Episode 44: Air Force Engages Industry for New Air Mobility Solutions

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King (SK) 

SME: Gen (Ret) Jackie Van Ovost, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova (JVO) 

Lt Gen (Ret) Rick Moore, Executive Partner at Elara Nova (RM)  

Lt Gen (Ret) Ty Thomas, Executive Partner at Elara Nova (TT) 

00:02 – 01:27 

For over 75 years, the United States Air Force has been able to deploy and sustain forces at a time and place of its choosing, but a series of converging challenges have undermined that ability. Key mobility platforms like the C-5 and C-17 are aging, parts are harder to come by and the long legs required to cover the Pacific theater consume flight hours faster, shortening the time between maintenance cycles. Meanwhile, integrating new capabilities to outpace an accelerating threat demands additional downtime the fleet can ill afford. 

In response, the Air Force has initiated two efforts set against ambitious timelines. In June, the Air Force published a Request for Information to acquire a Next-Generation Airlift (or NGAL) platform to replace both the C-5 and C-17. At the same time, the Air Force is putting funds toward a new research and development program, Large Aircraft Survivability Systems (or LASS) to equip airlifters and aerial refuelers with their own defensive weapon systems. 

Welcome to The Elara Edge! We have three guests today, here to discuss these efforts to revitalize and modernize the Air Force’s mobility fleet. First, we have retired General Jackie Van Ovost, a Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova and the former Commander of Air Force Mobility Command and U.S. Transportation Command. 

Ma’am, welcome to the show!

01:27 – 01:29  

(JVO): Thanks. Great to be here. 

01:29 – 01:41 

(SK): Also joining us is retired Lieutenant General Rick Moore. Now an Executive Partner at Elara Nova, General Moore retired as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs at U.S. Air Force Headquarters.  

Sir, welcome to the show! 

01:42 – 01:43 

(RM): Thanks, Scott. Appreciate the invite.  

01:44 – 01:59 

(SK): And then we have retired Lieutenant General Jon “Ty” Thomas. General Thomas is also an Executive Partner at Elara Nova, and previously served as the Deputy Commander of Air Mobility Command and Pacific Air Forces.  

Sir, thanks for taking the time to join us today! 

02:00 – 02:01 

(TT): Happy to be here, Scott.  

02:02 – 02:22 

(SK): Let’s start today’s discussion with the Air Force’s RFI for a Next Generation Airlift platform, or NGAL. The primary mobility platforms the Air Force uses for its airlift mission is currently the C-5 and C-17.  

But what is the current status of those airlifters? And how has the threat landscape evolved to prompt the Air Force to put forward this RFI?

02:23 – 03:37 

(RM): Yeah. So the C-5M fleet is a little bit challenged these days. The mission capable rate is in the high 30s. Right now, it’s about 37%. Without giving a specific number, the plans call for something dramatically higher than that, which means that the amount of C-5 capability and capacity that TRANSCOM counts on – it’s not there. 

The C-17 fleet is faring a pretty good bit better. The C-17 MC rate is in the mid 70s. Right now it’s about 75%. That’s down about 7% from pre-COVID. And the C-17 MC rate seems to kind of be drifting down by about 1% a year. As the fleet ages, more parts get obsolete, it becomes more difficult to keep the supply chain intact as just technology leaves the C-17 behind. 

So the plan from Air Mobility Command that you see in the Request for Information is for a single airplane to replace both of those. The C-5 replacements will start in about 2050, and the C-17 replacements should finish by about 2075. The plan is to have Next Gen Airlifter ready to fly by 2038, and initial operational capability by 2041. 

That is quite far away if you consider that the C-5 now are languishing in the high 30s for mission capable rate. 

03:38 – 04:57 

(JVO): When we think about our ability to maneuver anywhere in the world and sustain operations for the joint force, the first thing you think about is air mobility. 

Now, we have a lot of great other modal capabilities with sea and land. But I tell you, when I think about our most consequential theater in the Pacific, it is an air and sea fight. And we do not have the capabilities for airfields and road networks and even sea networks, if you will, and river networks that we had even in Europe. 

So we cannot execute our national strategy without this capability. So it is critical that we spend the time to analyze what is the real requirement of the transformed force for maneuver and sustainment, and how are we going to supply that?

There are some great movement trying to get some funding for parts and sustainment to resurrect these airplanes and get them higher. But the bottom line is: this is the consequence of an aging fleet, the consequence of not recapping early and the consequence of old technology. 

We’ll have an opportunity to talk about software and software defined and agile updates. But when we look at the declining MC rates, it is way too far out there. We just do not have a coherent strategy to get us, even if we can meet these accelerated timelines for the Next Generation Airlift.  

04:58 – 05:35 

(RM): Yeah and Scott you asked about how the threat landscape has evolved and how that impacts the air mobility fleet. We’ve been at war in the desert for 35 years now. We have not yet had to contend with contested lines of logistics. We’ve been able to move everything to and through Europe and on to the Middle East without our supply lines being contested. 

That will almost assuredly not be the case in the event we find ourselves in conflict in the Pacific. The air mobility fleet that we have today is designed to protect itself from some threats, but its ability to to handle itself with truly contested supply supply lines – it’s just not there. 

05:36 – 05:53 

(TT): Scott, the one thought that I would add that comes to mind is so we remember our 21st chief of staff who used to talk about mobility as like oxygen. When you’re breathing, it’s there and you never even think about it until you don’t have it and then that’s all you think about. That’s what mobility is for and what it does.  

05:54 – 06:01 

(SK): And so how will the NGAL, as a single platform, be a solution for replacing both the C-5 and C-17? 

06:02 – 07:00 

(RM): I think you’re going to find that a single platform to replace the C-17 and the C-5 is likely to look a lot more like a C-17 than a C-5. And if you consider the distances that we have to operate over in the Pacific, the RFI called for just a marginal increase in range over the C-17. Then I think when you start looking at numbers: 274 airplanes is about what the RFI envisions to replace an equal-sized fleet, 222 C-17s and 52 C-5s. 

I think you’re going to be challenged with an airplane with a similar cargo box to the C-17. Marginally more range to equal what we have in the two fleets today. The one thing that is the equalizer is the mission capable rate of the C-5. If you can have an airplane with a high mission capable rate, you can probably be okay there. 

But the Pacific is a remarkably challenging environment to operate in. There are a few alternates. The legs are really, really long and the requirement for lift is really high.

07:01 – 08:19 

(JVO): Can I add that US TRANSCOM does something called a Mobility Capability Requirement Study (MCRS), and that is being refreshed right now. And some of these requirements from the RFI look a lot like MCRS-16 in 2016. 

You’re at 160,000 pounds, which is roughly when you think about maxing out a pallet at 10,000 pounds. You know, it’s 16 pounds pallets. C-17 has 18 and that 2500 nautical mile unrefueled range. And as we refresh the MCRS, we have to have a better understanding of what the joint force is going to be using. The entire joint force is transforming to do distributed operations. 

So the 160,000 and the double-wide sounds like heavy armor. And we just need to make sure that as we’re moving munitions, moving drones and other things, that we’re actually creating a box and a capability that’s going to move that most effectively and provide options to the Combatant Commander. So I am looking forward to the MCRS as it develops out – and that’s a classified study. 

But there should be some work done with industry to understand what the capabilities are and what the services to see what they’re developing and their concepts of operations out into the future.  

08:20 – 08:37 

(SK): Thank you, Ma’am. Now at the time of the RFI’s release, Air Force leaders indicated an opennes to having NGAL as a crewed or uncrewed platform. Or in other words, fully autonomous.  

What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using autonomous technologies for the airlift mission? 

08:38 – 09:39 

(JVO): From the COCOM perspective, I would say that autonomous capabilities are part of the mobility enterprise and must be.  

It gives us an option in the fight to make a decision, like if this is optionally crewed to to not use a crew going forward for a particular hazard that’s out there. That said, these are not attritable airplanes, so we still have to have some defensive capability and the C2 architecture to support even autonomous airplanes like NGAL at that level is totally separate when you’re talking about something that’s moving 1,000 pounds. 

But when you’re looking at NGAL, it’s really not meant to be attritable. So it does provide options. And we want to be able to get an airplane into a higher threat region without and do the mission when it makes sense from an autonomous standpoint. 

Certainly, of course additional reps and sets. You could fly the airplane longer. You don’t have the crew. Not only are you not concerned about crew safety, but I’m not concerned about running them dry or running on a crew duty day. So you have more use out of it, but you want to use it in that capability when it makes the most sense. 

09:40 – 10:26 

(TT): Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that they’re calling for that in the RFI. I mean, to some extent, though, especially the term optional, it almost puts you in the worst of all worlds in the sense that you’ve got to make design provisions for a full up crew, and that costs you weight, that costs you payload, that costs you fuel, costs you all kinds of things in the design of the aircraft while also needing to provision for the aircraft to operate autonomously with the digital backbone and all of the things that we have now with modern aircraft, it you should be able to insert that in.  

But to be able to have both is going to increase the cost of the aircraft. And we should, carefully examine: do we need to have all that optionality? Industry will come back and say this is how you can do it. Ultimately it’s going to become a design requirement or not, and then that’ll drive trade-offs that occur.

