and that this is for something infinitely harder to obtain than aerial imagery - maybe dealing with somewhere that air supremacy isn't a given (hah! doubt the politicians will go for that one), or perhaps providing a temporary boost in satellite data capacity to allow a boatload more uavs to operate...
Re: Apples and oranges..
Ok then build a drone that flies at 120,000 ft. Not many other planes can do that, and most of the time spy planes didnt actually enter the countries airspace because at that height you usually didnt need to, to see what you wanted to see.
Re: Apples and oranges..
There are actually loads of justifications I can think of.
I think the real point though is the one mentioned above.
The current network of observation satellites have no good way of getting data directly to the people who potentially have the most use of it.
Why not just make the current system do/support that? My guess is that they can't. The multi-billlion dollar spy sats that are up there right now seem, more or less, all or nothing affairs that are live all the time and designed to be directed and downlinked only from very limited locales. I would also be surprised if they had any sort of access control built in (AKA, there is a reasonable chance that they _can't_ black out something, aka they can be used to spy on anything that happens to be in their FOV).
In order to open up sat surveillance to a wider group it would seem that we need all sorts of things such as the ability to talk to multiple people simultaneously, to be able to be controlled from one location and video downlinked from many more. to have control over who can access it when, where it needs to black out, be cheap enough that no one is going to overly balk at a wider range of people operating it (no one wants a field grunt of any type to have control over something that costs billions with a b, it just won't happen), etc.
Once you get down into it, it probably makes sense for them to be different systems with different capabilities. If someone wants to say that it also gives the US a leg up on the Chinese sat-killing rockets, (put them up almost as fast as someone else can shoot them down), then all the merrier.
Just a WAG on my part, but one which feels something close to realistic.
Karl P
The Bic lighter of surveillance. Nice!
Disposable, easily deployed satellites are an elegant counter to China's Satellite Killin' Technology. Imo.
Re: The Bic lighter of surveillance. Nice!
Counter? More like a target.
Wake me up when these are the size of a grape and can accelerate at 10G- I'll be zipped up in the acceleration tank...
Re: The Bic lighter of surveillance. Nice!
I'd guess* that a satellite capable of shooting down another would be more expensive, in materials at least, than one that just hangs up there doing more normal satellite kinda stuff. Do you prefer The Doritos of Surveillance? "Shoot down all you want, we'll make more!"
* dammit hplasm, I'm a geek, not a Defense Contractor / Population Control Technician!
Bah!
I wonder how long they worked to see if they could get a "K" into the penultimate position in the name.
Meanwhile, the Chinese just work at putting people into orbit long-term. People, also known as fully autonomous intelligence units.
This topic is closed for new posts.
