A pair of big, blimp-like craft, moored to the ground and flying
as high as 10,000 feet, are to be added to a high-tech shield designed
to protect the Washington DC area from air attack, at least for a while.
The bulbous, helium-filled "aerostats" – each more than three quarters
the length of a football field at 243 feet - are to be stitched into
existing defenses as part of an exercise of new technology ordered by
the Defense Department.
The coming addition to
the umbrella over Washington is known as Joint Land Attack Cruise
Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS. Raytheon Co is
the prime contractor.
"We're trying to determine
how the surveillance radar information from the JLENS platforms can be
integrated with existing systems in the National Capital Region," said
Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense
Command.
NORAD, a binational command, is
responsible for defending air space over the United States and Canada,
including the Washington area with its many pieces of important
infrastructure.
The most significant air attack
in the area took place on September 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda militants
hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757, and crashed it into
the Pentagon.
To expand the time available to
detect and defend against any future attacks from commercial aircraft,
major changes were made under Operation Noble Eagle, combat air patrols
begun after the September 11 attacks.
Airspace
restrictions were extended. US Army Sentinel radars for low-altitude
radar coverage and short-range Stinger/Avenger missile batteries were
deployed.
Washington is currently guarded by an
air-defense system that includes Federal Aviation Administration radars
and Department of Homeland Security helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft
on alert at Reagan National Airport to intercept slow, low-flying
aircraft.
Expected by end of September
The JLENS craft are expected to arrive in the capital area by September
30, according to Kucharek, who is also a spokesman for the US Northern
Command, which coordinates the Pentagon's homeland defense role.
A "capabilities demonstration," as the test is called, is expected to
last as long as three years. Its location is being withheld, pending
notification of lawmakers and others.
JLENS
craft work in a roughly $450 million pair, known as an orbit, each
tethered to mobile moorings. One of the aerostats carries a powerful
long-range surveillance radar with a 360-degree look-around capability
that can reach out to 340 miles. The other carries a radar used for
targeting.
Operating as high as 10,000 feet for
up to 30 days at a time, JLENS is meant to give the military more time
to detect and react to threats, including cruise missiles and manned and
unmanned aircraft, compared with ground-based radar.
The system is also designed to defend against tactical ballistic
missiles, large caliber rockets and moving vehicles that could be used
for attacks, including boats, cars and trucks.
A
success in the US capital area could give a boost to the JLENS program,
which has been scaled back sharply along with the Pentagon's other 15
or so lighter-than-air vehicle efforts.
Blimp-like craft offer several advantages compared with fixed-wing
aircraft, including lower cost, larger payload capacity and extended
time aloft. However, their funding is to fall sharply as Pentagon
spending shrinks to help pare trillion-dollar-a-year U.S. Deficits.
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