Air and Missile Defense Group to Host Industry Day
With approximately 5,000 commercial, general and military aviation aircraft
flying over the United States at any given time, just keeping track of them
all is a job, but being able to pinpoint a bad actor is the really tough challenge.
According to Capt Rick Easton, deputy director for operations at the Joint
Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO), the key “is to
insure that U.S. airspace is not used as an avenue of attack and to keep aircraft
from becoming weapons or weapons delivery platforms for terrorists.”
A large part of the counter terrorism effort has been focused on air security,
to prevent a repeat of the September 11 attacks. But Barry Fridling, deputy
and technical director of JTAMDO, points out that terrorists can use more than
airliners for an attack. He references a recent news article about a New Zealand
man who is building his own cruise missile. Reuters reported that a New Zealand
handyman “with a passion for jet engines says he is building a cruise
missile in his backyard using parts and technology freely available over the
Internet.”
Obviously, the United States wants to avert another September 11, says Fridling,
“but it doesn’t make sense to ignore the rest of the threats out
there. We have to build a system that can address the full spectrum, from airliners
to unconventional air threats and cruise missiles. And that means the military
and law enforcement have to work hand in glove.”
JTAMDO has been the lead Defense Department agency during the past five years
for joint air defense concepts and cruise missile defense. Following the September
11 attacks, JTAMDO was directed to apply its knowledge and expertise in air
defense, future technologies and joint operations to the homeland air defense
mission.
An Interagency Homeland Security team made up of operational, policy and senior
management representatives from across federal agencies has been working over
the past year and a half to address a host of issues, chief among them the air
surveillance and integration of military and law enforcement operations.
One of the key products from this effort is the Interagency Homeland Security
operational concept. “The IHAS Concept provides a framework for operations
and a common vision on where we want to go in the future,” says Easton.
“Getting all the agencies hands-on involvement in writing the concept
ensured we didn’t miss something critical, but just as importantly, the
day-to-day working environment built new working relationships among agencies
that historically have not had a need to work together.”
To make the IHAS concept a reality “we need the capability to effectively
monitor and control the airspace so that we can distinguish between an inadvertent
pilot deviation and a hostile cruise missile or hijacked airliner, and we have
to do it without shutting down the nation’s air commerce,” says
Rear Adm. Mike Mathis, director of JTAMDO. “We are in a war against terrorism
and our part in that war is to help build the best air security system possible.”
Coordinated law enforcement and military actions, and the efficient flow of
information among the many agencies involved are critical to the successful
execution of the air security mission.
To help develop and mature inter-agency procedures and identify new technologies,
JTAMDO is undertaking a three-year National Capital Region (NCR) demonstration
project under Fridling’s direction. Central themes of the demonstration
are the air surveillance picture, data sharing and communications, intelligence
and decision aids.
“These are areas where current or emerging technologies are expected
to add significant operational value,” says Fridling. Specific areas of
interest for the demonstration are:
- Air surveillance picture of sufficient commonality and quality across the
appropriate agencies is needed to enable the detection of abnormal activities,
and capable of supporting the full range of subsequent decisions and actions.
The air picture must be timely and accurate enough to provide decision makers
with the confidence to make event declarations and interdiction decisions.
- Data sharing and communications should be based on information exchange that
enables voice and data flow among the agencies at the federal, state and local
levels. The goal is to facilitate communication throughout the responding forces
and across the agencies, without relying on a serial relay process from platform-to-platform
or agency-to-agency.
- Intelligence must involve a “push-pull” system among agencies
that ensures all relevant information on terrorist activities is gathered, correlated
and cross-referenced. The goal is early detection to prevent an air attack before
takeoff, or failing that, to provide decision makers with real-time, accurate
information to support decisions on interdiction.
- Decision aids are needed for the automated processing and correlation of flight,
intelligence, and/or law enforcement information/data to provide tactical and
management level personnel with the ability to identify “tracks of interest”
from the 5,000 aircraft in the air at any given time and assist them in determining
its intent, recommend courses of action, projected outcomes and consequences
based on the situation, threat, and response assets available.
A Homeland Air Security Industry Day in September will be an important piece
of the JTAMDO demonstration, says Fridling. The purpose of the industry day
is two-fold. First, to provide industry with an understanding of homeland air
security operations, concepts, and desired capabilities and characteristics
as developed by the Interagency community over the last two years.
Secondly, JTAMDO will be soliciting white papers from industry on technologies
or systems that could be applied to the mission area. JTAMDO is funded through
fiscal year 2006 to conduct a series of demonstrations in the NCR where selected
programs from the Industry Day will be evaluated.
The Homeland Air Security Industry Day is a classified (secret, U.S.-only)
conference being hosted by NDIA on September 10 at the Kossiakoff Center, in
Maryland.
