According to a report from Reuters, SpaceX has been contracted by the Department of Defense’s National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to build a network of hundreds of low-orbiting spy satellites capable of operating as a swarm.
  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    273·
    9 months ago

    Just imagine highly classified intelligence information in the hands of dangerous people like Moron Musk

    • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
      171·
      9 months ago

      Just imagine the US goes to war and Elon shuts them off because some foreign leader strokes his (let’s say) ego.

      • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Starsheild is just a satellite bus, which is just sorta like the central building block for satellites. It handles communication, navigation, etc. The government will likely be in total control of the system once it’s deployed.

    • roguetrick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      Oh don’t worry, they’re not giving him the real spy satellite optics for these flying digital cameras. A low orbit trash satellite cluster that will waste itself in no time is just a nice thing for the DoD to shovel money into.

      Each keyhole satellite, by comparison, costs $1 billion.

    • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Probably a lot from star link business but separately, launching a government satellite does not give you continued access to that satellite’s business.

  • potatopotato@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    9 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

    • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 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.

    • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      9 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.

    • wanderingmagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      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.