The Department of Defense wants to develop spy satellites that can detect a military force mobilizing halfway around the world, enabling it to immediately assess possible threats to national security. An unmanned surveillance aircraft packed into the nose of a missile would be launched over suspicious areas to gather more intelligence; if the threat were confirmed, it would be replaced by another aircraft that could perform low-flying surveillance for up to five years without returning to Earth to refuel.

Toward that end, the Pentagon has commissioned development of the Rapid Eye and the Vulture—two new unmanned, high-altitude aircraft better able, it says, to meet today's needs for gathering information about nimbler threats.

"We're not talking about big, thick structures that we want to keep an eye on like in the Cold War," says Wade Pulliam, program manager with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's (DARPA) Tactical Technology Office, an arm of the Pentagon charged with researching and developing new technology for the defense department. "Threats today are more fluid right now, and military responses are more likely to be low-level and long-term, rather than fast and sharp. So endurance of all the assets involved is important."

The goal is to have demos of the technology for both aircraft within three years and working models ready to go within five years. DARPA plans to spend $12 million developing the Rapid Eye and $7.9 million on the Vulture through the end of fiscal year 2009.

The idea behind the Rapid Eye is to create an aircraft that can be stored on board a ballistic missile able to deliver it anywhere in the world within an hour. The Rapid Eye would travel inside the missile—with its wings folded or deflated, depending on the design—and be released over a designated spot. The Rapid Eye program will research and develop technologies and systems that would let the military deliver a 500-pound, high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle via a ballistic missile to an approximate location, decelerate the missile so that its payload can be deployed, then launch the spy plane and start its propulsion system. Once aloft, it would provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities at high altitudes for at least seven hours without refueling.

The Vulture project, which stands for Very high altitude, Ultraendurance, Loitering Theater Unmanned Reconnaissance Element, seeks to deliver and maintain an aircraft that can remain above a surveillance target for at least five years. Weighing in at an anticipated 1,000 pounds, the vehicle is being designed to collect its power from its environment—via solar or some other source—to store and use energy efficiently, and include a robotic refueling capability. With a wingspan of between 300 and 500 feet, the Vulture would function like a low-orbit satellite as much as like an aircraft, staying aloft far longer than any surveillance plane can today, says Jamey Jacob, an Oklahoma State University associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, adding, "It would provide a persistent presence for the military." Jacobs is working as a consultant to defense contractors developing designs for the aircraft.

The two biggest hurdles in developing the Vulture are choosing the best energy source to power the vehicle and well-constructed sturdy components that will last at least five years. One option is to make the aircraft modular, so that components can break off and fly home via remote control when necessary and new modules can be flown up and remotely attached. Another option is to use a second aircraft to refuel the Vulture and repair it while in flight.

1 Comments

1. 1. doug l 09:38 AM 4/17/09

   interesting article and I am in favor of using technology to gather objective intelligence, particularly in contrast to using torture to "get whatever information the torturer wants to hear".
   I am a little dismayed that the DOD has fostered the naming of these projects with sinister acronyms, if acronym would be the correct term for the naming of VULTURE...seems like they've really stretched its application in order to acquire a particularly sexy name in an endeavor where sex=death. Back in WW2 American units were identified with some fierce totemic images: eagles, timberwolves, flying tigers, and pop culture images that were life affirming like pinup girls and cartoon characters, and it was the nazis who embraced the symbology of death, hate and destructio with images of skulls and other sinister imagery. Now the US is doing it to presumably intimidate its enemies but what it is unwittingly doing is alienating those who would be our allies if they didn't suspect our emblematic affinity with evil and death. Hve we become the culture we despise?

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