Funding The Void

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Date Posted: 05-Apr-2006

Jane's Defence Weekly
US BLACK PROGRAMMES: FUNDING the

VOID
Classified projects form a large and increasing proportion of the US defence budget. Bill Sweetman
lifts the lid on this secret world
* Despite an overall decline in US defence spending after the end of the Cold War, black budgets
have continued to grow
* The budgets are believed by some to support a range of classified projects as well as funding US
intelligence agencies
* More than 40 per cent of USAF procurement is classified, as is 36 per cent of R&D
Black projects - considered so important and sensitive that their very existence is secret - are the
stuff of drama, which is why 'Area 51' gets millions more Google hits than Edwards Air Force Base
(AFB).
The reason for this is public fascination with anything mysterious, but black programmes are more
than a sideshow in terms of defence policy and the defence establishment. Since the late 1980s,
secret efforts have expanded to form a vast proportion of the US defence budget.
Most defence budgets shrank in the post-Cold War era, but black budgets remained stable or even
grew slightly. In the Fiscal Year 1999 (FY99) budget, classified US Air Force (USAF) research and
development (R&D) added up to around USD5 billion and 38 per cent of the USAF hardware
budget - R&D and procurement - was devoted to classified programmes.
The current administration continued this trend after 9/11. In one section of the R&D budget USAF operational systems development - classified spending in FY07 has grown to USD8.8 billion,
which is more than twice the systems development and demonstration (SDD) cost of the Joint
Strike Fighter programme. In air force procurement, one line items - 'selected activities', tucked
away in the same category as cargo pallets and medical and dental equipment - accounts for
USD12.6 billion. A quick calculation also shows that line items listed under USAF missile
procurement are some USD900 million short of the total. More than 40 per cent of USAF
procurement is classified, along with 36 per cent of R&D. In the operations and maintenance
budget, a single line - other programmes in the defence-wide operations budget - amounts to
USD9.1 billion; more than twice the budget for air force primary combat forces.
Special access projects
Black programmes are a subset of what the US calls special access programmes (SAPs). A
programme judged so sensitive that its existence is classified is an 'unacknowledged SAP'. Within
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Article 1 Page 1 of 12
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this group are waived SAPs which are not briefed to Congress. In this case, only eight individuals the chair and ranking minority member of each of the four defence committees - are notified of
the decision. These waived SAPs are the blackest of black programmes.
A former USAF A-10 pilot, Brigadier General Paul Schafer, knows more about this than almost
anyone else. As director of special programmes in the office of the Undersecretary of Defence for
Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (Kenneth Krieg), Gen Schafer runs the Special Access
Programme Co-ordination Office and is executive secretary of the high-level Special Access
Programme Oversight Committee (SAPOC). He is also the Pentagon's stealth czar, as the director
of low-observables.
Otherwise, few people are cleared to oversee even part of the SAP world and those who are have
little time to do it. How many of the SAPs are unacknowledged and how many are waived is a
question that only a few people can answer: eight members of Congress (the 'big eight'), the
members of the SAPOC (including the deputy secretary of defence) and the secretary of defence.
Some analysts believe that much of the black budget funds the operations of intelligence
agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency, National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and many new small units that have sprung up in the aftermath of
9/11. Some of the identifiable items within the classified world are strongly linked to particular
intelligence activities. The long-standing anomaly in USAF missile- procurement accounts funds
intelligence- gathering spacecraft; it shrank considerably from FY06 to FY07, reflecting the
restructuring of the troubled Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) project for a new generation of
radar and electro-optical spy satellites.
The FIA is an acknowledged SAP. Like the B-2 was in its day, but unlike earlier generations of
imaging spacecraft such as the Kennan/Crystal optical spacecraft or the Lacrosse/Onyx radar
satellites, its existence can be mentioned in non-classified publications. Its budgets are concealed,
alongside those of other continuing black spacecraft such as signals intelligence (SIGINT) systems,
NOSS ocean-surveillance satellites and the Misty stealth spacecraft.
The black budget is large enough to support a range of classified projects as well as funding US
spy agencies. Moreover, one reason that the USAF budget was chosen as the conduit for CIA and
NRO funds was that aircraft and spacecraft are the major hardware items in those agencies'
budgets and are often supported by the USAF - so that 'intelligence' funding often translates into
USAF programmes. The air force is the lead agency for developing satellites and when the CIA's
Directorate of Science and Technology was in the business of developing aircraft (assuming that it
has stopped doing so), they were jointly operated by CIA civilians, active USAF people and USAF
people who were temporarily 'sheep-dipped' and assigned to the CIA under cover.
Groom Lake activity
Tangible evidence suggests, too, that the non-intelligence black budget may be healthy. The
USAF's secret flight test centre within the Nevada test and training range - which is not really
called Area 51 but is Detachment 3 of the USAF Flight Test Center, headquartered at Edwards - is
active, as is evident from the high-frequency air shuttle that ferries the engineering and
management workforce from Las Vegas to the base. The pace of operations, using Boeing 737s
and Beech 1900 transports, suggests that as many as 1,000 people are commuting to the base on
