Lockheed Martin has won a $400 million contract to build a high-altitude airship demonstrator with radar technology so powerful it could spot a car hidden under a canopy of trees more than 300 km away.
The Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS) programme aims to replace several airborne surveillance platforms, including the Boeing E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) and E-8C joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS), with a single fleet of stratosphere-roaming airships.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the US Air Force selected Lockheed’s Skunk Works division over a rival bid from Northrop Grumman to build and fly a demonstrator aircraft with a scaled down sensor system in Fiscal 2013.
“This is an extremely advanced machine that represents a dramatically different approach to persistent real-time intelligence gathering and to the overarching utility of airships,” Lockheed programme manager Eric Hofstatter says in a statement.
