The Army kicked off the effort late last year and this spring issued a request for information from industry about the project, which would be a departure from the service’s traditional approach to buying and sustaining radios.

Mark Kitz, the Army’s program executive officer for tactical command, control and communications, said Wednesday the service hasn’t determined how to proceed with the effort.

“I think we’re still struggling with, what are the upfront investments the Army needs to make, and then what’s the return on investment for you, industry, with radio as a service,” he said during a presentation at AFCEA’s TechNet conference in Augusta, Georgia. “I think lukewarm would be my assessment right now.”

The Army initiated the pilot as a cost-effective option for modernizing its hundreds of thousands of radios — an inventory too large to quickly upgrade.

The model would operate like a subscription service in which the Army leases capability when it needs it rather than buying and maintaining radios outright as the service does today.

Vendors would provide a limited number of radios as needed for training and operations and then would upgrade their software to match modernization requirements.

Officials have varying views on the prospects of the program, meanwhile. Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo, for example, has said he finds the idea compelling, while Kits said he remains committed to the effort and “believes we’re going to get a strong return on investment.”

“I don’t necessarily see that from the pilot, and so I think that’s going to be a continued conversation with industry,” he said.

Kitz was optimistic, however, about two other “as-a-service” pilots for satellite communications and IT. He said the Army is committed to making the pilot work for SATCOM and expects the service to begin a pilot for IT at the edge over the next 18 months.

Defense electronics manufacturer Hensoldt will provide the additional technology, worth more than €100 million (U.S. $108 million). The company will also integrate the TRML-4D radars into the IRIS-T SLM air defense systems destined for the two customers on behalf of Diehl Defence.

Estonia and Latvia agreed to purchase the German-made weapons in September in a deal worth more than €1 billion. For Latvia, the purchase of €600 million worth of air defense systems was the largest military purchase in the country’s 30 years of independence.

The TRML-4D radar enables the detection and tracking of aerial targets within a 250-kilometer (155-mile) radius and are able to simultaneously follow about 1,500 targets, Hensoldt said in a news release.

The European Sky Shield Initiative, launched by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2022, seeks to strengthen the continent’s air defenses, with a particular aim of countering Russian and Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles.

The initiative now counts 21 participating countries, including neutral non-NATO members Austria and Switzerland. The aim is to maintain systems that can form a continuous barrier across the continent, from the Nordic region to Turkey.

The latest announcement brings the total number of radars Hensoldt is producing as part of the initiative alone to more than 80, the company said.

The German-made IRIS-T is the primary short- and medium-range system used under the scheme. Some participating countries have procured American-made long-range Patriot missiles and the Israeli-made Arrow 3 exo-atmospheric interceptor for longer ranges.

France, which is not part of the initiative, has criticized the approach for relying too heavily on non-European components. Italy and Spain are also not participants. However, the initiative has consistently expanded, notably when Poland dropped its ambiguous stance and announced in April it would join.

The initiative, largely a consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has contributed to dramatically accelerating the pace at which European governments are spending funds on air defense. The Baltic states were among the first European nations to kick off the initiative, signing a joint declaration with 12 others in October 2022.

Kyiv’s main military intelligence service shared satellite photos it said showed the aftermath of the attack. If confirmed, it would mark Ukraine’s first known successful strike on a twin-engine Su-57 stealth jet, lauded as Moscow’s most advanced fighter plane.

In one photo, black soot marks and small craters can be seen dotting a concrete strip around the parked aircraft. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, the strike took place on Saturday at the Akhtubinsk base in southern Russia, some 589 kilometers (366 miles) from the front line.

The Ukrainian agency said the plane, which is capable of carrying stealth missiles across hundreds of kilometers (miles), was among “a countable few” of its type in Moscow’s arsenal. According to reports by Russian agencies, Moscow’s air force obtained “more than 10″ new Su-57s last year, and has placed an order for a total of 76 to be delivered by 2028.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, hours later said on Ukrainian TV that the attack may have damaged two Su-57 jets parked at the base, and also wounded Russian personnel. He did not immediately give any evidence to support the claim.

Ilya Yevlash, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force, told Ukrainian media in April that Moscow was trying to keep its Su-57 fleet “at a safe distance” from Ukrainian firepower.

