TacSat-5 is a planned fifth satellite in a series of U.S. military

reconnaissance satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. The ...

s. The project will be managed by the

Air Force Research Laboratory The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...

in cooperation with the

Operationally Responsive Space Office The Operationally Responsive Space Office (ORS Office) is a joint initiative of several agencies within the United States Department of Defense (DoD). The "stand up" of the office took place 21 May 2007 at Kirtland Air Force Base. The first directo ...

of the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

. The TacSat satellites are all designed to demonstrate the ability to provide real-time data collected from space to combatant commanders in the field. In January 2009, AFRL released a

Broad Agency Announcement The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is a technique for United States government agencies to solicit proposals from outside groups for certain research and development. The agency will then select proposals to fund as contracts or grants. BAAs are ...

for the development of TacSat-5. At that time, the mission still had not been specified and the bus was to be developed based on AFRL's Plug-and-Play avionics standards.

References

Reconnaissance satellites of the United States Air Force Research Laboratory projects {{US-spacecraft-stub