U.S. Army considers blimps as anti-missile defense
Willhelm said.
“This test will confirm the confidence and maturity of the team to provide our warfighters this critical cruise missile defense capability,” Raytheon spokeswoman Maureen Heard said in a written response to questions. “This system will allow Raytheon to continue to be the world’s best global capabilities integrator.”
FOX News reports that in December, the aerostat will be transported to the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, to be mated with its surveillance radar. The second aerostat and its fire control radar will be mated at Dugway next May, and the two platforms will be integrated as a system — or orbit — and begin limited testing in September 2010, Willhelm said.
Lighter-than-air vehicles have been used in U.S. military campaigns since the civil war, when manned balloons were lofted to give warning of incoming mortar fire. Today, U.S. troops in Iraq use aerostats for force protection with an Army program called the Rapid Aerostat Initial Development. Raytheon is also the prime contractor for the program, which uses a 55-foot (17-meter) TCOM-built aerostat that floats 984 (300 meters) high to perform surveillance with an electro-optical infrared sensor.
It has been tough to convince the Pentagon that cruise missile defense can be done with an aerostat, but many of the concerns about the effectiveness of JLENS have already been addressed in demonstrations, Willhelm said. Aerostats have been riddled with bullets in testing and continued to operate for hours before slowly descending to the ground, he said. Despite its size, the JLENS aerostat will not be easy to target because its lack of relative motion makes it tough for radars to discriminate, he said.
According to an Army fact sheet, the JLENS can be operated at a fraction of the cost associated with radar-equipped aircraft and provides persistent surveillance with low manpower requirements.
Despite these advantages and the U.S. military’s history of success with aerostats, proving they have a place in modern warfare has been a constant challenge, Willhelm said. “One of the biggest challenges has been that this system is like nothing else the Army has seen,” Willhelm said. “People are thinking we’re taking a step back from being a 21st century force.”
The system also has attracted interest from some in the military for applications other than cruise missile defense. For example, the JLENS program office has received inquiries about the possibility of hosting surveillance and communications payloads to help meet the insatiable needs of U.S. forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, Willhelm said. The Army is studying how it might be able to swap JLENS payloads in and out while still performing its primary mission of cruise missile defense, he said. “We’re looking at ways to be modular,” Willhelm said. “Swapping out sensors is not built into our current contract, but we’re looking at ways to do that.”
The first JLENS orbit will go through an entire lifetime of use during the Army’s test program, and the second is scheduled to be delivered to the first JLENS battery in September 2012, with initial operational capability envisioned for one year later. If the test program is successful, a decision on a production contract for fourteen more JLENS orbits could be made in January 2012, Willhelm said. Army spokesman Dan O’Boyle could not provide per unit cost estimates of the production models.
