One of the most basic of flying machines-- the balloon-is making a comeback to help combat the growing threat of land-attack cruise missiles. A ground-based system of aerostats, equipped with tracking and communication systems, already is being planned to help detect incoming missiles in a tactical environment. A maritime variant of this technology may be the next step.
The ability to counter the rapidly escalating threat of land-attack cruise missiles to U.S. forces at home and overseas will be an important requirement for future conflicts. They are, in Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig's words, "poor man's weapons" that give "third-tier and second-tier states, as well as major competitors, the power to destroy or disrupt targets beyond the battlefield." Defeating this threat will require innovation, farsightedness, solid investment, and the willingness to reject the tendency toward business as usual.
In January 1996, the Department of Defense directed the Army Space and Missile Defense Command to establish a joint program office that encompassed Army, Navy, and Air Force initiatives aimed at defeating the land-attack cruise missile threat. The Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) program office subsequently carried out concept studies and risk-reduction efforts of an airborne (aerostat) sensor platform that would provide long-duration, over-the-horizon cruise missile defense.
As the program has matured, the primary mission of JLENS is to provide over-the-horizon, wide-area surveillance and precision tracking data to support an overarching mission area of joint land-attack cruise missile defense and enhanced theater air defense based on the air-directed surface-to-air missile (ADSAM) engagement concept. While the overall warfighting effectiveness in both forward theater air defense and U.S. national cruise missile defense tasks has been identified, a key requirement has been to accomplish this mission in an affordable manner. Affordability has been a prime consideration shaping JLENS research and development, acquisition, and operations.
The JLENS platform and its associated surveillance, tracking, and communication equipment also might be employed as an integral, supporting element of naval expeditionary forces. Given the anticipated future operational and threat environment, JLENS could be a critical factor supporting the twin elements of forward presence and knowledge superiority. Moreover, a Maritime JLENS concept can support Navy, Marine Corps, and joint strategies and operational concepts for information security and network-centric warfare.
The Challenge
More than 75 countries now have some 75,000 cruise missiles in their arsenals, many of which can be easily converted to land-attack roles. At least 17 states are producing 130 different types of cruise missiles, and a dozen countries are exporting these weapons to practically anyone with sufficient cash or credit to acquire them. Indeed, because of the relative ease of indigenous production or modification using commercial-off-the-shelf technologies, and at prices well less than $1 million each, they are becoming the weapon of choice for regional powers intent on intimidation and aggression. Making a mockery of international missile technology control regimes, land-attack cruise missile inventories are expected to double by 2010.
Furthermore, at least 18 countries are pursuing weapons-- of-mass-destruction technologies, and more than a dozen possess nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons that have the potential to be mated with cruise missiles. Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union have significant stockpiles of these weapons. Among others, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya have clearly demonstrated their intent to acquire-if not sell-- the latest missile technologies.
Cruise missiles are extremely difficult to detect, track, and engage because of their small size (which can be made even "smaller" through a variety of stealth measures) and the fact that they fly low to the ground, often along a circuitous flight path that can be masked by terrain. Capable of ranges in excess of 2,000 miles and guided by precision systems with increasing accuracies, adversaries' cruise missiles can threaten U.S. forces nearly anywhere in the world.
By 2010, the cruise missile threat is expected to grow rapidly in diversity, complexity, and geography, posing one of the most significant challenges to joint forces, population centers, and the projection of U.S. combat power overseas. Because of the nature of this threat, success will require a truly joint solution. Sensors and battle management command-control-communication systems must be able to provide early detection and identification of the missile threat with 360 coverage and sufficient fidelity to support a single integrated air picture and defense in depth. Effective cruise missile defense thus is an information-centered, planning-intensive, and time-sensitive function that relies on diverse sensor, battle-management, and weapon-engagement systems to achieve the necessary levels of effectiveness.
For a variety of reasons, it is likely that the initial U.S. responses to future crises and conflicts will be undertaken by forward-deployed U.S. Navy and Marine Corps assets, and that land-based, in-theater capabilities may be constrained or simply not present when they are most required. A critical need in such situations will be to achieve battlespace dominance and full-dimensional protection with naval forces alone at the earliest possible stage of a campaign, and be sufficiently flexible to move sea-based offensive and defensive warfighting capabilities ashore as land-based ground and air forces are subsequently introduced. Effective theater land-attack cruise missile defense therefore must fit within current and future operational concepts at the Navy/Marine Corps and joint levels of operation.
