Gen. Jay Raymond, Space Force chief, stressed that the new digital vision applies not just to service acquisition, but to everything the newest military service does, with a bottom-line goal of speeding decision-making.
"We're doing everything in our power to keep efforts going, because we believe ... it's the right way to help design our future force,"acting Air Force acquisition head Darlene Costello says.
As threats rapidly evolve, digital engineering, manufacturing capacity and robust supply chains are critical to meeting challenges.
Digital engineering. Open software standards. Edge processing. Connectivity. Autonomy. DevSecOps. The buzzwords are flying as defense contractors jockey to tout their respective capabilities as DoD's plans for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) begin to manifest -- and new business opportunities.
The NGAD program "represents a chance to design an airplane that is more sustainable than the F-35, if in fact the F-35 cannot get its cost-per-flying-hour down," said outgoing AF acquisition head Will Roper.
"I think that the hardest part for the Space Force is the challenge of security, and how would we work with small business in enable technologies that you guys have," Maj. Gen. DeAnna Burt says.
By deploying smallsats in LEO, operators and users can continually test, demonstrate, and create new procedures for offensive and defensive counter space while inserting new and emerging technology into mission architectures," Hypergiant CEO Ben Lamm says.
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, head of Air Forces Europe, said allies must be included in JADC2 development: "You can't just bring them in in execution and go: 'Hey we built the plan, so, sorry, just do what we told you."
Roper expects GBSD, B-21 and F-35 to migrate parts of their development to cloudONE as he pushes the Air Force to embrace advanced software practices.