Chicken Little kicks off Sensor Week 08'

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Anthony Jennings
  • 96th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Joint Munitions Test and Evaluation Program Office, Project Chicken Little is sponsoring Sensor Week 2008. The scenarios will be located over the A-13 and C-72 range, from Aug. 4-22. 

"Sensor Week gives government and industry participants the opportunity to test their systems and collect data in a unique threat environment by pooling resources and manpower from around the DoD," said Capt. Javier Hurtado, senior test engineer from the 46th Test Squadron. 

Chicken Little will script a series of daily events giving government and industry seeker/sensor testers a chance to collect data against ground threat vehicles in moving and static scenarios. Sensor Week also provides participants access to Eglin's range, ground truth data, meteorological data and time-space-position-information collection. Plus, test execution support comes at no cost to each participant. 

"The combination of threat vehicles, scenarios, data, test expertise and range space provided by the 46th Test Wing's Chicken Little office makes this an important event for many programs that normally would not be able to coordinate such a large event for development test of specific system," added Capt. Hurtado.

"The data collected at SW08 will directly impact the real world mission and war fighter by developing systems that keep us one step ahead of the enemy," said 2nd Lt. Carl Benson, test engineer from the 46th TS. "The effort put into SW08 and the data taken away from it will ensure our current systems, and those to be fielded in the future, are effective tools for the warfighter." 

More than 15 are participants taking advantage of this opportunity, including the Army, Navy, Air Force and several contractor test teams. The teams will have sensor systems collecting data on the ground, in the air and even from space. 

Sensor Week has only been conducted once prior to this year, in 2004. However, this type of joint effort has been ongoing for more than 20 years under the Chicken Little Program. Winter and Summer Series, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Week and Acoustic Week are all examples of previous projects conducted at Eglin, Nellis Air Force Base, Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., and Grayling, Mich..