Posted on 07/06/2023 1:17:44 PM PDT by Fish Speaker
WASHINGTON — The first space-based hyperspectral imaging sensor built by San Francisco startup Orbital Sidekick, founded in 2016, literally went from the garage of CEO and co-founder Dan Katz to the International Space Station as an experiment for Air Force Research Laboratory.
“That was a kick ass little sensor we … integrated in my garage in San Francisco, and then handed it off to SpaceX, which launched it. And then NASA, the astronauts, took it from the Dragon capsule and installed it,” Katz told Breaking Defense in an interview.
Hyperspectral cameras break down pixels into hundreds of frequency bands and thus can detect minute differences in colors that cannot be seen by the human eye, or detected by other types of imagery cameras such as infrared. Thus, hyperspectral sensors can “see” what materials a surface is made of and identify individual elements in the surrounding atmosphere. For national security purposes, hyperspectral imagery could, for example, detect evidence of chemical weapon production and/or use.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingdefense.com ...
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