What Happened
Project Wallabee Aims To Enhance Stratospheric Surveillance Capabilities
The US Army’s intelligence hub and the Joint Staff’s J-7 are set to test a new prototype system, dubbed Project Wallabee, comprising an autonomous target recognition sensor on top of a stratospheric high-altitude balloon in the coming days. The exercise aims to address the challenges of operating sensors in the stratosphere, where harsh physical limitations and extreme weather conditions make it difficult to find suitable sensors. According to Andrew Evans, the director for the new Strategy & Transformation Office inside the G-2, the goal is to create a multi-layered, robust sensing ecosystem that combines ground, airborne, stratosphere, and space-based sensors. The results from testing Wallabee will help inform future experimentations, including a large balloon swarm exercise slated for later this year, as reported by Breaking Defense.