10:27 – 11:06 

(RM): We typically think of grey tails as cargo aircraft. But if you get into competition and then into conflict, gray tails, maybe the only way that you have to get troops all the way forward in the battle and an autonomous cargo aircraft there probably is a pretty fair amount of appetite for that. 

When you start putting people on it and you start talking about moving passengers, even combat troops in an autonomous aircraft, I’m not sure we’re quite there yet that we’re willing to put a couple hundred folks on an airplane and send them off into the night without some folks in the cockpit that can recover if something goes wrong.  

If nothing goes wrong, everything’s fine. But as soon as something does, then you have the potential for a very serious problem.  

11:07 – 11:19 

(SK): And General Thomas, given the cost challenges you mentioned, can you walk us through how an innovative concept like NGAL could be realistically funded and sustained – particularly in a congressional environment where continuing resolutions have become the norm? 

11:20 – 13:42 

(TT): Well, maybe I’ll build it up this way and just kind of get to a number. And I’ll start with Rick did a great job of laying out what’s in the recapitalization memo. Kind of the dates, key milestones at 2038, 2041, 2075. So if you look at that and if you just kind of set aside the front end developmental costs, which are consequential and big, but we can come back to that. 

Starting with FY26 dollars, it’s probably an all up cost of an NGAL. I would argue about $350 million. That’s not just the airframe itself. That’s all the spares. That’s ground support equipment, that’s training systems. All the things to actually like this is a machine that’s a fielded capability, that’s got all the things that are necessary to last for the decades that we’re going to expect to do it. 

Okay. So maybe you get a couple aircraft out of the developmental program and then your first squadron, let’s say Jackie’s successor says IOC is going to be one squadron of 12 airplanes. Okay. So you get to that at 2041. And then basically you’re making those airplanes all the way through about 2068 or so. And it’s about ten airplanes a year.  

So it’s $3.5 billion FY26 a year. This is a $100 billion aircraft production program just in and of itself. If you push the developmental cost there in front of it, I venture it’s probably a $20 billion developmental program. If this is a full clean sheet design, not based on any commercial derivative or a modification of existing military assets. 

And then you go back to what is life like in building a program and then defending it with OSD and then getting it over through the gates and the Hill to end up in an appropriation. This is going to scream having a multi-year. That would be the only way that you can have assurance that a program of this length, when it’s recapping at only ten airplanes a year is going to have the continuity that it requires. 

And actually, if I’m in industry, ten airplanes a year is a really low rate. 12 airplanes minimum? Companies that are building tankers right now would like to go from the existing 15 to 18 or 24 because they know the efficiencies on the line that come from the higher production rates. 

So to me, that’s just kind of the basic math. And there’s going to have to be a long  commitment that locks in funds in the Air Force generally doesn’t like to do that if they don’t have to, because you want to maintain that budget flexibility because the programmer always has to create offsets.  

13:43 – 15:12 

(RM): I agree absolutely with Ty’s assessment. An optionally manned aircraft – that’s a marginal cost that you’re talking about. It’s not a question about whether that can fit in the budget. The highest risk for the NGAL program overall is the time when C-5 and C-17s are still flying and NGAL is in development. $20 billion is about what we spent on C-17 development in the late 80s. 

And so development costs could actually be fairly substantially higher than that. Trying to fit all of that in the budget, that’s the highest risk to the program. If you wanted to de-risk the program, you would look outside the Air Force to see what kind of capacity absorbers are out there, so that you could start to bring the C-5 fleet down before NGAL starts to deliver, or certainly not a one-for-one tail replacement. 

If the requirement is that NGAL and C-5 and then C-17 have to shake hands with each other one-for-one replacement, I think there’s great risk that that won’t even fit in the budget. You’ve got to find a way to bring down that spike of non-recurring engineering, NRE and C-17 ops and C-5 ops. 

And if you’re going to start to bring the C-5 fleet down, we spend about a billion and a quarter dollars a year on C-5s. The real money is in the depot. It’s not in the airplanes. So what you have to do is figure out how you can let the fleet degrade gracefully without a depot, and let that be a shock absorber for the NRE for NGAL. 

Then you have to use outside capacity to fill in the gap. Otherwise, I’m not convinced that NGAL actually fits in the Air Force budget.

15:13 – 16:59 

(JVO): Absolutely, spot on for both of them. That bridge strategy is critical. There is no funding to bring the C-5 back up to where it needs to be. That really should be critically looked at. And what commercial capability is out there? What are we actually using the airplanes for?  

As we remember during Afghanistan, we really focused on the C-17 in theater, and we use the C-5 around the globe to clean up issues. It performed well, but it still didn’t perform at the level that we had expected after we did that major modification to the airplanes, we made the revised C-5M. 

Let me also go back to what Ty talked about with the respect to the acquisition strategy. Yeah, I would say more than 20 billion because of what we’re trying to do here and it is a clean sheet so far. There are some other thoughts about C-17s but pretty much just a clean sheet if you’re going to walk away from a tube and wing. But how we do it right? We all think, oh, it’s the magic button. Is it OTAs or using new acquisition strategies? 

You know, maybe there’s a tweener out there where we can accelerate the development through another strategy. But that would take a handshake with industry certainly, and partnerships and consortiums to probably do that. And then, yes, we expect that when you have a hot production line that you can get efficiencies by accelerating it. 

We see at a smaller level here with munitions and whatnot that we just some of the capacity issues, the materials issues, the second and third tier supplier issues, may be what really stops us from putting out something more than ten a year. And that’s what we absolutely have to do that.  

And I agree a multi-year strategy. And you’re seeing it more with this administration really understanding we have to have a commitment to industry so that they will invest in what it takes, automation, the materials to produce faster so that we can get a better copy – one – and two – reduced risk on the bridge strategy.

17:00 – 17:12 

(SK): Say the Air Force is able to overcome these budgetary challenges and deliver NGAL on these ambitious timelines with all the funding required: what would that NGAL capability look like in a theoretical future fight in the Pacific?  

17:13 – 19:24 

(JVO): The Pacific theater is the most operationally restrictive theater that we deal with. Whereas Europe is land and air, the Pacific is air and sea, and we just do not have the nodes, the multi-modal routes that we’ve defined over the years and years of dealing with NATO and then the logistics depth in Europe, and frankly, even in the Middle East right now, than what we what we have right now in the Pacific. 

So I would say that as we’ve been talking about it as a huge theater. The challenge is not just distance. It is the logistics depth across that theater that really can bite us. And when I think about the 2500 unrefueled distance, certainly you can get from northern Australia to most of the first and second island chain, certainly from Japan down to the first and second chain. 

We start talking about Alaska and Hawaii and the Konas. It’s going to require augmentation by tankers or some sort of a cross-load strategy with our commercial partners. And certainly we’re going to be depending on our allies and partners. They have some of the depth for what they need, but not for a major theater fight and that’s what we really have to be looking hard at. 

So it’s not just an NGAL, it is the mobility enterprise system, which is air, land and sea. And we’re going to have to depend more on intra-theater sealift. So we’d have to resurrect some of the capabilities we have or use as a service with our commercial partners or joint ventures out into the Pacific.   

I’m hoping that the MCRS that TRANSCOM is working on is going to help develop some of those concepts and put pressure on the services to deliver all of those capabilities so that the entire enterprise, which also has to be C2 fuzed in sensors and see the entire picture, that’s air land and sea mobilization capability, that they’re all together so that we can have options to move across different modes to meet the requirements.  

And we’re going to use NGAL for what NGAL can exclusively do, which is that high threat area. And then we’re going to use all the rest of the capabilities so that we can keep NGAL focused on what it does best. 

19:25 – 19:47 

(RM): It’s interesting that the range at 2500 nautical miles, it’s only 100 miles more than the C-17. The question is, does the NGAL design under this RFI drive a tanker requirement that we would like to engineer ourselves out of?  

There could be an opportunity here to reduce the requirement for tankers based on the design of NGAL, but I don’t see that that’s what the RFI intends. 

19:48 – 22:31 

(TT): And I would submit that this is no longer unique to the Pacific, although we’ve traditionally focused on the Pacific and this is in a combat environment: it’s getting off the X. But getting off the X in the CENTCOM AOR is important right now. And getting off the X in Europe is going to be really important if we ever get down to it over there. So there’s part of it in the RFI that gets to an element of getting off the X, which is the ability to upload and download cargo and passengers without any support equipment. So that’s going to have to be a fundamental requirement. So good on the RFI for capturing that. 

There’s a couple of things as I went back through it that puzzled me a little bit. The first one is there’s actually no question that asks about receiver AR capability on the NGAL. Maybe that was intentional. I’m not sure. But I would think that particularly for the Pacific, NGAL is going to need to be able to receive fuel from a tanker. 

There are other mission sets, by the way, where we’ve had to move people across the world or things across the world, and there was no stop between where it started and somewhere in the United States of America. And NGAL is going to need to be able to do that. So I think receiver refueling is maybe a critical miss in the RFI. 

The second one is the RFI talks about defensive systems, but that’s actually one of the most troubling things because it immediately goes to, ‘What are the things that are on the airplane that could handle some kind of engagement, whether it’s a terminal airfield or maybe something in the air?’ But the question I would submit that we need to be asking is: what is the signature management approach of the system? Of the aircraft as a platform and how it interfaces with the system as we have it?  

