US Deployments: New intelligence drone in Afghanistan

New airborne surveillance system will be able o transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

WASHINGTON: The US military plans to deploy a new intelligence drone in Afghanistan, which military experts say will allow US troops to monitor much larger operational theatres than before, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said the airborne surveillance system is called Gorgon Stare and will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

The system consists of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, which can transmit up to 65 live images to soldiers on the ground, or to analysts tracking enemy movements, the paper said.

By contrast, current Air Force drones today shoot video from a single camera over a narrow area the size of a building or two, the paper noted.

“Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we’re looking at, and we can see everything,” the paper quoted Major General James Poss, the Air Force’s assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as saying.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2011.