BREAKING DEFENSE By Jaspreet Gill
“Space Systems Command to start testing the first set of hardware and infrastructure deliverables under its new ‘Enigma’ Program, meant to seamlessly facilitate collaboration between industry and the Defense Department under one common environment.
Enigma will provide one single cloud-based environment where both industry and DoD can collaborate on a shared network.”
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“Connect ‘anyone, anywhere, anytime’, a service official told Breaking Defense“So we’re trying to have a full integrated picture from device to transport…to the cloud environment or the hosting environment where we can do our actual work,” Col. Jennifer Krolikowski said.
“The problem that we’re trying to go after is being able to connect to anyone, anywhere, anytime that we want to, in a secure fashion, and in a way that we have a good user experience associated with it as well,” Col. Jennifer Krolikowski, director of Space System Command’s chief information office, told Breaking Defense at the sidelines of the AFCEA Tech Summit.
“So we’re trying to have a full integrated picture from device to transport…to the cloud environment or the hosting environment where we can do our actual work.”
Put simply, Enigma will provide one single cloud-based environment where both industry and DoD can collaborate on a shared network. Those things can include “digital engineering, or devsecops, or just regular collaboration on documents or something like that,” Krolikowski said. She added that Space Systems Command is trying to create “an integrated full picture of how data is generated, transported [and] secured from a full end-to-end perspective,” something that currently doesn’t exist.
In March, General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) was awarded an $18 million contract to build out an Enigma prototype. The prototype is currently being built out and Space Systems Command is “on a very fast track” with it, with the first deliverable slated for June, Krolikowski said during her keynote speech at the event.
She elaborated on that first deliverable after her speech to Breaking Defense, saying the work being done encompasses “deploying all of the hardware and infrastructure that needs to be in place.”
Space Systems Command is “trying to use industry as much as possible for the solution versus us building it from scratch and then also having them operate it for us as well….So those connection points are going to be deployed out here in short order, and then start to do some of the early testing and adoption for it,” she added.
The first phase of Enigma will span Impact Levels 5 and 6 (IL5 and IL6) classification levels, or unclassified level up to the classified secret level for national security systems.
It’s eventually meant to work up to the highest Special Access Program (SAP) classification level that another effort currently being built out, called the integrated operations network (ION), will span, Krolikowski told Breaking Defense. Space Force Chief Technology Information Officer Lisa Costa is spearheading the effort to build out the ION.
“Enigma’s always meant to scale up to that SAP level as well,” Krolikowski said. “But with the work that [Costa’s] doing, we may be able to get there a little bit faster.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jaspreet Gill covers defense networks, C4ISR and emerging technologies for Breaking Defense. She previously worked as the senior technology reporter and an associate editor for Inside Defense, where she reported on emerging technologies, cybersecurity and the US Army, focusing on the service’s modernization priorities and acquisition programs. Jaspreet, an upstate New York native, is an alumna of Syracuse University’s renown S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she received a master’s degree in journalism.
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