Sounds promising. DARPA has funded some out past the edge research, but this seems within the realm of reason. DARPA did help a little around the edges when Algore invented the internet.
"One of the key benefits of this experiment is that we will improve our modeling and simulation paradigm for large deployables (extremely large, light-weight structures), which will benefit many future missions beyond ISAT."
And wouldn't you just like to know what those are?
Neener neener.
Excellent news.
What they need to do is get to a point that they can track vehicles on the ground, identify the interesting ones by computer analysis. For example, a vehicle moving from Iran into Iraq would be interesting. Track it over time, follow it to it's destination, and send someone out to check it out.
Also, track seagoing vessels headed to the US.
Cool!