The strike comes after the United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kyiv. Ukraine has already used U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia under newly approved guidance from President Joe Biden that allows American arms to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

But the airstrip’s distance from Ukraine, as well as unofficial comments from Russia, point to the likely use of Ukrainian-made drones. Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Kyiv has ramped up domestic drone production and used the munitions to strike deep inside Russia. In January, drones hit a gas terminal near St. Petersburg that lies over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of the border.

A popular pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, thought to be run by a retired Russian army pilot, claimed that three Ukrainian drones struck the Akhtubinsk airstrip on Saturday and that flying shrapnel damaged the jet.

“It is now being determined whether it can be restored or not. If not, it would be the first combat loss of a Su-57 in history,” the Fighterbomber channel reported.

A military correspondent for Russia’s state-run RIA news agency, Aleksandr Kharchenko, in a Telegram post Sunday denounced Moscow’s failure to build hangars to protect its aircraft. But the post stopped short of directly acknowledging the strike.

Russia’s so-called “military bloggers” like Fighterbomber are often seen as sources of information on military losses in the absence of an official Kremlin comment. Russia’s Defense Ministry or senior political figures did not comment Sunday.

The ministry on Saturday claimed its forces downed three Ukrainian drones in the Astrakhan region, home to the Akhtubinsk airstrip. Igor Babushkin, the governor of Astrakhan, that same day reported that Ukraine attempted to strike an unspecified facility there, but claimed the attack was unsuccessful.

Russia’s Su-57 fleet has been largely absent from the skies over Ukraine, and has instead been used to fire long-range missiles across the border. The U.K. Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence briefing last year that Russia is likely trying to avoid “reputational damage, reduced export prospects, and the compromise of sensitive technology” that would come from losing any Su-57 jets in enemy territory.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces kept up drone attacks on Russia’s southern border regions, according to local Russian officials.

Three drones hit Belgorod province late on Saturday, damaging a power line and blowing out windows but causing no casualties, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Another five drones and a Ukrainian-made missile were brought down over the region on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to an update by Pepel (Ashes), a channel run by Belgorod journalists now based outside Russia, Ukrainian drones on Sunday afternoon struck an ammunition depot outside the town of Rakitnoye, some 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Ukraine. Footage circulating on social media showed thick plumes of smoke rising into the sky. In one video, a woman’s voice is heard, saying “I wonder if soldiers lived there?”

Gladkov, the governor, did not directly comment on those claims, but confirmed that a blaze had broken out in a “non-residential building” near Rakitnoye. He said no one was hurt.

Across Ukraine’s front-line provinces, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded at least nine others on Saturday and overnight, according to reports by regional officials.

A man died and two women suffered wounds in the village of Khotimlya, east of Kharkiv, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Shelling also damaged the local school, a council building, a shop and private homes, Syniehubov said.

Heavy battles continued in the area as Ukrainian troops try to beat back Russia’s invading forces after a weekslong push by Moscow that sparked fears for Kharkiv, located just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border, and a wave of civilian evacuations.

Russia’s coordinated new offensive has centered on the Kharkiv region, but seems to include testing Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk farther south, while also launching incursions in the northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

The easing of restrictions on the use of Western weapons will help Ukraine protect Kharkiv by targeting Russian capabilities across the border, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. It is unclear what other impact it may have on the direction of the war, in what is proving to be a critical period.

The move drew a furious response from Moscow, and warnings it could embroil NATO in a war with Russia. But Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, described it as “common sense.”

“What was happening up around Kharkiv … was a Russian offensive where they were moving from one side of the border directly to the other side of the border, and it simply didn’t make sense not to allow the Ukrainians to fire across that border, to hit Russian guns and emplacements that were firing at (them),” Sullivan said Sunday in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“I think the biggest takeaway is that our near-peer adversaries, and then elements like Hamas, have formidable EW capabilities,” Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, the Army’s program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said during Wednesday’s virtual event. “It’s really about making sure that our systems, our soldiers and our commanders have that kind of freedom of maneuver within the EMS.”

The electromagnetic spectrum, or EMS, consists of the energy waves produced from radios, cellphones, radars and the like. The EMS environment has become highly contested, presenting a difficult battle space in which actors are vying for dominance.

Maintaining situational awareness is necessary for military commanders to communicate and guide weapons to their targets. EMS is becoming increasingly used by U.S. adversaries such as Russia in its war against Ukraine, the militant group Hamas in Gaza and the Yemen-based Houthi rebel group in its attack on ships in the Red Sea.

