JSTARS provided vital airborne reconnaissance in the gulf war.

	Airborne Reconnaissance Sensors

To put SARs in perspective, Teal Group’s funding forecast for airborne reconnaissance (with data back to FY00) shows that, despite a relatively small number of radars and platforms, SARs garner more than half of the total U.S. airborne reconnaissance sensor budget, and will continue to do so through the decade.

Unmanned air vehicles have received only a tiny portion of SAR funding. And although development of an MP-RTIP (Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program) for Global Hawk will boost UAV dollars, manned platforms will continue to dominate the budget.

	Big SARs funding forecast

MP-RTIP
Currently 16 production E-8C JSTARS aircraft have received funding, plus one E-8C test bed and two converted E-8As. Teal Group expects funding will be provided in FY03 and FY04 for two more production E-8Cs, for a total of 18 + 3. Nonetheless, with AN/APY-3 production running down, the bulk of U.S. SAR funding will soon go toward a follow-on radar. In late 1998, North-rop Grumman was chosen for the $1.3-billion RTIP, which would add a 2D Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar to JSTARS. Then, early this year, the Air Force reformed the RTIP radar upgrade program, planning instead an all-new joint Northrop Grumman/Raytheon MP-RTIP radar.

MP-RTIP will be an X-band radar with simultaneous SAR and GMTI (current SARs such as JSTARS must shift between modes). The new system is now planned for the JSTARS follow-on MC2A (Multimission Command and Control Aircraft) as well as Global Hawk and possibly satellites. It will have a modular scalable antenna, from 1.535 ft for Global Hawk to 2318 ft for medium-sized manned aircraft (business jets) to 2324 ft for MC2A. A major goal is improved resolution—1 ft or better—for detecting stealthy cruise missiles. Some commonality is planned with Joint Strike Fighter transmit/receive module technology and software algorithms. MP-RTIP will stress modularity, commonality, and integration, rather than new technology.

Plans call for initial design review of MP-RTIP in late FY02 and final design review in late 2003. Lab testing could begin in FY05, with flight testing possible late that year. Global Hawk is now planned as the first MP-RTIP platform, possibly receiving the initial radar around 2008, with the first manned platform around 2010. Development funding for MP-RTIP is planned for at least $740 million, but if the program goes ahead, we expect this to increase. Initial systems design work will be split 50/50 between Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Later, hardware and software projects will be defined and assigned.

The first manned platform to receive MP-RTIP will be the Air Force’s envisioned next-generation reconnaissance widebody aircraft. The MC2A is planned as a replacement not just for JSTARS, but also for AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), and perhaps for Rivet Joint, Cobra Ball, and Compass Call electronic intelligence (ELINT) aircraft.

The ambitious MC2A is being developed under the Air Force’s new Pathfinder scheme, where the first MC2A “development spiral” is slated as a JSTARS-like SAR [MP-RTIP] built for four aircraft. This would be followed by an air surveillance [AWACS] capability with a separate dorsal AESA antenna on the same aircraft, possibly derived from Northrop Grumman’s MESA (Multirole Electronically Scanned Array). The peculiar thing is that the Air Force does not know whether this would require a second radar or use the MP-RTIP radar from the first spiral.

Other unknowns include coping with interference from future planned ELINT capabilities. An additional difficulty is that the Air Force has not yet completed its analysis of alternatives for next-generation surveillance platforms. Yet despite all its problems, $679 million was requested in FY03 for MC2A, up from $78 million in FY02. The FY03 request includes $150 million to buy a Boeing 767-400ER test bed aircraft and a reported $191 million for radar technology development. The Air Force claims eventual plans to buy 55 MC2A aircraft.

At this point there is little definite reality to the MC2A idea, except for a possible fielding date of around 2010 for spiral one [MP-RTIP]. Nonetheless, it looks as if substantial funding will be awarded, at least in the near term, and will be shared out for various concept development studies and possibly even sensor integration. We include MC2A SAR funding in our MP-RTIP funding line.

	The first ASTOR aircraft, a Bombardier Global Express, took flight on August 3, 2001.

ASTOR
The rest of the world’s “big SARs” are not quite as big as those of the U.S., but the planned function is the same—SAR/GMTI combined with a limited on-board command and control ability. The idea is that putting a SAR on a business jet rather than a widebody will allow nearly the same sensor capability, but that command and control from ground stations will reduce overall costs.

