WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army plans to begin a brand new program in fiscal 2025 to develop and field a brand new high-altitude platform able to deep sensing, in accordance with Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, the service’s program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors.
The service wants to make use of sensors to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations across wider ranges at greater distances, buying response time to reply to potential threats, for example.
“We’re these sorts of novel platforms in terms of what capabilities can we acquire either from a high-altitude balloon, solar and fixed-wing aircraft,” Barker said in a Dec. 5 briefing with reporters. “Really affordability and the balancing of low [size, weight and power], and high-efficiency sensors to make the most of these [high-altitude payload] capabilities.”
The Army has released requests for information, he said — one in February and one other in October. More RFIs are to return out inside the following 4 to 6 months.
The service has for years experimented with high-altitude balloons and long-endurance, fixed-wing, solar-powered platforms able to operating within the stratosphere. The Army is now pursuing prototyping efforts meant to steer to programs of record.
A yr ago, the Army Requirements Oversight Council greenlighted the pursuit of high-altitude balloons and fixed-wing, solar-powered platforms together with payloads able to deep sensing, per an abbreviated capabilities development document, Col. Dave Mulack, who manages related capabilities for Army Space and Missile Defense Command, told Defense News in an interview this yr.
The service is now working to get requirements approved for 4 other different payloads. As an illustration, the council has not yet validated a navigation warfare payload but is in the method. Navigation warfare sensors help spot, locate and discover possible interference with position, navigation and timing reception.
The opposite three payloads are prone to be assured positioning, navigation and timing; network extension; and a launched effects capability.
For deep sensing, “think ISR payloads [in the] stratosphere that provide the aptitude to increase longer [and] deeper [into] areas to supply situational understanding,” Mulack said.
The Army has tested deep-sensing capability through theater-level exercises within the Indo-Pacific Command and European Command areas of operations with a deal with pairing the correct sensor or payload with the correct high-altitude platform — whether that may be a small, medium or large balloon, or a fixed-wing, solar-powered platform flying between 60,000 and 100,000 feet.
The Army’s multidomain task forces are involved within the experimentations. For instance, the group in Europe used three high-altitude balloons as targeting sensors within the 2021 exercise Thunder Cloud in Norway. The Pacific-based task force experimented with a deep-sensing, high-altitude capability at even greater ranges in naval exercises like Vanguard in 2023.
Colin Demarest with C4ISRNET contributed to this report.
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.