National Reconnaissance Office director Bruce Carlson said most consumers of intel today want one thing: “a map or a picture with a dot” indicating where someone is to be killed or rescued, or where cargo is to be dropped. He’s orienting his vast processing resources to provide that and to seek other ways of doing it as well. Very soon, he said, signals intelligence will be good enough to support precision targeting. Users today want actionable intel faster and more accurately, and “we can do that,” Carlson asserted.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.