HIGH-ALTITUDE ISR MILITARY
over the high-altitude surveillance role from
the Lockheed U-2S Dragon Lady. While in
previous years the Air Force had proposed
retiring the Block 40 version to fund readiness
needs, in its FY2016 budget request, the Air
Force shifted its approach and decided it
would retire the U-2R instead and emphasise
the Block 40 Global Hawk, reflecting its
lower per-hour operating cost compared
to that of the U-2S (about half). In February
2016, Northrop Grumman demonstrated the
Universal Payload Adaptor, which allows a
Global Hawk to carry a multitude of payloads,
integrating the U-2’s Senior Year Electro-
Optical Reconnaissance System-2 (SYERS-2)
sensor with an RQ-4. This was followed, last
October, by the U-2’s Optical Bar Camera (the
world’s highest resolution broad-area synoptic
sensor), and in February 2017 by the MS-177
long-range, multispectral imaging sensor; the
latest evolution of the SYERS-2.
This year, the Air Force approach is
changing again. Retirement of the U-2S,
previously scheduled for FY2019, has been
postponed to at least FY2022 as announced
by the US Air Force in its FY2018 budget
request earlier this year. The U-2S fleet could
potentially remain in service until 2045 before
reaching the end of the current airframe life.
As Global Hawk will not be urgently
needed to replace the U-2S, the Senate
Armed Services Committee, in its report
to accompany its version of the FY2018
Defense Authorization Bill, issued on July
10, wants the Air Force to report about the
feasibility of replacing the U-2S, not with
the Block 40 but rather with the optionally-
manned version of the U-2S, the TR-X, that
Lockheed Martin had first proposed in 2015.
Lockheed Martin has said the TR-X could
enter service in the late 2020s. A force of 30
aircraft could be built for some $3.8 billion.In from the Black World
The TR-X is not the only new platform
that may be added to ISR architectures.Survivability concerns for the high-altitude
surveillance mission are reflected in
two new programmes that are gradually
coming in from the black world. While
little is known of them, they will require a
capability to penetrate within sensor range
of future threats, use conformal apertures
to minimise drag and radar signatures, use
advanced survivability systems including
low signature technologies, and will be
designed for network integration using high-
bandwidth directional communications and
open systems architectures.
Existence of a high-altitude stealth UAV,
like Northrop Grumman’s RQ-180, was
confirmed by the Air Force in 2014. Press
reports suggest a contract was issued
in 2008 and it entered low rate initialproduction in 2013 and that developmental
aircraft may have been flying operational
missions since 2012.
The Lockheed Martin SR-72 design was
made public in 2013. An optionally manned
hypersonic aircraft capable of both ISR and
strike missions, Lockheed Martin stated
that a prototype with a speed in the range
Mach 4 to Mach 6, could fly as soon as- There have been no official reports of
SR-72 development being funded, although
there has certainly been sufficient funding
in hypersonic research and development
accounts for a prototype like this or a
similar aircraft. In July, Lockheed Martin
officials said hypersonic technology is now
sufficiently mature for them, along with the
Defense Advance Projects Research Agency
and the US armed services, to be working on
getting the capability into the hands of the
warfighters.
While the SR-72 is not likely to be exported,
improved hypersonic technology may be the
eventual result of the US-Australian tests at
Australia’s Woomera Test Range, the world’s
largest instrumented range, as reported in the
press in July 2017. Marise Payne, Australia’s
Defence Minister was quoted as saying that
tests, “take us one step closer to the
realisation of hypersonic flight”.
The U-2S Dragon Lady and RQ-4 Global Hawk provide the US Air Force, and the wider
Department of Defense, with intelligence gathered from deep within an adversary’s territory.
Global Hawk is defined as a high-altitude, long-endurance, remotely piloted aircraft. SSgt
Bobby Cummings/US Air Force