Huntsville (Alabama): Lockheed Martin has launched a prototyping hub to develop possible command-and-control solutions to be offered as a critical part of the Golden Dome homeland missile defence shield’s architecture, the company announced.
Within 36 days of the original idea, the company established the capability at its Centre for Innovation facility in Suffolk, Virginia, also known as “the Lighthouse,” Thad Beckert, the company’s director of strategy and business development for its rotary and mission systems division, told reporters.
“Prototyping is already underway at the Lighthouse,” a company statement reads, “where real capabilities are being tested against current and future threat scenarios, from ground to space.”
When President Trump first announced his plans to develop the Golden Dome for homeland missile defence, Lockheed began thinking about what would be needed for such a capability when it comes to command-and-control.
“When you think about the combatant commander or the commander at all levels of operating within the operating theater, they all have to have an integrated awareness and that integrated awareness comes from making sure that when you see a threat, you know what that threat is and the best way to engage that threat,” Beckert said.
“You want to have more than one shot at that threat. You also want to know that you’re putting the right weapon on the right threat, and you’re matching it against what you think might be coming. When you take all that together, that is a challenging problem, and when you scale it to the national level and beyond, that is one of the biggest challenges that’s ever been undertaken in the command and control world,” he said. Adding, “This has not been done yet.”
