NRO director Chris Scolese speaks at the 2023 pace Symposium. (Courtesy Space Symposium)
SPACE SYMPOSIUM — The National Reconnaissance Office expects to have one or more prototypes of a new space-based sensor for tracking moving targets on the ground in near-real time sometime within “the next few months,” according to NRO Director Chris Scolese.
“We’re in in the process of actually going into manufacturing, and we’ll start launching within the next eight to 12 months,” he told reporters in the margins of the Space Foundation’s annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.
Scolese explained that the spy satellite agency has been working on foundational technologies for a space-based ground moving target indicator (GMTI) sensor for some time, and is currently testing some of them via prototypes on orbit.
“We have prototypes up there, that will be representative of what we will be launching in the next few months,” he said.
When asked to elaborate on the sensor effort, including whether there would be satellites in more than one orbital regime, Scolese demurred, citing the classified nature of the program.
NRO is working with the Space Force to develop space-based GMTI capability — a mission that in the past has largely been undertaken by crewed spy planes and, more recently, drones.
GMTI radars use a pulsing technique to discriminate moving targets, such as enemy tanks and mobile missile launchers, from stationary objects and then clock their velocities based on their Doppler shift.
“Today, the NRO and Space Force are working hand in hand to shape the future of ground moving target indicators, which will provide day/night, all-weather detection and tracking of ground and maritime targets for the warfighter,” Scolese said in his formal remarks at the Space Symposium.
“Working with the Space Force and other military services, the NRO’s flexible acquisition approaches will allow us to deliver and acquire reliable and resilient GMTI systems at speed, delivering this critical capability with our colleagues at Space Force to the warfighter in the very near future,” he added.
The Space Force’s fiscal 2024 budget request included, for the first time, funding for research and development of satellite payloads designed to detect and track moving targets on the ground — with the service asking for $243 million in FY24, and slightly more than $1.2 billion through FY28, according to detailed budget documents [PDF]. (In contrast, the NRO’s budget is classified.)
The new program, called Long Range Kill Chains, will take over at least part of the mission performed in the past by the Air Force’s E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft, set to be retired this year. Funded under the service’s research, development, test & evaluation budget program element PE 1203154SF, the program has two pieces: the GMTI sensor, also called “MTI;” and “auxiliary payloads” being developed with NRO.
The Space Force budget documents raise the question of whether the service intends to build its own GMTI sensors for tactical uses by warfighters, separate from those developed by NRO that would serve both the top levels of the US government including the president, as well as commanders in the field. Operational commanders, especially from the Army, long have complained that their needs play second fiddle to those of other spy agencies and civilian leadership.
Scolese, however, wouldn’t address questions from reporters about whether NRO would have any say in what the Space Force might decide to build for tactical-only intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs.
