The Air Force said yesterday it canceled its Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS), an aerostat-borne surveillance program used to support counter-narcotic operations, mostly in southern border regions.
Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Jim Gregory said yesterday Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter directed the Defense Department in December 2011 to end its sponsorship of TARS based largely on budgetary constraints due to the current fiscal environment. Gregory said interagency discussions to examine options to keep the program in operation are ongoing.
Contractors on the program include Lockheed Martin [LMT], ITT Exelis [XLS], ILC Dover of Frederica, Del., and TCOM of Columbia, Md., according to the Air Force. Lockheed Martin manufactured the L-88A or L-88(V)3 radars on TARS while ILC Dover and TCOM developed the envelope, or fabric shell, of the aerostat. ITT Exelis operated and maintained the tethered locations.
ITT Exelis spokeswoman Jill Wolf yesterday deferred comment to the Air Force. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokeswoman Jenny Burke said yesterday TARS is DoD funded through the end of FY ’13 and the two agencies are in discussions on how to address the program going forward. Representatives from ILC Dover and TCOM did not respond by press time to requests for comment.
Using the aerostat as a stationary airborne platform for a surveillance radar, TARS is capable of detecting low altitude aircraft at the radar’s maximum range by mitigating curvature of the earth and terrain masking limitations, according to the Air Force. TARS has a tether length of 25,000 feet (4.73 miles) with a maximum detection range of 200 nautical miles.
TARS provides detection and monitoring capability along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Florida Straits and a portion of the Caribbean in support of the Pentagon’s counter drug program. Four TARS are deployed in Texas, two in Arizona and one in New Mexico, Florida, Louisiana and Puerto Rico.
Gregory said TARS costs DoD around $38 million per year to run. The program has been in operation since 1992.