Lockheed Martin [LMT] was awarded a contract to modernize the Joint Air Force Component Commanders’ system for generating air task orders.
The Theater Battle Management Core System (TBMCS) essentially controls everything that flies in operations for the Air Force and the Navy including fighters, bombers tankers, unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters and cruise missiles.
The five-year, $249 million contract will update the software that controls the system, which Lockheed Martin called the “engine of the Air Operations Center” in a release on Tuesday.
“Lockheed Martin is updating the software in the system to enable it to be platform agnostic, which will allow the Air Force to use the system on a variety of devices, such as mobile devices, laptop computers, or other platforms as they choose,” said Michael Donovan, TBMCS program manager.
The upgrade will replace three applications in the system: the Theater Air Planner, the Execution Management Re-Planner and the Master Air Attack Planning Toolkit. The overall aim of the modernization is to work within a “fully net-centric environment.”
“These enhancements will provide users with faster access to real-time operations and intelligence data, as well as better planning and collaboration tools for enhanced situational awareness and decision-making,” said Jim Quinn, vice president of C4ISR Systems for Lockheed Martin.
The upgrade is critical given the Defense Department’s current fiscal constraints, Donovan said. The new software will help reduce the TBMCS’s lifecycle costs while providing its users with improved capabilities.