L3 Harris

RASISR – CUTTING-EDGE CAPABILITY FOR SHARP DECISION MAKERS

The Smart Approach for Affordable and Flexible Enhanced ISR Capability

L3Harris’ RASISR™ (Rapid, Adaptable, Smart, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) delivers a groundbreaking capability and an affordable approach for enhancing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Providing the flexibility to expand ISR capacity and accelerate capability delivery without significant aircraft modifications, RASISR also offers an agile option to keep pace with requirements and advancements in technology. Pronounced razor, RASISR has capacity to host a range of sensors including L3Harris’ fullspectrum signals intelligence capability – communications intelligence, electronic intelligence and special signals – that performs in both strategic (stand-off) and tactical missions against the most challenging adversary signal sets. As an industry-leading provider of ISR solutions, L3Harris leverages decades of investment in cutting-edge technologies to deliver an innovative contribution to ISR networks and multi-domain operations.

Learn more at L3Harris.com/SIGINT

UK MoD

An RAF Sentinel R1 from 902 Expeditionary Air Wing (902 EAW). The Sentinel fleet provided ISR support ISAF and Coalition ground forces in Afghanistan, and later against Daesh in Iraq/Syria.

and early 2000s. The RAF’s small fleet of Canberra PR.Mk9s received the Goodrich Rapid Deployment Electro-Optical System (RADEOS), which was derived from the Senior Year Electro-Optical Relay System (SYERS) carried by the Lockheed U-2S, from 1997. The system saw operational service in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and proved capable of very high resolution at extreme range. In images of the Houses of Parliament taken from 47,000ft (14,300m) over the Isle of Wight, the time on Big Ben’s clock could be read clearly.

The Goodrich Reconnaissance Airborne Pod Tornado (RAPTOR) was a podded system based on the similar DB-110 EO sensor (dual-band 110-inch focal length) and was introduced into RAF service in 2002. This allowed images to be recorded for postflight analysis, displayed in the cockpit or transmitted to a ground station via a data link. A total of eight RAPTOR pods were purchased by the RAF. RAPTOR made its operational debut during Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2003. RAPTOR was used to provide vital imagery over Iraq and Syria to the coalition partners engaged in Operation Inherent Resolve, and later on Operation Shader.

The Canberra PR.Mk9 was retired on 28 July 2006, and the RAPTOR pod followed when the Tornado was withdrawn from service on 1 April 2019.

UTC Aerospace Systems (which had acquired Goodrich in 2012) offered a similar pod for the Eurofighter Typhoon, using a multi-spectral MS110 sensor, but this was not ordered, and nor was Rafael’s Reccelite XR reconnaissance pod, though this did undergo some trials.

The DB110 was flown on a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, and some consideration was given to putting RAPTOR on Reaper or Protector UAVs, but this does not seem to be happening.

Senior RAF officers said that the capabilities provided by RAPTOR were being directly replaced by existing, in-service ISR capabilities, on a range of platforms – including an unidentified ‘wide body’ aircraft and space-based systems.

This does not mean the end of fast jet reconnaissance - the forthcoming Rafael Litening 5 targeting pod could provide the Typhoon with impressive ISR capabilities, while the Lockheed Martin F-35B also has formidable recce potential thanks to its EOTS system, its powerful Northrop Grumman AN/APG-81 AESA radar, its sensor fusion and the high degree of embedded connectivity. But the ISR emphasis certainly switched away from fast jets, and there was a growing concentration on those capabilities best suited to asymmetric warfare against non state actors like Daesh. This process has continued and intensified – changing the face of UK airborne ISR/ ISTAR.

Although the role description of maritime reconnaissance includes the word reconnaissance, maritime patrol aircraft were not traditionally thought of as belonging to the reconnaissance community, since they used their capabilities simply to find their own targets. All that changed during the second Gulf War in 2003, when RAF Hawker Siddeley Nimrods were pressed into use in an overland reconnaissance and surveillance role, supporting land forces, and using their radar, newly fitted Wescam MX-15 electro-optical turrets and comprehensive communications capabilities to identify potential targets and locate and monitor enemy forces. Use of the Nimrod for overland ISR, using the MX-15, reflected the limitations of the Army’s Pilatus Britten Norman Defender, which had relatively poor hot-and-high performance, limited endurance, and which was still heavily tasked in Northern Ireland. Thereafter, the Nimrods were extensively used in the overland ISR role in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and their eventual replacement, the Boeing P-8A Poseidon MRA.Mk1 is today viewed as an ISR aircraft as much as it is a maritime patrol and anti-submarine asset.

The loss of Nimrod XV230 after an

Intelligence personnel from RAF Waddington, 1 ISR Wing, supporting operational aircraft during their depoloyment to RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus in April 2021.