It comes down to a select few advanced capabilities facing off against “non-exquisite capabilities in mass,” Barker said. “And sometimes, you know, that mass can be quite overwhelming.”

“We’re realizing we have to build essentially an EW arsenal across the landscape to be able to go at these different types of threats,” he added.

At the same conference, Col. Josh Koslov, the head of the Air Force’s 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, said interoperability among low-cost weapon systems will help hold the line in electronic warfare.

“They have to be able to talk to each other,” he said. “And so if we fight a near-peer tonight, we’re going to fight with the capabilities we have today. And so how do we make the systems that we have today more interoperable and able to share information, and then the systems that we’re bringing online?”

Koslov added that “super close” alignment between the warfighter and acquisition “is incredibly important as we move forward, and then making sure that we’re developing the requirements that drive interoperability from the beginning.” This means a reduced focus on major weapon systems, and more of a focus on the data that those weapon systems use, he noted.

He pointed to the use of low-cost tools that “create strategic and operational impacts” in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, adding that the U.S. needs to develop a system capable of countering that approach.

Brady Hauboldt, SNC’s vice president of business development, told Defense News on May 29 that the first of five Boeing 747-8 aircraft that will become the Survivable Airborne Operations Center, or SAOC, will arrive at its Dayton, Ohio, facility this summer.

Over the next dozen years, the SAOC will gradually replace the Air Force’s aging E-4B Nightwatch, also known as the National Airborne Operations Center aircraft. If a nuclear war or other catastrophe were to occur that destroyed the military’s command-and-control centers on the ground, the president would direct forces through an airborne E-4B or SAOC — thus the “doomsday” term.

The Air Force has four E-4Bs, which have been flying since the 1970s, and they are near the end of their service lives. The Air Force announced in April it awarded SNC a $13 billion contract to build SAOC and replace the E-4B by July 2036.

The deal is the largest single contract SNC has received in its more than six-decade history as a mission systems integration and aircraft modification company, Hauboldt said. The firm hopes its work on SAOC will open opportunities to larger contracts and major programs.

SNC decided to aim for larger growth in recent years, he said, with the company ramping up its spending on digital engineering tools as well as new infrastructure and facilities. That included standing up an Aviation Innovation and Technology Center in Dayton, which comes with large hangars where the 747s will receive modifications to become SAOCs.

The company’s first new hangar there opened a year and a half ago. The second is expected to be done this summer, and three more hangars and other support facilities are to follow.

Developmental engineering on SAOC will largely take place at SNC’s facility near Denver, Colorado. Other offices are being set up in locations such as Dallas, Texas. This will allow the firm to take advantage of hiring pools in multiple locations across the country as the company adds about 1,000 workers for the program, Hauboldt said.

“All of that investment in the digital tools, the employees and the facilities for SNC have put us in a position to take on this kind of a project, like SAOC,” he added.

Antennas, computers and radiation shielding

SNC plans to buy five Boeing 747-8 planes from Korean Air to convert into flying operations centers, with the last scheduled for delivery in September 2025, according to a May report by Reuters. Hauboldt told Defense News these five aircraft are all the company needs to finish the engineering and manufacturing development requirements of SAOC, but said SNC will buy more planes if the Air Force wants to further expand its fleet.

Hauboldt said SNC inspected the planes, the oldest of which was delivered in 2015, and found Korean Air has kept them in excellent condition.

SNC is using a fully digital process to design SAOC, he said, and the Air Force will own those digital models. Hauboldt said the models, along with the open-systems architecture, will make it easier for the Air Force to upgrade the planes.

The structural modifications to turn the 747s into airborne command centers will include installing communications antennas throughout the aircraft, a galley for long-haul flights, the mission systems where the crew will carry out their jobs, and the wiring and infrastructure to support those systems, Hauboldt said.

But one of the most critical upgrades will involve hardening the plane to withstand radiation and electromagnetic pulses it might encounter from a nuclear blast. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works will conduct this work as a subcontractor on the program, Hauboldt said, as well as performing other work on SAOC.

Skunk Works brings “a lot of expertise in integrating advanced capabilities on airframes — in this case, the radiation hardening,” Hauboldt said. “They have an experience base that SNC has less experience on, so we added them to the team.”

