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19 Feb ’12
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A while back I posted about the JLENS program. There are basically two aerostats (unmotorized blimps) that provide radar against cruise missiles, etc.
Well the tether on one of them broke today. 🙁
http://www.baltimore.....story.html
The military surveillance blimp that broke free of its mooring at Aberdeen Proving Ground Wednesday morning has returned to Earth after a four-hour, 160-mile, power line-snapping odyssey, authorities said.
NORAD spokesman Michael Kucharek said the runaway aircraft was on the ground near Moreland Township, Pa. — 160 miles north of its mooring in Edgewood — and was deflating. The blimp had slowly been losing helium, he said, and appears to have drifted to the ground.
Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Angela Bieber said the balloon was "contained."
"It is no longer moving," she said.
Beiber said police had not received any reports of injuries. She said the military was trying to recover the blimp.
"It's still definitely in progress," she said.
The 243-foot-long, helium-filled JLENS aerostat, part of an over-the-horizon surveillance system being tested at Aberdeen Proving Ground, detached from its mooring in Edgewood at about 11:54 a.m., a spokeswoman for the Army installation said.
JLENS blimp breaks loose, floats away
NORAD says that one of the JLENS blimps tethered at the Aberdeen Proving Ground broke loose from its mooring and floated away. (Baltimore Sun)
Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from an Air National Guard base in Atlantic City, N.J., to monitor the unmanned aircraft, and NORAD said it was working with the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure air traffic safety.
The blimp was trailing 6,700 feet of cable. Authorities warned onlookers away.
"Anyone who sees the aerostat is advised to contact 911 immediately," Aberdeen Proving Ground spokeswoman Heather Roelker said. "People are warned to keep a safe distance from the airship and tether as contact with them may present significant danger."
State police in Columbia County, Pa., said they had received reports of blimp sightings. Witnesses reported seeing the blimp drifting between Jerseytown and Turbotville, a sparsely populated area north of the state capital of Harrisburg.
Its tether was snapping power lines. The local electric utility, PPL, reported about 20,000 customers without power in the area, although it was unclear how many could be attributed to the blimp. Bloomsburg University canceled classes, citing a "widespread power outage.
Similar aircraft have been used extensively in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to provide ground surveillance around U.S. bases and other sensitive sites.
"My understanding is, from having seen these break loose in Afghanistan on a number of occasions, we could get it to descend and then we'll recover it and put it back up," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a brief exchange with reporters at the Pentagon. "This happens in bad weather."
NORAD spokesman Michael Kucharek said the command was working with other agencies "to address the safe recovery of the aerostat."
The office of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said it was "closely monitoring the situation."
"The Governor's Office is in communication with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, the Pennsylvania State Police, the National Guard, and the appropriate authorities with the federal government," the office said in a statement. "We will work with the appropriate authorities to respond to any resource requests and assist in any way possible."
The Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, has become a fixture of the Baltimore skyline since the first of the two blimps was launched over Middle River in December.
When aloft, the aircraft use sophisticated radar to see up to 340 miles in any direction, which covers an area from North Carolina to the Canadian border. It can be used to track ships at sea and cars on land.
Authorities say the system is intended to watch for and direct fire on incoming cruise missiles and other threats. NORAD is running a three-year exercise to test its effectiveness in the National Capital Region.
The effort has proved controversial. After 17 years of research and $2.7 billion in funding, the system has been hobbled by defective software, poor reliability and vulnerability to bad weather.
Privacy advocates, meanwhile, have expressed concern about deploying such sophisticated surveillance technology over the United States.
The blimps are moored to the ground with thick, 10,000-foot cables that can transmit the data they collect back to earth. They're designed to stay aloft in winds of up to 70 knots, and remain in the air even if their skin is pierced.
Raytheon, the contractor that makes the blimps, says the cable is unlikely to break.
"The chance of that happening is very small because the tether is made of Vectran and has withstood storms in excess of 100 knots," the company said on its website. "However, in the unlikely event it does happen, there are a number of procedures and systems in place which are designed to bring the aerostat down in a safe manner."
Bad weather has caused problems for JLENS in the past. In 2010 a blimp was completely destroyed when it collided with another blimp at a facility in North Carolina.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
matthew.brown@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2015, The Baltimore Sun
19 Feb ’12
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http://graphics.lati.....nse-jlens/
How a $2.7 billion air-defense system became a 'zombie' program
JLENS was billed as the answer to an ever-expanding list of threats, from cruise missiles to explosive-laden trucks. But the blimp-borne radar system has yet to perform as promised.
