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SENTINEL FOCUS DAY 1 OFF TO A GREAT START

  • Published
  • By LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. --  Members of the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing evaluated their mission capabilities on Day 1 of SENTINEL FOCUS 09 (SF-09). 

SF-09 is a week-long event where observation teams look at Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) enterprise-wide operational missions to gain a more complete insight into how effective the system is in meeting the intelligence needs of the warfighter. 

Teams made up of wing personnel evaluated Airmen conducting real-world operations in order to identify best practices and areas for improvement. 

On the first day of the event, observation teams of 6 or 7 people looked at critical operational issues (COI) that naturally occur in any DGS on a daily basis. One example is Distributed Ground Station (DGS) - 1, located at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia and DGS-4, located at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, evaluated their ability to process, exploit and disseminate intelligence from a full motion video line while, without interruption, providing mission coverage to meet all mission requirements. 

Halfway around the world, at the very same time DGS-1 and DGS-4 were being observed, a team evaluated distributed crew operations at DGS-3, Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea, on how participants interact and collaborate while supporting similar missions. Specifically, the team looked at how the Wing Operations Center communicates and distributes mission intentions to applicable stakeholders, such as geo intelligence, signals intelligence and DCGS Analytical Reporting Team (DART) assessments of products. 

These are just two examples of the thirteen critical operational issues evaluated this week in each of the DCGS sites. 

At the end of the exercise and armed with an insight into the DCGS enterprise-wide performance, the wing will focus its efforts on where to align and standardize tasking, execution and assessment processes across the wing's assigned assets and federated mission partners. 

SENTINEL FOCUS 09 is the vision of Col. Dan Johnson, commander of the 480th ISR Wing. The event began Aug. 2 and will end Aug. 6. 

480th ISR Wing units and ground sites are located throughout the world, including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nevada, Utah and Virginia as well as locations in Korea and Germany.