 There’s lots of ways to manage signature. We have historically struggled with focusing first on the platform and its RF signature in response to an active RF sensor that is merely just one part of it. So maybe we’ll get to that. Maybe that’ll become part of the industry discussions. But because if the opponent never finds you or struggles to find you, they’re not going to necessarily be able to target you. And if we can do that and pull it to the left, we’re going to be winning.  

The last one is a little bit more mundane, and it’s not necessarily related to getting off the X, but I think it’s particularly important going back to the long term: how do you have this system in our Air Force? 

And there was no question about aircrew and maintenance training systems, which will be a critical part. And the OEM has to bring that – it can be followed up and maybe provided to the services itself by somebody else. But putting thought right at the front-end to the air crew and maintenance training systems is going to be an important part of NGAL. 

But going back to the Pacific, we got to get off the X, we got to get off the X everywhere in a time of conflict. And there’s a few things that are worth talking about that aren’t in there.  

22:32 – 23:13 

(SK): During this same period of time, the Air Force has requested and put funding toward a new research and development program, Large Aircraft Survivability Systems, which would explore defensive weapon systems for air-refuelers and airlifters.  

Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee has also formally adopted language in the FY 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, requiring the Air Force to report on its plan to field LASS by 2031, explicitly stating Operation Midnight Hammer as proof that air-refuelers require some sort of defense mechanism. 

General Moore, if you wouldn’t mind starting us off with this one, why is the Air Force taking a revitalized approach to “survivability” for these larger aircraft? 

3:14 – 24:06 

(RM): I think it’s particularly important as you start looking at logistics over contested supply lines, you have to make sure that your airlift fleet is survivable. As Jackie said in the first part, these are not going to be attritable aircraft. Every single one of them that’s lost, is the loss of a national treasure. 

And certainly LASS is one way to think about large aircraft survivability. I would also add that one of the things that Air Mobility Command is looking really hard at is the survivability feature is connectivity. One of the things that you can do with a large aircraft is at least let them know where the threat is and what they need to do in order to avoid it and that’s kind of the first step.  

LASS then comes in or large aircraft infrared countermeasures. LARICM on the fleets that we have now, those come in in the event that that doesn’t work. But I think the first step is actually connectivity, so that you don’t get yourself in a situation where you have to use LARICM or LASS.

24:07 – 25:53 

(JVO): Scott, as Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury have shown that tankers and the airlift, tactical and strategic, are all vulnerable to air-to-air and air-to-ground. Obviously, we’ve seen some reports of battle damage out there, so we absolutely have to plan for, as the name Large Aircraft Survivability Systems portends, we actually need systems that are interoperable for defensive, and we need it not to be a single point system. 

It’s got to be much like: this is a kill web with sensors from space and airplanes and effectors that can come from different locations. We have to have a defensive web in layers around both types of airplanes. As Rick mentioned earlier, there is some defensive capability on C-17s, but that’s not the type of weapon that is really the reigning weapon right now. 

So we have to think about kinetic and non-kinetic and layered. And that’s what LASS looks at on the layered side. Ideally, you have CCAs that are out in front or drones that are out in front that are providing a layer for not just a tanker or an airlift, but for all aircraft followed by sensors on board that can see everything that to alert the crew to scram if they have to, or to maneuver to reduce the threat or reduce the signature, followed by electronic warfare capability, followed by a last chance kinetic effector. 

And does that have to come from that airplane? It all depends. But it’s a layered effect to get after the web because these are not single shot issues anymore. This is a complex web multi-domain, and we have to defeat that multi-domain threat both for airlift and tankers. 

25:54 – 27:13 

(TT): Scott the the only thing that I would add as well and it goes back to like thinking of this as a holistic system. And Jackie just laid out a really coherent: what’s it going to take particularly oriented on the high value airborne asset? Because it’s exactly right. It’s just as important for the rivet joints and if it ends up being an E-7 or whatever it is, the various other platforms, but it’s also the rest of the assets in the joint fight. 

So it really got my attention as a mobility airman, actually, when we just became public that there’s a few air-to-air weapons with a stick of 250 nautical miles plus now in our inventory. Red has to respect that. So when red is forced to respect that, just like they’re trying to push us back, that’s pushing them back as well. 

That’s winning for us in large aircraft survivability. You got to have the sensing, you got to be able to close your own kill chain on the red assets. But all of that works together. There’s no sole mobility solution. There’s no sole combat Air Force solution that fits into this. It’s all of it together that counters the red threat, enhances our survivability, lets us do the mission. 

And as long as there’s an Air Force and as a joint force, we’re thinking it through that way, we’ll find the right solution. So LASS is a piece of something that’s really much larger and has to be pulled together all the way through it. 

27:14 – 27:32 

(SK): The Air Force has requested to fund the LASS program to the tune of $508 million, and so far four different industry partners have been contracted to take part in the study. 

But what is the role of industry studies like this, particularly as the Air Force looks to develop novel and innovative capabilities necessary for the future fight?

27:33 – 28:16 

(RM): So we saw with Collaborative Combat Aircraft that the Air Force took a different approach than we’ve taken before. Rather than define a requirement and pass it to industry and ask them to build to the requirement. We asked industry what would be possible if we gave them the opportunity to build CCAs and let them come back with what their thoughts were. 

These industry studies are part of the way we’re letting that happen right now, rather than developing a requirement, which, by the way, invariably leads to technology that’s been available for quite some time. I suppose that’s not always the case, but that tends to be what happens. If we ask industry a question and give them a chance to do some studies and come back with an answer that wasn’t already predefined, the chances that we get something truly innovative are actually pretty high.

28:17 – 29:27 

(JVO): Yeah, I would say that how we used to treat studies and now how we treat studies are really different? A decade and a half ago, we were looking at kinetic effects for defense on large aircraft. But study after study that we didn’t get very far. We didn’t drop a requirement down. We didn’t fund it.  

There was some thought on test for a small weapon, but we never got there. And now, clearly the operations are showing that we have to have it and we need it soon. So when Congress said, ‘Hey, show me a plan, they must have been thinking, ‘You know, I haven’t seen a plan.’ 

Or maybe the briefs that they got that were unsatisfying. And that’s going to add a little pressure to ‘What’s the plan?’ But we have to have resources for the plan. And the amount of resources does not seem like it’s going to be enough for the fleet. And that’s just, I mean, LASS starts with tankers, but it is like you mentioned, this is about all heavy airplanes we need that effect for C-17 as part of the bridge strategy to 2075. You know, in 2040, the multi-domain threat, the kill webs that are out there are very complex and we have got to have a capability by then that addresses the complexity of that web.

29:28 – 30:16 

(TT): Yeah. Scott on that my comment would be 500 million is a drop in the bucket. If you’re talking about fielding some type of endgame effector on the mobility platform, if that’s the number that you end up with, I’d much rather see industry be asked for options to. Rick touched on it and they’re moving out on it with [sic]. But increased connectivity to the platform, increase the situational awareness of the crew as well as the C2 system that’s supporting it, and then manage the signature in ways which are mostly passive. 

You can do that less expensive than hanging things on the airplane that have to go out and go boom. If we approach it maybe in that order, which is increase situational awareness, understanding connectivity and then reduce signatures through passive means, we can make a lot of progress within a smaller budget. 

30:17 – 30:32 

(SK): And to continue on the thread of budget constraints – what opportunities  exist for the Air Force and its industry partners to incorporate or leverage private capital to either facilitate additional funding or offset some of these costs in order to deliver these capabilities into our Airmen’s hands? 

30:33 – 31:38 

(RM): I think probably the most powerful way that that’s happening right now at large scale is the Office of Strategic Capital. And they have the authority to put out something like $250 billion of guaranteed loans. That is, in my opinion, the most profound impact on the requirement for research and development to be funded by the government. 

It still takes time. You can’t rush the engineering and you can’t necessarily buy your way out of it. But what you’re seeing is the current administration. They understand private capital. They understand how to leverage it. It’s important to them. The Dep SecWar has said he would like to see something between one third and two thirds of the development costs of new things that are coming to the department funded by industry. 

When you get into some niche capabilities that aren’t used universally and there’s no commercial application for them, like LASS, you have a little bit more difficulty. But if you’re looking at something like simply airlift capacity, then you can see that there’s applicability outside the DOW you have dual-use capability. And then I think that’s a place where the Office of Strategic Capital can come in and make a really big difference.

31:39 – 32:57 

(JVO): Absolutely. What Rick was saying that the dual use potential for components for airlift and tankers that we can use for efficiency and effectiveness. And for C2, as airlines, they see to their forces. Well, they see in transit visibility of the stuff that’s moving around that they’re moving around. And they’ve been very effective with that.  

And frankly, all the way out to doing autonomous operations and dropping packages, we could learn and use a lot of that to leverage as much of that as possible into the system and leave as minimal as possible for the military requirement. But there’s no doubt the military requirement is not an easy one to address. 

Although when you think about what is different between a C-17 and an F-35 on some of the systems that it uses to understand itself, to sense and whatnot. So there are some components there that we could use from across, not just us, by the way, but our allies and partners who are willing to go there. And then on the allies and partners side, obviously, if we have capability that we need to be interoperable with them.

And that’s just not the airplanes themselves in the C2 piece, but the offload and unload, the minimum MHE or minimum handling equipment, minimum people doing servicing on the ground, but also flat out selling those and being able to scale that way and reduce the unit cost for the aircraft that we’re going to be buying. 

