Army Moves Ahead With Small Satellite Program.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

The Army has selected Huntsville, Alabama-based Dynetics to supply its next pair of nanosatellites, the company announced in November.

While the service is not well known for its satellite program, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Forces Strategic Command Technical Center have been developing tactical satellites about the size of a football to help fill remote sensing gaps.

One example is Kestrel Eye, a 110-pound, low-cost technical demonstration satellite launched in August 2017. It is designed to give battlefield commanders near real-time imagery, according to Army press releases. Service leaders at the time of its launch lauded their ability to completely control the imaging process, from the tasking of the spacecraft to disseminating the information, without relying on the other services' remote sensing platforms.

The Gunsmoke-L small satellite program will host the next generation of tactical space support payloads designed to operate in low-Earth orbit for a minimum of two years. They will "demonstrate advanced information collection," according to an Army website.

Dynetics will work with the technical...