The planes will keep their General Electric-made GEnx-2B engines, he noted, and Rolls-Royce will provide the aircraft’s auxiliary power systems. Collins Aerospace, which Hauboldt called a leader in the defense industry on nuclear command, control and communications systems, will also help build SAOC.

In addition to being a fresher airframe than the half-century-old E-4Bs, Hauboldt said, the new SAOC will benefit from having modern, user-friendly computers and other technologies, and the easy modification that comes from having an open-architecture structure.

The Air Force was focused on keeping down the life-cycle costs to operate and sustain SAOC, Hauboldt said — particularly after the high maintenance cost of the E-4B. So SNC tailored its proposal to address those concerns by using open-systems architecture and offering the Air Force a “robust” data rights package — something the service has found difficult to obtain from contractors on other aircraft, such as the Lockheed-made F-35 fighter.

Hauboldt acknowledged that could mean another company could win the contract to sustain the program. But he said SNC is confident that it can do the job well enough and efficiently enough to keep the job.

Obtaining data rights for SAOC is “going to pay great dividends for the U.S. Air Force and the [Department of Defense] for decades,” Hauboldt said. “We recognized early on that the Air Force valued data rights — in other words, the ability to cost-effectively sustain and modify the aircraft. We were willing, as a company, to listen and offer them what they asked for.”

The aid package will include the Saab-made airborne surveillance and control aircraft, known as ASC-890, which can track ships, drones, aircraft and missiles.

According to a statement published by the Swedish government, the aircraft will strengthen Ukraine’s “capability to identify and engage targets at long range.”

The weapons bundle will also contain a number of Swedish-made, advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, or RB-99-AMRAAM, adapted for ground-to-air engagements.

The Scandinavian country will send its complete stock of armored tracked personnel carriers, the PBV 302, alongside spare parts, ammunition, and maintenance equipment to support the regeneration of new Ukrainian brigades.

The Swedish vehicles, produced by the company now known as BAE Systems Hägglunds, were retired from service in 2014.

Additionally, Kyiv will receive an undisclosed number of 155mm artillery shells from Swedish stockpiles, “to combat Russian units in the depths of the battlefield,” according to the statement.

While this donation will lead to a temporary decline in Sweden’s armament, government officials have already committed to procuring more munitions as replacements. Similarly, defense officials in Stockholm intend to buy more GlobalEye surveillance aircraft from Saab to make up for the donation of the older ASC-890 type.

These Swedish pledge follows military aid commitments from Spain and Belgium this week in the areas of combat aircraft, tanks and air defense.

The service’s Program Executive Office Land Systems is eyeing its newly reorganized portfolios — including ground-based air defense, expeditionary radars and light armored vehicles — to find efficiencies and build upon existing technology to rapidly field new systems and expand the portfolio.

Here are three notable areas the Corps is focused on:

Radars

One example involves the expeditionary radars program, which previously housed only the Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar. The office’s chief, Stephen Bowdren, told Defense News the G/ATOR is an active radar that has proved itself in the field and is now pivotal to future aspects of warfare like expeditionary advanced base operations.

But the Corps is still seeking a passive radar to complement G/ATOR and help Marines sense the battlefield without giving away their location.

Bowdren said his expeditionary radars program office is starting with an existing Army passive radar prototype to form the basis of a MuDRaCE — or Multi-Domain Radar for a Contested Environment — family of systems, as well as a Medium-Range Air Defense Radar, or MARAUDER, to field “as soon as possible.”

Bowdren noted he hopes this new passive radar will be ready for operations within two years given the service is approach the effort with an existing prototype.

Countering drones

Bowdren said his ground-based air defense portfolio is a prime example of “running fast with scissors.”

“Within the next year, we will have operationally assessed [the Medium-Range Intercept Capability]. We will have completed [initial operational test and evaluation] on, I think, both [the light and regular versions of the Marine Air Defense Integrated System. We are looking to field both of those systems probably within the next 12 to 18 months, easily,” he noted.

He said this portfolio has been able to move rapidly because the government serves as the systems integrator, pulling together existing sensors, computers, effectors and more to create kinetic and non-kinetic anti-drone technology.

