Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon Technologies business, announced on October 5 that it was awarded a U.S. Air Force contract for its Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution Mission Data Processing Application Framework. FORGE will ingest and process data from the Air Force’s Space Based Infrared Systems and the future Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Systems.
“We’re now transitioning from a prototype design to delivering the FORGE framework to the broader OPIR community,” said Ted Glusko, vice president for intelligence production solutions for RI&S. “Our framework will provide operators faster access to data and to new applications.”
To deliver quickly, RI&S leaned forward with agile development methodology and commercial partners, including Red Hat, Dell, Rocket Communications, SCITEC and Outside Analytics. The open, modular and cyber-secure framework enables applications from diverse sources to be added within minutes. Different applications will allow FORGE to process specific types of data.
FORGE is being developed using a DevOps pipeline process that will securely host new applications in support of new missions. With previous systems, it took years to make updates, and now, updates can be done within days or even minutes. Operators can fuse different sources of data in ways that simply weren’t available before, improving situational awareness and providing timely notification to key decision-makers.
Under the updated $251 million two-year base contract with three one-year options, RI&S will transition FORGE into operations and evolve the framework. Deliveries will occur every four months. Each delivery will include updates based on continuous feedback from Space Force operators.
FORGE is a program within the Cross-Mission Ground & Communications Enterprise directorate at Space and Missile Systems Center. The directorate was established to integrate and modernize tactical, operational, and data transport ground capabilities across the space enterprise.
Source: Raytheon Intelligence & Space
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