U.S. Marine Corps tests new Maven air-defense dashboard

U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps teams have shown Marine air-defense operators a prototype dashboard that brings threat and resource data into one screen. It is meant to help a regional commander see what is in the air and what defenses are available to respond, and it was first demonstrated on Oct. 5 during the Weapons and Tactics Instructor course 1-27 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona.

The tool is officially named the Maven Smart System Regional Air Defense Commander Dashboard C2 Tool. It runs inside the Maven Smart System, the Palantir-built data and targeting platform that the U.S. Department of War has spread across its commands, and it pulls together information from multiple sources to give commanders a clearer picture of regional air-defense operations.

Development moved quickly for a military software project. The Overmatch Rapid Capability Cell, part of the Department of the Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Mission Systems, led development and engineering, and its developers worked directly with Marine air-defense operators to build the prototype inside the existing Maven environment in less than two months after coordination began.

On the Marine Corps side, Project Dynamis and Task Force Maven led the effort, with the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing acting as the Fleet Marine Force sponsor and the Aviation Expeditionary Enablers team under the Deputy Commandant for Aviation providing support.

“Ready-to-use C2 tools are critical as 3d MAW continues to experiment with the various methods of supporting joint air defense command and control. The collaboration among Project Overmatch, Project Dynamis, and Fleet operators at WTI drives us forward,” said Brig. Gen. Dolberry Jr., assistant wing commander of 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

WTI is the Marine Corps’ advanced aviation tactics course, run by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1) at Yuma, which made it a useful place to put the prototype in front of experienced operators. Representatives from all four Marine Aircraft Wings, MAWTS-1 instructors and personnel from Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One (VMX-1) gave feedback during the course, and that input is now shaping which data the dashboard needs to combine to support integrated air and missile defense.

The team is also looking at how to add what the Marine Corps release calls Maven Smart System’s “super intelligence features,” so that commanders can better assess adversary activity. The release did not say what those features are or how they would work in the air-defense tool.

The dashboard arrives as the Marine Corps opens Maven to far more of its personnel. DefenseScoop reported on Oct. 20 that an administrative message, effective Oct. 1, directs units at every echelon to give authorized personnel their own accounts on the system, and that it names Project Dynamis and Task Force Maven as the coordinating offices for the rollout. The Department of War raised the ceiling on its Palantir contract for the Maven Smart System to nearly $1.3 billion through 2029 in 2025, DefenseScoop also reported.

The platform is already in wide use elsewhere in the U.S. military. Defense One reported in September that all U.S. combatant commands use Maven for intelligence and operations data analysis, and that the system drew attention early in the war with Iran for helping to facilitate strikes on thousands of targets.

The next step for the air-defense dashboard is a beta test during upcoming large-scale simulation exercises, where operators will use it during exercise operations to judge how easy it is to navigate, how quickly it responds and whether its features give them the information they need to make air-defense decisions. The Marine Corps did not say when those exercises will take place, which units will take part, or whether the tool is expected to move beyond the prototype stage.