Air Force Research Lab’s Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland AFB, N.M., is working toward launching a “football field in length,” five-ton space-based radar antenna demonstrator in 2010. The aim of the program is to put antennas in space that can provide intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance data for ground target detection. The effort’s official name is Innovative Space-based radar Antenna Technology, or ISAT. It’s one of the key technologies behind the Space-Based Radar. Two contractor teams—Boeing and Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and Harris—are vying to build the 100-yard long experimental antenna. Ultimately, the structures could extend to 300 yards. They will be deployed in a folded position.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
