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This New Military Satellite Will Watch The Ground Like Nothing Else Ever Before
TBI ^ | 12-18-2011 | Robert Johnson

Posted on 12/18/2011 8:07:43 AM PST by blam

This New Military Satellite Will Watch The Ground Like Nothing Else Ever Before

Robert Johnson
Dec. 18, 2011, 6:56 AM

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced that its plans to pick up Scud missile launches from space in well underway.

The agency responsible for the new technology used by the military awarded a contract to Bell Aerospace for work on its Membrane Optic Imager Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE) program.

Graham Warwick from Aviation Week reports MOIRE will park in space over the earth, and once there will unleash a "micron-thin diffractive-optics membrane" to form a 65-foot super-thin lens to watch a wider swath of ground more closely than anything else before.

The membrane-lens will scrutinize an area about 62-miles in diameter; updating its video at about one frame per second, offering a 99 percent likelihood of catching a missile launch.

Each space telescope will cost about $500 million and is being built under a multi-phase program that paid out $36.9 million to Bell in September.

Image: DARPA

Darpa's Membrane Optic Imager Real-time Exploitation satellite and membrane lens

(snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: darpa; defense; military; satellite
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I worry that space junk will damage the membrane.(?)
1 posted on 12/18/2011 8:07:45 AM PST by blam
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To: blam

It stamps out crop circles, too.


2 posted on 12/18/2011 8:13:28 AM PST by unkus (Silence Is Consent)
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To: blam

Is it Iranian proof?


3 posted on 12/18/2011 8:15:29 AM PST by Dallas59 (President Robert Gibbs 2009-2011)
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To: blam

“...a “micron-thin diffractive-optics membrane” to form a 65-foot super-thin lens...”

At a glance, it seems kind of fragile both in terms of resisting space junk (as well as anything purposely put in its path) and in holding its shape.


4 posted on 12/18/2011 8:16:47 AM PST by KrisKrinkle (Blessed be those who know the depth and breadth of their ignorance. Cursed be those who don't.)
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To: blam

If you watch the ground, you don’t trip as much.


5 posted on 12/18/2011 8:26:15 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blam

Will a laser aimed at the lens fry the components?


6 posted on 12/18/2011 8:28:32 AM PST by oldbrowser (They are Marxists, don't call them democrats)
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To: blam

62 mile diameter, so the rest of the planet goes unwatched?

This is DARPA looking to spend money.


7 posted on 12/18/2011 8:30:24 AM PST by CodeToad (Islam needs to be banned in the US and treated as a criminal enterprise.)
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To: blam

There`s a whole bunch of stained-glass windows full of HALOS in our church-
NASA coulda had it for free


8 posted on 12/18/2011 8:32:00 AM PST by bunkerhill7
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To: blam
“micron-thin diffractive-optics membrane”

Is this a kind of Fresnel lens?

9 posted on 12/18/2011 8:33:46 AM PST by CrazyIvan (Obama's birth certificate was found stapled to Soros's receipt.)
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To: CodeToad

That’s over 3000 square miles. And it moves...


10 posted on 12/18/2011 8:38:26 AM PST by Flightdeck (If you hear me yell "Eject, Eject, Eject!" the last two will be echos...)
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To: Dallas59

Is it Iranian proof?

Can we modify it so we can zap Iran,Syria,or “palistine” undetected with it?


11 posted on 12/18/2011 8:40:58 AM PST by Leep
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To: blam

Does it flush water like that stargate thing?


12 posted on 12/18/2011 8:41:31 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Flightdeck

So? It is designed to detect missile launches so it would need to be overhead when the missile launched. Do the math. What are the odds the missile launches when it is overhead?


13 posted on 12/18/2011 8:48:35 AM PST by CodeToad (Islam needs to be banned in the US and treated as a criminal enterprise.)
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To: blam

Landing in Iran intact soon ...


14 posted on 12/18/2011 8:51:04 AM PST by EternalVigilance (With God Obama can't hurt us. Without God, George Washington couldn't save us.)
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To: blam

The Helion - Judas Priest

Up here in space
I’m looking down on you.
My lasers trace
Everything you do.
You think you’ve private lives
Think nothing of the kind.
There is no true escape

I’m watching all the time.
I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.

I’m elected electric spy
I protected electric eye.
Always in focus
You can’t feel my stare.
I zoom into you
You don’t know I’m there.
I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove.

Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
‘s nothing you can do about it.
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows.
Protected. Detective. Electric eye.


15 posted on 12/18/2011 8:51:22 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: blam

And who is it watching? Iran? Israel? NYC? DC? Dolphins?


16 posted on 12/18/2011 8:52:36 AM PST by theDentist (fybo; qwerty ergo typo : i type, therefore i misspelll)
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To: blam
"Each space telescope" . . . . .

I wonder how many of these things they plan to watch us with.

17 posted on 12/18/2011 8:56:14 AM PST by willgolfforfood
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To: theDentist
"And who is it watching?"

SCUD missile owners. And right-wing model rocketeers....

18 posted on 12/18/2011 8:57:31 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: dfwgator

\m/


19 posted on 12/18/2011 9:03:12 AM PST by daku
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To: Paladin2
It would be better to ask if it's China proof since they have already shown they can target and destroy a satellite in orbit.
20 posted on 12/18/2011 9:04:19 AM PST by Mmogamer (I refudiate the lamestream media, leftists and their prevaricutions.)
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