32:58 – 33:37 

(TT): Two words that I think is what attracts private capital. Intellectual property rights. Okay. So if you’re going to make an investment you’ve got to own the rights. The government may have its own unlimited rights, but you’ve got to have the rights to be able to use it as you see fit. And it’s an assumption like Rick made on his first comment that there’s a market out there for you to use that intellectual property, right?

And then the other one is run rate. Okay. So what’s the demand? So out there is a government man that’s going to manifest as a commercial demand that’s going to manifest? But if you’re going to bring capital to bear, you’ve got to know that there is good confidence, not 100%, that you’re going to get a return and a decent return. And if you don’t see it, you’re not going to bring it. Those two. 

33:38 – 34:59 

(RM): We mentioned continuing resolution before, but we didn’t spend too much time on it. But continuing resolution is probably the biggest threat to defense modernization that’s out there. On average, we spend four months out of every year in continuing resolution. Essentially, we’re giving the Chinese four months of head start every single year because we’re waiting for an appropriation to come to the Department of War. It’s truly challenging.  

 First of all, in a time when defense budgets are going up, typically continuing resolution is based on last year’s budget, and usually it’s something like 80% of last year’s budget. But if the budget was accelerating, then you don’t feel any of that acceleration until the continuing resolution is replaced by an appropriation. And continuing resolutions almost always include a provision that there can be no new starts. That means you can’t start a new program, and it also means you can’t transition from research and development into procurement for most programs that are out there, which means you just have to wait until it’s over. 

And this is why I say we’re giving away four months of modernization space every single year. Continuing resolutions also include multiple provisions for things that would be automatic in a normal appropriation cycle that have to be individually approved under the continuing resolution. And it’s just become completely commonplace. But it is a dramatic damper on the ability to move quickly with respect to defense modernization. 

35:00 – 35:10 

(SK): And what are some of the challenges that industry leaders might be facing that the U.S. government might not be aware of? And in what ways should the government be engaging those industry partners to get in front of those seen or unseen hurdles? 

35:11 – 36:03 

(RM): I think with NGAL, a particular hurdle for industry is going to be the timeline that we think this is going to happen on. I think having a first flight by 2038, the RFI is on the street in FY26, but there’s not even money for analysis of alternatives in 26. There is $8.9 million in 27 if it makes it through the appropriations process. After a continuing resolution, because it’s new money.  

But I mean, just if you look at what it takes to actually get things like this moving, I don’t see that there’s going to be a first flight by 2038. I don’t see that industry can cross that rubicon. If we were doing a commercial derivative, that would still be challenging to meet. I don’t see with a fresh design, a clean sheet design that there’s any way that’s going to happen.  

With LASS, it’s great that the House asked for a plan to put this in place by 2031. I just don’t see that. I don’t see that being feasible. I don’t see that it can happen that quickly. I don’t think industry can get over that hurdle. 

36:03 – 37:33 

(TT): There’s either some assumption on the part of the writers of the RFI and the recapitalization memo that we don’t know, or there’s a little pixie dust laid in there, and it’s probably the latter. What I would add on this one is particular to NGAL.  

If you go on the website the Sam.gov and there’s industry questions and one of the industry questions was about airworthiness and certification and what I would offer to industry and to the Air Force as well is that: unless you must, like there’s no alternative unless to get civil certification. Don’t. Don’t attempt it. The reason why is not because anybody on either side is necessarily so much better than one or the other. The incentives are different.  

So for the FAA, for our civil regulatory authority, their incentives are for safety. So is ours on the military. But on the military, there are also other incentives, other mission imperatives that that airworthiness authority has to take into account. And so what you end up getting is it just is simply a different approach. 

Neither one is right nor wrong. But if you are building a machine to go to the places and do the things that we’ve talked about in this call – that calls for military airworthiness. Unless you’re starting with a civil already type certified design. And I can just tell you a little bit about this, because right now I’m in a world where we’re flying a military designed aircraft with no type certification and attempting to have a civil airworthiness certificate. 

This is not easy, so I would suggest not attempting to do it from the very beginning unless you have to. 

37:34 – 38:51 

(JVO): Well taken, right? I’ve been in that world as well, that if you do propose something that for the military and you can get data off of that for future FAA certification for civilian cargo or passenger movement or using the airplanes for something else, then there may be a lot of data, but that has to be mapped out early. 

And so I’m hoping that digital twinning will show the difference against the FAA certification requirements versus what we’re trying to do in the mil-standard to support safe military operations.  

I’d also add that requirements change. I have yet to see a large airplane that didn’t have some requirements change. Even in the B-21. There may be some requirements changes there. And it’s been very successful, don’t get me wrong, but we don’t yet have an updated what the joint force needs given the environment, how we’re going to fight, which is really radically different than what we did even 15 years ago. 

So I would look to see and partner with TRANSCOM on the MCRS and the services to try to get a better understanding of how we’re doing it. We’ve published things on distributed operations, but what’s the final thing that we’re trying to do? And work with us on that and focus those industry studies on the areas that are the deltas that they’re out there.

38:52 – 39:04 

(SK): Now, we’ve discussed two separate, but tangential efforts today in NGAL and LASS, both of which have pretty ambitious timelines set against them.  

What do you see as the common thread that ties these two efforts together? 

39:05 – 40:11 

(JVO): So let me just start at the strategic level. These are not platform programs per se. I talked about the enterprise. They are real statement and an urgency associated with this because we want to maintain the ability to deploy and sustain forces around the globe at a time and place of our choosing. 

We have been doing that for 75 years and we’ve not had an issue. We now have an issue. The environment has changed. And this is not a future problem. This is a today problem. That’s why that bridge strategy is so important. Timelines are a little questionable. 

And I think that we have to look at risk over time and risk to the strategies that we’re saying we’re going to use out in the Pacific and around the globe, frankly, when it deals in denied environments. So we need to have these systems, whatever it is, whether it’s an actual platform or its software that all has to be interoperable.

We have to have sensors everywhere. The information has to be integrated for the joint force so that we can see and react to how the joint force is morphing around the globe. And that includes, the use of drones, and how we’re using that data to ensure we can do the mission of deployment and sustainment. 

40:12 – 40:38 

(RM): So I think you have to look at two things here. I think you have to look at what the Air Force is studying and looking at, and what they’ve actually committed to do in the budget. You can see with both of these that there’s a commitment to a study and there’s a commitment to exploration, but with neither of them is there a commitment to procurement and installation. 

So I think it’s obvious that we’ve acknowledged that there’s a battlefield that we’re not prepared to fight on necessarily. But I don’t see that we’ve acknowledged that we’re going to make that become true. 

40:39 – 41:27 

(TT): Yeah. And that presents to industry a gigantic risk, because the Air Force and Air Mobility Command, in particular, has asked repeatedly: invest your time and effort into answering these RFIs or participating in this AOA or fill in the blank, and those don’t come for free. You know, it’s not the same as a capital investment in setting up a production line and so on and so forth. 

But the Air Force has to show that it is serious about this problem that Jackie identified is not optional. This is a problem that has to be solved, should have been solved in the past, needs to be solved now. But the way that you’re going to convince industry to dig in and commit more resources is to first show that the government is serious about it. And with a couple of the other things we talk about, about what incentivizes private capital, I think it could be done. But it has to start at the beginning.  

41:28 – 41:44 

(SK): Now, each of you represent Elara Nova in different capacities as part of its Aeronautics & Mission Systems sector. How does Elara Nova and its AMS team in particular, fit into this ecosystem at a time when the Air Force has set lofty goals, set against ambitious targets for its mobility fleet? 

41:45 – 43:05 

(TT): I’ll hop on that one first. I mean, in this case helping the government on the front end. Like for example, this RFI, I don’t know if they asked somebody to come help that was outside what used to be building 1600, I don’t think they moved back into it at Scott Air Force Base. If they didn’t, that was a swing and a miss.  

If they did, then great. Congratulations and good job. Keep doing it. But there’s a lot of talent and industry experience that could be just brought into, ‘Hey did you consider this?’ That makes the RFI better, makes the RFP better quite frankly, and then closes the times faster on what needs to be done. But if you don’t ask the question and you don’t bring the additional team member on board, you miss the opportunity.

And the other part I would just add throughout the process. I think if I’m out there in industry, I think that the capabilities that Elara Nova brings very much helps them in the response and identifying where the opportunities are.  

There’s just a deep portfolio on this call right here. And I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about the other two – that just know how the system works, have been out there and flown the aircraft, and if you’re able to craft a better, more coherent and innovative response just because of that then I think it’s absolutely worth ringing the phone and calling us. 

It’s not quite a cheat code, but it certainly can help to move in that direction. 

43:06 – 43:45 

(RM): So I think Elara Nova has certainly all of those traditional things to offer that Ty talked about. I think there are a couple of nontraditional things that we offer as well, which are important. The first one is we have partnerships that allow us to help companies navigate the Office of Strategic Capital. There’s a potentially strong role for OSC to play in this process.

And we also have a team that focuses on NATO and international partners, and I think that could be key here as well. If you look at just the development costs that we’ve talked about, the ability to share those across some allies and partners and to count on procurement from other than just the U.S. Air Force, that could be an important way to get the program across the line, and certainly we can help with that.

