Air Force Ends E-10A Work, But Keeps Mulling Options For Future Surveillance

Defense Daily, March 16, 2007

By Michael Sirak

The Air Force formally notified Northrop Grumman [NOC] late last month that it is terminating work on the E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A) program, the next-generation widebody surveillance platform envisioned to track ground targets and air threats, including cruise missiles, and manage future battles from the air.

Formal notice came on Feb. 23, Northrop Grumman announced earlier this week. However, the news was anticipated as the Air Force did not include any funding for the project in its FY '08 budget request to Congress and the service had been scaling back the program's scope over the past several years to free up funds to pay for higher priorities such as fielding a new tanker aircraft and supporting combat operations in the war on terror (Defense Daily, Feb. 6, and March 1, 2005).

Further, Air Force officials have said they are re-examining their needs for wide-area surveillance (WAS) of the air and surface and might be able to accomplish the mission with a different mix of capabilities than planned for the MC2A.

"We took the E-10 out because it was a singular [demonstration] not going to be replicated," a senior Air Force official told reporters during a Pentagon briefing last month. "There may be other ways to do that [mission]."

With the Air Force's notice, Northrop Grumman said it and its industry teammates Boeing [BA] and Raytheon [RTN] will wrap up the technology development activities they were pursuing under the E-10A Weapon System Integration (WSI) initiative that began in 2003.

"Planning has begun for ending efforts following the initial design review being held this week," Northrop Grumman said in its March 13 statement.

Company spokesman Jim Stratford told Defense Daily yesterday that the review began on Tuesday and will conclude today. Thereupon, the company said it expects to close out any remaining E-10A-related items by the end of May.

The Air Force had not issued a press statement on the cancelation of the E-10A program by press time on March 15.

The three companies were working to convert a Boeing 767 freighter aircraft to serve as the E-10A flying testbed. The plan was to install a large version of the Northrop Grumman-Raytheon Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system on the aircraft and evaluate its abilities for conducting broad-area surveillance (Defense Daily, May 13, 2003). The testbed would have also been fitted with the Northrop Grumman-built Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) mission suite to demonstrate its ability to function as a control node in future battlefield networks by disseminating time-critical data from the MP-RTIP radar and other airborne sensors and cuing other assets to threats (Defense Daily, Sept. 13, 2004).

"Over the next 30 days, we will be exploring options for the future of the MP-RTIP WAS sensor and BMC2 subsystem," Dave Nagy, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance Programs, said in the company's statement.

The Air Force had planned for the E-10A to replace its current E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) ground-surveillance aircraft. The MP-RTIP radar has the capacity to locate and track air and ground targets with much greater accuracy and fidelity than the APY-7 radar resident on the Joint STARS today, Air Force and industry officials have said.

Service officials also spoke at times of later configurations of the E-10 potentially succeeding the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, which currently scans the skies to warn of approaching air threats, as well as the RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic eavesdropping platform.

The MC2A testbed aircraft would have paved the way for the fielding of the first unit of four E-10A operational aircraft by the end of the next decade. Flight activities with the testbed were anticipated to start around 2010. While the 767 was regarded as the most likely platform for the operational version of the aircraft, the Air Force held out the option of going with another widebody platform.

However, tightening budgets continued to squeeze the program and, by last year, only the E-10A testbed was funded and not the subsequent operational aircraft.

While the service has now taken the final step to stop the remaining work on the E-10A testbed, the developmental activities on the WAS variant of the MP- RTIP sensor are still funded through the remainder of the fiscal year, Northrop Grumman's Stratford said. The company has one MP-RTIP WAS developmental unit under construction that is already about one-quarter complete, he said.

The MP-RTIP is a modular and scaleable radar. Currently, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are flight testing a smaller version optimized for use on the Air Force's RQ-4 Global Hawk high-flying, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. While the radar for the Global Hawk is five feet long, the widebody variant spans roughly 21 feet (Defense Daily, April 28, 2006).