SAN DIEGO, Calif., 16 June 2008. BAE Systems received a $43 million contract to develop the next-generation mission-planning framework for U.S. military aircraft operations. The Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) is a cooperative software development effort between the Air Force and Navy to centralize mission planning between the services.

The Air Force's Electronic Systems Center, based at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., selected BAE Systems following a seven-month down-select process to refine requirements and improve the architecture of the current JMPS framework. The award was given under the Air Force's Mission Planning Enterprise contract to transition disparate legacy mission-planning systems into a single framework and enable network-centric operations.

"The new, services-oriented, architecture-based JMPS framework will enable collaborative mission planning between services," says Jim Rower, director of defense systems for BAE Systems in San Diego. "The program's net-centric interoperability dramatically improves the ability of our defense forces to develop and share tactical mission plans, resulting in increased mission effectiveness."

BAE Systems leads a team of industry and government experts from Boeing, DCS Corp., ESRI, Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, Ogden Air Logistics Center and Sparta. Work will be performed in San Diego and Long Beach, Calif. and will continue through 2010.