me too... there was a second craft that was supposed to observe and report back, wasn't there? I didn't see it talking to the deep space network afterwards.
It will start broadcasting its data a little before midnight Eastern, though it might be months before everything is transferred. Because it is a cube sat (only 14 kg) the transmitters are not very powerful so I believe the transmission rate is low.
In general, does anyone know what protocol they're using to transfer large amounts of data back to earth? I'm wondering especially about error detection and correction.
No, military is much more about quantity.
Far space is actually very pacifistic in its nature, because it reveals that all the Earth wars and squabbles combined are no more than a tiny mouse squeak on a tiny speck of dust on cosmic scale.
In space terms, barely. Competing military assets may, in the future, attempt to evade each other, or fight with submunitions or energy. The navigation tech is just chalkboard math. In Earth terms, ICBMs and UAVs can strike anything anywhere with better accuracy.
