TYLER ROGOWAY
One of the hottest USAF acquisition programs that's underway is the one to recapitalize the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) fleet that has been based around 16 rickety old 707s for over two and a half decades. Three teams have been vying for the contract led by prime aircraft manufacturers Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And although the JSTARS replacement system will house radars that specialize in ground moving target indicator (GMTI) and synthetic aperture surveillance capabilities just like its predecessor, they will also have a greater ability to work as networking nodes and flying battle management centers.Recently the JSTARS recap program was thrown a curveball when the top rungs of the Pentagon's leadership suddenly questioned the program's direction and posited that maybe moving toward an interim "distributed" solution would be a better choice. It's still unclear if the program will continue as planned or if it will be delayed or even substituted for a different approach to the whole "battlefield surveillance command and control" (BSC2) mission set, or at least portions of it. Secretary of Defense Mattis said the following at the Air Force Association conference last month:
"I just talked to chief of staff of the air force; we are standing here in front of the room talking about new ways to do the JSTARS mission... I'm eager to hear these efforts to help one another, the other services."
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14864/lets-talk-about-whats-going-on-with-the-usafs-e-8c-jstars-replacement-program