Bowdren said the program office started with the assumption that its tech-integration effort would be a wild success: If the technology came together and was ready for fielding on a short timeline, what work did the program office need to do to ensure the training, the tactics development and the sustainment strategy were also ready to go on a short timeline?

It would have been a wasted effort if the tech integration failed and the program had to restart with a different radar or a different missile, for example. Indeed, there’s some risk in doing all this work in parallel, he said, but with that risk comes the reward of being able to field critical capabilities on a short timeline.

PEO Land Systems is considering further expanding that ground-based air defense portfolio, even as the original counter-drone systems continue through final test and evaluation. It could become a broader counter-intrusion portfolio, with Bowdren saying he sees benefits to incorporating an existing but separate Ground-Based Operational Surveillance System into the portfolio.

“Is that something that we add to our GBAD portfolio so that when you deploy a solution for counter-air to a base, it’s not a whole other separate suite of systems and boxes and screens, but it’s built in and plugged into the already existing security system?” he said.

He added that the Corps also must consider how to counter unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned surface vessels. “So is there really a counter-UxS portfolio we should be looking at?”

Recon vehicles

The light armored vehicle portfolio — specifically, the Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle — is in limbo, as the Marine Corps reconsiders how it wants to meet its reconnaissance mission and with what combination of manned and unmanned vehicles on the ground, on the water and in the air.

Bowdren said the recon community is still experimenting to help define that future suite of programs and equipment. The Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle, or ARV, will be at the center of that suite of systems, but the new vehicles could be supplemented by Ultra Light Tactical Vehicles, manned and unmanned surface craft, unmanned aerial systems, and more.

Bowdren said that study would be completed “soon.”

Even as those discussions and the related question of funding continue, Bowdren said his office is preparing to move as fast as it’s allowed with the available resources.

The program office is working with industry to develop ARV-30 prototypes that use the same 30mm cannon as that on the Amphibious Combat Vehicle. This would be the second ARV variant, following the command, control, communications and computer/uncrewed aerial systems (C4/UAS) variant that the Corps has tested since prototypes were delivered in December 2022.

Bowdren said his office is “committed” to pushing forward on the ARV family of vehicles even though the start date for procurement remains in flux.

In the 21st century, the era of technology has ushered in a new way of fighting with drones and long-range missiles and hypersonics. In the near future, it may not be American soldiers leading from the front line but an array of autonomous and technologically advanced weapons defending us.

Furthermore, this new era of technology and warfare has decreased the cost associated with developing and deploying modernized airborne threats. Advanced radar capabilities are, therefore, needed to detect, identify, and engage both small and large, more lethal threats. Investing in these advanced radar capabilities is vital to our national security efforts – and the sooner the better.

As global warfare evolves to a more technologically advanced battlefield, the U.S. must design and deploy innovative solutions to bolster its defensive capabilities. The complexity and frequency of airborne threats underscore the necessity of innovative defense.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the recent Iranian attack on Israel highlight the urgency. Investing in and developing advanced radars allows the U.S. to bolster its defense against airborne threats. Our ability to detect, identify and engage threats is paramount. As long as an airborne threat – from a hypersonic missile to a suspicious spy balloon – can be detected, it can be intercepted.

Increasing radar coverage along borders and across the homeland is critical. The radar space can be overcrowded, and equipment expensive. Creating more innovative and cost-effective radar solutions is the best way to detect, identify and track the multitude of airborne objects proliferating our skies like the 2023 Chinese balloon incident, which captured the attention of the nation.

What we are seeing on the front pages of the news is the new reality. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have been able to see new tactics, including drone swarms that overwhelm sensors and defenses to cause grave harm with smaller tactical devices. The ability to track these faster and more lethal airborne objects is incredibly challenging and takes sophisticated systems engineering.

Our adversaries can produce these more lethal projectiles more rapidly and cost-effectively and continue to bombard legacy defense systems and deplete our stockpiles of exquisite weapons and interceptors.

To counter this new threat reality, we must develop and deploy more advanced sensors in a rapid and more cost-effective manner. Developing and updating radars allows the U.S. military and our allies to better detect and, ultimately, defend against new threats.

Legacy radars of the kind many are familiar when driving by a local airport were designed over 50 years ago and are ill-equipped to detect threats. Today, we can update radars using a modernized design that utilizes hundreds of tiny antennas to deliver a more powerful picture of objects in the sky. These updated radars can detect multiple threats from multiple directions at one time by electronically scanning the entire sky.

