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The article focuses on the U.S. Air Force's Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) sensor. MP-RTIP was originally called a multi-platform program because it was supposed to fly on the Global Hawk Block 40 as well as the defunct E-10, which had been the slated successor to the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System. Testing of the sensor is continuing and officials are confident that they have surpassed some of the more complex technical challenges with new modes for the system.

The article focuses on the evolution of air defense command and point interceptor. By mid-1949, the Soviets had tested an atomic bomb and, according to intelligence estimates, were building aircraft capable of reaching the continental U.S. More significant, the U.S. military was not adequately prepared to meet the emerging threat. There was no effective early warning system, and the only aircraft available to intercept a potential Soviet bomber force were obsolescent radar-equipped and propeller-driven planes. The Air Defense Command (ADC) had been created in early 1946 as part of a general postwar U.S. Army Air Forces reorganization and was absorbed into the newly independent U.S. Air Force in July 1947