Expedient Basing Challenge Focus Areas 4-5

The United States Air Force (USAF) is launching the Expedient Basing Challenge, with Focus Areas 4-5. The core of this challenge is to discover innovative methods that enables the USAF to quickly set up distributed operations in inaccessible, remote locations around the globe. This challenge addresses a critical tactic known as Agile Combat Employment (ACE) – a strategy that diverts operations from a conventional, centralized infrastructure model to a more versatile network comprised of smaller, scattered sites.

ACE's primary advantage is that it offers greater flexibility to our forces while simultaneously creating confusion for any potential adversaries. The USAF invites interested participants to watch an informative video elucidating the ACE concept and its connection to Expedient Basing.

The USAF views future operating sites as requiring compactness, versatility, scalability, sustainability, resilience, and interoperability. The Expedient Basing Challenge also aims to substantially cut down the response times during setup of friendly forces at distant and isolated locations without impacting their operational ability or mission execution capacity.

Participants in this challenge are encouraged to propose innovative and technological solutions. These might be for experimentation, feasibility study or even completely developed solutions. The underlying principle is to understand the technologies any given solution relies upon.

The Expedient Basing Challenge has a dual-purpose objective: The main objective is to demonstrate the potential of solutions that streamline and expedite planning and setup of operating sites in austere locations. The secondary objective is to hasten technological development that may lead to operational implementation of such advances by the U.S. government.

In-depth information concerning the Challenge, its Focus Areas, potential participants, and submission information are available at the following link: https://afwerxchallenge.com/expedientbasing/expedient-basing-challenge-focus-areas-4-5/overview

Please note, the deadline for the Solution Submission Phase is Aug 21, 2023.