Army missile defense blimp breaks loose

One of the Army's massive missile-tracking aerostats pulled free of its mooring Wednesday in Maryland and is now being tracked by F-16 fighter jets as it floats west.

The aerostat, one of two that make up the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, "detached from its mooring station" at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, at approximately 12:20 p.m. and was located northeast of Washington over Pennsylvania in the early afternoon, according to a North American Aerospace Defense Command statement.

"Two F-16 fighter jets from Atlantic City Air National Guard Base [NJ] are monitoring the JLENS aerostat, which is holding at approximately 16,000 feet," the statement read. "NORAD officials are working closely with the FAA to ensure air traffic safety, as well as with our other interagency partners to address the safe recovery of the aerostat."

A separate statement from Aberdeen Proving Ground said the aerostat became untethered at 11:54 a.m. and approximately 6,700 feet of its tether was still attached.

JLENS -- consisting of two tethered aerostats -- is part of a once-major program touted by the Army and contractor Raytheon as a breakthrough in air-defense technology. The system is advertised as being capable of detecting cruise missiles and other threats within a radius of hundreds of miles.

The Army cut the program several years ago and said earlier this year it plans to shed the system once a demonstration of the system is completed in 2017, according to service's latest "Equipment Modernization Strategy," released in March.

The Army owns two JLENS systems, or "orbits." An orbit consists of two tethered, 250-foot-long aerostats, one carrying a long-distance surveillance radar -- which has detached -- and the other holding a fire-control radar. Lifted to heights of 10,000 feet when operational, the aerostats can watch over an area roughly the size of Texas.

The Pentagon has spent $2.8 billion developing and acquiring two JLENS orbits, according to the Government Accountability Office. The Army initially planned to buy 16 systems at a cost of $5.4 billion, but the program was restructured in 2012 after a series of schedule delays, cost overruns, and the loss of one aerostat in a 2010 crash.