The federal government’s expanded use of drones over U.S. airspace for “humanitarian assistance and homeland security” purposes soon will receive a boost of assistance from the private sector.
A cadre of contracted “subject-matter experts” will help devise national policies and procedures governing unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.
In order to “facilitate the safe expansion” of the Obama administration’s domestic drone deployment, the U.S. Air Force Safety Center, or AFSC, will outsource to industry the assembling of this expert crew, according to a Sources Sought document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor discovered via routine database research.
The release of a formal Request for Proposals to provide those services is imminent.
A recent amendment to the procurement – known as the RPA Advisory & Assistance Services initiative – indicates that the bid request will be made public this week.
The AFSC’s Remote Piloted Aircraft, or RPA, Safety Branch, which oversees “safety policy, global mishap prevention strategies and processes,” said the outsourcing of this “safety expertise” will play a critical role in integrating drones into the National Airspace System.
The endeavor also will enable the Department of Defense to execute its plan to establish 65 regional drone Combat Air Patrols, while additionally providing “functional safety capabilities in support” of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom missions, the solicitation said.
Helping to clear a backlog of RPA cases under investigation at the Air Force Central Command and the Air Combat Command also falls within the purview of this procurement.
The department intends to hire a single prime contractor – which must be a U.S. firm –responsible for filling several subject-matter expert positions. According to a Summary of Required Services document, approximately seven analysts and engineers will comprise the RPA safety crew.
Positions slated to be created for the expert drone cadre include an “operations research analyst” and an “airspace/air traffic control expert.” Those contractors will interact with representative of the major military commands and the Federal Aviation Agency generally to help safely expand drone operations in U.S. airspace.
A pair of “systems safety engineers” and a “human factors expert” specifically will be tasked with analyzing “aviation safety trends,” involving evaluations of existing “mishap reports and data.” The document did not include statistics revealing the extent of such drone “mishaps.” Those experts also will coordinate safety efforts with other unmanned aerial system – or UAS– users, both governmental and non-governmental, “to identify common problem areas and share potential technical solutions.”
Among those other entities is the Electronic Systems Center, or ESC, a key Air Force unit responsible for many Defense-wide military command and control projects around the globe. ESC, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, oversees “some of America’s most valuable defense assets.”
Those assets include the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS, whose primary mission “is to provide theater ground and air commanders with ground surveillance to support attack operations and targeting that contributes to the delay, disruption and destruction of enemy forces.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research and Engineering, known as MITRE Corp., was identified in the document as a non-governmental partner with whom the engineers would work. MITRE, for example, later this year will host a panel meeting on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense to explore UAS “sense and avoid, or SAA, science and research.”
The defense secretary’s office, in a Request for Information on SAA data, acknowledged that “a key challenge to integrating UAS into the National Airspace System is a means for UAS to sense and avoid other aircraft.” The meeting will take place Nov. 14-15 at MITRE’s McLean, Va., facility, where the Office of the Secretary of Defense will lead an assessment of “ongoing science and research initiatives.”
The gathering also will seek to identify “areas where industry and the research community desires government guidance.”
This article originally was published via WND.com on July 8, 2012. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.
The Monitor Celebrates 10,000 Page-Views
As the editor of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, I once again wish to thank all those readers from around the globe who continue to visit this site. It is with great delight to report that the Monitor this week exceeded the 10,000 page-view mark in its brief three-month existence. In terms of relative magnitude, to you that figure likely doesn't elicit a jaw-dropping response, yet the figure is significant for a one-man, part-time operation taking place at the Shore of New Jersey (and, yes, I intentionally avoided using the term “Jersey Shore” to avoid connecting with or riding upon the success of the popular but moronic TV show of that name—a show that is, unfortunately, filmed not far from my location).
Before I continue, please note that the Monitor never has, never does, nor will ever collect or distribute personally identifying information from visitors/readers. The information I am now sharing via this post primarily comes from Google Analytics, which assesses the general source of traffic to this site (i.e.: country of origin, referring web pages, Internet Service Providers, etc.) as well through the TypePad service that hosts the Monitor. In other words, unless you identify yourself when posting comments (which I encourage people to do), you remain anonymous to me.
Anyhow, having inserted that critical addendum, I first want to express continued thanks to John Young from Cryptome.org, who regularly posts links to Monitor articles. Cryptome, an excellent repository of national security and law enforcement-related information plus hard-to-find government documents, is responsible for driving significant Internet traffic my way.
That may or may not be the reason that a handful of visitors from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, the U.S. State Dept., the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and a few other federal entities have made their way to the Monitor. It could be that I have annoyed a few bureaucrats along the way by uncovering projects or conflicts of interest that they would rather I keep quiet about.
Ironically, I have gotten quite a few visitors from two sides on opposite end of the political spectrum: FreeRepublic.com on the right, and BuzzFlash.com on the left. It just goes to show that wasteful government spending is a topic of concern for everyone, no matter whether you blame President Obama for the world’s problems or if you seek salvation through him!
Likewise, I welcome the many worldwide visitors whom have made their way to the Monitor. Though the bulk of traffic comes from the U.S., with a growing number of readers from other primarily English-speaking nations such as England, Canada, and Australia, other readers have come from places including Pakistan, Italy, Mexico, Germany, France, India, China, and Russia—with a smaller numbers of visitors coming from places (93 countries and territories in all) ranging from Iran to Sudan and from Argentina to Zimbabwe!
If you like this site, please let people know about it. Simply click the Facebook thumbs-up icon near the top right-hand corner of this page (located near the Amazon.com link to my memoir, Hotel Dick: Harlots, Starlets, Thieves & Sleaze) and let your friends know about the Monitor.
One final note: if you wish to redistribute Monitor articles, I urge you, for instance, only to post the title, an excerpt (i.e.: the first paragraph or two), and a direct link to the article of interest. I recently discovered that one blog actually took one of my articles, reworded it with a level of creativity emblematic of a lazy, plagiarizing 14-year-old the night before a term paper is due, and re-posted as its own work! The thief actually posted accompanying links to the source documents as if that person, and not I, had painstakingly researched and discovered those resources for the article.
Such copyright infringement will not be tolerated, folks.
So, ending on a more positive note, please feel free to share what the Monitor has to offer, but do so with respect for the copyright owner.
Come back soon, even you folks at DHS!
-- Steve Peacock
Posted at 01:26 PM in Commentary, DHS, Law Enforcement/Police Issues, Privacy-Surveillance, U.S. State Dept., Zimbabwe | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: canada, government, internet, jersey shore, privacy, us, usa
| Reblog (0)