The data detected from these radars would then be transferred and integrated into the systems that intercept these aerial threats. Deploying hundreds of state-of-the-art radars providing dense and low-altitude coverage with intercept-quality accuracies against new and emerging threats will enhance national security.

This approach could not come at a more opportune time. Our adversaries are watching the same news reports, increasing production and developing new tactics and ways to inflict more harm with faster, more lethal, more autonomous, more jamming-proof and harder-to-detect drones. The U.S. military is a highly capable force of protecting Americans from bad actors. It’ time we ensure our military and our allies have the tools to better defend and protect us.

The arena of warfare will continue to be more complex as technology continues to evolve and our national defense strategies and technology must be able to stay one step ahead. The U.S. has proven to be an incubator for cutting-edge research and development over our history. By embracing innovation and adaptability, the U.S. can mitigate the risk posed by airborne threats, guard our national security interests and promote peace in a hostile and complex global landscape.

Dmitry Turbiner is the Founder and CEO of General Radar whose mission is to build the World’s first 100% commercial AESA radar with flagship DoD performance. General Radar has secured over $35M in venture capital investment and is executing on several DoD and commercial contracts. Prior to General Radar, Dmitry was an RF and Antenna Engineer at NASA/JPL where he served as the Cognizant Engineer for the COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Mission’s Radio Occultation Antenna Array. Twelve of Dmitry’s phased array antennas are orbiting on a constellation of six heavy NASA satellites.

The service plans to retire roughly 70 aircraft — its entire ISR fleet — as it brings on the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System, or HADES, that will be able to rapidly deploy and provide deep-sensing capabilities.

For the first time, the Army is using a large-cabin business jet — the Bombardier Global 6500 — to serve as the airframe for the spy plane. The service awarded Bombardier a contract in December for one aircraft, with an option to buy two more over a three-year period.

Competitors expect the Army to choose the team that will integrate sensors onto the business jet around late June or early July. An L3Harris Technologies, MAG Aerospace and Leidos team is competing against Sierra Nevada Corp. All four companies are involved in ISR fixed-wing prototype efforts with the Army.

What are the Army’s choices?

The Army has spent more than five years assessing ISR fixed-wing prototypes using high-speed jets to inform the HADES program. It began with the deployment of Artemis — or Airborne Reconnaissance and Target Exploitation Multi-mission System — which has flown in the European theater near the Ukrainian border.

The Army in 2019 awarded a contract to HII, and the company subsequently awarded a contract to Leidos to build Artemis using a Bombardier Challenger 650 jet.

Then the service deployed Ares — or Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System — to the Pacific region in April 2022. The Army awarded a contract to Alion Science and Technology, which is now owned by HII. Alion awarded a subcontract to L3Harris in November 2020 to build and fly the aircraft. Ares is based on a Bombardier Global Express 6500 jet.

Combined, Artemis and Ares have flown more than 1,000 sorties, according to Andrew Evans, who leads the Army’s ISR Task Force. They fly roughly 10-hour missions and average 20 sorties a month, he added.

The Army is also preparing to take on four more prototypes that will inform the requirements for the HADES program. The service chose a pair of companies to deliver two jets each with spy technologies to advance long-range targeting plans.

MAG Aerospace and L3Harris will outfit a Global 6500 with ISR sensors for the Army’s radar-focused Athena-R effort.

And Sierra Nevada is providing its RAPCON-X, based on a converted Bombardier business jet, for the service’s singals intelligence-focused Athena-S project.

The president of L3Harris’ ISR division, Jason Lambert, told Defense News at the AAAA conference that the team won its contract in March 2023, began integration in September 2023 when it received the aircraft and held its first flight in February. Since then the aircraft has flown 40 performance handling and quality flights, as well as collected more than 600 data points with a 100% success rate, Lambert said.

“The pilots came back and said it flies just like a Global 6500, despite the fact that we [have] these different outer-mold line changes on it,” he noted. This includes adding a 29-foot-long pod to the bottom of the plane.

The service will receive the two aircraft in the third quarter of 2024 — one in July and another in September, Lambert said. For L3Harris’ HADES submission, the aircraft will be 90% common with Athena-R, he added.

