DAYTON, Ohio–While the U.S. Air Force plans to retire its Lockheed Martin
[LMT] U-2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance fleet by 2026, the service wants to use the plane to inform future open mission systems and signals intelligence (SIGINT) efforts.
“We’re using the U-2 in unique and innovative ways as a surrogate platform to decrease risk for 5th gen fighters,” Air Force Col. Joshua Williams, the program executive officer for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and special operations platforms, told reporters last week during the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s annual industry days conference.
Air Force research and development funding in the fiscal 2024 budget is only $16 million, which is to go toward Avionics Technical Refresh Phase 1 flight test and installation, “which will partially resolve avionics DSMS [diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages] and safety of flight issues and establishes the Open Mission Systems (OMS) backbone needed to employ IP [internet protocol]-based OMS sensors such as ASARS-2C and SYERS-2C OMS.”
RTX [RTX] is the contractor for the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System (ASARS), and RTX subsidiary, Collins Aerospace, builds the Senior Year Electro-Optical Reconnaissance System (SYERS) multispectral imaging sensor.
In addition to staving off obsolescence, the Air Force in fiscal 2024 wants to complete flight testing of ASARS-2B and C–a high-altitude penetrating synthetic aperture radar. The service wants to integrate and test ASARS-2C’s “advanced backend processor with a new radar front end array” and develop “exportable advanced modes primarily focused on the highly contested environment,” the service’s fiscal 2024 budget said.
Col. William Collins, AFLCMC’s high altitude ISR senior materiel leader for U-2 and Global Hawk, suggested that the Air Force’s Avionics Technical Refresh program for the U-2 is to allow OMS sensors to be used on 5th generation platforms, such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35, and sixth generation aircraft.
The Air Force is “also looking at demo’ing some SIGINT capability [on the U-2] that could also be used on future platforms,” Collins said.
AFLCMC and Air Combat Command are focusing on “how do we ensure that we don’t create a scenario in which we’re not able to meet mission need because of things like [U-2 parts’] obsolescence,” he said.
While the Air Force has said it wants to retire the 31 U-2s by 2026, the service has embarked on upgrade efforts (Defense Daily, Sept. 12, 2022).
Last September, DoD announced a $183 million award to RTX for ASARS-2B, which is to double the range of the ASARS-2A carried on the nose of some U-2s.
Another upgrade effort has been the Global High-altitude Open-system Sensor Technology (GHOST) SIGINT system.
In October 2021, the Air Force awarded a BAE Systems/Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) team a contract for GHOST to replace the Northrop Grumman [NOC] Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP) on the U-2 (Defense Daily, Oct. 19, 2021). Earlier that month, the Air Force said it had also awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for GHOST.