43:46 – 44:51 

(JVO): And I think Rick is spot on there. Both you and Ty. I think Ty mentioned being the interpreter. Understanding the deep experience that we have. We can interpret what the signals are, what the language is. And then we have experience possibly doing that exact process, but also contacts that are doing the process right now and are trying to help and they’re trying to translate themselves. 

And how do we sit at the table on both sides and help industry and help the government speak to each other in a clear language? And absolutely on the finance part, not just only the finance division, but the OSC and the opportunities that are there, and frankly, seeing the tech that’s out there, because all of us also do and work with other various companies in various sectors and trying to apply that technology and how that might work for aeronautical mission systems or anywhere else for the Department of War. 

We’re all keen to it because we all want to help. We’re not wearing the blue suits anymore, but we all want to help be part of the Department of War and be the success arm and root on our Airmen out into the future. This is our way of giving back.

44:52 – 35:28 

(SK): This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 36: Digital Infrastructure Modernization to Lay Foundation for Zero Trust, AI

The Elara Edge Podcast

Host: Scott King 

SME: General (Ret) Tim Haugh, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova, former Commander at U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency 

00:02 – 01:34 

When we think of the word “infrastructure,” things like roads, bridges, and the power grid often come to mind. But there’s also “digital infrastructure,” which the National Institute of Standards and Technology defines as ​​”the ability to store and exchange data through a centralized communication system.” 

The Department of War kick-started the year with a series of steps to enhance the resiliency and reliability of its digital infrastructure that underpins military operations. In early January, the United States Space Force announced it will be overhauling computer networks at each one of its bases, according to a $12.5 billion task order through the Base Infrastructure Modernization program.  

Also in January, the National Security Agency released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guideline, while the DOW launched its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. Altogether, these actions demonstrate the growing imperative to prepare the military’s digital infrastructure to take advantage of emerging technologies and counter evolving threats. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge” here to discuss the modernization of the Department’s digital infrastructure is retired General Tim Haugh, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova. With over three decades of military service with the United States Air Force, General Haugh previously served as the Commander of United States Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service.  

Sir, welcome to the show!  

01:35 – 01:36 

I’m excited to be here. Scott. Thanks for having me.  

01:37 – 02:03 

We’re excited to have you and looking forward to the conversation today. Let’s begin with a look at the role of digital infrastructure in modern day military operations. Perhaps one of the best ways to understand this is by taking a look at the relationship between the space and cyber domains.  

From your perspective: how do the space and cyberspace domains interact when it comes to military operations? And how did this relationship factor into the early days of standing up the United States Space Force? 

02:04 – 03:48 

Yeah absolutely, Scott. They are inextricably linked. When we think about what it looks like to warfight space, the foundation of that is also what’s happening terrestrially on the ground: how we control satellites, how we leverage technologies in space to sense, to communicate, and to fight. All of those are tied to how we operate within cyberspace, both to leverage those capabilities on space, to be able to control them, but also to ensure that they’re secure. And foundationally, when we think about what space does as part of our warfighting doctrine across all domains, having security in cyberspace is absolutely essential. 

At the time, I was the 16th Air Force Commander and in support of Space Force leadership, as they stood up the service. And one of those decisions was how will the Air Force provide support to the Space Force in terms of the Air Force network and then being able to support space operations? 

And as the choices were being made, one of the most critical were what were the sets of expertise that the Space Force would need? And one of those choices in terms of the career fields that were identified as essential to the future of the Space Force is cyber and clearly building out expertise was critical and that will only become increasingly important.  

As we’ve seen in the recent conflicts that have occurred, particularly within Ukraine, the contest for the ability to have assured command and control, through both terrestrial and through space – absolutely essential – and that really drives towards what infrastructure that then needs to be built, sustained, operated and defended to have assured operations in both space and cyberspace. 

03:49 – 04:01 

The Space Force task order to modernize its digital infrastructure follows a similar task order to do the same for Air Force bases across the Pacific.  

Can you describe what the Space Force and Air Force are looking to do here? 

04:02 – 07:02 

In this case, and what the Space Force wants to modernize in their digital backbone is all of the infrastructure that allows every Guardian to be able to interconnect, whether that’s to the Internet, whether it’s the services that are available inside of the Department of War networks or the ability to connect and operate through the domain, through both unclassified and classified networks, and then making sure that infrastructure is well positioned to be able to provide the right capabilities to the Space Force and every Guardian – in terms of routers and switches that interconnect networks and interconnect bases to the broader network – is an investment that’s clearly being made through the Base Infrastructure Modernization program.  

It is also the computing infrastructure that every Guardian and Airman leverage every day when they come to work. It’s also the infrastructure that runs our hospitals and runs space operations and runs air operations on a flight line. 

So all of those require the ability to have relevant technology to be able to drive not only the capabilities that are required to fight and win, but also provide a user an experience that allows them to come to work, log on, get to work and be successful and that requires investment. 

And the investment and the priority to be able to ensure that infrastructure is in place is also going to be the foundation for how capabilities like artificial intelligence will be integrated and the compute power that is required at the network edge to be able to operate and do that, particularly as we think about contested environments. 

At first, it needs to provide the foundation to be able to meet the mission needs of the Space Force and the Air Force for the contract in the Pacific. So it has to be sized, it’s got to be capable enough and then the support to be able to operate and ensure the maintenance of all of those systems – uptime and resilience to be able to make sure those missions run – has to be one of the first priorities.  

The second component is ensure the architecture is defendable and is in compliance with the direction that the Department of War is taking in terms of the policies of how we modernize networks, how we secure them, and ultimately how we build them using a zero trust-based approach, because the adversaries are relentless in cyberspace. 

What that looks like today, whether that’s China, Russia, North Korea, Iran all bring different subsets of capability. But particularly China is focused on being able to take away strategic capability from the United States and having resilient infrastructure is the foundation to ensure that can’t happen.  

And I think the approach, as we talk through today of that mixture of improving the underlying base infrastructure, building out in zero trust principles and setting a foundation for the integration of AI, it really does start with the foundational infrastructure that is secure and defended.

07:03 – 07:20  

We’ve heard General Stephen Whiting, the Commander of US Space Command, previously refer to cybersecurity as the “soft underbelly” of military operations. 

What do you think makes cybersecurity and digital infrastructure particularly vulnerable to either state-backed or adversarial attacks?  

07:21 – 08:40 

There are a number of factors, that particularly within military services that have brought vulnerability. One of those is lack of investment. So at key times, if we don’t upgrade these capabilities, you can fall into a situation where the vendor no longer supports them and that technology debt brings risk. It also brings less functionality. So these investments are critical.  

The other is how do we integrate weapon systems into these architectures and ensuring that there is coherence in how the services think about the interaction with the defense industrial base and set a clear set of standards on what is expected as we build and field new capabilities and ensure that they can immediately integrate into an architecture that doesn’t create seams. 

And then finally, we’ve got to be able to build this in a way that can adapt to the threat environment and in how we secure things like the identity of every individual and every agenetic AI capability that we intend to deploy. We’ve got to be prepared for a changing architecture in demand signal based off of the emergence of these technologies and ensure that they can be integrated in a coherent way that maximizes the opportunity and doesn’t bring additional risk. 

08:41 – 08:46 

I’d like to emphasize that idea of risk. What would an attack on the digital infrastructure of military bases look like? 

08:47 – 11:50 

Yeah, I think at that point, first and foremost is we have to be able to have situational awareness in both our space and our cyber domain in a way that’s commensurate with what we’ve learned in air, ground and the maritime. That is the first thing a commander needs. They have to have situational awareness so they can make good decisions about risk. 

The second component in this discussion is around resilience because we’re certainly going to be targeted in an area of tension and in crisis. We’ve got to be resilient and expect that there are going to be very aggressive attempts to compromise our networks and compromise our partners, both in industry and our foreign partners and Allies.  

The approach that China has taken to targeting the critical infrastructure of the United States is a really good example of the types of things we would see targeted on military bases: things like water treatment, energy generation, critical functions inside of telecommunications or networks. 

They have shown that if there are vulnerabilities that they will continue to attempt to enumerate those vulnerabilities and take advantage of them if they exist. And then once in a network, they will look to compromise the identity of key system administrators that have privileged accounts that allow them to move laterally and ensure that they would be able to have deep access if we ever are in a crisis. 

We’ve seen that in our critical infrastructure. It’s been well articulated in various reports done by the intelligence community and by Homeland Security and those are things that we understand that methodology and how to defend it.  

One of the key things that they would attempt to exploit are vulnerable aging systems and so upgrading those is critically important. And then the ability to implement zero trust would be the area that would defeat or make more difficult the ability to take on different identities within organizations and networks. So we will see adversaries looking at every one of these networks. They’re going to be looking for vulnerabilities now enabled increasingly by artificial intelligence and they will take advantage of them if they see them. And that is the environment we live in every day would only be accelerated in a crisis.  

We’ve learned a lot of lessons in our support to Ukraine about what does resilience look in a modern warfare environment. And we have to know that we can scale, because certainly all of the domains rely on space to be able to deliver situational awareness, communications, particularly in extended range environments and so we need to ensure that the ground segment, the terrestrial component, the cyber elements of spacecraft are secure and resilient because they will certainly be aggressively targeted. 

And I think these types of initiatives that we’re seeing, in terms of foundational investment and direction on AI and zero trust are going to be things that are going to be really important to implement aggressively to buy down that risk.  