Groom Lake. The smaller base at Tonopah Test Range (TTR), originally built in the early 1980s to
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house the operational F-117A wing, is also active. It is not as secure as Groom Lake, being more
visible from public land, but can securely house more mature aircraft that can operate at night.
It is important to remember that the only reason for maintaining a site such as Groom Lake is to
test aircraft that are visibly substantially different from non-classified military aircraft and embody
capabilities that are important enough and different enough from what an adversary might expect
to be worth concealing.
The classic example is the F-117's predecessor, Have Blue. Had a foreign intelligence agency seen
it, their analysts could have concluded quickly that the US was trying to build an aircraft with the
radar cross-section (RCS) of a small ball-bearing. As it was, most of the world thought that was
impossible, so they could not begin to design a countermeasure. Classified weapons or
modifications to existing platforms can be tested from a semi-secure facility like Edwards AFB's
North Base.
Kept from view
There has seldom been less reliable information as to what kind of aircraft, spacecraft and
capabilities may have been developed at Groom Lake, or elsewhere, with black-budget funding.
In 2002, the USAF unveiled the Boeing Bird of Prey flight demonstrator, which had performed 38
flight tests out of Groom Lake in 1996-99 and was designed to prove both ultra-low RCS and
visual stealth technology. This moment of openness underscored the fact that the last black-world
aircraft project to be unveiled before the Bird of Prey, in 1996, was the Northrop Tacit Blue lowobservable (LO) prototype. The Tacit Blue project was initiated in 1976, under the Ford
administration.
Tacit Blue pre-dated the modernisation of Groom Lake (funded by the defence build-up of the
Reagan administration), as did the F-117. By the time new buildings and runways appeared at
Groom, and the Las Vegas shuttle (known by the callsign 'Janet') had replaced ad-hoc flights from
Nellis, Burbank and Palmdale, the F-117 had moved to TTR. On the other hand, Reagan-era
programmes that operated in the 'grey' world - acknowledged to exist, but with tightly classified
technology such as the B-2, Advanced Tactical Fighter and the Navy A-12 - were never intended
to be tested at Area 51 and the NRO's huge Lockheed/Boeing Quartz unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) never got close to flight test. The last 20 years of secret technology have been kept from
view, which, after all, was the idea in the first place.
However, it is possible to identify some of the programmes that feature in the black budget today.
One example is the classified UAV programme disclosed in a US Navy FY07 budget document,
which will apparently receive some of the funds originally destined for the USAF's share of the
Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) programme.
Being developed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, the UAV is apparently descended from the
Penetrating High-Altitude Endurance (PHAE) UAV which the Skunk Works started to promote after
the RQ-3A DarkStar was cancelled in 1999. The termination of DarkStar reflected not only
technical problems with the design (the first vehicle had crashed on its second flight attempt) but
also the limitations of a vehicle designed to a tight cost goal: the result was an aircraft that could
carry only a small sensor load, could fly no higher than 45,000 feet and had an endurance of just
eight hours.
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By 2001, Lockheed Martin was talking about an aircraft with a 24-hour endurance, a U-2-class
(1,800 kg) payload and a U-2-type altitude (above 70,000 ft), combined with a high degree of
stealth. At the same time, the company developed a smaller UAV - with DarkStar-like performance
- which was tested over Iraq in 2003. Development of the larger vehicle continued, however, and
a number of aircraft are believed to be on order, powered by General Electric J97 engines.
One thing for certain is that the new UAV will be expensive. It will not be small, it will carry costly
sensors like the U-2 and it will need to have very refined LO technology if it is to operate for 24
hours over denied territory. Both the vehicle and its sensors will be produced in small numbers.
The same considerations applied to early black-world projects such as the Lockheed U-2, U-2R, A12 and SR-71 and the Teledyne Ryan AQM-91 Compass Arrow. These provided a combination of
capabilities that acknowledged programmes could not match; for example, high speed, high
altitude and low RCS. Their high performance went hand in hand with rather demanding
operational characteristics, high maintenance requirements and unique sensors and the customer
usually required only a small number of aircraft. The result was that unit costs were high:
Compass Arrow cost USD1 billion, an almost unimaginable sum for two dozen UAVs in the late
1960s.
They were also operated in secret. As the CIA demonstrated with the U-2, U-2R, A-12 and the D21 drone and as the F-117 showed in the first seven years of its existence, it is possible to operate
a small number of aircraft without disclosing their existence. Lockheed Martin's UAV represents a
return to the black programmes of the 1950s and 1960s or it may indicate that projects of that
kind never stopped but have never been disclosed.
Where did the work lead?
If that pattern continued in the 1980s and 1990s, it would explain the central mystery of classified
aircraft programmes: given the money poured into black programmes and the modernisation of
Groom Lake, where did all the work lead?
Military space systems have been funded in the black world since the 1960s and still are likely to
account for a large proportion of black-world funds, but whether they include a massive twostage-to-orbit re-usable space reconnaissance-strike system remains to be seen. Such a system
might be technically feasible, but even in small numbers it would be hard to conceal and it would
be unlikely that it would be permitted to operate over metropolitan or suburban areas at low
altitudes in daylight, as reports suggested.
The hypothesis, however, that a high-speed system of some kind was developed in the 1980s is
