KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center is leading the Air Force’s campaign of learning during the Army’s next iteration of Project Convergence Capstone 5 (PC-C5), transforming how future warfighters will fight across all domains – land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace.
The AFOTEC Experimentation Directorate will assess current and future Air Force Command and Control capabilities along with identifying modernization opportunities that improve current warfighter capability. By bringing together diverse resources, approaches and prototypes, Capstone 5 will allow senior leaders to analyze how the Joint Force can most effectively maneuver, communicate, engage and win in the future.
“PC-C5 assessments contribute to currently fielded and future DAF BATTLE NETWORK systems architecture, programs, test articles, and system of systems Concept of Operations to improve decision advantage for the Air Force and combined, joint forces,” said Kristopher Looney, AFOTEC/EX Director.
Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control is the overarching DoD modernization effort aimed at delivering decision advantage based on the evolving threat landscape.
The Air Force Futures Directorate is the lead organization for the service’s contributions to the Army’s large force experiment. They are responsible for creating the Air Force’s strategy across multiple time epochs, developing a force design to support that strategy and championing the requirements to ensure the Air Force has the capabilities needed to deter and, if necessary, defeat strategic competitors.
The Advanced Battle Management System Cross-Function Team will lead planning, management, and execution of Air Force support to PC-C5 while AFOTEC/EX supports experiment design and execution.
“PC-C5 will execute across two scenarios,” said Pete Padilla, AFOTEC/EX Test Lead. “Scenario A happens at the Army’s National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. It’s land, air, and space centric and assesses each technology’s ability to support future concepts for executing Joint Long Range Kill Chain C2 in an anti-access area denial near peer scenario.
“Scenario B takes place in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility and will experiment with emerging technology solutions enabling global C2 operations with allied and partner nations,” Padilla said.
“This is not the first time AFOTEC has provided operational assessment expertise,” Looney said. “AFOTEC supported PC-22 that assessed DAF BATTLE NETWORK technologies and provided the operational rigor to support the Tactical Operations Center – Light transition into an Air Combat Command program of record.”
“AFOTEC/EX will execute a tailorable, independent assessment in a realistic operational environment. We will lead operational assessment plan development, data capture, and oversee data analysis and report results to headquarters Air Force,” said David Castillo, AFOTEC/EX Technical Advisor.
“We will use a detailed experimentation plan that records substantial, relevant qualitative and quantitative data by the end of the exercise to evaluate its suitability, sustainability, training requirements, and overall mission impact. The experimentation approach groundwork EX lays in PC-C5 will power AFOTEC’s future shift to a mission-based assessment paradigm,” said Castillo.
“Through multi-service, multi-domain experimentation efforts like PC, EX is a critical driver of AFOTEC’s evolution to meet the analytic and testing rigor for the next generation of systems-based capabilities,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Drowley, AFOTEC Commander.
Since the early 1990’s, AFOTEC has partnered with Combatant Commands and Services to test experimental technologies to support both fielding and acquisition decisions.