The Truth about the Runaway Blimp

On the 28th of October, a mysterious blimp broke loose from its long ground tether at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and came to earth in Pennsylvania, 160 miles away. According to many journalists, pundits, and politicians, that accident exposed a costly and secret Pentagon cruise missile program -- a defense system that does not work.

The errant blimp - also called an aerostat - is part of the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS. As the name implies, JLENS was specifically designed to identify and defeat cruise missiles. The bonus is that JLENS also engages battlefield ballistic missiles, aircraft, swarming boats, and even vehicles. 

The powerful JLENS radars are a pair of blimps that float on tethers linking them to control stations 10,000 feet below. Manned by two teams of just 10 soldiers, each system can operate 24/7 for 30-day periods. When the radars are aloft, they detect hostile missiles and then help direct land and air defenses to defeat them. The JLENS system now being operationally tested at Aberdeen defends not only Washington, but an area that extends along the eastern seacoast from Boston to Norfolk, and 340 miles out to sea.

A shield against the growing menace was desperately needed, and JLENS became precisely such a defense. A CPD paper describes the threats in detail, as well as JLENS’ ability to defend the United States and our military forces, and those of our allies, in hotspots like the Strait of Hormuz.

Beginning in 1998, JLENS was designed, built and exhaustively tested at White Sands Missile Range and the Utah Test and Training Range. By 2013 some $2 billion had been invested. Since then, the program moved forward on a much smaller budget, bringing the total investment to $2.4 billion. JLENS does not have a current budget for spending $2.7 billion, as the media would have you believe.

As is normal practice, the 2013 Operational Test and Evaluation report indicated areas needing improvement. After subsequent work and extensive testing at the White Sands and Utah ranges, the JLENS system met all the requirements in critical performance areas, including reliability and survivability in an operational environment. In 2014 the U.S. Army then accepted the delivery of two completed JLENS systems from the contractor. One system was put in strategic reserve and the other sent to Aberdeen for operational tests and integration with the National Capitol Area defenses. 

With all this in mind, it is clear that the JLENS program should not be politicized by members of either party, even in today’s election fever. After all, JLENS was started by President Clinton, supported and funded by President Bush, and deployed at Aberdeen by President Obama.

Whether to write a sensational story or not, journalists should not use an operational accident to suggest stripping our homeland of our only tested cruise missile defense system. Besides, no journalist or Pentagon spokesman has suggested a credible replacement for the JLENS shield. The error that caused the blimp to escape its tether, whether human or mechanical or both, will be found and corrected. Other development issues may also arise during the Aberdeen tests and, if so, they will be corrected too.

With a production cost of approximately $350 million for a single JLENS system of two blimps, the national debate should not be about ending JLENS, but about expanding a fully tested program with enough systems to defend the entire homeland -- and our warfighters now in harm’s way.

References/Additional Information:

Manning level of JLENS orbits

CPD JLENS white paper

Chet Nagle is a former Pentagon official and a director of the Committee on the Present Danger.