11:51 – 12:06 

Now, the task order was designed as a quote “Enterprise IT as a Service” solution to be delivered through an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity or IDIQ contract. 

What exactly does this mean and why is that important? 

12:07 – 13:47 

The idea behind enterprise IT as a service is being able to leverage the strengths of the industry to bring current technology and resources to be able to build and maintain networks. In essence, be able to say, take an area that previously would have been maintained by an Airman or Guardian, bring in expertise from industry, and allow them to both operate and sustain that base infrastructure to allow Guardians and Airmen to be focused on other types of operations that are critical to our warfighting missions. 

And this is a further expansion of what the Air Force has done at a number of bases. Now building it out at each of the Space Force bases, and also bases across the Pacific for the Air Force. This is an extension of that approach. It’s giving them flexibility in terms of the number of potential vendors they could leverage that they’ve already identified as qualified to do the work against a pretty high ceiling of $12.5 billion. 

So it’s a commitment to building out the infrastructure, putting the resources behind it, and then having a bench of vendors that are qualified to do the work to ensure that as the Air Force and the Space Force expand this approach, that they’ve got the right expertise. The opportunity within the contracts is to also clearly state what the cybersecurity standards are and what’s expected of the day-to-day of how the network should be configured, how it should be defended, and then also what happens when an incident occurs. 

And I think the build out of this model based off of the previous work, should allow for a deep understanding of how to do that. Now it’s going to be about scaling, underneath this particular contracting approach. 

13:48 – 14:06 

At the same time this modernization effort is underway, the National Security Agency, released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guideline.  

At a basic level, can you define for our audience what zero trust means and then walk us through these two initial implementation products: Primer and Discovery phase? 

14:07 – 16:51 

Zero Trust is an approach to security that does take time to implement and is complex.  Previously, when we thought about defense of a network, we thought about the perimeter, the network edge. What zero trust brings is an assumption that that perimeter is going to be breached. 

And how do you defend your network, your data and your users in an environment where you give least privileged access – only giving access to data, applications, tools, infrastructure for the things that an individual is authorized to do and only for the period of time when it’s authorized. This approach, when implemented, gives an opportunity to make sure that not only are you secure at the network edge, but you can be secure internally against very aggressive threats. And if one member of your team is compromised, you don’t lose the security of the entire network.  

And what NSA has done in terms of implementation guidance is to break that down into five parts for services and commands to implement zero trust. 

In the first release is a Primer – helping organizations understand what all goes into organizing as a zero trust architecture, and which modules make most sense for those organizations to begin with and lay out how to implement and mature those areas to be able to meet what the expectation is from the Department of War. 

The second component, which is part of the first phase of implementation, is what NSA has identified as discovery – create visibility and understand the data, applications and the assets that are within your architecture, and then begin to set policies that implement authority guidance for every function in the network. It really does set a baseline for how zero trust can be implemented, and then sets the conditions for the phases that follow to meet the Department of War expectations. 

As the implementation guidance is put out as the DOW CIO continues to clarify exactly what expectations are, there are opportunities for individual programs and vendors to be lead turning these and thinking about ensuring that they put the baselines in place that will allow for implementation and integration of capabilities, platforms, technologies, applications into these networks using a zero trust approach. 

And that’s going to require continued discussion between industry and government. But clearly setting the roadmap for where zero trust goes. There’s an opportunity for industry to follow. 

16:52 – 16:55 

And what will zero trust ultimately look like in a military operation? 

16:56 – 17:51 

Well, what we’d see in an effective zero trust operation? As an example, if a vendor is going to provide an update to a capability that’s on a base – today, that in different programs and different bases, they might have different authorities.  

Under zero trust their authorities would be very narrow and would only be authorized during the window of time that they are upgrading that system or doing some form of maintenance function. Very similar to how in if you’re maintaining a system on the flight line, you’re going to tag in and tag out. You’re only going to be operating on that aircraft in certain windows when you’re authorized.  Zero trust provides the same type of approach that you only have authority to manipulate that system in windows of time and within your span of authority. That reduces risk to the overall architecture, but still allows that system to be updated and maintained. 

17:52 – 18:08 

This brings us to the third element of our conversation, and that is the Department of War’s recently released Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. 

Certainly AI become a major talking point in national security circles in recent years,  but generally speaking, how does AI factor into this conversation about digital infrastructure? 

18:09 – 21:39 

I think it’s really at the forefront. The Department’s strategy to accelerate implementation of artificial intelligence requires capable infrastructure that is secure and needs to continue to grow the compute capacity that fuels the implementation of artificial intelligence.  

The idea behind what artificial intelligence can do, the running of algorithms, the use of agents, the autonomous use of capabilities, all of that needs computer power to operate. 

And depending on the scope and scale, the amount of data and the expanse of simultaneous things that you’re going to ask those agents and capabilities and algorithms to do requires an increasing number of computing power. And you can get that computing power through a couple of different ways. One can be on-premise, computational power that are investments in servers and data centers that allow for control of that. 

The other can come through any of the number of cloud providers that are a part of the architecture and how you choose to organize that really becomes important in terms of what’s available to every Guardian and Airman in terms of computational power to run models and algorithms and agents and it also is an incredible bearing on cost.  

If portions of the infrastructure are going to be inside of the military services, then you have to have all of the infrastructure from data centers, the ability to cool those data centers and ensure their operations have power, water, cooling, to be able to operate. So that’s an additional infrastructure that has to be sustained. 

If it’s chosen to leverage our large, managed service providers and cloud providers for that computing capacity, you’re going to fund them. But they have to build out that architecture and sustain it. So those are choices that don’t have to be made completely. It’s likely a balance of the two that will ultimately be relied upon.  

But if we’re going to build out more infrastructure, there will be more requirements for things like water, cooling, power that will be critically important and have to be sustained and defended inside of the Department’s architecture. 

And increasingly, that’s going to have to be at the network edge, not just at the center of a network. And this will be an evolution of how we’re able to make that compute available to every Guardian and every Airman, regardless of the type of contested environment they’re in. This is really foundational and these are areas that are going to be really important as the Department determines what those investments look like.  

The document really sets out aggressive intent from the Secretary of War to first move out on pace-setting projects that are really about setting conditions to in terms of ensuring that the infrastructure is in place, thinking about the data that is required, the models and the policies to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence across warfighting, intelligence, and the broader enterprise within the Department. 

This will certainly drive investment. It’ll drive planning, and then it will drive the services to think about where artificial intelligence will be most effectively integrated to enhance capabilities within their respective service.

21:40 – 21:52 

Thank you, Sir. And I’d like to go through the three pace-setting projects laid out in the strategy: warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise.  

Let’s start with the first one: warfighting? What is this one about?  

21:53 – 22:44 

I think the big picture of this – this is really about where does artificial intelligence fit in the ability to execute the warfighting missions across the Department? And this will be very foundational when we think about how we gain situational awareness, how commanders make decisions, how we communicate those decisions, and the autonomy that we give to platforms and weapons. 

And this pace-setting project will really bear out in terms of what are those areas that also now need to be invented in terms of how we test these capabilities and that partnership between industry and government as the acceleration of artificial intelligence isn’t just done inside the services, but inside vendors and inside of capabilities that will be delivered.

22:45 – 22:51 

And how about the second pace-setting project: intelligence. Can you elaborate on what the Department of War is aiming to do here? 

22:52 – 23:44 

The Department is setting some clear benchmarks to think about how intelligence will be integrated closer to the edge as a warfighting capability. This is an area of a tremendous advantage for the United States: our ability to sense and make information available to commanders around the globe. The challenge set forth by the Secretary is not only to do that in real-time operations, but also to accelerate the work that brings together that intelligence and capability development. 

So two major, I think, directions will be how to make different sets of intelligence fuzed for commanders at all echelons. And the second being, how does that intelligence really get integrated more quickly in capability development earlier for individual capabilities to be able to be enhanced and infused with artificial intelligence as a core capability.

23:45 – 23:47 

And how about the third one: enterprise?

23:48 – 24:25 

This is thinking about how does the entire department come together and leverage these sets of capabilities and building out the not only just the ability to have the infrastructure available, but it’s how do artificial intelligence bring more capacity and capability to the broader enterprise of warfighting that occurs across all of our military domains, and to be able to capitalize on that and do it faster than an adversary in a very contested environment. 

So I think these three areas of warfighting, intelligence and enterprise, are a clear set of a foundation and intents laid out by the Secretary of War.

24:26 – 24:34 

So now that this strategy is out there – what happens next? What steps are being taken to implement the strategy and then, ultimately, what does success look like? 

24:35 – 26:43 

Well, I think first is each service and command has been given some clear direction to build plans to establish AI integration leads within their organizations and then evaluate their mission for where artificial intelligence makes sense and can be rapidly infused in the areas the Secretary has outlined.  

The next phase of that is in those areas – where will dollars go? What will the investment look like? And that investment will have to span across the ability to generate the requisite compute, the ability to ensure that the right data is available and is accessible at the right level for models and algorithms, and then ensuring that the Department and each service has the talent to execute it. And I think those areas are going to definitely require investment and they’re going to require significant collaboration with industry. 

Given the fact that many of these technologies are still being invented and the rapid evolution of models and what agents are going to look like, there’s a tremendous opportunity for investment in key areas. The Secretary laying out the set of priorities will now begin to get into individual projects, as services and commands start to identify their key requirements and the areas that would most benefit by infusing artificial intelligence. 

