The Air Force is quite pleased with the work Lockheed Martin has been doing at the service’s Distributed Mission Operations Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M., so much so it has just awarded the company another $26 million to extend the existing contract through 2009. Lockheed provides technical integration and network management, as well as development of new software, for the DMOC, which is primarily a training simulation activity. However, Col. Leonard Moskal, commander of the 505th Distributed Warfare Group at Kirtland, says DMOC does more than provide realistic network warfare training; it enables the service “to test and evaluate tactics, weapons, or technology.”
The Air Force is leaning toward a less-sophisticated autonomous aircraft in the second increment of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the services chief futurist said. He also suggested that the next increment of CCA may be air-launched, a la the "Rapid Dragon" experiments conducted by the service in recent years.