Getting Exposure to New Mobile Command Post: Airmen
are now training with the service’s newest, deployable mobile command post at the US Air Force Expeditionary Center on the grounds of Ft. Dix, N.J. Called the hard-sided expandable lightweight air mobile shelter, or HELAMS, the new command post is designed to serve as a portable, secure command center for contingency response forces. It will eventually replace the mobile air reporting communications shelter that has been in use since the 1980s. The HELAMS provides more work space and has a new high frequency radio system that requires less power to operate and is much quieter than the previous system, said SSgt. Joshua Sager, instructor for the center’s mobile command, control, and communications course. It is also about 2,500 pounds lighter than MARC and has a smaller footprint when transported by air. AAR Mobility Systems of Cadillac, Mich., produces HELAMS. (Ft. Dix report by TSgt. Scott T. Sturkol)
The Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.