It’s not necessarily imaging as in optics. Could be OPIR, encrypted comms, space to space ASAT, or any number of other things besides just earth imaging.
Comment on SpaceX is reportedly building hundreds of spy satellites for the US government
potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
There are about half a dozen small companies working on this but apparently the government is more interested in spending money on a company with zero experience with earth imaging. Dunno how I feel about the USG just putting all their eggs in Elon’s batshit insane basket
wanderingmagus@lemmy.world 7 months ago
dev_null@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
I assume the hard part here is the deployment of thousands of low orbit satellites at a rapid rate, not the imaging. The government surely already has the imaging tech, it’s getting a swarm of satellites up there what’s no other company has proven able to do.
Steve@startrek.website 8 months ago
RESULTS
just_another_person@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My guess is the optics themselves don’t need to be very mind blowing anymore. If this is a constellation, you will basically have the ability to combine many lesser quality images into higher res versions for review, and in near realtime, and from many different angles. Slap some AI upscaling magic in there, some object tracking and things like gait and attribute recognition, and you have something fairly close to ‘Enemy of the State’ capabilities, minus all the BS zooming and looking through walls.
potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
They likely would for the kind of stuff they’re planning.