Why do some military aircraft carry two datalink pods? I was taking a look at pictures of the SLAM-ER when I noticed an F/A-18C carrying two AWW-13 datalink pods on its left wing. Why carry a second one? Does it increase signal strength or something?

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-18C_with_SLAM-ER_missile_and_AWW-13_pods_in_flight.jpg
That pic is from &quot;the Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division (NAWCWD)&quot;
So, testing and development.
Possible reasons (purely speculative):

Testing capability/performance from the 2 different wing stations.
Test/compare different software configs in each.
Ferry one to somewhere else.