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A new milestone has been achieved, after a simulated mission software update was delivered to the US Air Force’s military hardware via a secure cloud platform.
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Northrop Grumman has leveraged the US Air Force’s DevSecOps environment, Platform One, to provide a software update to flight-rated mission hardware through a secure cloud environment.
In collaboration with the USAF 76th Software Engineering Group (76SEWG), the teams used critical Open Mission Systems (OMS) software to modify code that initiated an automated build and containerised software transfer via encrypted internet to a Northrop Grumman team in another location on the east coast.
After the software update was deployed to flight-rated hardware, the team executed a simulated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) mission, returning data and results to 76SWEG developers at Tinker Air Force Base at the conclusion of the mission.
This marked the first demonstration of an OMS software payload deployed by geographically dispersed teams using Platform One in a secure cloud environment.
“To help connect the joint force, Northrop Grumman is advancing the speed of delivering mission specific software payloads, new capabilities and improved performance to operational platforms hours/minutes before, or even during, a mission,” Scott Stapp, vice president and chief technology officer at Northrop Grumman, said.
“Northrop Grumman has enabling technologies that are required for JADC2, including advanced networking, AI, space, command and control systems, and is a prime contractor for key aeronautics platforms.”
According to the prime, the demonstration achieved digital transformation development goals for government and industry by combining a DevSecOps Pipeline based on Platform One, Kubernetes containerisation and mission critical software meeting the OMS and Universal Command and Control Interface standards.
[Related: Northrop Grumman ramps up B-21 test aircraft production]
