It's MAJIIC

Sea Power, Aug 2005 by Kreisher, Otto

In that exercise, MAJIIC provided the warfighters with live Joint STARS data from the synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indicator. Joint STARS comprises a variety of sensors based on E-8C aircraft that locate, identify and track ground targets.

As an element of the horizontal fusion initiative, MAJIIC is part of a multinational project that includes eight NATO allies: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

The aim is "the seamless sharing of data across the coalition," Stefansky said. As part of the multinational fusion effort, MAJIIC was being transitioned to an operational capability in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom starting in May, he added.

But the overall MAJIIC program still is considered to be in development, and it will be integrated into an exercise, called Extended Awareness III, for its Military Utility Assessment, which is a step that all advanced concept programs must take, Stefansky said.

Extended Awareness III is an experiment that will focus on providing access to ISR data from multiple sources and sensors, using a netcentric approach to ISR sharing and dissemination. It is scheduled to take place Sept. 12-23 at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., New Mexico State University at Las Cruces and JFCOM's headquarters in Norfolk.

The demonstration will be "heavily focused" on joint and coalition ISR interoperability and data accessibility, with the intent of enhancing "battlespace awareness" and providing ISR support to "time-sensitive operations and combat assessment," Nadolski said.

During the demonstration, JFCOM will develop concepts of operation and tactics, techniques and procedures for coalition ISR operations, and demonstrate enhanced interoperability between coalition systems, Nadolski said.

The goal of the project is to allow ISR information to be shared among coalition partners and alleviate the massive data backlogs that now are generated during major operations, he said.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, for example, ISR information was in great demand, Nadolski said. But because of the huge volume of data, the analysis and dissemination lagged behind the rapidly moving combat operations.

One of the goals of the Extended Awareness demonstration is "to make ISR data available to the customers who need it right away," he said.

"Networking the information and making it available across the different domains, including the coalition-sharing piece, is going to be a critical part of our focus," Nadolski said. "It really is all about making the information broadly available and integrating it with the operation."

A separate technology demonstration will link MAJIIC with another project, the Adaptive Joint C4ISR Node. That effort will integrate the two programs to pass information from a joint task force headquarters down to the brigade level and then to troops out on combat patrols, Nadolski said

The Defense Department expects to have both of those capabilities available for operational use no later than 2008.