One Element of the Solution: JLENS
Balloons long have provided an inexpensive means of getting observers aloft to see beyond the horizon. The U.S. Army used balloons as observation platforms in the Civil War to give commanders information about events occurring beyond their line of sight and to adjust artillery fire. Today, the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency are using aerostats to carry surveillance radar aloft to assist in monitoring illegal activities along our nation's borders, while similar systems are deployed in Kuwait and other countries to monitor the movement of unfriendly forces.
Advanced airborne sensors offer the potential to enhance dramatically the capabilities of current theater and national missile defense systems. In this regard, JLENS is a theater-based system to be deployed at the corps level or above, comprised of advanced elevated, netted sensors and communication systems focused on joint land-attack cruise missile defense. Expected to have a first-unit-- equipped capability by fiscal year 2010, JLENS will improve the battlefield commander's ability to support wide-area defense by expanding the battlespace of current and future theater air defense systems. Sensor netting will be achieved through integration with the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability system. JLENS will contribute to the production and dissemination of a single integrated air picture, support combat identification and classification, enhance attack operations via a ground moving target indicator capability, and will expand battlefield communications with an airborne relay capability.
As presently conceived, JLENS will use a 71-meter aerostat to carry selected sensors and communication systems aloft. The primary payload will be either a precision track illuminator radar (PTIR) or a surveillance radar. The surveillance radar gives extended 360 deg-coverage out to 250 miles, depending on the aerostat's altitude. The PTIR, on the other hand, is designed to track low-altitude cruise missiles or aircraft and then share its tracking solution with a missile defense system, such as the Patriot PAC III, Medium Extended Air Defense System, or the Navy's Standard Missile. In addition to either primary radar, JLENS also will have the capacity to provide direct line-of-sight data link and communications connectivity to forces dispersed over a wide area, using the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System.
JLENS can be developed and acquired in about half the time, and much less cost, than it takes to develop and build a fixed-wing airborne platform with comparable sensor and communications-relay capabilities. In the context of naval force operations, a tactical aerostat on the order of JLENS offers a relatively inexpensive and economical means for providing low-altitude radar coverage over an extended battlespace. They can provide the means to detect, track, and-under the ADSAM concept-engage low-altitude cruise missiles. An aerostat also can augment tactical communications by providing a direct line-of-sight relay capability.
Maritime JLENS?
U.S. naval forces can attain a distinct advantage over potential adversaries by achieving information superiority. The ability to share relevant, timely, and accurate information on a real-time basis has the potential to improve overall knowledge, speed up the decision-making process, and assist commanders in coordinating their operations.
JLENS will provide significant capabilities that can support information superiority. It can carry multiple sensors aloft that can collect valuable information on current operations. This information can then be used to build a reliable tactical picture and increase overall situational awareness. The airborne platform also will enhance line-of-sight datalink communications and allow naval forces to share information with tactical forces deployed throughout the operating area. Sharing the common tactical picture and providing a means for conducting secure collaborative planning with widely dispersed forces is most reliably accomplished through line-of-sight, high-capacity data links. Satellite links already are overwhelmed by normal operational communication requirements and evolving naval operational concepts-- such as network-centric warfare, operational maneuver from the sea, and ship-to-- objective maneuver-can only be expected to increase tactical communications requirements. Without a system like Maritime JLENS to augment direct line-of-sight connectivity, it is likely that naval forces will have an increasingly difficult time in gaining information superiority, ensuring force protection, and maintaining military dominance.
Maritime JLENS offers the potential to augment area air and missile defenses by providing a much-enhanced lookdown surveillance, detection, and tracking capability from the sea. When used in combination with other airborne and surface-search radars, JLENS can enhance significantly the early detection and identification of low-flying aircraft and cruise missiles. If it is configured with precision track illuminating radar, JLENS also can be used to assist in providing weapons-quality tracking information to an engaging missile even if the firing system never acquires the threat. Other JLENS capabilities, including automatic moving target indicators and combat identification systems such as the Enhanced Position Locating and Reporting System, also will help achieve identification and engagement of time-critical targets.
