Factory acceptance testing of the Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground System version 10.2 has been completed, clearing the way for installation of the hardware and software at Beale AFB, Calif., the first planned site, lead contractor Raytheon announced May 23. The test’s successful completion brings the Air Force’s DCGS sites “closer to a network-centric reality, where each site is able to share intelligence information in near real-time,” said Anthony DiFurio, director of multi-intelligence systems for Raytheon’s intelligence and information Systems. DCGS is a worldwide distributed architecture that enables collaborative intelligence operations and production of intelligence products.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…