The Air Force plans to field a new podded, wide-area sensor system called “Gorgon Stare” in 2010 for unmanned aerial vehicles and manned intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance platforms. Flight International reported Jan. 28 that Gorgon Stare will initially be integrated onto the MQ-9 Reaper UAV to provide a wide-area stare to support tactical operations. It will be added later to other unmanned and manned aircraft. Flight said one advantage of Gorgon Stare is that, compared to wide-area surveillance sensors already in combat, it will not be a closed-loop system that requires dedicated logistics and training. Instead, the new sensor is designed to be platform-agnostic and operate with the distributed common ground system that is used by intelligence specialists to analyze imagery.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or perhaps even President Donald Trump will have the final say on a way forward for the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, the nominee to serve as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian said at his confirmation hearing.