Gorgon Stare II or Something Else.....?

A recent photo of an RQ-9 Reaper taken in Afghanistan shows what looks to be two Gorgon Stare Visible/IR sensor pods slug from both wings. The usual set up for Gorgon Stare Increment 1 is a sensor pod on one wing and a communications and networking pod on the other.
This may be the recently disclosed Gorgon Stare increment 2 however. If it is have they miniaturized the system that much in such a relatively short time to be able to fit two sensor balls?
It is just my speculation however but I wonder if the two pods are being used to generate a 3D sensor image of the targets below and that the communication pods are being carried by a companion Reaper. It would have been nice to be able to get a wider shot of the two Reapers next to each other. Maybe the com. pods were on the foreground Reaper, only time will tell.





theaviationist.com...

www.janes.com...

www.sncorp.com...

I wonder if it has anything to do with this.
Sierra Nevada fields ARGUS-IS ugrade to Gorgon Stare Pod

The air force always planned to upgrade with the increment 2 system, by incorporating a new sensor developed jointly by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and BAE Systems called the ARGUS-IS.

Coverage area provided by the ARGUS-IS – autonomous real-time ground ubiquitous surveillance imaging system – grows to up to 100km2. It fuses data collected by 368 cameras capable of capturing 5 million pixels each, to create a composite image of about 1.8 billion pixels, according to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose research led to the DARPA programme.

Mucho coverage

As far as the two pods goes I don't have a guess.

ARGUS sits in a "canoe" fairing under the Reaper. So it's not that. Definitely related to Gorgon Stare, I'd say. Wish we could see the other Reaper.


Edit: And I thought that Gorgon Stare was going/went the way of the Dodo in favour of ARGUS. So I'm more confused.

a reply to: _Del_

The link says they've refitted it into the Gorgon pod. That's why I posted the article.

ETA : Strike the above statement I misinterpreted the article.

a reply to: _Del_

If it were two Gorgon Stares in tandem, then I wonder if the other Reaper that carry the com. pods has to fly behind or near enough to the sensor pod Reaper to operate effectively?

a reply to: howmuch4another

It may be that ARGUS uses two sensor balls but I think the ARGUS upgrade was to the existing Gorgon Stare sensor and still maintained the original system characteristics.

a reply to: Sammamishman

I think you're right. It is the sensor. I edited my post that I misinterpreted the upgrade. I think you are closest to what is going on with the companion Reaper theory. The two pods must be phased differently or something as they already cover a pretty huge swath of real estate.

ETA: This article speaks to the second sensor a bit.

The Increment 2 system incorporates an electro-optical sensor derived from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and BAE Systems' Argus technology, and an infrared sensor manufactured by Exelis, according to the USAF. Increment 2 Gorgon Stare was deployed in Afghanistan earlier this year, the USAF added.

Asian Defense News

nvm

originally posted by: Sammamishman
a reply to: howmuch4another

It may be that ARGUS uses two sensor balls but I think the ARGUS upgrade was to the existing Gorgon Stare sensor and still maintained the original system characteristics.

Okay, here's the scuttlebutt. Increment II uses two sensor balls. Mystery solved. It uses a variation of the ARGUS EO sensors and processing capabilities in one ball and a large IR array in the other.

a reply to: _Del_

Cool. Thanks for the update. Was that info publically sourced?

No, it was scuttlebutt, but after I posted I noticed that howmuch4another and Bill Murary have posted a link with essentially the same info

Perhaps there are tandem pods in order to produce stereo images for 3D like imaging?..

a reply to: clay2 baraka

I think you'd want them separated by more than that distance to produce any meaningful stereo effect because of the distance/altitude involved.

Posted on the Aviationist today.



The Air Force released this pic, of a launch on March 20. It's Gorgon Stare Increment 2.

Hm. The Gorgon is this really nasty guy in Destiny, that instantly kills you if he sees you.

I take it this technology basically makes it impossible for baddies to hide?

Wait a minute...I just googled "Gorgon Stare" and was reading the wiki when I saw this...

In January 2011, it was announced that the program wasn't performing to expectations, and included faults such as "a large black triangle moving throughout the image," due to failure to combine the images taken by the multiple cameras, inferior image quality compared to older systems, a problematic night-vision system, inability to track people on the surface, and delays of up to eighteen seconds in sending data to the ground.[7]

Did it accidentally catch a black project, and then was covered up by saying it was a malfunction?!!!

a reply to: MystikMushroom

No. It was one of the sensors. It really was a fault.