Air Force, Navy, Army and Lockheed Martin Team to Establish C2C, FORCEnet, and AEA Interoperability
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO., February 9th, 2004 -- In an unprecedented step towards Joint interoperability, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army and an industry team led by Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] have begun an initiative to integrate the Air Force Command and Control (C2) Constellation, Navy FORCEnet and Army Enterprise Architecture (AEA). The services will work collaboratively with the Lockheed Martin team to design, implement and test a Joint architecture for time-critical targeting that ties together the military's next-generation, network-centric architectures for the first time.
"Integration begins at the architectural level with the standards and framework that govern how systems work together and exchange information. By recognizing the need to draw an architectural roadmap towards interoperability, all three services have taken a tremendous step towards truly integrated Joint operations in the very near future," said Doug Barton, director of network-centric programs for Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems and Solutions. "To help them reach that goal, we've brought together an industry-wide team that includes Boeing, Raytheon, IBM and L-3 Communications in order to create a truly open, all-inclusive architecture."
The integration is being funded jointly by each of the services. The main contract vehicle is the $3 million contract for C2 Constellation architecture development awarded to the Lockheed Martin team by the Air Force Electronic Systems Command in August of 2003.
The first phase is a projected 6-month effort to define the common standards and business rules that will govern how a vast array of Joint systems and sensors will exchange information in an integrated environment. Once that framework architecture is established, the military and industry team will draw up guidelines for making current and future systems interoperable with the new framework. Because the architecture will be open and largely based on commercial technology, current systems can be quickly and inexpensively "plugged in" to the larger network, and future procurements will have clear, non-proprietary guidelines for developing new systems that will be "born Joint."
The second phase of the effort involves an operational test of the new architecture at the C2 Enterprise Integration Facility, a lab operated by the Air Force Electronic Systems Center. The test will showcase a time-critical targeting scenario involving multiple Air Force and Navy systems and platforms. The goal is to leverage interoperability to accelerate the targeting and execution cycle to single-digit minutes. If the test, scheduled for this summer, is successful, plans call for an expansion of the Joint architecture to other mission areas, such as logistics, planning and battle management.
The initial development effort will tie together Air Force systems, including the Theater Battle Management Core Systems, Airborne Warning and Control System, Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System, and Rivet Joint, with plans to add unmanned platforms such as the Global Hawk and Predator in the near future. The team is currently determining which Naval and Army systems will be integrated.
The new architecture has the potential to not only define technical requirements and standards, but also to help shape doctrine and next-generation concepts of operation. As the team constructs the technical interchanges between key components of the C2 Constellation, FORCEnet and AEA, the Air Force, Navy and Army will also begin to define how the three organizations will interact. Achieving true network-centric operations will require a transformation of both technology and doctrine, explained Barton, which is what makes the military's involvement critical to this effort.
"Two aspects of this effort will be crucial to its success: active collaboration between government and industry; and an open, non-proprietary architecture that any military or industry partner can access and apply to their programs," said Barton. "For a project this expansive, it's critical that everyone on this government-industry team has a role in determining the standards and doctrine that will set the network-centric pathway for the future. We're all focused on one goal: helping the warfighter act with more speed, confidence and precision through the power of an integrated, network-centric battlefield."
The team is also leveraging existing architecture efforts such as the Network-Centric Operations and Warfare Reference Model and Network-Centric Enterprise Services initiative. Both efforts are industry and government partnerships to develop open standards for tomorrow's top-level architectures.
Media Contact: Keith Mordoff, 301-240-5706; e-mail, keith.mordoff@lmco.com
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