Lockheed Martin officials say the company has successfully tested a means to deliver time-sensitive intelligence data to combat commanders in minutes instead of hours. The company used non-traditional intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance data picked up from loitering missiles—or one en route to a target—and relaying it via the Global Information Grid directly to an operational commander on the ground. Lockheed says Experiment Alpha paves the way for future work at its new Center for Innovation. Discovering what’s on the GIG “is a tough challenge,” says Tom Haser, Lockheed’s director of net-centric integration. But, he asserts, it should be “as simple as finding a plumber or electrician in the Yellow Pages. The technology is not quite there, but we’re making progress.”
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
