Interagency Homeland Air Security Efforts
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Homeland Air Security Industry Day

“We are in a war against terrorism and our part in that war is to help build the best air security system possible.” Rear Admiral Mike Mathis, Director, Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO)

With approximately 5,000 commercial, general, and military aviation aircraft in the air over the U.S. at any given time, just keeping track of them all is a hard job. Being able to pinpoint which one is the threat is the really tough challenge. According to Capt. Rick Easton, JTAMDO Deputy Director for Operations, that is exactly what Homeland Air Security (HAS) is all about. The job, as he described it, “is to insure that U.S. airspace is not used as an avenue of attack and to keep aircraft from becoming weapons or weapons delivery platforms for terrorists.” To deal with the terrorist threat, the administration has increased the tempo of DoD’s Homeland Air Defense operations, and created two new organizations, the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). A large part of the counter terrorism effort has been focused on air security, specifically to minimize the chance of a repeat of the September 11th attacks. Dr. Barry Fridling, Deputy and Technical Director of JTAMDO, points out that terrorists can use more than airliners for an attack. He references a recent news article about a New Zealand man who is building his own cruise missile.

“We have to be prepared for anything. Obviously, we have to prevent another September 11th type attack, but it doesn’t make sense to ignore the rest of the threats out there. We have to build a system that can address the full spectrum, from airliners, to unconventional air threats, to cruise missiles. And that means the military and law enforcement have to work hand in glove. That’s what led to JTAMDO’s participation in Homeland Air Security,” said Fridling. JTAMDO has been the lead agency within DoD over the past five years for joint air and missile defense concepts and architectures. Following the September 11th attacks, JTAMDO was directed to apply its knowledge and expertise in air defense, future technologies, and joint operations to the Homeland Air Defense mission.

The JTAMDO tasking led to contacts with other federal organizations and eventually agreement among all the players to establish an Interagency Homeland Security (IHAS) team made up of operational, policy, and senior management representatives from across the federal departments and agencies. The IHAS team has been working for almost two years to address a host of air security issues, chief among these are air surveillance, and the integration of military and law enforcement operations. One of the key products from this effort is the IHAS Operational Concept. “The IHAS Concept provides a framework for operations and a common vision on where we want to go in the future. Getting all the agencies hands-on involvement in writing the concept insured we didn’t miss something critical, and developed a truly interagency vision to leverage the full capability of the federal government in meeting the homeland air security challenge,” said Easton.

According to Rear Adm. Mike Mathis, to make the IHAS Concept a reality “we need the capability to effectively monitor and control the airspace so that we can distinguish between an inadvertent pilot deviation and a hostile cruise missile or hijacked airliner, and we have to do it without shutting down the nation’s air commerce.” Coordinated law enforcement and military actions, and the smooth, efficient flow of information among the many agencies involved has been identified as the key to successful execution of the HAS mission. To help develop and mature inter-agency procedures and identify new technologies that could support HAS, JTAMDO is undertaking a three-year National Capital Region (NCR) demonstration project under the direction of Dr. Fridling. Central themes of the demonstration are the air surveillance picture, data sharing and communications, intelligence, and decision aids. “These are areas where current or emerging technologies are expected to add significant operational value,” said Fridling. Specific areas of interest for the demonstration are:

Air Surveillance Picture: An air surveillance picture of sufficient commonality and quality across the appropriate agencies to enable the detection of abnormal activities and capable of supporting the full range of subsequent decisions and actions. The air picture must be timely and accurate enough to provide decision makers with the confidence to make event declarations and interdiction decisions.

Data sharing and communications: A seamless information exchange that enables voice and data flow among the agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. The goal is to enable communication throughout the responding forces and across the agencies without relying on a serial relay process from platform-to-platform or agency-to-agency.

Intelligence: A “push-pull” system among agencies that ensures all relevant information on terrorist activities is gathered, correlated, and cross-referenced. The goal is early detection to prevent an air attack before takeoff, or, failing that, to provide decision makers with real-time, accurate information to support decisions on interdiction.

Decision Aids: Automated processing and correlation of flight, intelligence, and/or law enforcement information/data to provide tactical and management level personnel with the ability to identify “Tracks of Interest” (TOIs) from the 5,000 aircraft in the air at any given time and assist them in determining its intent, recommend courses of action, projected outcomes, and consequences based on the situation, threat, and response assets available.

Fridling views an upcoming IHAS Industry Day in September as a key piece of the NCR demonstration. “The purpose of the industry day is two-fold. First, provide industry with an understanding of homeland air security operations, concepts, and desired capabilities and characteristics as developed by the interagency community over the last two years. Secondly, JTAMDO will be soliciting white papers from industry on technologies or systems that could be applied to the mission area,” said Fridling.

JTAMDO is funded through FY06 to conduct a series of demonstrations in the NCR where selected industry programs will be evaluated as solutions to capability needs. “This is a partnership among the agencies, but also a partnership with industry, we need their input and participation to make this demo program a success,” said Mathis.

The Homeland Air Security Industry Day is a classified conference being hosted by NDIA on September 10th at the Kossiakoff Center in Maryland.

Industry Day Information

Date: September 10, 2003
Location: Kossiakoff Center, Laurel, MD
Classification: SECRET, US-only
Program: Industry Day will consist of a number of briefings, panel discussions, and poster sessions focused on conveying the government’s desired capabilities and characteristics for Homeland Air Security. Representatives from all federal agencies working in air security plan to be in attendance. Industry will be offered the opportunity after the conference to submit “White Papers” describing their concepts and technologies, as candidates for demonstration and evaluation in the NCR.

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