Noah Shachtman
Security

Laser Sats: Ready for Launch?

Everything you ever wanted to know about the military’s $14 billion constellation of laser-firing communications satellites is in this extensive rundown from Defense Industry Daily. The Air Force is set to decide soon on whether to deploy the string of orbiters, known collectively as TSAT (for "transformational communications satellite"), right away — or go for […]

Artemis_silex_2Everything you ever wanted to know about the military's $14 billion constellation of laser-firing communications satellites is in this extensive rundown from Defense Industry Daily. The Air Force is set to decide soon on whether to deploy the string of orbiters, known collectively as TSAT (for "transformational communications satellite"), right away -- or go for a stopgap measure.

TSAT, which runs on an Internet Protocol infrastructure -- and relies on lasers to communicate with one another -- sure seems like the slicker choice:

A visual image from a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] that would take 2 minutes to process with the Milstar II satellite system would take less than a second with
TSAT. A radar image from a Global Hawk UAV (12 minutes), or a multi-gigabyte radar image from space-based radar (88 minutes), would also take less than a second with the
TSAT network. Best of all, the recipient can be on the move with a relatively small receiver, anywhere in the world.

But seemingly-slick military space systems have a habit of getting majorly delayed, and costing way more than they were originally supposed to. So keep watching this space.