Pentagon’s troubled radar blimp program suffers steep budget cut

The military’s long-troubled program to use massive, radar-carrying blimps for missile defense has suffered another setback — the loss of three-fourths of its expected funding.

The federal budget for fiscal 2016, finalized this week by Senate and House leaders, provides $10.5 million for the JLENS program. President Obama had asked for $40.5 million.

Lawmakers were generally reluctant to speculate what the $30 million cut might mean for the future of JLENS, which was developed for the Army by Raytheon Co. An exception was Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, who praised the reduction and said JLENS “should be eliminated.”

“It’s reassuring to see that Congress is willing to begin cutting the cord,” Speier said in a statement. She called the system’s overall performance “pathetic.”

The funding cut marks an unexpected turn. Even after a recent mishap in which a JLENS blimp broke free from its mooring at an Army facility in Maryland and flew uncontrolled for hours, disrupting civil aviation and damaging power lines, members of congressional appropriations committees appeared hesitant to pare back or kill the program.

Several said it would be premature to act until the Army had completed an investigation into the Oct. 28 incident; that inquiry is expected to take months.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has been a key supporter of JLENS. On Thursday, a Mikulski aide said the senator “believes it is appropriate to take a pause in funding this program while the investigation is ongoing.’’

In the budget bill, congressional leaders provided only a three-word explanation for the spending cut: “Test schedule delay.”

That was a reference to a three-year “operational exercise” in which a pair of JLENS blimps was to stand watch over the Washington, D.C., region, serving as an early warning system in the event of an attack by cruise missiles or other low-flying weapons.

The blimps and their support personnel were based at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The exercise was supposed to begin in January but was delayed until August because of technical problems. After the October mishap, the Army suspended the exercise, pending the results of its investigation.

JLENS — Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System — was initially intended to protect U.S. troops in combat and American cities and towns by patrolling at altitudes up to 10,000 feet.

At that height, according to Raytheon, the radar can see 340 miles in any direction, far beyond the limits that Earth’s curvature imposes on land- or sea-based radar.

The 242-foot-long blimps are designed to operate in pairs. One searches widely for threats. The other is supposed to focus narrowly on airborne objects and transmit “fire control” data on their location, speed and trajectory. U.S. fighter jets or ground-based rockets would use the fire-control data to intercept and destroy an intruder.

The program has cost taxpayers about $2.7 billion since its inception in 1998 — and has yet to provide operational missile defense.

In tests, the JLENS radar 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 JLENS in four “critical performance areas” and rated its reliability as “poor.” In its most recent assessment, in 2013, the office said JLENS had “low system reliability.”

The October spectacle dealt the program another blow. The pilotless blimp floated on the winds for 150 miles, clipping power lines and knocking out electricity to 35,000 Pennsylvania residents.

F-16 fighter-jets were scrambled to track the blimp. It came to rest in high trees in Moreland Township, Pa. The next day, at the military’s request, six state troopers opened fire on the tattered blimp with shotguns to drain its remaining helium.

The episode prompted fugitive Edward Snowden, Sen. John McCain and others to lampoon JLENS on Twitter. At a Republican presidential debate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee ridiculed the runaway blimp on national TV.

Twitter: @DWillmanNews

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