Intelligence-system contract for Army aircraft signed with L3 Harris and Raytheon
NewsJune 17, 2021
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND -- U.S. ARMY FACILITY. The U.S. Army Project Director for Sensors – Aerial Intelligence (PD SAI) has signed agreements with L3 Harris and Raytheon business units to work on the next phase of the Army's High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) next-generation airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) system that is intended to fly on an Army fixed-wing platform to be named later.
According to information from the PD SAI, contracts worth approximately $4.37 million call for the two companies to compete to develop and build prototype electronic intelligence (ELINT) and communications intelligence (COMINT) sensors for HADES. Once these payloads have been demonstrated, Phase 2 of the project will have either or both of the companies -- however the selection goes -- continue to develop the sensors and optimize them for the chosen HADES platform.
Dennis Teefy, Project Director, PD SAI, said of the kickoff of Phase 1 for the HADES project: “HADES will be globally deployable and provide a multifaceted sensing capability at higher altitudes and longer ranges, and with longer endurance than is currently available from the Army’s RC-12 Guardrail, MC-12 Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS), and EO-6C Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL) aircraft. The goal is to provide deep-sensing intelligence collection of indicators and warnings, electronic order of battle, and patterns of life for target development. This will allow standoff operations to detect, locate, identify, and track critical targets for the ground commander.”
