Shift5 says $99 million Army contract expands its NGC2 role

The Army has made initial awards for the warfighting applications in Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2), which it is moving from division-level prototyping to delivery at I Corps.^1–2 The awards, with an initial collective one-year value of approximately $93.6 million, went to General Dynamics Mission Systems, Air Space Intelligence Federal, Immersive Wisdom, LMI, Mente Systems, Stilman Advanced Strategies, Onebrief, Rune Technologies and AIR.¹ AIR was formerly Govini, Breaking Defense reported.³

The awards add to the software that Anduril, Palantir, Raft and Striveworks provide for the NGC2 data layer and core artificial intelligence capabilities.¹ According to Breaking Defense, the Army named Anduril in June to lead the common data layer baseline, with support from Palantir and Raft. On Monday, Anduril announced a $162.8 million initial base period for its early NGC2 work, Breaking Defense reported. The company said options could take the total to $1.8 billion over five years.³

A year of prototyping with I Corps' 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions informed the software capabilities and requirements to scale across the force. The Army says the NGC2 ecosystem will provide tools across six warfighting functions, from fires and intelligence to protection.¹ What the nine companies' applications will do is less clear. According to Breaking Defense, an Army spokesperson declined to describe their specific tasks, citing security concerns. Speaking generally, the spokesperson said they will support planning and course-of-action analysis, airspace management and deconfliction, and sustainment management and decision support.³

The Army encountered problems integrating Anduril’s technology with existing communications, Army and company officials told Breaking Defense. The 25th Infantry Division attempted to use Lattice during September’s Lightning Surge 5 exercise in Hawaii.¹

Army and industry officials said the division’s architecture is largely representative of what they must build on to field other I Corps units.¹

Earlier use at the 4th Infantry Division in Colorado paired Anduril’s Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) technology with new, mostly commercial hardware and software. James Craven, Anduril’s NGC2 program manager, said the 25th would preserve some legacy capabilities, and not every unit would receive fresh fielding like the 4th.¹

Lockheed Martin leads integration for the 25th’s portion of NGC2 and served as integrator for Lattice. Chandra Marshall, Lockheed’s vice president of multi-domain combat solutions, said scaling with Lattice was an issue and passing data through the system was not where it should be. An Anduril official acknowledged growing pains but said they had discovered technical limitations in the broader communications architecture.¹

Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, the Army’s portfolio management executive for command and control information network, characterized much of what the Army saw as normal growing pains.¹