Tuscon.com:
It’s not just small startups trying to cash in on the rush to launch hordes of tiny satellites into space. Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems, the region’s biggest tech company, is vying for a role in the small-satellite market for defense, and soon one of its mini-sats will blast into space.
Raytheon recently announced that it delivered the first Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements, or SeeMe, satellite to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. DARPA plans to load the Raytheon-built SeeMe satellite onto a payload that will be launched into low-earth orbit on a SpaceX rocket later this month.
The SeeMe program is designed to show that small satellites — about the size of a 5-gallon bucket — can be built affordably to give ground troops timely tactical imagery directly from a small satellite. In the future, a constellation of small satellites could deliver high-resolution images of precise locations to a soldier’s handheld device, Raytheon explains.