The company expects the service to award a contract for the second HADES prototype about six months after the first. The contract for the third — a production-representative prototype — will follow with a longer time gap in between so the Army can collect data from deployments involving the first HADES prototypes.

Why now?

The Army recognized it would need new piloted, fixed-wing ISR assets to carry out its missions in complex environments — “something that flies much farther, much faster and much higher,” Andrew Evans, the Army’s ISR Task Force director, said.

Using 70 “very capable” Beechcraft King Air and De Havilland Canada Dash-8 aircraft, the Army, “has done some enormous and powerful work in support of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan” Evans said during the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference this month. But the existing fleet won’t be able to fulfill long-range missions off the coast of China — which the U.S. government considers its top threat — “or really almost any other place in the world if you’re talking about extended geographic ranges with limited basing and access,” Evans added.

“So HADES provides our solution to that, but we have to do it affordably,” Evans noted.

Once the Army picks a team to integrate sensors onto the jet, the process will take 18 months before the aircraft can deploy for a user assessment, the Army estimated. That assessment moves the aircraft from a controlled test environment in the United States to operational environments “to really stress test your systems and figure out what’s working and what’s not,” Evans said.

The Army will deploy HADES for a limited period of time and then start building more aircraft as the early prototype remains deployed, he added.

The service plans to field 14 HADES aircraft by 2035, according to a slide Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, the director of Army aviation, displayed during a speech at the AAAA conference.

While industry officials said they anticipate the Army will continue to award the same team subsequent contracts to build all of the HADES aircraft, Evans noted that “the guidance to our acquisition teammates was to ensure that we give ourselves as much flexibility as possible in the process.”

What has the service learned?

The Army’s strategy to overhaul its fixed-wing ISR fleet is a unique approach, Evans said, because the service asked industry to provide flight-ready prototypes, rather than select a team to build a system according to specifications. This was meant to help the Army quickly learn while it fills a capability gap.

Indeed, these prototypes are helping the service understand how sensors can keep up with a jet flying higher and at faster speeds, Dennis Teefy, the Army’s project manager for sensors and aerial intelligence within Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, said at the AAAA event.

The Army is currently working through how it refines processing, exploitation and dissemination of an enormous amount of data coming from the platform’s sensors, he added.

“How do we deal with all that volume of data? How do we transport that data across the comms network down to where it needs to go?” Teefy said, noting there are opportunities for industry to continue work on these areas and help the Army figure out how best to move data across the battlefield.

The prototypes already flying have also taught the Army a great deal about adapting sensor needs using a modular, open-system architecture, according to the service’s program manager for fixed-wing aircraft, Col. Joseph Minor.

“It’s different in every [environment] that we operate in, so to be able to change sensors quickly, to be able to adapt, especially on a globally deployable platform, much lower numbers is critical,” Minor said at the AAAA event. “When you are talking about a much smaller number of aircraft that are globally deployed, you’ve got to be able to make those changes on the fly.”

For 2022, analysts estimated global automotive lidar revenues at $332 million per year, a number only expected to grow as the technology becomes more widespread and sophisticated. However, the rapid growth of lidar in connected systems and the predominant position Chinese companies have in the marketplace, coupled with the precise data the technology collects, expose the threat posed by untrusted lidar systems. The systems could easily be exploited by malign actors to conduct any manner of malicious actions, including clandestinely mapping U.S. critical infrastructure or conducting cyberattacks that disrupt operations.

American and European companies previously comprised the majority of the global market, but Chinese technology firms like Hesai, RoboSense, Seyond, and Livox (a division of the Chinese drone maker DJI) have rapidly expanded into international markets, including the United States. Hesai has grabbed over 47% of the global market share, benefitting from Chinese domestic industrial policies, including state subsidies and procurement preference. An analysis of filings from publicly traded lidar companies shows that Hesai and RoboSense gained approximately 50% of the North American market share in just a few short years.

While the presence of Chinese companies in lidar competition can drive innovation and competitive pricing, we must be clear-eyed about the threats posed by companies affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party and its strategy of military-civil fusion. Under the military-civil fusion, the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, obfuscates the line between private companies and the government in order to direct technological research and development that would benefit the state both commercially and militarily.

Further, Chinese companies are subject to national security laws that require People’s Republic of China businesses to pass data to Chinese intelligence agencies when asked, even if their operations are overseas. These laws create the distinct possibility that Chinese technology can serve as an access point for CCP-directed intelligence collection and cybersecurity exploitation.

