Secret New UAS Shows Stealth, Efficiency Advances

A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. The secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015.
Funded through the Air Force’s classified budget, the program to build this new UAS, dubbed the RQ-180, was awarded to Northrop Grumman after a competition that included Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The aircraft will conduct the penetrating ISR mission that has been left unaddressed, and under wide debate, since retirement of the Lockheed SR-71 in 1998.
Neither the Air Force nor Northrop Grumman would speak about the classified airplane.
The RQ-180 carries radio-frequency sensors such as active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and passive electronic surveillance measures.
This aircraft’s design is key for the shift of Air Force ISR assets away from “permissive” environments—such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where Northrop Grumman’s non-stealthy Global Hawk and General Atomics’ Reaper operate—and toward operations in “contested” or “denied” airspace. The new UAS underpins the Air Force’s determination to retire a version of the RQ-4B Global Hawk after 2014, despite congressional resistance. The RQ-180 eclipses the smaller, less stealthy and shorter-range RQ-170 Sentinel.
If the previous patterns for secret ISR aircraft operations are followed, the new UAV will be jointly controlled by the Air Force and the CIA, with the program managed by the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office and flight operations sustained by the Air Force. This arrangement has been used for the RQ-170, which is operated by the Air Force’s 30th Reconnaissance Sqdn., according to a fact sheet the Air Force released after one of the aircraft turned up in Iran.
Northrop Grumman’s financial reports point to a possible award of a secret UAS contract in 2008, when the company disclosed a $2 billion increase in the backlog in its Integrated Systems division. This is the operating unit responsible for building the B-2 bomber, Global Hawk and Fire Scout UAS and X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator. This year, Northrop Grumman financial reports acknowledged that an unnamed aircraft program entered low-rate initial production, the Pentagon term for low-volume deliveries that begin as testing nears completion and before the program is approved for full production.
Beyond the financial disclosures, publicly available overhead imagery shows new shelters and hangars sized for an aircraft with a 130-ft.-plus wing span at Northrop’s Palmdale, Calif., plant and at Area 51, the Air Force’s secure flight-test center at Groom Lake, Nev.
The company also pushed for a substantial expansion of its Palmdale production facilities in 2010, perhaps to support work on the RQ-180 (AW&ST Nov. 22, 2010, p. 28).
aviationweek

Secret move keeps military records on bin Laden raid in the shadows

The country's top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout to be purged from Defence Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public.
The secret move, described briefly in a draft report by the Pentagon's inspector general, set off no alarms within the Obama administration even though it appears to have sidestepped federal rules and perhaps also the Freedom of Information Act.
news.yahoo

US military may take over part of CIA drone war

President Barack Obama's administration is looking at easing the secrecy around the drone war against Al-Qaeda by shifting control for some air strikes from the CIA to the US military, officials say.
But the move would likely not apply to drone attacks in Pakistan, where most of the bombing raids take place.
And even if the policy change is carried out, Obama has no intention of abandoning a tactic that his advisers say has decimated the Al-Qaeda network.
spacewar

Another Drone Down in Iran?

Iran’s authorities announced today that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have intercepted and downed an ‘alien’ drone during the first day of the ‘Great Prophet 8′ exercise taking place in Southern Iran this week. It is not clear from the announcement whether the event is part of the training program or an actual intercept involving a foreign unmanned system has taken place.
In the past two years Iran intercepted several US drones, among them a CIA Lockheed Martin RQ-170 and Boeing/InSitu Scan-Eagle, supporting the US Navy, both were captured virtually intact.
defense-update

CIA secretly operating drone base in Saudi Arabia

The United States has reportedly been operating a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia for the last two years.
The Washington Post reports that the base in Saudi Arabia was established two years ago to extend the search for members of Al Qaeda.
The newspaper says the base was used to launch a drone strike that killed US-born Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011.
US officials linked him to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day in 2009.

abc

US drones strike again in South Waziristan

The US again launched airstrikes in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan today, killing 17 people. The drone attack is the fourth this year, and the first since the US killed influential Taliban leader Mullah Nazir.

The remotely piloted, CIA-operated Predators or the more deadly Reapers struck three separate compounds in the Babargarh area in South Waziristan. The area is close to the neighboring tribal agency of North Waziristan. According to Dawn, 17 people, whose identities have not been disclosed, are reported to have been killed.

longwarjournal

Petraeus mistress had "substantial" classified data on computer

A computer used by Paula Broadwell, the woman whose affair with CIA director David Petraeus led to his resignation, contained substantial classified information that should have been stored under more secure conditions.

reuters

Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Linked to Petraeus Scandal

Gen. John Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is under investigation for what a senior defense official said early Tuesday was “inappropriate communication'’ with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa who was seen as a rival for David H. Petraeus’s attentions by Paula Broadwell, the woman who had an extramarital affair with Mr. Petraeus.

nytimes

Petraeus Steps Down as C.I.A. Chief, Saying He Had Affair

David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned on Friday after issuing a statement saying that he had engaged in an extramarital affair.

nytimes

Según la CIA, Irán es capaz de producir armas nucleares/CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes

Irán tiene capacidad de producir armas nucleares, después de su programa de enriquecimiento nuclear en 2009, incluso teniendo en cuenta los problemas que ha tenido con miles de centrifugadoras, según informe de la CIA.
El informe anual al Congreso, Irán ha desarrollado unas capacidades que podrían terminar en la producción de armas nucleares.
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Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report.
Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so, the annual report to Congress states.