In a typical private airport, Leidos’ Artemis II would look unremarkable compared to the other business jets on the tarmac.  But the Bombardier Challenger 650’s inauspicious white exterior disguises an interior not of luxury seating and woodwork, but server racks, advanced avionics and computer consoles. Instead of ferrying executives and high-net-worth individuals to distant cities, Artemis uses its antennas and computers to decipher enemy communications from 40,000 feet. The business jet was an off-the-shelf Challenger but the interior was a high-tech array designed by defense and technology firm Leidos.

According to Defenseone.com, the first Artemis (there are now two) has already seen action in the Ukraine War, making use of the aircraft’s ability to fly at high altitudes for long ranges. “These [planes] can see very far when operating at 40,000 feet,” Mike Chagnon, deputy group president of Leidos Defense Group, told the website. The concept behind this spy plane is very different from listening to enemy chatter on the battleground, and instead allows the military to monitor sophisticated communications from hostile nation-states at a safe distance.

In the last year, Artemis 1 has flown more than 370 missions to monitor Russian forces near the Ukraine border. “You’re flying basically in a mow-the-lawn-type pattern for 10 hours [and] you’re collecting massive amounts of data,” Chagnon said. The business jet flew an average of…