Thanks to work by Raytheon, an advanced new ground system for space-based missile warning recently deployed at the U.S. Space Force’s Overhead Persistent Infrared Battlespace Awareness Center (OBAC).
Raytheon – an RTX business – got the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution Mission Data Processing Application Framework (FORGE MDPAF) operational this month, offering a modular and adaptable framework capable of quickly integrating applications to process, exploit and circulate information from satellites. Raytheon workshopped this version of the FORGE MDPAF system through regular incremental development releases that optimized and added new iterative capabilities.
“There are thousands of satellites on orbit today and space is an increasingly contested domain,” Sandy Brown, vice president for Mission Solutions & Payloads for Raytheon, said. “FORGE MDPAF is designed to scale in a way that can handle the current volume of missile warning data and grow to support future proliferated space data processing needs.”
While the system has focused on supporting OBAC operations, now Raytheon intends to shift it into full missile warning detection. It will do so by processing Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) satellite data from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Based Infrared System constellation and the future Next Gen OPIR constellation, coupled with processing data from other civil and environmental sensors.
OBAC is located within Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado.