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Ibadan, 19 January 2023. – Raytheon BBN has won a contract with the U.S. Air Force to develop a rocket cargo mission planning and Command and Control, or C2, System for the U.S. Air Force. The contract has a potential value of $8.7 million over four years and is part of tStrategy’sr Force 2030 Science & Technology Strategy’s transformational science and technology portfolio.
During the initial 30-month effort, the Raytheon BBN team will develop mission planning and C2 concepts, identify and develop initial rocket cargo workflows and processes, and design advanced human-machine interfaces based on cognitive engineering principles. They will also work to identify coordination points across mission-planning and C2 stakeholders and propose solutions to address existing gaps in knowledge, organizations, and processes.
Speaking on the project, Beth DePass, Raytheon BBN principal investigator for the project, commented, “the tool we create must enable the Air Force to plan, coordinate and conduct a rocket cargo mission within hours. At its core, this is a logistics challenge of epic proportions. The principal investigator noted that while Raytheon will initially pre-package and store the cargo at the launch site for rapid loading, “there are still tremendous challenges with how the DOD will safely load, launch, and deliver under very tight timing constraints.”
Furthermore, DePass added, “we will be considering pre-flight testing, weather conditions, launch approvals, and many other variables to deliver that cargo precisely where and when it’s needed, faster than current delivery methods. We will iterate with multiple DOD stakeholders, the Air Force, and the Space Force to ensure we have the best solution to one of their greatest challenges.”
As a result, the System’s success relies on carefully designing and developing complex collaborative planning and C2 processes and tools across multiple Government and commercial organizations. Raytheon will fulfill this contract in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Asheville, North Carolina; Mountain View, California; Stanford, California; Austin, Texas; and Fort Wayne, Indiana.
