The joint NEO Spiral 1 program: Lessons learned operational concepts and technical framework

The mission of the joint network enabled operations (NEO) program is to promote interagency communication and collaboration through the use of modern network enabled tools, technologies, and operational procedures for the next generation air transportation system (NextGen). The NEO environment features a modern service bus based enterprise architecture. To evaluate the utility of this architecture and the resulting network enabled tools and services, a set of limited objective command post exercises (CPX) was performed. The exercise participants included personnel from the transportation security administration (TSA) and Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) from the transportation security operations center (TSOC); U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from the Air Marine Operations Center (AMOC) at March ANG Base; DoD personnel from 1st Air Force Air Operations Center (AOC) at Tyndall AFB; FAA personnel from the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC); and FAA Headquarters personnel from FAA Headquarters Washington, DC. Upon completion of the exercise participants discussed issues, observations, and lessons learned, which were documented and compiled into a final, after action report summarizing the exercise.