A Minotaur I rocket on late Wednesday carried ORS-1, the Defense Department’s first Operationally Responsive Space satellite into space from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s eastern shore. The rocket lifted off at 11:09 p.m. US East Coast time. ORS-1 is designed to provide overhead imagery to commanders in Southwest Asia, enhancing battlespace awareness. It carries a customized version of the SYERS-2 sensor resident on U-2 reconnaissance aircraft.
Over the past 20 years, military explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians have become very good at using high-tech tools like robots, communications jammers, smartphones, and next-generation bomb suits to disable improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in crowded urban environments. When it comes to a possible conflict with a near-peer adversary like…