Earlier today, about 11:54 a.m, the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, tether broke free from its mooring at Aberdeen Proving Grounds (APG). Currently, it's being followed by some fighter jets as it floats from lower Harford County, MD into Pennsylvania.
The $2.7 billion program is supposed to be for detecting things like cruise missiles to explosive-laden trucks to small aircraft. Except that it failed to do just that when “a dude in a gyrocopter 100 feet in the air” was able to land near the US Capitol.
“Whose job is it to detect him?” [Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)] asked.
It was JLENS’ job, but the system was “not operational” that day, as the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, Adm. William E. Gortney, told Chaffetz. The admiral offered no estimate for when it would be.
Seventeen years after its birth, JLENS is a stark example of what defense specialists call a “zombie” program: costly, ineffectual and seemingly impossible to kill.
That's far from the only failure of the program. Despite claims from Raytheon that the system is proven, capable designed to withstand hurricane-force winds without getting blown away, it broke when a mild weather system entered the area (its currently lightly raining for most of the day). The Baltimore Sun reported
a lot of other shortcomings from the program:
-In tests, JLENS has struggled to track flying objects and to distinguish friendly aircraft from threatening ones.
-A 2012 report by the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation office faulted the system in four “critical performance areas” and rated its reliability as “poor.” A year later, in its most recent assessment, the agency again cited serious deficiencies and said JLENS had “low system reliability.”
-The system is designed to provide continuous air-defense surveillance for 30 days at a time, but had not managed to do so as of last month.
-Software glitches have hobbled its ability to communicate with the nation’s air-defense networks — a critical failing, given that JLENS’ main purpose is to alert U.S. forces to incoming threats.
-The massive, milk-white blimps can be grounded by bad weather and, if deployed in combat zones, would be especially vulnerable to enemy attack.
-Even if all those problems could be overcome, it would be prohibitively expensive to deploy enough of the airships to protect the United States along its borders and coasts.
Leaders in the Army tried to end the program in 2010, but good ol' lobbying stopped that.
Raytheon mobilized its congressional lobbyists. Within the Pentagon, Marine Corps Gen. James E. "Hoss" Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to JLENS' defense, arguing that it held promise for enhancing the nation's air defenses.
At Cartwright's urging, money was found in 2011 for a trial run of the technology in the skies above Washington.
Cartwright retired the same year — and joined Raytheon's board of directors five months later. By the end of 2014, Raytheon had paid him more than $828,000 in cash and stock for serving as a director, Securities and Exchange Commission records show.
Oh and the blimp any cause some damage since it has a 6,700 feet of cable trailing it, able to smack into anyone or thing before it is secure. Damage such as knocking power out in towns.
1:10 PM PT: And word is in the blimp is down. No word on how grounded the blimp will be when it comes home. http://www.baltimoresun.com/...
As a fun aside, the New Horizons mission costs ~$700 million, spread over 15 years (2001–2016), about 26% of the cost of this boondoggle.