Space Based Radar, FIA/radar, redundancy?

This reminds me of something that has become a bit puzzling:
what relationship does SBR bear to the radar component of
NRO's Future Imagery Architecture? In the days of Discovery II,
SRB was just going to be an MTI radar, which is technologically
similar to but not the same as an imaging synthetic aperture
radar. So there was no conflict: FIA/radar would do the imaging
and SBR would do the MTIing.

Now, however SBR has had high-resolution imaging capability
added to the list of requirements, which seems to duplicate
FIA/radar. So are there going to be redundant systems flying
after SBR gets its constellation in place, will SBR take over
from FIA/radar, or what?

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/radar-04g.html
Lockheed Martin Awarded Contract for Space Based Radar
Phase A Concept Development Tuesday
Denver - Apr 21, 2004
[EXCERPTS]

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $220 million contract by the
U.S. Air Force for the concept development phase of the Space
Based Radar (SBR) program. The Air Force Space and Missile
Systems Center awarded the 24-month study contract to continue
the definition of SBR system requirements and evaluate
alternative design concepts for the SBR system architecture.
Final selection of the prime contractor for the multi-billion
dollar program will be made in 2006, with initial launch
scheduled for 2012.

Space Based Radar is a transformational system being developed
for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to provide global
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) for the
military and intelligence community. The SBR system will be
comprised of a constellation of spacecraft that will provide
rapid-revisit coverage of the entire Earth's surface.

SBR will enable persistent real-time intelligence on adversary
activity through the identification and tracking of moving
targets, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar imaging, and
collection of high-resolution terrain information.

During the Concept Development effort, Lockheed Martin will
develop and evaluate multiple candidate architectures for
a SBR system, including the horizontal integration of SBR
with other existing and planned ISR assets.

On 4/21/04 8:40 AM, in article
, "Allen Thomson"
wrote:

Now, however SBR has had high-resolution imaging capability
added to the list of requirements, which seems to duplicate
FIA/radar. So are there going to be redundant systems flying
after SBR gets its constellation in place, will SBR take over
from FIA/radar, or what?

You are assuming FIA is going to fly. I would say hedging one's bets on
that happening is a very wise plan.

Brett

Brett Buck wrote

You are assuming FIA is going to fly. I would say hedging one's bets on
that happening is a very wise plan.

I'm not going to give up on FIA yet -- you'd think making VIS/IR and
radar spysats would be within the state of the art by now. But I've
been thinking that about DSP follow-on for the past fifteen years,
so such delays do happen.

However, if FIA tanks, waiting until 2012 at the earliest to start
replacing the three LACROSSEs now in orbit seems to be stretching
things a bit. Having said that, I'm very surprised at the
longevity of LAC 2, which is now thirteen years old, still in
orbit, and apparently still at least somewhat functional; it
made a small orbit adjustment maneuver just a month ago.