Gorgon Stare, Blue Devil and MAGIC/Orion are one overlapping ISR family under BIG SAFARI
Confirmed by Congressional and USAF budget records. Same office, overlapping sensors (WAMI, SIGINT, airborne processing), shared GFE path through Greenville, and a podded architecture meant to move between airframes. Not isolated programmes that happen to share a decade.
645 AESG / BIG SAFARI developed Gorgon Stare, executed MAGIC, and received Blue Devil equipment. Blue Devil Block 1 had already flown Angel Fire-derived WAAS with SIGINT on manned aircraft. Block 2 residuals were packed as GFE available for other programmes. HASC 113-102 told the Air Force to recapitalise Blue Devil onto Gorgon Stare. Orion was the MAGIC air vehicle, designed as a multi-day multi-sensor ISR platform. The family is documented. A specific MH370 operation is still the open question.
Sources
- HASC Report 113-102, 7 June 2013
- USAF PB2014 / PB2015 PE 0305205F
- DODIG-2013-128
Related
645 AESG / BIG SAFARI
USAF rapid acquisition — the office that binds this family
MAGIC
Medium Altitude Global ISR and Communications
Aurora Orion RPA
Twin-diesel MALE UAS · China Lake first flight 24 Aug 2013
Gorgon Stare
BIG SAFARI wide-area surveillance · podded, not MQ-9-only
Blue Devil I / II
Operational Block 1 WAAS + SIGINT · Block 2 residuals to BIG SAFARI
Angel Fire
Wide-area airborne surveillance · lineage into Blue Devil Block 1
A BIG SAFARI collection architecture around MH370
The family is documented. A specific 8 March operation is open.
MH370 / US Military ISR Working Research Report v1
Working paper · 18 September 2026
Gorgon Stare’s podded architecture was designed for more than MQ-9
A specific MH370 collection event is not yet on the record — and is not ruled out
DARPA WAND
Wide Area Network Detection · coincident WAMI + RF