E-10A: She’s Dead, Jim

E-10 M2CA Concept(click to view full) Final settling up results in a government credit; Program details and history expanded. (Oct 22/10) The future E-10A MC2 (Multi-sensor Command & Control) program was conceived as a fusion of Northrop Grumman’s advanced Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) Wide-Area Surveillance (WAS) radar and Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) mission suite into a modified passenger jet (likely a 767), creating a successor to both the E-3 AWACS air surveillance and E-8 JSTARS ground surveillance and SIGINT (signals intelligence) /communications relay planes. This multi-duty approach provides flexibility, but also invites potential shortages and overuse unless the system can be procured in sufficient numbers or supplemented with less expensive options (see “Brittle Swords: Low-Density, High-Demand Assets” [PDF] for a deeper discussion). The entire program could easily have been worth $10 billion. On February 23/07, however, the firm received notice from the U.S. Air Force that the E-10A MC2 Weapon System Integration (WSI) program was being formally ended. So, what now for the E-10’s technology? And why is this still relevant in 2010? * E-10’s Legacy * Contracts and Key Events [NEW] E-10’s Legacy Proteus & MP-RTIP pod(click to view full) The E-10A has been on […]