DCGS SIGINT Field Support Engineering, Distributed Common Ground System

The Situation

The Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) is the service’s primary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) processing, exploitation, and dissemination weapon system. DCGS processes data from airborne SIGINT sensors across a global network of Distributed Ground Stations (DGS) and Distributed Mission Sites (DMS), providing actionable intelligence to combatant commanders. The system operates on both legacy and Open Architecture (OA) platforms, requiring continuous sustainment engineering to maintain operational availability across ten CONUS and OCONUS sites including warzone locations.

The DCGS System Release Field Support (DSFS) program requires contractor-provided engineering and technical services to sustain SIGINT mission operations, maintain hardware and software across both platform architectures, and deliver field support for software releases at distributed sites worldwide. The operational availability requirement of 99.5% demands a highly skilled technical workforce capable of real-time fault isolation and resolution across complex, classified systems.

Our Approach

GTS delivers DCGS SIGINT field support as a subcontractor to Raytheon, providing engineering and technical personnel across the DSFS program. The workforce sustains operations at DGS-1, DGS-2, DGS-MA, DGS-KS, DGS-IN, DGS-X, DMS-UT, DMS-TX, DMS-GA, and DMS-MD, with field and installation support capabilities deployable to additional CONUS and OCONUS sites.

Sensor Resource Management personnel manage multiple airborne SIGINT sensor missions, operating and interfacing with aircraft, sensors, sites, networks, and systems. SRM operators provide ground support for SIGINT sensors and networks, troubleshoot sensor issues, perform fault resolution, create and respond to incident tickets, and monitor the health and status of the SIGINT enterprise. Pre-mission, mission execution, and post-mission tasks ensure continuous operational readiness.

Software Sustainment covers both Low Band System (LBS) and High Band System (HBS) platforms. GTS engineers provide system administration, comprehensive analysis, diagnostics, and fault isolation for SIGINT software and systems. HBS support maintains interfaces with multiple sensors, sites, and systems across CETS, MSCS, RIM, SEAM, and SDE components. Both teams provide technical and engineering support during system upgrades and post-upgrade validation.

Maintenance Technician support manages hardware-level SIGINT system maintenance, including configuration management, system integration, and hardware support across all sites. MT personnel perform comprehensive analysis, diagnostics, and fault isolation, maintain technical knowledge of DCGS SIGINT systems and associated sub-systems, and ensure security compliance during all mission operations, integration, sustainment, and training activities.

The Results

GTS maintains operational availability at or above the 99.5% threshold across all sustained DCGS SIGINT platforms, meeting Contract Data Requirements List deliverables and adhering to the Contractor Quality Management System. This engagement demonstrates GTS’s capacity to deliver classified ISR sustainment engineering at the enterprise level, operating within established Government, prime contractor, and industry processes while maintaining security compliance across multiple classification levels at geographically distributed mission sites.