After several weeks of testing, the Air Force has declared Raytheon’s Distributed Common Ground System at Ramstein AB, Germany, ready for operational use. The network-centric system connects a range of intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance systems seamlessly allowing for “real-time” and “multiagency intelligence sharing and collaboration,” according to a company release. “The US Air Force ran regular missions using the upgraded DCGS baseline over several weeks and concluded it was ready to use for intelligence tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination,” said Mark Kipphut, Raytheon’s deputy director of tactical intelligence systems. A similar system at JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, is slated to become operational “early next year,” he said. (See also A Giant Step Forward in the Daily Report archives)
Air Force exercises in the Indo-Pacific may soon get even bigger and more robust, as lawmakers move to invest more than $620 million in such efforts. The bulk of that money, contained in a $150 billion reconciliation package currently making its way through Congress, is $532.6 million for earmarked for…