DARPA Fractionated Spacecraft Program Starts 59
An anonymous reader writes "Start buying Cold War nuclear shelters and piling up the canned food, because Boeing Advanced Systems has started System F6: 'DARPA's Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft United by Information Exchange space technology program.' In other words: multiple, networked specialized spacecraft swarms that are intelligent enough to perform a single coordinated task together, like analyzing the crops or deciding to destroy humanity, Skynet-style. Actually, it could completely change satellites for the better, according to some experts."
Two probable early applications (Score:5, Interesting)
2.) Synthetic apertures. NASA is planning a future mission using station-keeping or physically separated mirros to create an ultra-high resolution telescope. The idea is already used in ground scopes (and the basic principles are used in the F-22's radar). This can also be applied to increasing the resolution of topographic maps and of satellite imagery.
Re:oblig cliches (Score:3, Interesting)