Expedient Basing Challenge

FA2280-23-S-C001-002

Expedient Basing Challenge Focus Areas 1-3
#expedientbasing

BLUF

The United States Air Force (USAF) is seeking modern capabilities to establish distributed operations in austere environments around the world where it must rapidly respond to humanitarian crises, natural disasters, and/or military activity. By uncovering and advancing solutions that are lean, versatile, scalable, sustainable, resilient, and interoperable between forces, the Expedient Basing Challenge aims to significantly reduce USAF response times from weeks or months to just hours or days.

OVERVIEW

The United States Air Force (USAF) is seeking modern capabilities to rapidly establish distributed operations in hostile environments around the world. This effort addresses an important aspect of Agile Combat Employment (ACE), a scheme of maneuver that shifts operations from centralized, physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations, providing flexibility for friendly forces and complicating circumstances for adversaries. Before proceeding further, watch this video to learn more about the ACE concept and how it relates to Expedient Basing.
The USAF recognizes that future USAF operating locations will need to be lean, versatile, scalable, sustainable, and resilient. The Expedient Basing challenge aims to significantly reduce base setup response times from weeks or months to just hours or days without degradation of operational capacity to swiftly execute missions.
We encourage participants in this Challenge to offer technological and innovative solutions for experimentation and/or feasibility study, as well as developed solutions. In either case, we’re interested in understanding all underlying technologies upon which a solution relies.

FOCUS AREAS

● Site & Logistics Optimization
● Training Modernization
● Force Sustainment

FA2280-23-S-C001-002

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the Expedient Basing Challenge are twofold: 1. The primary objective is to demonstrate the viability of solutions that streamline and expedite the planning and setup of operating locations in austere locations.
2. The secondary objective is to accelerate technology development that could lead to operational adoption of advanced capabilities by the U.S. Government.

CONTEXT

The USAF’s ability to efficiently and effectively operate at the edge of a battle area is essential to our superiority. Forward Operating Bases and Contingency Locations, also known as FOBs and CLs, respectively, are located at or near the edge and act