The first program to try this concept is the U.K.’s ASTOR (Airborne Standoff Radar). In June 1999, Ray-theon Systems in Harlow, U.K., was awarded the $1.2-billion ASTOR contract to develop an interleaved (but not concurrent) SAR/GMTI radar based on the company’s ASARS-2 (from the U-2) and HISAR (Global Hawk). ASTOR will be mounted aboard a Bombardier Global Express business jet.

Development has seen some delays but has proceeded without major problems. In March 2001, ASTOR com-pleted preliminary design review. The following August, an ASTOR Global Express was test flown with all antenna blisters but without radars. In November 2001, ASTOR passed its critical design review, which froze 90-95% of the design, leaving room for integration of final elements, especially computer systems.

The first production aircraft is to be delivered this year for systems integration, with trials and evaluation to begin in late 2003. Operational trials will start in 2004, continuing until the U.K. Ministry of Defence takes the first delivery in 2005. Initial operational capability for the first of five aircraft is planned for 2007 (delayed from 2005).

The ASTOR concept should have a long and successful future. Much as AWACS spurred interest in smaller, less expensive air surveillance platforms such as the E-2C Hawkeye and Ericsson EriEye, JSTARS is creating interest in smaller, more affordable SAR platforms like ASTOR. An export version is now definitely planned, called GSARS (Ground Surveillance Airborne Radar System). Teal Group forecasts healthy additional ASTOR sales, beginning after the middle of the decade. Several countries, particularly Japan, South Korea, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, have expressed interest in JSTARS. Any of these could be likely buyers for ASTOR instead, or for the business-jet-scaled MP-RTIP radar.

AGS and SOSTAR-X
The other big international SAR/GMTI development program has not yet gotten off the ground. AGS (Alliance Ground Surveillance) is a NATO program for a JSTARS-like capability, but the contract slipped considerably after NATO successfully withstood U.S. efforts in the late 1990s to force-feed them JSTARS. AGS production is now not planned until at least 2010.

Nonetheless, AGS is ultimately seen as a $3-billion program. Development funding has begun, in-house development continues on both sides of the Atlantic, and a possible cooperative solution has finally been suggested. But there is still no guarantee NATO will go this route in five years’ time.

In April, EADS, Northrop Grumman, and Finmeccanica submitted a white paper to NATO officials proposing TIPS, the Transatlantic Proposed Solution. TIPS recommends a joint AGS system to incorporate MP-RTIP as well as Europe’s SOSTAR-X technology. The big problem will be convincing NATO that it would have full access to MP-RTIP developments, and not just get black boxes. In addition, Thales has questioned whether NATO needs the accelerated TIPS schedule.

In the meantime, Europe has finally begun developing its own radar, SOSTAR-X. In December 2001, the German parliament approved a $79-million contract to Sostar GmbH for development, manufacturing, and testing of a demonstrator SOSTAR-X radar, on behalf of the governments of Italy, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Like MP-RTIP, SOSTAR-X will include a scalable-array (from 6 m to 1.5 m) AESA antenna with acquisition, processing, and operation-control consoles aboard the aircraft; an air-to-ground datalink; and ground-based data processing, evaluation, and dissemination facilities.

The radar is being developed primarily by EADS and Thales. It will be based in part on existing monolithic microwave integrated circuit and transmit/receive module technology taken from the airborne multirole-multifunction solid-state active array being developed for future fighter aircraft by EADS, Thales, and BAE Systems. Current plans call for SOSTAR-X to be flight tested aboard a commercial Fok-ker 100 by 2005, although this will not be the production platform. NATO has not decided yet on the AGS platform, but a business jet is more likely than a widebody like JSTARS.

	Small SARs funding forecast

Small SARs
Numerous smaller SARs have been in production since the 1970s, but funding amounts have been, and will remain, much lower than for the big command and control programs. Raytheon’s ASARS-2 (Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System) is the ground surveillance SAR carried by the Air Force’s U-2 aircraft. The first ASARS-2A AIP (ASARS Improvement Program) radar was delivered in August 2001, 24 months late. It adds a limited GMTI capability, as well as increased on-board data processing and a data link upgraded for near-real-time transmission.

The Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) will replace both ARL (Airborne Reconnaissance-Low) and Guardrail aircraft for Army surveillance, reconnaissance, and signals intelligence, beginning late this decade. Few details about ACS SAR developments have been released, but we forecast continuing RDT&E funding, which will eventually result in a new production SAR. And the Air Force’s Quiet Supersonic Platform (see “The new shape of supersonics,” June 2002, page 26), which we expect to be developed as the next-generation high-speed penetrating reconnaissance aircraft—most likely as a classified program—will see substantial SAR funding.

	The APS-147 may make Telephonics a major ISAR competitor.

Inverse SARs—ISARs—use Doppler shifts from an object’s motion to create images of the object. These systems are especially useful for maritime surveillance, where the swaying of ships at sea allows precise identification from known superstructure characteristics. The Navy’s two most important ISARs are Raytheon’s AN/APS-137(V) for the S-3B Viking and P-3C Orion anti-surface warfare improvement program, and Telephonics’ AN/APS-147 for the MH-60R Seahawk program.

Production of the APS-137 continues at a moderate rate for U.S. and international P-3s. The APS-147 soon will ramp up to a forecast 24 radars a year for new Seahawk helicopters, with the full-rate production decision planned for 2005 or sooner. The APS-147 is a huge program for Telephonics, with 243 MH-60Rs planned and as many as 280 possible. It could make the company a viable competitor with Raytheon in future U.S. and international markets.

In the U.S. there is also some interest in developing a podded SAR, which could be transferred between aircraft and, possibly, UAVs. This would allow use during bad weather and in campaigns (such as Kosovo) where weather is a frequent hindrance to electrooptic and infrared surveillance. There are two programs for testing a small SAR in the Navy’s SHARP (Shared Reconnaissance Pod), but funding has been minimal.

Raytheon won a $5.8-million Navy contract to demonstrate a SHARP pod with an internally mounted Lockheed Martin Ku-band Falcon SAR in June 2001. Flight tests are planned from late 2002 to early 2003. Another program (initially funded for $670,000) will conduct an “integration and impact” study of ELTA Electronics Industries’ TACL (tactical all-weather collection at long range) SAR in a SHARP pod, following an October 2000 test aboard an F-14. Israel already operates this radar (as the EL/M-2060P) on F-16s. The TACL operates in the X-band, which provides a longer range and better all-weather capabilities, but less resolution, than the Ku-band.

An evaluation of both systems is planned for 2003; however, Teal Group is not forecasting procurement. Thales has developed and produced podded SARs in Europe since its RAPHAEL.

UAVs
After years of discussion, the U.S. reconnaissance UAV market is finally showing signs of real growth. But Global Hawk will get the lion’s share of funds (about half of worldwide UAV sensor funding), and its planned MP-RTIP SAR is being developed as a joint program with the manned MC2A. Except for MP-RTIP, UAV SAR programs are relatively small potatoes. Raytheon’s HISAR with GMTI, developed from ASARS and the AN/APQ-181 on the B-2 bomber, is currently in production for Global Hawk.

Northrop Grumman’s TESAR (Tactical Endurance SAR) system is the ground surveillance SAR carried by the Predator. A July 1999 contract brought the total order up to 60 radars, worth $72 million. Before the conflict in Afghanistan, the Air Force had been acquiring these UAVs at the rate of seven or eight annually, essentially as attrition spares for the 70 or so aircraft already produced. This production rate will now increase, but probably for just the next couple of years, to build an attrition reserve. The Air Force asked Congress for $158 million for 22 Predators in FY03.

SARs have not yet been procured for tactical UAVs, because of the extremely limited payload capacity. A few programs are now in the works, but these aircraft will remain inexpensive expendable platforms, and will not receive expensive sensors.

In July 2001, Northrop Grumman’s downsized TESAR completed testing, ending a three-year advanced technology development phase and clearing the way for system development and demonstration. But by the middle of this year, the Army had decided to shift fielding of this radar from its Block II Shadow 200 TUAV to its proposed (larger) extended range/multipurpose divisional UAV. The vehicle is still a concept, seen as a replacement for the Hunter, with an RFP planned for FY03 and fielding after FY06.