Lockheed Martin now says it pitched the U.S. Air Force on a way to reduce the staff for a battle management command and control (BMC2) suite to two or three people from 18 during the now-canceled competition to replace the E-8C Joint Stars (J-Stars) fleet.
The disclosure helps explain Lockheed’s confidence that onboard processing systems featuring advanced target recognition and decision-making algorithms are ready to fulfill the Air Force’s promised objectives for the still-undefined Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).
The Boeing 707-based E-8C fleet now relies on 18 mission crewmembers to manage the aircraft’s surveillance radar and air strikes against ground targets. The Air Force’s aborted plan to replace the aging E-8Cs with a new business jet-class platform called for reducing the crew size to 14, but Lockheed was prepared to go significantly lower, says John Clark, vice president for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) at the company’s Skunk Works division.
“We showed that we could reduce operators from 19 to seven,” Clark told Aerospace DAILY in a Jan. 29 interview. “And if (Air Combat Command) were to change their (operating concept) somewhat and allow more software, that 19 could have become two or three.”
The remaining crew would perform strictly supervisory functions, such as target management and adjudication, and managing the rules of engagement and commander’s objectives, Clark said.
In late 2017, the Air Force decided to move away from a straightforward J-Stars replacement. The service requested funding in the fiscal 2019 budget to launch the ABMS, a system of systems concept that distributes the surveillance and BMC2 roles among several aircraft programs. An analysis of alternatives to define options for the final ABMS configuration was scheduled to be complete by the end of 2018. Congress has required the Air Force to deliver the first two increments of the ABMS architecture by 2025, before the last J-Stars aircraft can be retired.
But some industry officials have invested heavily over the last decade to automate the BMC2 tasks. The Skunk Works created a new processor called the “Einstein box.” By installing the processor in a Lockheed Martin U-2S, Lockheed has demonstrated that the aircraft can receive sensor data from space surveillance satellites and the F-22, fuse the information together automatically and make decisions on how to exploit the information, Clark said.
The overall system has been demonstrated in a relevant environment, so has reached a technology readiness level of six, Clark said. Certain decision-making algorithms remain at a lower level of maturity, he added.