Air Force calls summit on ground tracking

Reuters:

The U.S. Air Force, moving aggressively to beef up intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, plans a "soup to nuts" review next week of how it tracks moving targets on the ground.

Lieutenant General David Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, on Monday said he would convene a "summit" of senior Air Force officials about the various weapons that allow U.S. forces to track militants and vehicles on the ground.

The move follows the Pentagon's decision last year to cancel a space-based radar program that would have dramatically improved the military's ability to keep track of ground movements, even through bad weather. Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Corp were vying to build the nine-satellite system that was valued at over $30 billion.

Funding has also been scaled back in recent years for the Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program program being developed by Northrop Grumman.

The actively electronically scanned array radar is slated to go aboard the new Block 40 version of Northrop's high-altitude Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane, but delays in testing of the radar have caused a 30-month plus delay in the testing schedule for the new aircraft.

Some lawmakers are considering cutting funding further, given the delays, but industry officials say that funding cuts would only exacerbate the delays.

Brigadier General Veralinn Jamieson, director of strategy, integration and doctrine, said Air Force officials recently spent a full week trying to better understand the military requirement for tracking of moving objects on the ground.

Ultimately, she said they concluded the that what was needed was not only radars, but also video feeds, intercepted communications, and intelligence gathered by other weapons.

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There is a lot of money being wasted on "stimulus" programs that will never give us the kind of benefit we get from this technology. Tracking and destroying insurgents while they are on the move is a critical aspect of counterinsurgency strategy and we need to find a way to get the program up and running.

AP has a story on the video sensors and the analyst assigned to the coverage.