Sept. 24, 2015 | Reporting from Washington
After nearly two decades of disappointment and delay, the system — known as JLENS — had a chance to prove its worth on April 15.
That day, a Florida postal worker flew a single-seat, rotary-wing aircraft into the heart of the nation’s capital to dramatize his demand for campaign finance reform.
JLENS is intended to spot just such a tree-skimming intruder, and two of the blimps were supposed to be standing sentry above the capital region. Yet 61-year-old Douglas Hughes flew undetected through 30 miles of highly restricted airspace before landing on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
At a congressional hearing soon afterward, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) demanded to know how “a dude in a gyrocopter 100 feet in the air” was able to pull off such an audacious stunt.
“Whose job is it to detect him?” Chaffetz asked.
It was JLENS’ job, but the system was “not operational” that day, as the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, Adm. William E. Gortney, told Chaffetz. The admiral offered no estimate for when it would be.
Seventeen years after its birth, JLENS is a stark example of what defense specialists call a “zombie” program: costly, ineffectual and seemingly impossible to kill.
In videos and news releases, Raytheon Co., the Pentagon’s lead contractor for JLENS, has asserted that the system is “proven,” “capable,” “performing well right now” and “ready to deploy today.”
A Los Angeles Times investigation found otherwise:
- In tests, JLENS has struggled to track flying objects and to distinguish friendly aircraft from threatening ones.
- A 2012 report by the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation office faulted the system in four “critical performance areas” and rated its reliability as “poor.” A year later, in its most recent assessment, the agency again cited serious deficiencies and said JLENS had “low system reliability.”
- The system is designed to provide continuous air-defense surveillance for 30 days at a time, but had not managed to do so as of last month.
- Software glitches have hobbled its ability to communicate with the nation’s air-defense networks — a critical failing, given that JLENS’ main purpose is to alert U.S. forces to incoming threats.
- The massive, milk-white blimps can be grounded by bad weather and, if deployed in combat zones, would be especially vulnerable to enemy attack.
- Even if all those problems could be overcome, it would be prohibitively expensive to deploy enough of the airships to protect the United States along its borders and coasts.
These findings emerged from a review of reports by the Pentagon testing office and the U.S. Government Accountability Office and from interviews with defense scientists and active and retired military officers.
Despite the system’s documented shortcomings, Raytheon and other backers of JLENS have marshaled support in Congress and at the highest levels of the military to keep taxpayer money flowing to the program.
They have done so in part by depicting JLENS as the answer to an ever-evolving list of threats: cruise missiles, drones and other small aircraft, “swarming” boats, even explosives-laden trucks.
Army leaders tried to kill JLENS in 2010, The Times learned. What happened next illustrates the difficulty of extinguishing even a deeply troubled defense program.
Raytheon mobilized its congressional lobbyists. Within the Pentagon, Marine Corps Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to JLENS’ defense, arguing that it held promise for enhancing the nation’s air defenses.
At Cartwright’s urging, money was found in 2011 for a trial run of the technology — officially, an “operational exercise” — in the skies above Washington, D.C.
Cartwright retired the same year — and joined Raytheon’s board of directors five months later. As of the end of 2014, Raytheon had paid him more than $828,000 in cash and stock for serving as a director, Securities and Exchange Commission records show.
The Times sought comment from Raytheon and an opportunity to interview company officials about JLENS. In response, spokeswoman Keri S. Connors said by email that Raytheon “declines to participate in the story.”
Cartwright, who remains a Raytheon director, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Philip E. Coyle III, who oversaw assessments of dozens of major weapons systems as the Pentagon’s director of operational testing from 1994 to 2001, said Congress should closely examine whether JLENS deserves any more taxpayer dollars.
The cost of a blimp-borne radar network extensive enough to defend the nation against cruise missiles “would be enormous,” Coyle said in an interview.
“When you look at the full system — all the pieces that are required — that’s when it gets really daunting,” he said.
15 Feb ’12
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Wow, what a cluster
19 Feb ’12
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Exactly!
One of my friends had a great FB status today-
"So one of the blimps runs away, and the other is put in time out. Doesn't seem fair."
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