The Defense Department tends to reserve information about signals intelligence projects - listening to the other guys - for folks with the right kind of magic decoder rings and NSA badges.
But not the program manager for Army Aerial Common Sensors, which put out a notice earlier this month that it plans to run a procurement for a tactical signals intelligence payload for the Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle, a super-duper version of the Predator UAV in operation in Afghanistan.
The Army wants to acquire three signal pods it can hang on the Gray Eagle, which can stay airborne for 36 hours at altitudes up to 25,000 feet, to sniff out, identify, geo-locate, and copy emitters and then downlink that info to two ground stations the Army also wants to buy.
I think this is one of those real shhhh deals, which accidentally bubbled to the surface.
Bob Brewin
Bob Brewin joined Government Executive in April 2007, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience as a journalist focusing on defense issues and technology. Bob covers the world of defense and information technology for Nextgov, and is the author of the “What’s Brewin” blog.
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