Within a year, a pair of souped-up $2.7 billion blimps (price includes R&D) will be floated 10,000 feet above the District of Columbia and act as a 340-mile-wide eye in the sky, detecting incoming missiles and the like.
The design and testing phase for JLENS—the (deep breath) Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, produced by Raytheon, a major weapons manufactuer—is over, relays Program Director Doug Burgess to Popular Mechanics. Now, it is time for implementation. Or, as he puts it, "[We're] getting away from the Ph.D. engineer types running the system to the 20- or 25-year-old soldier running the system."
Click here to see a picture of how very similar blimps were used during WWII to suspend aircraft-fouling barbed wired above London
Added: Rabel does some independent research and finds that the blimps (aerostats) will be tethered:
It has the ability to maintain persistent surveillance and monitor activity in its area of operations 24/7 for periods of twenty-five (25) days continuously at altitudes of at least 2,500 and up to 5,000 ft AGL with a mobile mooring platform emplaced at elevations of at least 6000ft above sea level (ASL) and climatic conditions characteristic of the CENTCOM AOR.