still supported by evidence, although much of it is circumstantial. Unusual sonic booms over
southern California in the early 1990s, and over other places since, remain unexplained. A leading
sonic boom expert who has reviewed the California boom tracks believes that they were produced
by vehicles following a Shuttle-type landing profile. Both the booms and the best eyewitness
account of what may have been a secret aircraft over the North Sea in 1989 are consistent with
reasonable security measures. The booms were recorded in detail by a seismograph network that
the USAF had no way of knowing was being used for that purpose and the sighting was far out
over open water, where the risk of a chance encounter with a trained observer was minimal.
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Multiple sources, including a senior leader of European future-space efforts, have pointed out that
the National Aerospaceplane (NASP) project, launched in 1986 and abruptly terminated in 1992,
can be understood only if the vehicle is regarded as an extension of, and possibly a cover for, a
classified programme. For example, the NASP programme funded efforts to batch-produce
specialty materials and to access foreign technology, including France's work on high-temperature
silicon-matrix composites, at a point when the most basic details of the vehicle configuration were
unstable. Pentagon security regulations explicitly permit the use of cover and deception to protect
black programmes.
In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union started development of enhancements to the MiG-31
interceptor and to long-range surface-to-air missiles, increasing their capability against highaltitude targets. A detailed account of MiG-25 operations against SR-71s over the Baltic Sea,
published in 2000, contains this comment: "Around 1980, the Warsaw Pact's air defence forces
introduced a new alarm call -Jastreb[Hawk]. Later on, it became the standard alarm call for all
high and very fast flying targets." However, as far as the unclassified world knows, there was no
vehicle in the 1980s that flew within 1,500 km/h or 6,000 m of the SR-71's cruise regime. As one
former USAF director of special programmes responded: "Whatever could they have meant by
that?"
No direct evidence of such a project has emerged since the early 1990s, which means one of
three things; it was cancelled soon after it was reported; or it has continued to operate on a
spacecraft-like schedule, making very few sorties in response to high-priority national
requirements.
High-speed vehicle
Lockheed Martin continues to promote the idea of a high-speed, high-altitude vehicle, with
continuing studies of a M6.5 vehicle. The first step would be a fighter-sized X-plane with two highspeed turbojets and a ramjet, in an over-under configuration, with inward-turning inlets like the
Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV). "The goal is to prove to people that it is doable, practical and
works like a regular aircraft," said Skunk Works Vice-President Neil Kacena. It would use
hydrocarbon fuels (the USAF has been developing heat-tolerant jet fuels) and conventional
materials and would be launched and recovered from a runway and (unlike a pure ramjet design)
powered at all times.
Kacena points out that a high-speed, high-altitude vehicle complements subsonic stealth: a "fastmover" is easy to detect and hard to hit, while a subsonic stealth vehicle is the opposite.
Defeating the fast-mover requires long-range, high-speed intercept missiles and platforms to
launch them; detecting an LO target requires unconventional sensors designed to see very small
targets at medium range and neither system provides any advantage against both target classes
Less effective oversight
The increasing size of the black-world budget translates directly into less effective oversight. In
the last year for which statistics are available, 1999, the defence subcommittee of the House
Appropriations Committee scheduled half a day of hearings to review 150 very diverse SAPs.
Another issue, related to time and security, is that the reporting requirements for SAPs are
rudimentary and could technically be satisfied in a couple of pages.
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As long-time secrecy observer Stephen Aftergood commented late in 2005, the number of SAPs
has increased but the number of outsiders cleared into them has not.
Another challenge to effective oversight is the fact that the economics of black programmes may
bear no relation to the normal world. The Defence Science Board (DSB), while criticising the
management of FIA, pointed out that the problems in many high-tech space programmes could be
traced to underfunding and to a 'can-do' mentality, in which contractors ousted incumbents with
unrealistically low bids and service programme managers were reluctant to acknowledge or report
problems.
In the DSB's view, delays and overruns were good. They indicated that problems were not being
denied and that the programme managers would rather launch late than risk total failure and the
loss of a spacecraft.
Another factor is emphasis on performance: the U-2's sensor packages are considered uniquely
valuable, but - considering their development costs and the fact that only a handful of systems
need to be acquired, because the U-2's sensors are interchangeable - they cost in the region of
USD100 million each.
The U-2 itself is on the verge of being retired and it is possible that the reason that the USAF is
not objecting is that its functional replacement, the PHAE, is proceeding well and offers the
decisive advantage of better endurance.
It might be a working hypothesis that Lockheed Martin's new high-speed vehicle could replace an
unacknowledged programme operating today, but adding great flexibility compared to something
rocket-like. However, if that is the case, it's unlikely that we will hear about it. If there is one
conclusion that can be drawn from attempts to analyse the black budget, it is that security does
its job.
Budget document discloses existence of secret US Air Force UAV programme(idr.janes.com,
17/03/06)
More funding for classified items(jdw.janes.com, 15/02/06)
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US BLACK PROGRAMMES: FUNDING the VOID (STScI/L Zanardo/Jane's)