In a form sent to the SEC, Hesai directly admitted the “PRC government has significant authority in regulating our operations and may influence or intervene in our operations at any time.”

U.S. national security leaders have expressed serious concerns about the potential threat posed by Chinese malware installed in critical infrastructure, near military bases and even on American roads. Similar concerns about Chinese-connected systems and lidar have also been corroborated by our close allies. The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service published a report highlighting the threats of Chinese technologies, including lidar, to Estonian national security. Specifically, the report warns the agency is aware of an effort to develop Chinese-manufactured lidar intended to scan the environment and exfiltrate that data back to China.

In addition to the direct cybersecurity threat Chinese lidar systems pose to the United States, they also risk oversaturating the market. Overdependence on foreign technology allows an adversary to disrupt the United States’ economy and security with the implementation of an export control, and limits the development of viable alternatives.

In 2022, the PRC’s Ministry of Commerce added lidar to its proposed “Catalog of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export” because the country considers lidar a “strategic emerging industry.” In a crisis, the CCP could threaten to transition that list from proposed to enacted — and seriously disrupt the U.S. autonomous vehicle, agricultural and industrial sectors.

The U.S. government has begun to pay attention to these security concerns and take action. In November 2023, the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party encouraged the secretaries of commerce, defense, and the Treasury to investigate PRC lidar firms for ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Two months later, the Department of Defense concluded that Hesai held close ties to the Chinese military and consequently placed Hesai on its so-called 1260H list of Chinese military-linked companies. Hesai’s designation was notable not only because it is the first lidar manufacturer added to the list but also because it is the first publicly traded company on the U.S. stock exchange to be added.

Hesai has since objected to its designation by the DOD as a Chinese military-linked company, claiming it does “not sell our products to any military in any country, nor do we have ties of any kind to any military in any country.”

However, contrary to their claims, Hesai’s lidar systems have appeared on Chinese military vehicles, highlighting the dual-use nature of lidar technology and underscoring the true extent of Hesai’s role in the People’s Liberation Army’s defense industry. The DOD even defended Hesai’s addition to the 1260H list after Hesai threatened to sue.

Hesai’s designation on the Section 1260H list should be a wake-up call about the growing threat posed by untrusted sensing technology companies from countries of concern. Shortly after Hesai’s designation, numerous lobbying firms terminated business with Hesai after reports that congressional offices were considering banning firms that represent 1260H-listed companies.

On March 1, the Department of Commerce issued a proposed rule to identify information and communications technology and services used in autonomous vehicles deserving of regulation, specifically citing lidar. This is an important step toward scrutinizing the use of untrusted lidar in commercial applications. However, more must be done to safeguard U.S. data and prevent dependence on geopolitical adversaries for a critical, emerging technology.

First, Congress should continue its scrutiny of the threat posed by untrusted lidar companies. It is imperative that American lawmakers and the public be aware of how this technology is being employed across the nation’s cities, infrastructure and homes — and what vulnerabilities it creates for malign actors to exploit. Based on their findings, officials should consider placing additional restrictions or regulations on untrusted sensor technology companies.

Second, the Department of Commerce should use its authorities derived from the final rule on “Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain; Connected Software Applications” to inform an assessment of regulatory action needed to prevent Chinese lidar companies from posing a risk to U.S. cybersecurity interests.

At a minimum, the departments of the Treasury and Commerce should consider using their authorities to place companies found to have ties to the People’s Liberation Army on the sanctions list and entity list, respectively.

Third, the United States needs to invest in expanding its own trusted lidar-industrial base, drawing from domestic capacity and that of our allies and partners, to offer alternatives to subsidized Chinese lidar companies.

U.S. government investments in emerging sensing technologies, like lidar, through a CHIPS and Science Act-like program will likely be needed to strengthen the competitiveness of American industry.

If the U.S. government does not scrutinize lidar and other emerging technologies produced by companies from countries of concern, we run the risk of our automated future being dependent on untrusted systems that jeopardize our national security and undermine global competitiveness.

Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. He is also a senior adviser to the chairman of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. He previously served as policy director of the Senate Armed Services Committee under Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and as director of operations (J3) at U.S. Pacific Command.