SPAWAR Conference to Focus on FORCEnet
“Architecting and Implementing FORCEnet” is the theme for the seventh
SPAWAR-NDIA Industry Conference in San Diego. The conference, jointly sponsored
by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and NDIA’s San Diego Chapter,
will be held October 23-24 at the Bahia Hotel.
The conference will focus on the challenges of integrating technology to support
the war fighter, according to Chapter President Kathy Sridhar. The conference
will explore the role of FORCEnet in the joint services C4I architecture. Invited
speakers include:
- John Stenbit, assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications
and intelligence.
- Adm. James O. Ellis, commander of the U. S. Strategic Command.
- Adm. E. P. Giambastiani Jr., commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command.
- Lt. Gen. Leslie F. Kenne deputy chief of staff for war-fighting integration
at U.S. Air Force headquarters.
- Maj. Gen. William H. Russ, commanding general of the U.S. Army Communications
Electronics Command.
- Brig. Gen. John R. Thomas, C4I director for the U.S. Marine Corps.
- Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, USN (Ret.), director of the Defense Department’s
Office of Force Transformation.
The conference will conclude with the third annual Fleet Support Awards at
the Conference Banquet.
Additional activities include tours of shipboard and shore facilities that
comprise the FORCEnet C4I infrastructure, the annual Navy League commander’s
conference and the second joint NDIA-San Diego Business Journal Small Business
Forum, “Doing Business with the Defense Industry,” supported by
the San Diego chapter’s small business committee.
Further information and registration is available at http://www.ndia-sd.org/events.
Or contact Pem Smith, publicity director for the San Diego chapter, at (619)
881-8924.
Rolling Thunder: ‘Ride for Freedom’
NDIA members participated in Rolling Thunder’s May 25 Ride for Freedom-XVI-DC
through the nation’s capital. Shown here are (left to right): Retired
Air Force Maj. Gen. George W. Norwood, John Hinson, National Rolling Thunder
President Artie Muller, Bill Post, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, Walt Sides,
Dallas Hale, Eli Rosa and Gary Scheffmeyer. Rolling Thunder Inc. is an organization
of motorcycle enthusiasts who publicize the prisoner of war/missing in action
issue. Norwood, Post and Hale, the president and CEO of Dalcorp Advisory Group,
are NDIA members.
Aberdeen Chapter Update
The Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) Chapter recently was briefed on the NASA
Hubble Space Telescope program. Massimo Stiavelli, of the Space Telescope Science
Institute, reviewed the history, capabilities and successes of the Hubble telescope.
He also presented an overview of the upcoming replacement for the Hubble, the
James Webb Space telescope.
The Webb is an infrared-optimized telescope that can detect heat in addition
to visible light. The primary mirror is six meters in diameter when deployed,
and is made up of several segments that are unfolded and aligned after launch.
The Hubble Space Telescope will be retired in 2010, after 20 years of service.
Hubble has taken in excess of 100,000 astronomical images and has revolutionized
most fields in astronomy. Examples of its main discoveries include black holes
in nearby galaxies, outlining the structure of the universe and detection of
the atmosphere of a planet circling another star.
Stiavelli and his wife Francesca, an astronomer with the Hubble program, traveled
to Harford County as part of NASA’s public outreach effort.
“Opportunities like this allow us to keep the public engaged with space
science, while showing taxpayers where their dollars are being spent,”
Stiavelli explained.
The APG program chairman, Jerry Nook, noted, “Even though the Hubble
itself is not defense oriented, much of the technology utilized by the program
has applications that would be beneficial to the defense industry,” Nook
said.
For more information on the Space Science Telescope Institute, see http://www.stsci.edu/resources/.—Jean
Skillman
Procurement Division Extends Howard H. Cork Award
Stephen S. Kaye, of Bryan Cave LLP, has received the NDIA Procurement Division’s
prestigious Howard H. Cork Memorial Award for 2002. This award—presented
to Kaye in a ceremony earlier this year in Scottsdale, Ariz.—has been
given annually since 1967 to a procurement division member who has devoted extensive
time and energy for the general good of the association, the defense industry
and government. Candidates for the award also must have stature in the defense
community, as well as the respect of their government and non-government associates.
A long-time member of the Procurement Planning Committee, which he chaired
from 1999 to 2001, Kaye is widely known and respected throughout the defense
community.
This year, for only the second time in its history, the Procurement Division
announced that a second Howard H. Cork certificate would be awarded, this one
posthumously, to Roger N. Boyd. A former partner in the law firm of Crowell
& Moring, Boyd served on the Procurement Planning Committee for 17 years.
He died in November 2002.—Ruth W. Franklin
AF ROTC Cadet Wins 2003 Award
Col. William D. Wesselman, commander of Air Force Reserve Officer Training
Corps Detachment 620 at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, presents the 2003
NDIA Award to Cadet Maj. Damion L. Byrd, a 29-year-old-senior of Toledo, Ohio.
(Photo by Cadet 4th Class Dan Moates, AFROTC)