Defense Department turns to ESC to lead way on NextGen

  • Published
  • By Chuck Paone
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs Office
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  Electronic Systems Center's chief technology officer, Dr. Tim Rudolph, has been named the Defense Department's lead architect for a massive federal initiative known as the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen. 

The center's 653d Electronic Systems Wing, which has a lot of experience with NextGen, will join Dr. Rudolph to help propel this effort. The 653rd will provide the direct support and much of the programmatic expertise needed to assist Dr. Rudolph. 

Earlier in the decade, facing estimates that call for domestic air transportation volume to triple by 2025, Congress directed the Departments of Transportation, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security, as well as NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to work together on this issue. This led to the creation of NextGen, which seeks to transform America's air transportation system. 

ESC has played a leading role since NextGen's inception, which it made it a natural choice for filling this critical role, said Guy St. Sauveur of the 653 ELSW staff. 

According to Ron Mason, director of the 653 ELSW, NextGen is directly relevant to the center and its wing activities. 

"It represents net-centric command and control in the truest sense," he said. "ESC has a lot of the resident expertise that's needed for NextGen, in terms of air traffic control and landing systems and also net-centric operations. We've also been heavily involved in early efforts, including technology initiatives and demonstrations, which helped jumpstart the whole process." 

As for Dr. Rudolph, his credentials and many years of experience integrating technology solutions speak for themselves, Mr. Mason said. 

Dr. Rudolph, who in his current capacity typically works with many external stakeholders, will take on these duties while still functioning as the center's full-time CTO. Still, he has already established some clear priorities. 

"We need to unify joint service inputs, leverage architecture, data strategies and program of record products to make NextGen successful," he said. 

The Air Force, which serves as DoD's lead agent for NextGen, established a schedule in mid-July and tasked the Air Force Materiel Command with providing, within 30 days, a recommendation for a DoD NextGen chief architect. With that step accomplished, the command and Dr. Rudolph's team can begin focusing on the next three steps outlined in the July 15 Air Force memorandum. 

By about mid-September, the Air Force wants a process in place to catalog research, development and acquisition activities and programs having NextGen applicability. Within another month, the team should develop a preliminary listing of those activities and programs. By mid-November, the Air Force hopes to have a comprehensive listing of activities and programs that have NextGen applicability across DoD, as well as a synchronized roadmap to facilitate the transition and/or transfer of appropriate technologies between the DoD, other federal agencies and the private sector, according to the memo. 

"NextGen is an air transportation system, not an air traffic system," Mr. St. Sauveur noted in August 2007, when the center began working directly with Air Force and national program leaders. "That's because it's far more comprehensive. It's about air traffic, but also about safety, security, weather, mobility, efficiency - and accounting for expansion needs." 

In the Dec. 28, 2007, memorandum that instructed the Air Force to take the lead, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England wrote of NextGen's criticality to DoD. 

"DoD must participate in the NextGen interagency partnership in a cohesive, authoritative manner," he wrote. 

For the Air Force and the other services, participating in NextGen is about ensuring that "we'll be fully integrated with the civil aviation community - in terms of policy, procedures and technology - so that we can perform our mission, as needed, whether in 2009 or in 2025," Mr. Mason said. 

To get things moving, the team is already working to set up meetings between Dr. Rudolph and members of the Joint Planning and Development Office, which is coordinating the full U.S. government effort. Other meetings, which build on established inter-service relationships, are also being arranged.
 
"I'm looking forward to a truly collaborative effort among the services and shaping a consistent message between DoD, other federal agencies and industry," Dr. Rudolph said. "I think we bring significant lessons learned from building out the Global Information Grid, Community of Interest approaches, and leveraging applied innovation to meet exactly the right challenge and avoid unnecessary redundancy across key stakeholders."