Open architectures are the future for the military\u2019s command and control ground system, and Booz Allen wants to play a big part in designing that future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration has ramped up its focus on space as a war fighting domain with the establishment of the Space Development Agency, the reestablishment of US Space Command and the imminent establishment of a Space Force. While those actions have ignited conversations in the military space community over what new assets the Pentagon needs on orbit and who exactly should be in charge of building and managing them, Booz Allen prefers to look to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSpace operators and space war fighters are going to need to access data and information so that they can make better decisions,\u201d said Chris Bogdan, Booz Allen\u2019s senior vice president in charge of military space activities. Prior to joining Booz Allen, Bogdan served in the Air Force for 34 years and was the program executive office for the F-35. \u201cAnd that means that Booz Allen is going to try and build open architectures for data platforms, for command and control platforms. We\u2019re going to try and protect the networks with our cybersecurity capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the reestablishment of U.S. Space Command and the Air Force\u2019s continued interest in building a common ground system, the company sees plenty of opportunities for building open architecture ground infrastructure for national security space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We prefer to build data platforms that are open architecture, and they\u2019re modular and they\u2019re not proprietary and you can bring in different applications very very easily from many different vendors and you can do that quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bogdan compared the open architecture configuration to an iPhone. While the iPhone software is designed by Apple, it\u2019s built so that non-Apple companies can build hundreds of apps that users can pick and choose from to install onto the platform. Similarly, DoD\u2019s ground systems need to be built with a common framework that multiple vendors can design applications for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That hasn\u2019t exactly been the military\u2019s governing philosophy to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we saw in space over the last 30, 40 years with industry was every satellite constellation had its own command and control system, its own stovepiped data system, its own communication systems and they never linked together. And so DoD got caught in vendor lock. Any time they wanted to upgrade something, any time they wanted to improve something, any time they wanted to make changes, they were stuck with that very same vendor and it took a very long time and it cost a lot of money to upgrade those systems,\u201d explained Bogdan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even if it\u2019s clear that open architecture is the path forward, any new common ground system will have to deal with the fact that there are a significant number of DoD satellite systems with stovepiped architectures. A common ground system with an open architecture will have to be backward compatible with legacy systems built with closed architectures and proprietary software. It\u2019s kind of like asking Sony to build a PS4 that can play video games built for the Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and Game Boy, but a lot harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A prime example of this move to open architectures and a common ground system is the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution, an Air Force project that is being prototyped. FORGE is a new ground system for the Space-Based Infrared System, the United States\u2019 missile detection satellites. As is the case with most military satellite systems, SBIRS was built with a closed architecture that makes updates difficult and prevents the use of third party applications. FORGE will replace SBIRS\u2019 current stovepiped architecture with an open architecture that the Air Force can run new apps on top of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While FORGE is specifically built for SBIRS, Bogdan is clear that it has larger applications than just one satellite system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe FORGE program that we\u2019re competing on right now (…) is one step in that direction,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat the Air Force wants to do is they want to create basically an open architecture ground system foundation that can be replicated with different satellite constellations, because if you build it open and you build it modular and you build it with cybersecurity already built in, now adding the different kinds of applications that you need makes life so much easier. It\u2019s scalable, it\u2019s extensible to new missions, it\u2019s upgradable and it\u2019s a whole lot cheaper than what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Booz Allen was one of four companies selected by the Space Enterprise Consortium to build a FORGE prototype, and Bogdan said he expects a downselect from the remaining three competing companies for that contract around the end of October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chris Bogdan, Booz Allen\u2019s senior vice president in charge of military space activities, explains the company’s approach to ground systems and its work on FORGE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":31908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":35,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"10":{"categories":["space","military-space-report","newsletters","daily-news-roundup"],"primary_category":"space"}}},"categories":[7,106,29,35,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3143],"class_list":["post-27217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-battlefield-tech","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-c2-comms-battlefield-tech","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"3LCUEIX4ZZATPKNLQJBOBKWF6A","arc_canonical_url":"\/battlefield-tech\/c2-comms\/2019\/09\/25\/are-ground-systems-about-to-have-an-open-source-moment\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n