November 07, 2008 | 2:15:23 PM
Categories: Drones, Missiles, Mullah Menace, Nukes, Sabras
Courtesy Of Wired Blog Network
A prototype of the long-range, high-resolution target-discrimination sensor has already been tested aboard a business jet under a closely held Israeli-German program called Bluebird... [D]etails about the demonstrator remain classified...
“There’s nothing comparable. Airborne versions have been used as research tools, but nothing has ever been integrated into an active national defense sensor network ... Certainly, there’s never been anything like this mounted on a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle],” an international industry consultant said.
The U.S. military experimented with putting infrared sensors on a Boeing 767, an effort called the Airborne Optical Adjunct. It was quietly killed in the 1990s as the Pentagon sought to move all its missile defense sensors to space.
Picking out a warhead from sophisticated decoys is "if not the most challenging, one of the most challenging problems that missile defense people are working," GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike tells Defense News. But it's not impossible.
He pointed to the U.S. Navy’s Cooperative Engagement Capability program, which overcame initial bugs and now allows Aegis cruisers to coordinate their radar tracks into an integrated picture of incoming missiles.
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