Long Range Kill Chain Digital Model to Support Agile NCA Weapons

The National Defense Strategy (NDS) of the United States of America states, “Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order—creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory.” One of the critical areas our potential adversaries can exploit in this volatile security environment is the inconsistency by the Joint Force in maintaining target custody across various gaps in the joint kill chain. As such, a nonproprietary, open, agile, digital Long Range Kill Chain (LRKC) model-based systems engineering (MBSE) model will play a critical role in all future combat operations, especially Contested Degraded Operations (CDO) in Highly Contested Environments (HCE). An open, agile, adaptable digital LRKC model will not only prove invaluable for combatant commanders in the distributed joint fight, but also prove invaluable for acquisition leaders. This model can inform acquisition leaders on the integrated connectivity required by new and legacy weapon systems to enable them to make optimal acquisition decisions, ensuring these systems can connect and effectively “close the kill chain” while prosecuting joint targets across various warfighting domains. Further, an open, agile, digital LRKC model is directly aligned with the Secretary of the Air Force’s (SecAF) Operational Imperatives of Achieving Operationally Optimized Advanced Battle Management Systems (ABMS) / Air Force Joint All-Domain Command & Control (AF JADC2) as well as Defining Optimized Communications in Contested Environments. In addition, an open, agile, digital LRKC model is directly aligned with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s (CSAF) Action Orders (AOs) in Accelerate Change or Lose to enable the Joint Force to accurately plan and wargame great power competition conflicts and drive “to areas of U.S. advantages and/or competitors’ weaknesses.” As outlined by Air Combat Command (ACC), the LRKC consists of the following four lines of effort (LOE): Sense, Connect, Battle Management Command & Control (BMC2)/Enable, and Engage. We recognize that developing credible capabilities for all four lines of effort in a constrained SBIR Phase 2 schedule and budget is not realistic. Therefore, for this SBIR Phase 2 effort, we plan to initially focus on the Connect line of effort while building out the appropriate “hooks” for the remaining three LOEs.