A team of Air Force Research Lab-led engineers at Kirtland AFB, N.M., continues to prepare for the anticipated October launch of the Tactical Satelite-3. The on-orbit experiment will host the advance responsive tactically effective military imaging spectrometer, or ARTEMIS, a hyperspectral imager capable of identifying camouflaged or concealed objects otherwise difficult to discern with traditional cameras. TacSat-3 will also demonstrate technology to provide these images to troops on the ground within a matter of minutes instead of hours. (Includes Kirtland report by SSgt. Jeremy Larlee)
The Space Force on April 15 released two highly anticipated future-casting documents that describe what the service expects the space environment will look like in the year 2040 and lay out the force structure it thinks it will need to operate in that environment.