The Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint Stars (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar or JSTARS) is an airborne battle management and command and control platform for ground surveillance, performing a similar role for ground forces that the E-3 AWACS does for air forces. Like E-3, it is based on the Boeing 707/300 series civil airliner but has a canoe-shaped radome under the forward fuselage which houses a powerful phased-array antenna capable of detecting ground targets over an area covering nearly 50,000 km (larger than the size of the Netherlands). Development aircraft were pressed into service at the outbreak of the Gulf War, instantly proving their worth and since then they have been used operationally in recent conflicts such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, providing invaluable data on enemy ground dispositions to US and Allied units.

The origins of the Army/Air Force Joint STARS program began in the early 1980s with a requirement for an aircraft capable of detecting enemy mobile forces beyond forward areas. Work began by Grumman (before its merger with Northrop) in late 1985 on the E-8A development aircraft which were used during the Gulf War and later over Bosnia. Subsequent production units which entered official service one year later are known as the E-8C.