WASHINGTON – Recently, a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B squadron took its first taste from the new logistics system which will switch the much-maligned current system within the next 2 yrs.
The from Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona grew to become the very first unit to get the first round of hardware required to fully stand up the Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN, the F-35 Joint Program Office stated within an March. 21 news release.
ODIN is placed to supersede Lockheed Martin’s troubled Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, by December 2022, when all F-35 units may have both new hardware and also the associated software.
F-35 pilots, maintainers and support personnel presently use ALIS to trace and order spares, conduct repairs, support mission planning and training, and store technical data, among other functions. However, because ALIS was created plus the jet in early 2000s, a few of the technology accustomed to build it’s now outdated, resulting in a method that’s clunky, heavy and slow by current standards.
Based on the F-35 Joint Program Office, the brand new ODIN hardware has already been demonstrating performance gains, whilst combined with the most recent ALIS 3.5.2.2 software release. Following the new hardware was combined with the aircraft, Marine pilots conducted one test flight Sept. 29 and 4 flights the very next day. (The discharge didn’t specify whether Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 or 122 transported the tests.)
The brand new hardware is a small fraction of how big the servers and also the computing systems presently accustomed to support ALIS, this program office stated within the release. Existing ALIS servers, which could weigh greater than 800 pounds, “comprise of the full person-height rack of electronics and wish additional backup power modules,” which makes it hard to deploy ALIS in austere environments without having to sacrifice capacity.
Meanwhile, the ODIN hardware includes “two transportable cases roughly how big two bits of carry-on luggage,” each weighing under 70 pounds, this program office stated.
Tests also have proven a noticable difference within the speed from the ALIS software because of the new hardware, with processing occasions roughly decline in half when compared to legacy hardware, this program office stated.
The F-35 Integrated Test Pressure, which conducted tests at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland from August. 31 to Sept. 10, thought it was could load data from portable devices towards the primary server two times as quickly. All this reduces how long a maintainer is stuck awaiting information to load, cutting lower on workload and potentially accelerating maintenance activities.
This program office also noted enhancements that may allow it to be simpler to rapidly deploy ODIN in expeditionary environments, for example “a significant reduction” within the time needed to setup the machine and transfer aircraft.
Unlike the Lockheed-developed ALIS system, ODIN is a cloud-native system with applications that may be regularly updated according to user feedback. The machine has been made to decrease maintainer workload while increasing mission capacity rates, this program office noted.
“The greatest different between ALIS and ODIN is the fact that … the federal government is leading the ODIN development effort, leveraging the abilities and also the contributions of organizations like Kessel Run, Lockheed Martin, the 309th [Software Engineering Group] out at Hill [Air Pressure Base in Utah] yet others, getting them together to provide the apps and also the infrastructure and also the underlying data architecture that’s needed to complete this program,” Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, the government’s program executive officer for that F-35, stated in March.
Fick also stated at that time that when the very first F-35 unit receives ODIN hardware within the fall, the gear would then gradually unveil with other squadrons, one-by-one.
“We’ll stand lower a squadron operation unit using legacy ALIS, stay at home up using hardware that may support both ALIS and ODIN,” he stated. “We plan to cut within the first squadron in the whole, divorcing it from legacy ALIS in nov 2021, so annually later.”
While full operational capacity is planned to happen in December 2022, “that deployment timeline is going to be contingent upon the requirements of the consumer,” Fick noted. “We’re not likely to interrupt a carrier deployment for that update.”
