Sats Help Special Ops In Hunt For Terrorists

Sats Help Special Ops In Hunt For Terrorists

(NSI News Source Info) September 18, 2008: Images from high-resolution military spacecraft, combined with powerful change detection software at ground processing facilities, is enabling the space-based identification and tracking of specific Taliban and al Qaeda individuals in the isolated villages and rugged terrain of Afghanistan. This imagery is being passed to U.S. Army Special Forces and Navy Seal teams looking for individuals, even down to specific bomb-makers hiding out in mud huts in the region. The imagery is being carried by these commando teams as they move from village to village in Afghanistan trying to sort genuine civilians from the enemy. The capability is operational, but on a limited basis because the tasking is already high on Advanced KH-11 type spacecraft involved in the imaging. More revolutionary capability is under final development at the new ATK Space Division in Beltsville, Md., where the Air Force Research Laboratory TacSat-3 spacecraft to be launched later this year is being equipped with a hyperspectral imaging system. Once in orbit it will be tasked by commanders in the field for the delivery of one-meter resolution hyperspectral data with far more intelligence data content than comparable optical images. The system is being developed by the ARTEMIS (Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer) project.