Lockheed Martin is developing a software planner that integrates air operations and missile defense systems, giving the Air Force the ability to "see" and better understand dynamic global situations.

The U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth approximately $8 million to provide an air and missile defense planner that will be integrated into the U.S. Air Force Air Operations Center.

"This planner offers an unprecedented capability to analyze multiple sources of information to support rapid and efficient deployment decisions," said Rob Smith, vice president of C4ISR for Lockheed Martin Information Systems and Global Solutions.

"Our goal is to enhance situational awareness and facilitate collaborative planning for all combatant commands."

Lockheed Martin's planner will link dissimilar weapon and sensor data with map-based planning tools and decision aids that will allow AOC operators to collaboratively plan missions with greater speed and higher confidence. By integrating the missile defense data sources on to a common visualization platform, operators can easily generate and publish planning tactical operations documents to support creation of an area air defense plan.

In addition, the planner incorporates an open, non-proprietary software infrastructure that will allow the Air Force to rapidly introduce new capabilities. This open architecture also facilities integration with legacy systems and ultimately helps lower total ownership costs.

Lockheed Martin leveraged years of expertise gained developing air operation and missile defense systems such as the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system, which integrates multiple standalone ballistic missile defensive weapons systems; the Theater Battle Management Core System, which plans and executes air order taskings for Air Operations Centers, and the Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) system which unites data from approximately 40 U.S. Air Force air, missile and space command and control systems.