The Florida Air National Guard’s 601st Air Operations Center have taken the reins for a new $15 million, 37,000-square-foot facility designed to help 1st Air Force and the Continental NORAD Region direct strategic air and homeland defense air forces for NORAD and US Northern Command. The new center, slated to become operational in June, will be called America’s Air Operations Center. The former Southeast Air Defense Sector ended its 37-year run last fall as part of the switchover to the new AOC.
The Air Force will look to the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a closed solicitation that will create the Air Force's first university-affiliated research center (UARC), Air Force leaders said. The center will study tactical autonomy. The DAF will select the center's location from one of 11…