Scaling for the Department of the Air Force Battle Network
Under its two-year-old Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management (PEO C3BM), the Department of the Air Force has already rolled out foundational aspects to support its Battle Network, including 16 so-called Tactical Operations Center-Light (TOC-L) edge nodes, a cloud-based command and control platform, and a digital infrastructure component.
One of the goals for Fiscal Year 2025 is to scale this foundation, said Maj. Gen. Luke Cropsey, the Department of the Air Force integrating PEO for C3BM and assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Headquarters U.S. Air Force.
“In the last year, we've deployed 16 TOC-L kits out into the field, and right now, the teams are operationally [testing the limits] of them,” Cropsey explained. “They are doing that intentionally so that we can understand better from an operational-use context, what works and what doesn't work. Then we are going to fold that immediately into the next iteration of those kits. And moving into 2025, we're going to get busy pushing them out at scale.”
Cropsey, along with Maj. Gen. Robert Claude, the mobilization assistant to the chief of space operations, and the lead for the Advanced Battle Management System Cross-Functional Team (ABMS CFT), spoke to reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association’s annual AFA conference on September 18.
“The Air Force and the Space Force are moving together down this journey, and we are also integrating our joint partners and coalition allies as well,” Cropsey stated. “A lot of the dialog over the last couple of days has been about integrating—integrating better, integrating faster and integrating more. A lot of that conversation is stemming directly out of the experiences that we have generated over the last two years in trying to do that integration. And not just in a technical sense, but also between acquisition and operational requirements. As we continue to roll out the Battle Network capabilities, we are continuing to look at how we streamline what we are doing and how we scale it faster.”
An enormous undertaking, the Department of the Air Force Battle Network is a system of systems that will connect sensors to shooters, along with logistics systems. It involves the integration of approximately 50 programs of record that provide situational awareness and support operational decision-making for the information advantage needed by the Air Force, Space Force, joint and coalition forces to succeed in great power competition.
To better support its efforts, the Department of the Air Force announced in April the creation of the Air Force Information Dominance Systems Center, which falls under Cropsey’s responsibility.
The center pulls together C3BM, cyber, electronic warfare, information systems and enterprise digital infrastructure. It pulls in the PEO for Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks, revising the portfolio a bit and renaming it to PEO Cyber and Networks.
The Air Force Information Dominance Systems Center also includes PEO Digital—renaming to PEO Electronic Systems—with a revised portfolio, and the PEO for Business Enterprise Systems.
“The PEO realignment piece, that is largely already done,” Cropsey shared. “It is about how we take all the different parts and pieces that are doing command and control (C2) and align them underneath a single PEO. I got all of the C2 intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance work that is being done down at Robins; think distributed, common ground station, extended tether program, integrated broadcast. I got all of the mission planning system work at Hanscom and now have all the work Kessel Run is doing for AOC [Air Operations Center]—as well as the ABMS portfolio.”
C3BM will also realign the Aerial Network Division sometime next summer, Cropsey continued.
“This all translates into a conversation around the Information Dominance Systems Center and the desire to create an end-to-end location in the organization that owns all of the ‘non-kinetic’ side of this business ... This will provide another level of integration that, in some ways, has been missing in the past.”
In the meantime, C3BM’s reliance on the ABMS CFT will remain the same with the creation of the Air Force Information Dominance Systems Center, Claude clarified.
The CFT has greatly helped to inform Battle Network requirements on the operational side. For the last two years, the PEO and the CFT had a continuous, ongoing dynamic interchange together.
“The short answer is that the role will remain the same,” Claude said. “I believe the scope may ebb and flow to kind of match what Luke's expanded responsibilities require, but by and large, I don't see a change. There's no discussion of a changing role.”
As we continue to roll out the Battle Network capabilities, we are continuing to look at how we streamline what we are doing and how we scale it faster.
However, it is the unique combination of Claude’s primary role and his position as the ABMS CFT lead that will help secure necessary space-related integration into the Battle Network.
“I actually work for Gen. Saltzman, the CSO [chief of space operations], in my ‘day job,’ so to speak,” Claude explained. “My secondary role, from that perspective, is to make sure that space integration comes into the ABMS portfolio and ensure that gets represented as well.”
Lastly, in a related measure, the Department of the Air Force awarded its $12.5 billion Enterprise Information Technology as a Service (EITaaS) contract for base infrastructure modernization on August 16, according to a September 17 statement from the 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs at Hanscom.
The landmark award sets the service up for continuous network modernization across the globe.
Twenty-three companies are now under contract, as part of the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity category one service effort. Work will be awarded through individual task orders.
“EITaaS is an Air and Space Force initiative leveraging industry best practices to provide a standardized, innovative and agile information technology service across the Department of the Air Force,” the statement reported. “Base infrastructure modernization modernizes the existing Department of the Air Force base area networks to an as-a-service model.”
The contract will provide continued interoperability with joint network systems, increased access to data for high-bandwidth use cases and support for connections to mission-unique applications, tools and systems, the base specified.
The award includes: ActionNet Inc., Agile Decision Science LLC, Agile Government LLC, AT&T Corp., Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI Inc. – Federal, CDO Technologies Inc., DecisiveInstincts LLC, EPS Corp., General Dynamics Information Technology Inc., GZO Inc., KriaaNet Inc., Leidos Inc., Lumen Technologies Government Solutions Inc., M.C. Dean Inc., Open San Consulting LLC, Q-Tech LLC, SMS Data Products Group Inc., Sumaria Systems LLC, Technica Corp., TekSynap Corp., Telos Corp., TM3 Solutions, Trace Systems Inc., and Tundra Federal LLC. In addition, 34% of the contract value is reserved for small businesses.
