The Air Force is significantly upgrading its four B-1 Lancer simulators with new displays, improved projectors, and a modernized scenery database. The $18.4 million refresh of the 1990s-era weapon system trainers at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., and Dyess AFB, Tex., will bring training in line with the actual radar and sensor imagery of the modern B-1, including high-resolution ground-mapping-radar pictures. “We’ve gone from Mario Brothers to Halo,” said 28th Bomb Wing Commander Col. Jeffrey Taliaferro, expressing the improvements in terms that video gamers could understand. He visited Ellsworth’s upgraded simulators last week. “The impact of training realism for the aircrew will be immediate and significant,” emphasized Quinten Miklos, B-1 simulation project officer. Training instructors will also enjoy new targeting-pod imagery “in both electro-optical and infrared modes,” on their laptops, he noted. These upgrades are slated for completion in September. (Ellsworth report by A1C Alessandra Gamboa)
Space Systems Command has awarded a massive $2.29 billion contract to SpaceX for the “backbone” of its new Space Data Network, a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit that will provide connectivity for the entire joint force.