USAF Considers New Direction For GMTI
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By Amy Butler
The U.S. Air Force is conducting a sweeping review of requirements for ground surveillance that could lead to major funding decisions in the next few budget cycles, according to senior service officials.
At issue is how best to collect, process and disseminate ground moving target indications (GMTI), a specialized type of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) designed to track, and if necessary, target moving objects on the ground or at sea.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for ISR, says he is chairing a major “summit” on the subject next week at the Pentagon. It is expected to include officials from the acquisition community, requirements corps and combatant commands.
GMTI has been an area some observers say was gutted during recent budget builds. Three major programs designed to field GMTI capabilities have either been terminated or scaled back significantly. The Space Radar effort was terminated due to lack of sufficient funding and requirements precision; it was supposed to provide satellites carrying electronically scanned array (ESA) radars suitable to tracking ground targets.
Also, the Air Force’s E-10 aircraft, which was supposed to carry a large active ESA radar, was canceled, leaving the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) as the flagship airborne platform for USAF GMTI collection for decades to come. Additionally, the service’s Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) active ESA sensor under development by a Northrop Grumman/Raytheon team for the Global Hawk (and formerly the E-10) has suffered delays owing to problems developing new collection modes.
However, Brig. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamieson says that the service is trying to take a more holistic approach to GMTI. This means radar is not viewed as the only GMTI solution, she says. For example, electro-optical feeds from Predator UAVs or signals intelligence intercepts from other platforms could feed into overall GMTI intelligence, she says.
Jamieson says that more work needs to be done to process and disseminate GMTI data already collected, as well.
The assessment of GMTI could lead to a formal analysis of alternatives, which could in turn lead to a programmatic direction for the U.S. Air Force in the coming budget cycles in 2011 and 2012.
Deptula says that MP-RTIP is not in jeopardy.
Photo: USAF
