Written question asked by Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative) on Friday, 10 October 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 14 October 2025. It was answered by Luke Pollard (Labour) on Friday, 17 October 2025 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.
ISTAR: Unmanned Air Systems
- Question
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the outcome was of the high-altitude uncrewed balloon tests conducted in South Dakota, USA under Project Aether.
- Answer
-
The trials in South Dakota were successful and achieved or surpassed all intended test objectives.
The objectives included:
- Providing 24-hour Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) coverage in high-latitude winter conditions at high-altitude;
- Locating, identifying, and tracking signals, and disseminating data over both Line of Sight and Satellite communications;
- Maintaining continuous endurance at high altitude;
- and
- Enabling airborne handover of ISR coverage between different platforms.
Secondary information
- Type
- Written question
- Reference
- 79488
- Session
- 2024-26
- Subjects
- USA ISTAR Unmanned air systems
- Link
- View this Written question on www.parliament.uk
Librarians' tools
- Timestamp
- 2025-10-17 11:39:03 +0100
- URI
- http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/commons/2024-26/79488
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