The Air Force plans to field a new podded, wide-area sensor system called “Gorgon Stare” in 2010 for unmanned aerial vehicles and manned intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance platforms. Flight International reported Jan. 28 that Gorgon Stare will initially be integrated onto the MQ-9 Reaper UAV to provide a wide-area stare to support tactical operations. It will be added later to other unmanned and manned aircraft. Flight said one advantage of Gorgon Stare is that, compared to wide-area surveillance sensors already in combat, it will not be a closed-loop system that requires dedicated logistics and training. Instead, the new sensor is designed to be platform-agnostic and operate with the distributed common ground system that is used by intelligence specialists to analyze imagery.
A new Navy missile could fill a range gap that the U.S. Air Force needs for its fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at…