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Officially non-existent, the USAF's classified flight test base on the edge of Groom Lake in Nevada
is clearly visible on open-source satellite images (Space Imaging via Federation of American
Scientists)
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Titan IV launch vehicles were almost exclusively used to launch classified spacecraft until the
rocket was retired in 2005, with observers studying the booster configuration and the size of the
payload fairing for clues as to the rocket's mission (USAF)
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Lockheed tested this F-117-like cruise missile, codenamed 'Senior Prom', in the early 1980s. It
was abandoned in favour of the General Dynamics AGM-129, which could be carried on internal
rotary launchers (Lockheed via Jim Goodall)
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The most recent secret test aircraft to have been declassified is the Boeing Bird of Prey, evaluated
from 1996 to 1999 at Groom Lake. It was used to demonstrate visual stealth technologies (Boeing)
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Nicknamed the Whale, Northrop Grumman's Tacit Blue experimental stealth surveillance aircraft
completed its tests in 1985 and was disclosed 11 years later. Although it originated under the Ford
administration, it is one of the newest secret aircraft programmes to have been disclosed (USAF)
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Built as a brand-new operational base for the F-117, Tonopah Test Range has been officially out
of regular use since 1992, but remains active, quite possibly in support of classified programmes
(Bill Sweetman)
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Secrecy has fostered bad decisions in several programmes. The US Navy's A-12 attack aircraft
was behind schedule and overweight when it was cancelled, but its massive weapon load and long
endurance would have been useful in Iraq (Lockheed Martin)
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Classified aircraft designs are protected in many ways. Lockheed Martin's radar cross-section
(RCS)
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ihs.

Date Posted: 05-Apr-2006

US BLACK PROGRAMMES: FUNDING the

US BLACK PROGRAMMES: FUNDING the VOID (STScI/L Zanardo/Jane's)

Copyright IHS Global Limited, 2015

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