CIC, STRIKEWERX and AEXA Aerospace to redesign B-52 testing equipment

By Sean Green | STRIKEWERX Marketing and Communication Director

BOSSIER CITY, La. — The Cyber Innovation Center and STRIKEWERX, Air Force Global Strike Command’s innovation partners, are contracting with AEXA Aerospace to redesign equipment that sustains America’s deterrence.

AEXA Aerospace, a company that provides solutions for training and operational support, will produce a prototype to update the Electronic Warfare Pressurizing Test Set.

The EWPTS is used to test the defense system of the B-52 aircraft. The command is seeking to update the current equipment as its underperformance affects crew safety and mission fleet availability.

“As innovators at AEXA, we recognized the innovative approach of STRIKEWERX’s novel methods to quickly solve challenges faced by the Air Force Global Strike Command using new pathways to seek the best solution from the industry,” said Dr. Fernando De La Peña Llaca, president and CEO of AEXA Aerospace. “I’m impressed and ready to deliver our innovative prototype in a couple of months.”

The current EWPTS increases maintenance time by 200–300% and repairing faulty test sets require up to six hours with a less-than 40% success rate.

“The CIC tackling the Pressure Test Set redesign and rebuild is quite the feat, seeing as this test set has been a problem over the years and is a rather important piece of test equipment to further propel our B-52 platform in the foreseeable future,” said Master Sgt. Justin Countryman, project champion for the EWPTS.

This effort between CIC, STRIKEWERX and AEXA Aerospace aims to produce a portable design that is easier to repair, easier to use in diagnosing equipment failure and allows for greater availability in extreme weather.

“This equipment performs pressure testing for the B-52’s airborne defense system by simulating environmental conditions the aircraft encounters during actual operations. It is a vital piece of equipment on aircraft that is itself vital to our nation’s defense,” said Steven Arnold, EWPTS project manager for CIC. “I am proud to have played a part in securing a potential solution for our partners in the command.”

STRIKEWERX hosted a Problem Definition Workshop at the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City, Louisiana, in October 2022 to assist with market research for the EWPTS. The workshop saw AFGSC subject matter experts collaborating with academia and industry to source ideas and technology for the EWPTS.

That input was used to form a Request for Proposal that was sent to industry, which AEXA Aerospace was selected as the vendor to prototype a EWPTS solution.