The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is studying an “air dominance initiative” using a systems approach to determine how the United States can extend its air superiority into the next three or four decades.
DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar said in an April 24 press briefing the effort is to help determine the future of air superiority and not just brainstorm what the next generation of fighter aircraft will look like. Prabhakar said current points of interest include areas spanning networking and communications, control of the electromagnetic spectrum and sensing across the spectrum, roles space assets will play and how manned and unmanned systems might work together.
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| DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar. Photo: DARPA. |
“What are all the capabilities that it will take, layer together, in order to…really comprehensively extend air superiority,” Prabhakar said.
Prabhakar said the air superiority initiative is a joint endeavor among DARPA, the Navy and the Air Force that grew out of conversations she had with Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Frank Kendall following her recent return to DARPA after years in the private sector. Prabhakar said Kendall had a strong view that it was important for DoD to think about the increased sophistication of futuristic weapon systems combined with a period of declining defense spending.
“How were we going to make sure that we continued to have the innovation capacity in this country to be ready for whatever needed to come next,” Prabhakar said.
Prabhakar said the air dominance initiative has been a “high energy” study stage effort over the last few months featuring a team of eight DARPA program managers matched with Air Force and Navy experts looking at electromagnetic spectrum and networking issues. Prabhakar said since the initiative is just a few months old, she hopes it will have some results in time to shape the fiscal year 2015 budget cycle.