The Combined Air Operations Center – eXperimental (CAOC-X) is the U.S. Air Force test and experimentation platform dedicated to supporting operational command and control (C2) for the Air Operations Center (AOC) and Joint Force’s Air Component Commander (JFACC). The unit consists of four government employees and 29 contractors supporting testing, experimentation, prototyping, and integration of the AOC Weapons System (WS) enterprise.
MISSION AREAS
The mission of CAOC-X is to provide technical expertise and environments for experimentation, collaboration, assessments, evaluations, demonstrations, exercises, and tests critical to AOC WS capabilities and Air Component.
ORGANIZATION
The CAOC-X is headquartered at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, and reports to the 505th Command and Control Wing (CCW), located at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The wing reports to the United States Air Force Warfare Center (USAFWC) at Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada, a direct reporting unit to the Air
Combat Command (ACC).
PERSONNEL
CAOC-X has two civil service employees, one military, and 29 contractors assigned, along with one embedded civil service member from Headquarters ACC AOC/ Air Force Forces (AFFOR). CAOC-X also hosts on-site AOC testing civil service and contractor representatives from the 45th Test Squadron, 47th Cyberspace Test Squadron, 605th Test and Evaluation Squadron, as well as two U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) members supporting their three embedded Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) suites.
HISTORY
CAOC-X began operations on 17 September 2000, under the direction of the Commander, ACC as the AOC testing and experimentation unit. It was formed under the Aerospace Command and Control and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Center (AC2ISRC) Langley AFB, Virginia. After 11 September 2001, CAOC-X immediately sent a team to stand up AOCs in Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, and the 601st AOC at Tyndall AFB, Florida. In September 2002, it was assigned to Secretary of the Air Force (SAF) Warfighting Integration (XI) and then handed over to SAF Cyberspace Transformation and Strategy (XC) in 2004. In 2007, the AC2ISRC was renamed the Global Cyberspace Integration Center under Cyber Command, and then reassigned to ACC Director of Requirements (A8) in 2010. In 2013, the CAOC-X was assigned to ACC AOC/AFFOR under ACC Plans, Programs and Requirements (A589) and later re-assigned to the 505 CCW under the USAFWC in 2023. In May 2021, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force (CSAF) added the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) Battle Lab to the CAOC-X portfolio. In addition to formal AOC testing, CAOC-X’s Sandbox supports numerous technical and functional systems, application assessments, and interoperability assessments with JFACC systems for other program offices and developers to evaluate formal testing readiness.
505 CCW PUBLIC AFFAIRS
For more information about CAOC-X’s mission, contact the 505 CCW Public Affairs Office at 505CCW.PA.PublicAffairs@us.af.mil or call (850) 884-9476.
(Current as of September 2023)