Date posted: 07/08/2009*

Raytheon's Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer (ARTEMIS) sensor has been featured in several major industry trade publications this month following the successful launch of the TacSat-3 satellite in May.

Defense News: "Putting Image Analysis In Space"
June 15, 2009

"A telescope, an imaging spectrometer and a computer orbiting 260 miles above the earth may soon enable the U.S. military to spot vehicles hidden under foliage, detect recently buried roadside bombs and find enemy troops despite camouflage." That's how William Matthews describes ARTEMIS in the June 15 edition of leading industry trade magazine Defense News.

"No other military has anything like it," Matthews writes.

Matthews reports that the Air Force is happy with the results of the ARTEMIS sensor thus far. "'Raytheon did an excellent job of building a low-cost imaging spectrometer in a short time,' said Thomas Cooley, TacSat-3 program manager at the Air Force Research Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M . 'The ability to do spectroscopy from space is a very powerful tool in identifying surface materials.'"

As pointed out in the article, the ARTEMIS spectrometer can detect "about six times more of the electromagnetic spectrum than the human eye can. It can differentiate between grass and dried grass, concrete from granite, and is sensitive enough to detect both the green foliage of trees and the very different green paint of a hidden tank."

Read the full article in Defense News.

National Defense: "Satellites at the Beck and Call of Ground Troops"
July 2009

"Military leaders for years have been asking for a capability that would allow ground units to commandeer satellites to obtain imagery of their surroundings," Grave V. Jean states in reference to Raytheon's ARTEMIS sensor in July's edition of National Defense. "To realize that vision, the Defense Department has developed a system that may one day end up in the hands of troops."

Peter Wegner, director of the Pentagon's Operationally Responsive Space office, described ARTEMIS as a sensor that "can see what other sensors can't."

"In ARTEMIS’s case, the sensor peers at the ground and gathers more than 400 different spectra for each pixel," Jean states. "The resulting data is so accurate that the sensor can determine the chemical composition of materials. For example, multispectral imagers might snap a picture of a tree with a dark green shadow beneath it. A hyperspectral sensor aimed at the same location could discern a tank hiding under the foliage."

Read the full article.