The BACN tested well on the aircraft and the Air Force subsequently installed the module on at least four Bombardier Global Express E-11 business jets, as well as on three EQ-4 Global Hawk drones. Congress has requisitioned funds to keep all of them flying until June 2015.

In a rare satellite shot from January 2011, the WB-57 makes an appearance at southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar airfield parked on the ramp next to an E-11A. The aircraft may have been taking turns over Afghanistan, providing communication support to troops in the field along with the BACN-fitted Global Hawks flying from Al Dhafra air base in the United Arab Emirates.

Of course, that may not be the only explanation. Around the same time, the fringe-science Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was also testing the High-Altitude LIDAR Operational Experiment—or HALOE—on NASA’s high flyer. LIDAR, or “light detection and ranging,” is a method of remote sensing that uses light pulses to model various environments.

HALOE data allowed scientists to create high-resolution 3-D maps of parts of Afghanistan. In 2010, the sensor reportedly surveyed 70,000 square kilometers, or approximately 10 percent of the country.

The Air Force Research Laboratory reports the team flew 140 sorties comprising 550 flight hours, while collecting data at 20-centimeter resolution. On at least 200 occasions, HALOE teams handed over data to the military so it could plan raids on terror suspects or other operations.

While impressive, the system does have certain limitations. For example, it produces a terabyte of data for every hour of use. It can take days or weeks to analyze all that information.

Data overload notwithstanding, HALOE is still leaps and bounds better than what the military had before. DARPA director Arati Prabhakar has said that the sensor could have mapped 50 percent of Afghanistan in 90 days, far faster than the years it would have taken with most traditional methods.

HALOE has been so effective that there are now rumors that the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for building and launching America’s spy satellites, may try to build and launch a satellite with the same sensor on board. That’s another reason the WB-57 is so important. High-altitude aircraft can provide a proof of concept for satellite sensors prior to sending them into space.