Roughly a year’s time and $5 million have given Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System the new ability to track “dismounted targets,” combining this new ability with a dramatically expanded capacity to transmit Ground Moving Target Information to “customers” on the ground. According to a program update by contractor Northrop Grumman, Joint STARS aircraft are being upgraded under an urgent operational requirement, in response to irregular warfare requirements in Afghanistan. Northrop evaluated the E-8C’s extant radar, implementing minimal changes to software and detection thresholds, enabling it to track human-sized “dismounted” targets, as well as the larger vehicle-sized targets it was designed for. A new satellite data link augments this capacity with the ability to transmit GMTI via secure SIPRNET, cutting processing and dissemination from approximately 18 hours to near real-time availability.
Happy Birthday US Air Force: 78 Today
Sept. 18, 2025
Seventy-eight years ago today, on Sept. 18, 1947, Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson swore in Stuart Symington as the first ever Secretary of the Air Force, and the Air Force officially became the first new military service since the Revolutionary War.
