Rook Platform™ for Missile Field Battlespace Awareness

The USAF ICBM system was fielded in the 1960s, and the current version (LGM-30G) was deployed in 1970. The attendant infrastructure and support systems have been developed over the same period, growing over time as events demanded, rather than as part of an overall integrated plan. This organic growth has led to stove-piped systems among which it is very difficult to share data and thus creates challenges to the provision of adequate Situational Awareness (SA) to mission commanders and staff. For Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), this lack of data and information collection, fusion, and decision support capability presents a challenge to having a real-time Common Operating Picture (COP) of missile field activities, not only at each Wing Operations Center (WOC) but also at AFGSC HQ in the Joint Nuclear Operations Center (JNOC). Praeses recently fielded Watchtower at the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB for an extended user evaluation. Watchtower is a data fusion and visualization environment that ingests data from across the mission space, fuses it, and provides a real-time COP, configurable to the various missions. Watchtower provides SA for both maintainers and security forces. Based on initial success, Watchtower is currently being implemented at both the 91st Missile Wing at Minot AFB and at the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren AFB. This proposed effort would utilize and extend the separate framework (Rook Platform™) that underpins Watchtower, providing a different instantiation of that framework which would meet a different set of requirements – to  begin the effort to consolidate the missile field information from each of the three missile wings at the JNOC at AFGSC HQ at Barksdale Air Force Base.