Airborne Reconnaissance Systems

Airborne Reconnaissance Systems under the Army's Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) budget activity, aims to enhance the capabilities of the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS) to provide persistent intelligence collection, processing, and targeting support. The program supports the divestiture of EMARSS by FY 2025 and focuses on critical enhancements to sensor capabilities such as Communications Intelligence (COMINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Wide Area Aerial Surveillance (WAAS), and Synthetic Aperture Radar / Moving Target Indicator (SAR/MTI) Radar. Additionally, it aims to maintain system relevancy in the Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) environment by addressing obsolescence issues and increasing commonality across EMARSS aircraft.

Furthermore, the program seeks to address obsolescence issues for critical SIGINT and Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) capabilities on the Guardrail Common Sensor (GRCS) platform. This includes investments to ensure that GRCS Aerial Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AISR) support is not impacted in an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) environment. The program also supports the Army's acquisition objective of 36 EMARSS systems with a procurement objective of 24, including various variants for different intelligence collection purposes. The funding allocated for this program addresses non-recurring engineering, development of type certificates, testing, integration of modifications in service of current or future EMARSS AISR systems, and other critical enhancements to maintain system relevancy.