Inside those opportunities are places for investment. There’s places for experimentation and then aggressive implementation to ensure continued advantage. So I think you’re going to see those emerge and then success looks like the ability for us as a warfighting organization to be able to deliver capabilities at speed, to be able to integrate data for decision, and also to have weapons that have new capabilities across all domains that we can ensure operate consistent with the overarching intent and policy and guidance that exists across the Department in terms of warfighting, consistent with our laws and our values.

26:44 – 26:57 

Our interview today covered three elements pretty comprehensively: digital infrastructure, zero trust, and AI.  

The Department of War is actively taking steps toward these ends. So what do these actions signal to industry? 

26:58 – 27:54 

I think each of these provides an intent, and I think that’s the best thing that the government can do is clearly articulate intent and share that with industry. So in this case, whether it’s here’s the intent for the future of the architecture. Here is the intent for what it will look like in terms of how the government wants to secure that architecture using zero trust principles and with an expectation that all capabilities are going to be infused by artificial intelligence. 

They’re setting the roadmap and that is probably the most important thing that, in terms of the public private partnership, is a clear understanding of intent. And that intent should only become more clear, as the Department articulates priorities inside of Golden Dome, inside of other major programs that are going to be driving and implementing those things that are consistent with the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy.

27:55 – 27:57 

Can you elaborate on how Golden Dome ties to this conversation? 

27:58 – 30:12 

Where the Golden Dome program needs to start in terms of the types of priorities that the President has given them, and then building in the resilience and speed necessary to be able to make those decisions within really incredible timelines. 

The challenge of being able to identify, any and all threats, to the homeland and then to be able to act on those threats. 

 It’s all about speed and the ability to identify the threat, understand it, give orders, and then have capabilities that can respond with requisite speed to be able to mitigate those threats. We have known how to do this as a nation and been prepared to do it in very specific scenarios. But now those scenarios are so diverse and growing in terms of the threat and the speed of the threat.  

It really does demand a command and control structure that is always on, always available, and integrated with the right data sources to have situational awareness that can provide the right data to the decision-maker, and then the ability to execute command and control in a way that can be executed very quickly from decision-maker to shooter, and to be able to assure that not only can you track and have custody of of every one of those threats, but you also understand your effectiveness in real-time to mitigate those threats.

So I think speed is one of the clear tenants that comes from the demand signal. The other is, of course, it’s got to be secure. These will be foundational capabilities in defense of the homeland. It must be built on a bedrock foundation and then it’s going to also require just incredibly resilient communications to ensure its availability.  

The digital infrastructure is what ties it all together: every sensor, every base, every shooter, every command and control node in a way that gives that situational awareness and gives that power to be able to make decisions, create outcomes, and understand the results of those operations. And the resilience and the capability that are provided through that infrastructure can be an accelerant to the command and control for Gold Dome. 

30:13 – 30:25 

Thank you Sir, and what opportunities exist for commercial and industry partners to contribute solutions to anything we’ve discussed today: whether that be digital infrastructure, zero trust, AI, or command and control in Golden Dome? 

30:26 – 31:25 

There’s a menu. A large part of this is thinking through resilient communications in many different ways. That’s leveraging different parts of the spectrum. It’s leveraging different technologies. 

It’s about being innovative at every vendor to implement quantum resistance. It’s about how we think about the applications that are required to knit it together. And then what’s the underlying compute that allows it all to operate at speed?  

Those are all opportunities that allow for ensured resilient communications in ways that we can continue to evaluate, whether that’s in the space segment, whether that’s within traditional RF bands or if it’s leveraging a diversity of our managed service providers in terrestrial networks. All of those have to be meshed together in a way that assures command and control and assures availability for the leaders that are going to be empowered to make those decisions. 

31:26 – 31:37 

Now, in addition to serving as a Senior Principal Advisory at Elara Nova, you’ll also have a guiding hand in the firm’s new Cyber, Data & Communications sector. 

What should our listeners know about its new CDC sector? 

31:38 – 32:35 

Yeah. I think everything we’re thinking about now is how do you integrate capabilities faster? How do our domains interoperate and how do we ensure within the defense industrial base and with broader industry, how do those capabilities be brought to bear in a way that they can be effective from the outset and meet the demand signal that’s coming from the Department and from each of the services? 

Elara Nova brings a really deep portfolio of cyber experts that have served across all elements of our intelligence community and the military services and when combined with all the other expertise that exists in air and space that both have served in the Department and are current in state of the art of what’s happening in industry is invaluable to be able to accelerate that work in a way that will produce an outcome that really brings back the best capability for the nation. 

32:36 – 33:10 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova is the trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain.   

With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in national security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Digital Infrastructure Modernization to Lay Foundation for Zero Trust, AI

An Upgraded Network to Better Integrate Emerging Technologies, Counter Evolving Threats

The Department of War (DOW) kick-started the year with a series of steps to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the digital infrastructure underpinning military operations. In early January, the United States Space Force announced it will be overhauling computer networks at all 14 of its bases under the Base Infrastructure Modernization program. Then the National Security Agency released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines, while the DOW launched its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. Altogether, these actions demonstrate the growing imperative to prepare the DOW’s digital infrastructure to take advantage of emerging technologies and counter evolving threats. 

“Space and cyberspace are inextricably linked: the foundation of warfighting in space is dependent on having a secure digital infrastructure on the ground,” said Gen (Ret) Tim Haugh, a Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova and the former Commander of United States Cyber Command. “Digital infrastructure is the computing infrastructure that every Guardian and Airman leverages when they connect to the Department of War networks. If the Department doesn’t upgrade these systems, they can become vulnerable where a vendor can no longer support them, which adds risk through technology debt, less functionality and an inability to integrate weapon systems into national security architectures.” 

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, “digital infrastructure” is defined as ​​”the ability to store and exchange data through a centralized communication system.” As such, the Base Infrastructure Modernization program aims to create a unified and secure network and communication system across all Air Force and Space Force bases worldwide.  

“Whether it’s to conduct space operations or air operations on the flight line, those capabilities require a digital infrastructure that is powerful enough to win the fight and provide a user experience that enables success,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “This investment is critical because it sets a clear set of standards for the defense industrial base to build and field new capabilities as the threat environment changes. Modernizing the digital infrastructure will also lay the foundation for integrating future capabilities like artificial intelligence and establishing the compute power required at the network edge.” 

The Vulnerabilities of an Aging Digital Infrastructure 

Space Force leaders recognize that threats in cyberspace are constantly emerging and evolving, heightening the imperative for resilient and reliable systems. General Stephen Whiting, Commander of United States Space Command, once referred to cybersecurity as the “soft underbelly” of space operations. 

“One of the key elements adversaries would exploit are vulnerable and aging systems, and that’s why upgrading them is critically important,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “China has shown that if vulnerabilities exist, they will take advantage of them. We would likely see similar attacks on our military bases that we’ve seen China take against critical infrastructure in the United States: going after infrastructure like water treatment, energy generation and critical functions inside of telecommunications or networks.” 

The task order for the Space Force’s modernization efforts, to the tune of $12.5 billion, follows a similar task order for Air Force bases to receive advanced wired and wireless technology upgrades that will enhance connectivity, cybersecurity, interoperability and data readiness at bases across the Pacific theater. It will be processed as an Enterprise-IT-as-a-Service solution through an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity contract designed to streamline modernization to adapt to a quickly and constantly evolving threat. 

“The idea behind Enterprise-IT-as-a-Service is to leverage industry expertise to bring in current technology to build and maintain our digital infrastructure, allowing Airmen and Guardians to focus on other critical warfighting operations and missions,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “The first component to these upgrades is to provide the foundation to meet the mission needs of the Space Force and the Air Force and ensure the network can support their operations. Then the second component is to ensure the architecture is defendable and in compliance with Department of War policies for cybersecurity.” 

An aging digital infrastructure also increases the vulnerability of a “zero-day” attack that can be difficult to detect and often lead to data breaches and compromises, much like the recent disclosure by Ivanti that affected several government agencies and Allied partners.  

“Increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence, adversaries are going to be looking for vulnerabilities at every one of these networks and they will take advantage of them if they see them,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “Once inside a network, adversaries will look to compromise the identity of key system administrators that have privileged accounts to move laterally and ensure that they would retain deep access to our networks for future targeting. This is the reality of today’s operating environment, so it’s critical to upgrade our digital infrastructure and implement zero trust to defeat or complicate their ability to take on different identities within DOW networks.” 

A Foundation for Zero Trust and AI 

The modernization effort will also lay the foundation for implementing a new zero trust framework to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the Department of War’s network.  

“Zero trust is an approach that is founded on the assumption that your perimeter is going to be breached,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “Zero trust creates an operating environment with the least privileged access, which means only giving access to data, applications, tools and infrastructure to an authorized individual only during the period of time in which they’re authorized to operate.  

This approach makes sure that not only are you secure and resilient at the network edge, because you still won’t lose security of the entire network if one of your team members is compromised.” 

Toward this end, the National Security Agency (NSA) recently unveiled its Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines, beginning with its two initial phases: Primer and Discovery Phase. 

