SLS-409 · SNS
Spindrift
Surface radar & ESM payload. The active counterpart to Aperture's passive optics. Spindrift detects and classifies surface contacts by their radar returns and their own emissions, building an emitter picture at standoff range.
Spindrift combines a compact AESA surface-search radar with ISAR imaging for contact classification, alongside a radar ESM receiver that intercepts, deinterleaves, and classifies emitters at standoff.
Emitters are matched against pre-mission libraries — friend, hostile, neutral, unknown — and fused with EO/IR for high-confidence identification, with bearing ambiguity resolved through platform motion and second-sensor correlation.
Classified tracks and emitter alerts feed directly into the Tidefall common picture. Prototype build runs through late 2026.