A new network of satellites

DARPA this week put out a request for submissions to build a new network of low-orbit satellites to enable near real-time satellite images enabling active ground troops to plan military missions directly from the field.

The program, the Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements -- dubbed SeeMe -- aims to give individual fighters the ability to immediately call on low-cost satellites for up-to-the minute visual information.

Moving away from the slow, expensive, bulky, and complicated current satellite systems, DARPA envisions a swarm of small, easily deployable, and disposable satellites which will use non-aerospace hardware and manufacturing techniques to provide quick and cheap visual information anywhere on the ground -- for less than $500,000 each.