TacSat-5 is a planned fifth satellite in a series of U.S. military reconnaissance satellites. The project will be managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory

Air Force Research Laboratory

The Air Force Research Laboratory is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of affordable aerospace warfighting technologies; planning and executing the Air Force science and...

 in cooperation with the Operationally Responsive Space Office

Operationally Responsive Space Office

The Operationally Responsive Space Office is a joint initiative of several agencies within the United States Department of Defense . The "stand up" of the office took place 2007-05-21 at Kirtland Air Force Base. The first director of the ORS Office is Col. Kevin McLaughlin, who is also commander...

 of the Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

. 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

Broad Agency Announcement

The Broad Agency Announcement is a technique for United States government agencies to contract for basic and applied research and certain development. ....

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.