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| Dr. Travis Taylor holds a plastic rocket engine in front of the SMDC-ONE, at right, and the larger imaging satellite.
Over-the-hill visibility is a valuable asset for troops in the field, but it’s not always available, especially in remote areas. The Army may soon be able to get around that problem by giving soldiers access to a new kind of eye in the sky—small, inexpensive nanosatellites that can provide voice, data and even visuals.
The service’s Space and Missile Defense Command - Tech Center, or SMDC, has developed and tested a nanosatellite that provides voice and data, called the SMCD-ONE (Orbital Nanosatellite Effect), and is developing an imaging satellite that would work the same way.
The first SMDC-ONE is in orbit now, and the tech center is planning to launch three more this year, with an as-yet undetermined number to be launched in 2016. "It's basically a cellphone tower in space, except it's not for cellphones, it's for Army radios," said Dr. Travis Taylor, the senior scientist in the center’s Space Division, who talked about the satellitesat this week’s DOD Lab Day at the Pentagon.
The satellite, in the shape of an oblong box maybe a foot long, can connect dismounted soldiers to a forward operating base or to sensors in the area. It was designed, starting in 2008, to last a year or longer in orbit and cost no more than $350,000 each, according to Ducommun Miltec, which developed the satellite. (PDF) Miltec delivered eight of the satellites to SMDC in 2009 in advance of the current orbital tests.
SMDC-ONE nanosatellites could be joined in space by larger (but still considered nano) imaging satellites, the first of which the Army plans to launch on a test flight in February from the International Space Station. That satellite, still unnamed, will have a ground resolution of two to three meters, enough to identify a tank or truck. “This is capability the Army doesn't have right now," Taylor said.
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