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.
General Atomics, the maker of one of the Air Force’s first Collaborative Combat Aircraft, has ambitious plans for its family of semi-autonomous drones beyond the FQ-42, including a flying-wing aircraft capable of carrying out both reconnaissance and strike missions. Meanwhile, the Air Force Research Laboratory announced a new program to…