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TARS aerostat
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ITT Systems Division of Colorado Springs, CO received a $33.7 million fixed-price, cost-plus award fee with cost reimbursable line items contract for the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS). ITT will operate, maintain, and support 8 operational TARS sites 24 hours a day/ 7 days per week, and also provide cradle-to-grave support for the entire TARS network. At this time $1.5 million has been obligated. ACC AMIC/PKC in Newport News, VA manages this contract (FA4890-08-C-0005).

An aerostat is a lighter-than-air craft that relies on a ground tether for movement and often for power as well, as opposed to blimps which are self-powered, free-flying craft. The US military has slowly come around to the benefits of aerostats in an era that requires persistent surveillance, but features high fuel prices. The RAID program has morphed into the tower-centric GBOSS, and progress on the naval front remains low, but the $1+ billion JLENS advanced aerial surveillance program is still moving ahead, and Lockheed Martin has delivdered its PTDS aerostats to the front lines for ground surveillance duties. Now ITT’s TARS can be added to the mix…

TARS itself is a counter-drug program funded by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counter Narcotics, Counter Proliferation, and Global Threats. It uses 2 sizes of helium-filled aerostat made by TCOM or ILC Dover: one is 275,000 cubic feet in size, while larger aerostats are 420,000 cubic feet.

ITT Systems Division is the support integrator, and the bulge in the above photo houses a Lockheed Martin L-88 radar. It’s designed to filter out ground clutter and detect “low-level targets” in the United States, especially along the traditional drug-runner flight paths along the Mexican border, the Florida Straits, and the southwest Puerto Rico/ Caribbean regions.

Both USNORTHCOM and USSOUTHCOM both undertake Counterdrug/ Counter-Narco Terrorism (CD/CNT) missions in these sectors, even using E-2 Hawkeye AWACS aircraft in the course of their duties. TARS will not replace other methods, but it will supplement them with an around-the-clock component. As a bonus, a radar with these detection capabilities can also notice items like low-flying cruise missiles, and so TARS is also explicitly tasked with contributing to NORAD’s air defense mission.

ILC Dover is a Lockheed Martin STAR supplier, and TARS overall is touted as a Lockheed product. In 2000, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Akron won a USAF contract to upgrade 6 Tethered Aerostat Radar System sites.

Note: The aerostat TARS systems should not be confused with BAE’s TARS reconnaissance pod, which also performs surveillance but does so attached to a fighter jet.