DefenseTech - I was wandering the show floor at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington when I came across this little guy. It’s called NanoEye and it’s basically a prototype for a tiny class of spy satellite that the Army hopes to develop.
The 20 kilogram NanoEye is meant to be cheap, maneuverable and able to take high-resolution pictures for small ground units in combat — kind of like the micro UAVs that are used by infantry units to provide near instant overhead ISR for troops in the field.
In theory, ground troops will control NanoEyes and receive images from the satellites on laptops or radios within ten minutes of asking one of the tiny satellites to take a picture, according to an Army fact sheet that was being given out next to the display. More
