By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington D.C.) An attacking ICBM fired across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean would likely travel beyond the earth’s atmosphere for about 20-minutes through space during its mid-course phase, ultimately hitting its target roughly 30 minutes after launch if one includes the boost and terminal phases of flight. This kind of time scenario, which would of course vary depending upon which hemisphere or continent an ICBM was traveling to and from, leaves little to no time for decision makers to determine a potential response, defensive move or counterattack.
This reality, long known by Pentagon strategists, is why there is a critical need for Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3), as lives and the very survival of nation-states may hang in the balance and depend upon its effectiveness.
This introduces several key longstanding Pentagon priorities, such as the need to “secure” or “harden” any nuclear-specific command and control systems and also expedite or “optimize” speed and method of information transmission. A modern, much more high-tech threat environment means that NC3 is far more at risk than at any point in history, given that a potential adversary is now much more likely to be capable of “jamming,” “hacking” or disrupting time-sensitive communications.
Cyber intruders, electronic weapons attacks or other kinds of “jamming” and interference can place secure nuclear communications in great danger of being compromised, something which is inspiring an ongoing Pentagon “NC3 Next” initiative to replace and upgrade the existing E-6B Mercury, an older B707 variant configured to perform highly-sensitive nuclear command and control missions.
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The Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday’s 2022 CNO Navigation Plan for the Navy specifies “information warfare” as a huge priority, referring to what he described as a need to “connect fleet platforms and persistently cover the battlespace to ensure decision advantage.”
Led by US Strategic Command, the NC3 Next initiative involves an “upgrade” or “recapitalization aircraft” to take over the famous TACAMO NC3 mission. While the Pentagon has decided that the aircraft will be a militarized C-130J Super Hercules for E-XX TACAMO testing, there are several vendors now competing to provide the on-board mission systems, computing and command and control for the aircraft.
Former Commander of US Strategic Command Adm. Charles Richard described the NC3 Next program in terms of several distinct phases, to include requirements assessments, testing, the exploration of tactics, techniques and procedures for the technology and the ability to continuously modernize through use of digital engineering, modeling and simulation.
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Northrop Grumman, maker of the B-21, Sentinel ICBM, J-STARS surveillance plane and E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Early Warning Aircraft is working to draw upon its innovations, internal research and development and historical contribution to ISR and command and control by developing NC3 mission systems and command and control for the emerging TACAMO mission. Northrop Grumman, an organization with deep roots in NC3 and battle management platforms, believes they are the ideal partner to deliver the Navy’s E-XX TACAMO platform.
The NC3 mission is of course extremely unique and high-security, and yet the Pentagon is also integrating it into its broader multi-domain, multi-service Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) program, an effort to engineer interfaces and common protocols to enable secure, cross-domain data sharing in real time. However, Northrop Grumman engineers explain that, alongside this need to integrate, there will also be specific protections built in that are unique to the nuclear mission.
“The type of mission that we’re talking about is so uniquely important. And the protections around that mission have to be at such a higher level of confidence that there will probably be some unique aspects of interface with JADC2,” Henry Cyr, Multi-Domain Command and Control Capture Programs Director, told Warrior in an interview.
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Interfaces are critical to JADC2, as each of the services are working with one another to ensure data can be securely transmitted, and shared, as needed between otherwise disparate or federated pools, sets or streamlines of data. Senior science and technology developers at the Air Force Research Lab specified the importance of ongoing work with interfaces with JADC2, something likely to figure prominently as NC3 Next gets more integrated.
“As we start plugging in different capabilities, including commercial and military capabilities, we are looking at the interfaces that are key to us, right. That’s where That’s where open system architectures come back in. We’re specifying the interface controls, and documenting those. That’s where we’re primarily focusing right now,” Chris Ristich, Director, Integrated Capabilities Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, told Warrior in an interview.
Northrop Grumman’s NC3 Next command and control system, which will consist of low-frequency radio, high-speed, AI-enabled computing, avionics, sensors, video datalinks, common technical standards and a wide range of “hardening” technologies and security systems, is being brought to life through what Cyr refers to as an “integrated digital environment” concept drawing upon model-based systems engineering. Northrop Grumman has of course used digital engineering to breakthrough levels of success with its B-21 Raider stealth bomber and Sentinel ICBM.
Both programs have been effectively accelerated due in large measure to digital engineering, a computer simulation process which is now able to closely replicate key weapons performance parameters. In the case of the new Sentinel ICBM, for example, weapons developers were able to view, analyze and assess as many as nine different design models before deciding which ones to build. Instead of needing to spend years “bending metal” on a large number of prototypes, engineers and designers were able to
make informed determinations regarding which designs to build and test.
Cyr explained that a digital engineering process, designed in large measure to build upon and leverage successful applications used for the B-21 and Sentinel programs, is geared to achieve both current or near-term operational success and longer-term continuous modernization.
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“It’s a set of technologies that allow us to start out from a design perspective, work into the manufacturing and produce a new thing, and then extend out into the long-term sustainment of a weapon system,” Cyr explained, referring to the process as an “iterative” design. Computer algorithms have progressed to the point wherein simulations can closely replicate operational functionality of technologies used in a broader NC3 system. It is a design process which, according to Cyr, will continue to evolve in coming years to sustain and modernize the system.
“How do I make a design through lots of assessments of what the Navy prioritizes and values? Then how do I translate that into a very efficient production schedule? Both of those things get to the Navy’s real number one objective, which is speed. They want to field this new system quickly, because they have an aging aircraft and they want to move into the next generation….so it’s less a singular technology than the incorporation of multiple technologies from a design and fielding perspective that delivers that long term benefit to the Navy,” Cyr said.
This ongoing process designed for the E-XX TACAMO continues to be informed by Northrop’s work on the B-21 and Sentinel, both of which extensively drew from digital engineering techniques.
“We started out with one baseline through B-21, and it evolved with Sentinel. The E-XX TACAMO Weapon System will be a large aircraft program that requires that sort of next generation of tool development and digital engineering evolution. And we’re taking advantage of what we’ve learned under those other programs to bring that, in this case, to the Navy, but then evolve many of the pieces that were they grew under from B-21 to Sentinel. They’ll grow from Sentinel to E-XX,” Cyr said.
One significant element of the Sentinel construction of great significance to the E-XX TACAMO relates to cybersecurity. In fact, ICBM vulnerability to cyber-attack in a complex, modern threat environment is one key reason, Adm. Richard said, why the Pentagon had to acquire a new ICBM and could no longer modernize or upgrade the 1960s-Era Minuteman III.
The Sentinel, Northrop Grumman and Air Force engineers explain, is specifically engineered with a next-generation cyber security focus. Northrop Grumman’s cybersecurity focus on E-XX TACAMO is designed to align with the Navy’s CyberSafe program, an initiative which emphasizes the security of subcomponents as they inform and integrate into a larger system.
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19 FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
We welcome our readers to our community and appreciate you noticing our content. The Center for Military Modernization accepts and partially relies upon subscriptions from those passionate about the importance of military modernization. We hope you will subscribe and consider joining our community. Thanks again for considering and PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE through Patreon.
