Space Based Radar: Global Real-time Moving Object Tracking: Cost $34 Billion

[onedomino]

Whoever gathers, understands, and can act upon, the most information wins. The system described below is referred to as a tracking system. Obviously it will be used for targeting as well.

U.S. Air Force: Space Radar To Provide ‘MOVINT’
By MICHAEL FABEY, PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo.
June 17, 2005

http://www.isrjournal.com/story.php?F=921294

With its ability to track moving targets around the globe — even backward in time — the $34 billion Space Radar, formerly called Space Based Radar, is one program U.S. Air Force Space Command is determined to save from the budget-cutting knife.

“It’s the one we continue to fight for,” said Col. Henry Baird, deputy director of the requirements directorate at the command’s headquarters. “If we do it right and disseminate the information in the right way, it will be as impactful as GPS was,” he said, referring to the Global Positioning System of navigation satellites.

The command is using a relatively new term for the kind of information the radar can provide: moving intelligence, or MOVINT, the ability to track moving things on land and sea.

“It’s what we couldn’t explore before,” Baird said.

Seeing the Past

If the radar lives up to the service’s hopes, military planners and operators will be able to track things instantly — and more. Because the information collected by the sensors is archived, a moving target can be tracked “backward in time,” helping to reveal more about what’s likely to happen next.

Say, for example, that a suspicious ship is approaching the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. Using the radar’s stored information, military planners could follow its position back in previous days, learning where the ship came from, what other ships were at the same place around the same time, and other useful information.

“Birth-to-death tracking” was one of the leading desired attributes for the radar system from the beginning, according to a September 2000 report, “Discoverer II, Space Based Radar Concept,” from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The radar’s high resolution, ability to see through all kinds of weather, and provide and record MOVINT will give military planners a level of awareness they could only dream of before, said Loren Thompson, a space and defense analyst for the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va.

“They can use the MOVINT to look for tendencies, to track and to predict,” Thompson said.

Moreover, he said, the radar will have better imaging resolution than the imaging satellites being planned for launches in upcoming years.

But increasing costs continue to plague the program.

A May Congressional Research Service report pointed out that the House Appropriations Committee has sharply criticized the Space Radar program for the past several years:

“Most recently, in its report on the FY2005 DoD appropriations bill, the committee noted that the estimated cost for a 9-satellite constellation is $34 billion, and the Air Force considers nine satellites to be less than half the number required. The committee expressed skepticism about the $34 billion estimate, as well.”

Challenging System, Built Fast

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in June 2004 that Pentagon officials acknowledge that the Space Radar will likely be the most expensive and technically challenging space system ever built by the military, in a shorter time than other complex satellite systems.

But the GAO also reported that the Pentagon had made some good moves in developing the system, such as partnering with the intelligence community and looking for alternatives for some key technology components or engineering needs.

Still, the GAO reported the system’s, “critical technologies will not be mature when product development starts.”

Baird and other Space Command officers say the radar system remains on the right track.

Space Radar is a perfect example of how air, space and land information assets can be integrated, said Maj. Gen. Douglas Fraser, director of air and space operations at Space Command.

“We don’t have enough in the treasury to do everything,” Fraser said. “We shouldn’t throw them out just because they’re expensive.”

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[CSM]

SBR has been an ongoing project for some time now. Obviously such capabilities involve targeting as well.

 

[Annie]

I'll be the first to say that my biggest 'hole' in history is regarding battles and war in the specific. I've always been more into the 'why' than 'how.'

With that said, one 'truism' I've picked up along the way of my studies has been that the most important factors in winning have been intel and communications. We seem to have the lead in communications, perhaps this will help with our intel deficits?

 

[rtwngAvngr]