“NSA has coordinated all the necessary activities to implement a zero trust architecture into five parts,” Haugh said, who previously served as the Director of the National Security Agency. “The first phase, Primer, helps organizations understand which modules to begin with for laying out zero trust implementation to meet the Department’s expectations. The Discovery Phase is about creating visibility and understanding the data, applications and the assets that are within your architecture.” 

A fully implemented zero trust architecture can then create pathways for integrating emerging technologies like artificial intelligence in a way that will be reliable and secure. That’s in part why the DOW simultaneously released its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy that laid out seven “Pace-Setting Projects” across three mission areas: Warfighting, Intelligence, and Enterprise. 

“The Department’s strategy requires a secure and capable digital infrastructure to grow the compute capacity needed for greater implementation of artificial intelligence,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “Everything AI does – from running algorithms or using agents and autonomous capabilities – requires the power to compute. You can get that compute through on-base servers and data centers or cloud providers that are part of the overall architecture. This strategy intends to make that compute available to every Guardian and every Airman, regardless of the type of contested environment they’re in.”  

Digital Infrastructure and Golden Dome 

Artificial intelligence and the autonomous processing of trusted, effective and secure data will also be instrumental to future military operations, particularly for homeland defense initiatives like Golden Dome.   

“The biggest challenge for Golden Dome is the diversity of threats: the Department is prepared for specific scenarios of certain threats, but the nature and speed of those threats are diversifying,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “But Golden Dome demands a command and control structure that is always on, always available and integrated with the right data sources to have situational awareness that can provide the right data to the decision-maker, enabling the ability to execute command and control in real-time to mitigate and defeat those threats. The digital infrastructure is what will tie every sensor, base and shooter to deliver the command and control structure necessary for Golden Dome.” 

General Mike Guetlein, the Director of Golden Dome, has expressed that command and control is his first priority. Like all space and military operations, command and control requires a trusted and secure digital infrastructure at its foundation. That’s why Elara Nova has now established its Cyber, Data & Communications business sector to support industry in delivering the secure and trusted solutions that will empower the warfighter to deliver on mission requirements across domains.  

“Elara Nova offers a deep portfolio of cyber experts that have served across all elements of our intelligence community and military services,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “When combined with all of the air and space experts in our portfolio, Elara Nova brings a unique set of talents to bear on hard, cross-domain problems like Golden Dome. Our experts have served in both the Department and industry, which makes them an invaluable resource to accelerating integration of data and emerging technologies in a way that will produce a successful outcome for our nation.” 

Elara Nova is a trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.    

CCA Testing Kickstarts the Next Generation of Air Dominance

Unmanned Platforms to Embrace Agile Combat Employment Concept of Operations

In a little over a year since the program’s announcement, two prototypes of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) have started ground testing and are expected to fly in the coming months. The achievement marks an impressive timeline for the aircraft’s development, which is designed to be an unmanned platform that will fly in tandem with, and in support of, manned platforms like the F-22, F-35 and the future B-21 and F-47. While the two prototype CCAs, being produced by Anduril and General Atomics respectively, will eventually be down-selected to one platform, they are expected to be a force multiplier for the warfighter by bringing a futuristic vision of manned-unmanned teaming to air warfare. 

“In terms of aircraft development, the CCAs’ progress has been lightning fast,” said Lt Gen (Ret) David “Abu” Nahom, executive director of Elara Nova’s Aeronautics and Mission Systems sector. “Next generation air dominance will take more than just manned platforms, it will require collaborative unmanned platforms equipped with missiles, sensors or even electronic attack capabilities that can overwhelm an enemy’s capacity for decision-making. CCAs will be one part of a next generation family of systems that will ensure we have freedom of the skies in a future conflict.” 

The growing prevalence of drones and unmanned platforms in the Russia-Ukraine conflict indicate the nature of warfare is changing rapidly as technologies advance in real time. Adopting and integrating innovative technologies into new and existing platforms will remain a vital component to securing air dominance.  

CCAs are seen as a solution to support manned platforms with additional capabilities, while also being able to engage enemy aircraft on their own. 

“The technology for manned-unmanned teaming is here,” Gen Nahom, whose 36-year Air Force career culminated with roles such as Commander, Alaskan Command; Alaskan NORAD Region; and Eleventh Air Force. “CCAs will have the ability to collaborate directly with manned platforms and/or other unmanned platforms. This technology is truly game-changing: an airborne network of manned-unmanned will be integral in securing the freedom to maneuver in the skies.” 

CCAs Mark the Next Evolution of Unmanned Platforms 

The adoption of CCAs will revolutionize how the Air Force flies and operates unmanned platforms. Once fully developed, multiple CCAs may be deployed alongside a single manned platform. This would mark a significant evolution from some of the first unmanned platforms to be deployed by the U.S. military: the MQ-1 and MQ-9. 

“We often deployed the MQ-1 and MQ-9 with one pilot to one platform, today’s technology allows for so much more,” Gen Nahom said. “Whether that operator is in a manned aircraft or in a ground station remains to be seen, but the technology has advanced to where one operator can control a network of unmanned platforms, the CCA development is part of that evolution.” 

CCAs also bring a series of distinct advantages to military operations that a manned platform could not provide on its own.  

“Given the nature of the evolving threat, an uncrewed team of vehicles could be very powerful in a battlespace because these uncrewed platforms could be attritable and go places where we wouldn’t want to risk a manned aircraft,” Gen Nahom said. “Manned platforms are usually more expensive for many reasons, including the need to provide life support capability for the pilot, whereas you can save weight and money by not having that requirement on an unmanned platform. It is our hope that CCAs come in at a much lower price point so the risk of loss in a battle is acceptable.” 

Further, CCAs are designed to be semi-autonomous and equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities. But it’s still unclear to what extent CCAs will leverage these emerging technologies. 

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be a part of CCAs,” Gen Nahom. “However, it’s important to note that these emerging technologies will not be taking over the mission, but enhancing the mission by enabling the operator to do many things at once. These unmanned platforms will certainly be controlled by a human, but AI/ML capabilities will allow that operator to do more with these platforms than he or she otherwise would have been able to do in the past.” 

Increment 1 to Lay Foundation for Future Increments 

The two prototypes are being developed under Increment 1 of the program, which is designed to prioritize speed, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of unmanned platforms. To that end, Air Force officials indicate the service may acquire up to 1,000 CCAs by the end of the decade. But whereas the Increment 1 CCA platform is expected to be cheaper and more attritable, the program will potentially lay the foundation for a more exquisite and expensive platform in follow-on increments.   

“The lessons learned from Increment 1 will help undoubtably inform the next increment’s requirements,” Gen Nahom said. “One of the benefits of a CCA network is elevating the number of aircraft, missiles and sensors to complicate an enemy’s decision-making. This is where cost can be a critical factor; if the uncrewed aircraft become too expensive we may not be able to get the numbers airborne that will be required in future conflict. 

Testing and Training for Agile Combat Employment 

The testing and training procedures will also be done according to the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept of operations, which was unveiled in 2022 as a framework for coordinating air operations in a future joint fight. 

“The days of mustering all your aircraft at one location are likely over as that may leave you vulnerable,” Gen Nahom said. “ACE looks at generating combat power from many different locations. That might seem simple, but becomes complicated quickly because it spreads out resources like maintenance, spare parts, personnel and pilots.” 

The logistical challenge of ACE will be further compounded by the austerity of many of the locations in the South China Sea, as well as the range between airfields.  

“The South China Sea would be ‘The ultimate away game,’” Gen Nahom said. “The great distances between landmasses will be a daunting challenge to overcome in achieving a military objective. It starts with getting an aircraft on a runway or launch platform, fueled, armed and ready to take off in the right position. But then an aircraft has to be synchronized with all the other capabilities assigned to the mission. This has always been a challenge with manned platforms and it’s going to be an even greater challenge CCA teams.”  

The Air Force has already begun implementing ACE into large-scale exercises in the Pacific, including one that was held last month: Resolute Force Pacific 2025 (REFORPAC). Once fielded, it will only be a matter of time before CCAs are incorporated into these training exercises. 

The potential use cases for CCAs, however, can also go beyond the Air Force.

“There are other military services and even other nations interested in the outcome of CCA development,” Gen Nahom said. “The Air Force is looking at CCAs to solve the need for next generation air dominance teams that can be deployed in far-away places. But that’s not necessarily the same problem another nation may be trying to solve, which might be using manned-unmanned teaming for homeland defense, maritime surveillance or humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. So there’s not only opportunity to apply the technology to the Air Force’s goals and objectives, but there’s opportunities for different platforms and collaborative missions out there, as well.” 

This broad range of applications will generate continued opportunities for industry partners to continue developing CCA platforms and their adjacent technology.  

Elara Nova Evolving to Meet Industry Demands 

In recent months Elara Nova began evolving to meet the growing demand in the aeronautics domain. The consultancy has launched a new business sector to support this type of effort: Aeronautics and Mission Systems. 

“There’s been a growing demand for Elara Nova’s expertise beyond the space industry,” Gen Nahom said. “The Aeronautics and Mission Systems sector provides expertise on aeronautics and other mission system applications like command and control networks, base defense and virtual and live training systems. Another emerging mission area is Golden Dome. Elara Nova is well-positioned to assist companies and government partners on how some of these technologies and networks can come together between the air and space domains.” 

Elara Nova is a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space and aeronautics domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.