Air Force officials at Hanscom AFB, Mass., are working to modernize the service’s global set of air and space operations centers. “We’re looking to have a single computing environment for the AOC weapon system,” said Lt. Col. John Barrette, AOC WS 10.2 program manager. He added that the modernization “will improve the operators’ ability to effectively support dynamic planning for irregular warfare or counterinsurgency operations.” Officials want to transition the AOCs to a services-oriented architecture that will allow for greater machine-to-machine integration. The new set-up will also will ease operator demands, lower ownership costs, and make it easier to implement upgrades. Hanscom officials intend to award a contract this summer for one contractor to sustain the current AOC WS 10.1 baseline architecture while designing the SOA for version 10.2. They anticipate initial operations with version 10.2 in two AOCs starting in Fiscal 2015. (Hanscom report by Patty Welsh)
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.