USAF's JSTARS swansong
On 21 September 2023, after twenty-two years of service, the last Joint STARS (JSTARS) operational mission was made by Boeing E-8C 02- 9111/GA as it flew from Ramstein Air Base (Germany) to the Polish-Russian border before departing back the next day towards its homebase Robins AFB (GA).
Having left behind 02-9111/GA, its fellow JSTARS , 96-0042/GA, had already departed Ramstein back to the Continental United States on 18 September 2023. The last operational JSTARS period, saw more than a few Georgia based E-8Cs coming to Ramstein being forward deployed.
On 12 December 2022, Scramble Magazine wrote about the US National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) and the allowance to retire eight JSTARS aircraft. While the last operational USAF mission is completed, it is expected that all E-8s will be withdrawn before the end of 2023. Strikingly, 02-9111 was the last JSTARS to be delivered to the USAF. As it stands now, that particular aircraft will also be the last to shut off the engines.
The primary mission of the JSTARS, operated by Georgia Air National Guard's 116th Air Control Wing and Air Combat Command's 461st Air Control Wing, was to provide theatre ground and air commanders with ground surveillance and battle management to support attack operations and targeting that contributes to the delay, disruption and destruction of enemy forces.
According to our Scramble Database, there were 17 E-8 JSTARS aircraft, of which 16 were operational and one was used for training. Before the end of 2023, the remaining E-8Cs will be handed over to military museums or will be flown to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, also known as the Boneyard, near Tucson (AZ).
New missions are standing up at Robins and include: the Advanced Battle Management-System Family of Systems, an intelligence-gathering network under development that allows real-time sharing of battlefield information between satellites in space, military aircraft, ground forces and commanders; an E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communication Node (BACN) squadron; a spectrum warfare group; and a battle management command and control squadron.
Credit photo: Luca Knopp (On Flickr) / Credit patch: https://flightlineinsignia.com