The Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing declared full operational capability as an intel unit, with the opening of a new $17.6 million facility and associated equipment at Otis ANGB, Mass., Nov. 7. The Distributed Common Ground System hub will enable the unit to expand from gathering, processing, and disseminating intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data from medium-altitude platforms, to medium- and high-altitude aircraft, according to a unit release. “From a historical perspective, our wing has now come full circle in our lineage,” from an observation unit in the 1920s, to an air-defense unit, and finally back to an ISR wing, 102nd IW Vice Commander Col. Virginia Doonan said. The 102nd IW has been working with MQ-1, MQ-9, and MC-12W platforms from a temporary ground facility since 2009. The new DCGS facility will expand its capabilities to now interface with both the U-2 Dragonlady and RQ-4 Global Hawk, according to the release. Massachusetts crews have been working from other DCGS sites to gain expertise for several years. The unit flew its final F-15 sortie in 2008.
DARPA Changing Directors Again in Third Recent Shuffle
Jan. 21, 2021
The Biden administration is reportedly tapping Stefanie Tompkins to run the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, spurring the third leadership change at the secretive Pentagon organization since January 2020. Defense One first reported Tompkins’s "pre-decisional" appointment to the post on Jan. 19. The White House did not respond to a…