TEMPEST avionics cyber initiative progresses
The USAF is seeking methodologies, tools, techniques, and capabilities to identify susceptibilities and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities in avionics systems. (Photo: USAF/Senior Airman Siuta Ika)
Ball Aerospace is assisting a USAF programme to identify EW susceptibilities and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities in avionics systems.
The US Air Force Research Laboratory has selected Ball Aerospace to support its Trusted and Elastic Military Platforms and Electronic Warfare System Technologies (TEMPEST) resilient and agile mission systems programme.
Work on the $91.02 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is scheduled for completion by April 2026, the DoD announced on 23 April.
The contract ‘provides for the leveraging of current advances in open system architecture standards and approaches, commercial high-speed networking technologies, heterogeneous processing, precision timing, cybersecurity and cyber-resiliency, modelling and simulation, and advanced computing paradigms such as cloud infrastructure to enable advanced mission system capability’, the DoD added.
The USAF launched TEMPEST in late 2019 as it seeks methodologies, tools, techniques, and capabilities to identify susceptibilities and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities in avionics systems.
It also aims to provide simulation capabilities required to develop, mature and transition advanced sensor and avionics technologies, develop platform architecture technologies that enable revolutionary and agile capabilities, and expand emerging open system architecture standards and approaches for existing and next-generation USAF and DoD weapon systems in multi-domain environments.
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