One More $ For Global Strike? Gen. Ray Picks Better Data

WASHINGTON: If the commander of the nation’s strategic bomber fleet, Air Force Gen. Timothy Ray, had one extra dollar to spend, it would not be on more B-21 stealth bombers or a faster deployment of new cruise missiles. It would be on data.

“I would spend it on building the best data lake and analytical tools that I could,” Ray, who leads Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) told a Mitchell Institute audience today via videoconference. “That has to be how you leverage some very powerful tools for a small team to do things very strategically.”

Ray said that his command is working very closely with the Space Force on building a service-wide data lake. “The Space Force has done some good work with their data efforts; we’re tied to them. The task in front of us now is to work with each of the wings in the squadrons to make sure that data becomes more consistently organized and, you know, discoverable; and then to work with Headquarters Air Force on some of the programs they run to let that data be more real-time available.”

As Breaking D readers know, then-Air Force Space Command, now Space Force, last summer rolled out a new Enterprise Data Strategy for enabling multi-domain operations, spearheaded by Maj. Gen. Kim Crider. This strategy bounced off the earlier efforts by Crider’s team to develop a Unified Data Library (UDL) that allows space situational awareness data — both classified and unclassified; from DoD and allied and even commercial sources — to be stored in the cloud, and accessed by anyone who needed it at the classification level matching their access level.

The UDL has now morphed into a wider effort to mesh data from all types of sensors across all domains, not just those dedicated to monitoring space, called dataONE. That project is part of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) family of systems being designed to serve as the tech engine for the US military’s high-priority effort to establish Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). 

He said there are three main thrusts where data and data analytics efforts will significantly impact AFGSC operations.

Predictive maintenance: “Where we can actually do the analytic work on which parts are going to timeout, so we can we can make those changes ahead of time.” He said the command is getting “some good help” from Microsoft on this effort.

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR): where the service is building a new model for ISR operations with Strategic Command.

Modernization: using analytics to figure out the best mix of modernization and upgrades to current platforms “to give the best return on investment.”

Ray noted that the development of technologies of JADC2 is intimately tied in with efforts to modernize nuclear command, control and communications (NC3). He explained that NC3 modernization is an evolutionary process, one that must move quickly to take advantage of the pace of technology.

“You’re not going to have some box show up on your desk with a bow on it that says: ‘This is NC3-Next,’ because NC3-Next is going to just be this evolutionary thing,” he said, and the technologies being developed for JADC2 will be highly relevant to that evolution.

Further, he said, getting JADC2 right also will be fundamental to allowing DoD to make choices across all the services on investment, and all the commands on operations, regarding stand-off long-range strike capabilities. As Sydney reported earlier this week, DoD is seeking to buy hundreds of long-range hypersonic weapons as soon as possible, with the Army, Air Force and Navy each pursuing disparate options.

“The first thing in my mind is: how do you build a kill chain for it?  You’ve got to have Joint All-Domain Command and Control, ABMS and a relevant, you know, future scenario. If you don’t have that, you’ll just miss fast,” Ray said.