Det er den eneste synlige NATO maskin oppe nå. Det er ikke sjelden at det er to av denne typen i luften samtidig fra Litauen ned til Constanta i Romania.
(Red.)
ARTEMIS Challenger Joins
Ukraine Surveillance Effort
by David Donald
- February 24, 2022, 4:35 AM
The Leidos Special Mission
Aircraft Challenger 650 technology demonstrator is outfitted with the ARTEMIS
multi-sensor surveillance suite. (Photo: via U.S. Army)
The U.S. Army has been flying a
special-mission Bombardier Challenger 650 as part of the NATO surveillance
effort monitoring the build-up and subsequent operations of Russian forces in
and around Ukraine. Known as the Leidos Special Mission Aircraft (LSMA), the
Challenger technology demonstrator is outfitted with the Aerial Reconnaissance
and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System (ARTEMIS).
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin began
deploying forces to regions surrounding Ukraine, NATO has stepped up its
surveillance activities. The brunt of the effort has been borne by Boeing
RC-135W Rivet Joint electronic intelligence-gatherers from both the U.S. Air
Force and the UK’s Royal Air Force, flying from Mildenhall and Waddington in
England, USAF Lockheed U-2s also flying from England, and by USAF Northrop
Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned platforms operating from Sigonella, Sicily.
U.S. Army aerial surveillance assets
involved include Beechcraft RC-12K Guardrail aircraft flying from Siauliai in
Lithuania, and the ARTEMIS Challenger, which is operating from Constanta
International Airport in Romania. The latter has been operating in Europe for some
months, and has flown numerous missions during February.
The aircraft’s routing—as seen on civilian
flight-tracking websites—has taken it north into Polish airspace, from where
its sensors can peer into western Ukraine and Belarus. This route was flown on
February 24, the first day of the major Russian attack on Ukraine. At the same
time, an RQ-4 was flying an orbit over the Black Sea to the south of Odessa,
having earlier set up a patrol pattern over eastern Ukraine close to the
breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and an RC-135W was in an orbit over
Poland. Also in the same area was a Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint STARS ground
surveillance aircraft.
Leidos began the development of the LSMA in
2019 as a technology demonstrator for a potential candidate to replace the U.S.
Army’s RC-12 Guardrail fleet, the move to a business jet platform offering
significantly increased range, operating altitude, onboard power, and payload
capacity. ARTEMIS is a plug-and-play mission suite that can be rapidly
reconfigured to meet mission requirements. The aircraft is believed to be
fitted with electronic intelligence (Elint) sensors and a side-looking radar
that can track ground vehicles. The U.S. Army's description of the aircraft's
role notes that it "provides high-altitude sensing capabilities against
near-peer adversaries and bridges gaps in the Multi-Domain Operations mission."
Demonstrations have been conducted in the U.S., Europe, and the Pacific since
mid-2020, and in summer 2021 the aircraft was deployed again to Europe for an
exercise and is believed to have remained in the theater since.
Recent years have seen a growing trend in
transferring special mission suites and roles to business jets from larger jet
platforms and smaller twin-prop aircraft, including the Saab GlobalEye airborne early warning aircraft and
the E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN). In August last year, L3 Harris
flew its Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System (ARES) demonstrator, based on the
Bombardier Global 6500. ARES is intended to explore similar roles to the
ARTEMIS, albeit in a larger airframe.
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