Lockheed Martin and the New York Air National Guard celebrated the initial operational capability of the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod at a ceremony in Syracuse, N.Y. on April 21. Local officials and members of the 174th Fighter Wing—the first USAF unit to achieve Sniper IOC—were on hand to extol the pod, which already has seen combat action on F-16s and F-15Es. The system provides target coordinates for precision-guided munitions and offers a non-traditional intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance capability.
The Space Force relies entirely on data—but it lacks the systems and tools to analyze and share that data properly even within the service, let alone with international partners, officials said May 1.