As is the case with other tactical aerostats, JLENS will be tethered to a stationary platform, although one not necessarily land based. This platform will normally contain the mooring equipment needed to tether the unmanned aerostat and the control station to monitor the aerostat's status. The manned control station operates the mooring equipment and keeps the aerostat aloft by maintaining air and helium pressure at the correct levels for the desired altitude. For example, JLENS personnel will monitor approaching weather and make decisions on when to deploy, "fly," and retrieve the aerostat, and also will monitor sensors and equipment deployed in the aerostat.
One maritime platform that has been proposed already is the Mobile Offshore Basing System or MOBS, which envisions several large floating platforms that are linked together to provide a floating operational logistics base at sea. MOBS is designed to be extremely stable even in adverse weather conditions, and could provide a platform from which Maritime JLENS can be deployed. Another alternative being discussed as an element of the follow on to the current maritime prepositioning ships is a platform or ship specifically designed to receive bulk cargo from commercial shipping. This vessel would be used to break the cargo down for distribution and then act as a staging base from which Navy ships, aircraft, and air cushion vehicles would receive supplies and other materiel for further distribution to the operational forces.
Yet another solution would be a specific platform that is economical to operate and can support extended operations with Maritime JLENS. For example, a proposed Mobile Maritime JLENS Support System-a mobile barge system that can carry the mooring equipment and aerostat monitoring station-would offer the needed capabilities. The processing and sensor-control station can be located within the barge or be modularized for deployment to another site. The sensors attached to the aerostat can transmit their data through the fiber-optic umbilical or datalink directly to a receiving ground station or mobile barge. Although the size of the mobile support system will determine how quickly a JLENS could be deployed, forward prepositioning the support system could reduce deployment time phasing. Although JLENS may not be immediately accessible to naval forces, its eventual employment would add considerable capability and reduce the operational tasking on other assets, particularly AWACS and the Navy's E-2C Hawkeye.
Because Maritime JLENS would be based at sea, it can be located so that it will provide radar coverage without infringing on national airspace or sovereignty. For longterm operations, a sustained 24-hour coverage would require anywhere from six to eight sorties per day by airborne surveillance aircraft. A single JLENS, however, could provide the same level of sustained coverage and yet would require significantly less personnel support and assets. If the particular crisis required a long-term commitment, Maritime JLENS would be significantly less expensive to operate and easier to protect as a supporting element of the battle group or amphibious ready group than land-based assets.
JLENS would prove very useful in crisis-prone littoral regions such as the Arabian Gulf or the Adriatic. It is conceivable that host-nation political sensitivities may prevent cooperative use of land-based systems. Moreover, long-range support by airborne surveillance aircraft may be operationally prohibitive, owing to the number of assets that would be required to support the mission. Naval ships deployed to the region could provide coverage, but again it may not be practical to deploy to the region the number of ships that would provide the extended coverage required. Although satellites may be dedicated to provide intermittent coverage of the region, naval forward presence may be required to protect U.S. national interests. Thus, Maritime JLENS not only could augment the naval air surveillance coverage, but also in some instances provide the only effective long-range look-down capability needed to detect and defeat low-altitude inbound threats. In addition, JLENS also could provide support to naval expeditionary force operations (as landing platforms for MV-22 Ospreys), or to counter-drug operations in the Caribbean.
What Now?
The Navy and Marine Corps are developing novel operational concepts that call for independent operations of widely dispersed forces working in close coordination with one another to mass effects, rather than forces, offshore. Emerging concepts for information superiority, operational maneuver from the sea, and shipto-objective maneuver will place increased requirements on robust sensor and communication systems, particularly direct line-of-sight data link capability. Success of these operations will be increasingly dependent on the capability of naval forces to share information among themselves and with other joint and combined forces in the area of operations.
The capabilities of Maritime JLENS for naval expeditionary warfare in the littorals appear far too important to forgo. That having been said-because of what Secretary Danzig described as America's "policy paradox" more immediate needs may yet cloud the analysis of the requirements for and capabilities that a Maritime JLENS could bring to the Navy of "tomorrow," much less the "Navy-After-Next," as the Chief of Naval Operations has described it. In short, by seriously addressing the contributions that Maritime JLENS offers, the Navy will go far toward ensuring that the urgent does not preempt the important in addressing the land-attack cruise missile threat to naval and land-based forces.