U.S Congress Wants Software Development Team To Review JSF Program

The U.S Congress is seeking an independent software expert’s team to review the development of software for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and has ordered Pentagon to establish it.

The House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee asked the Pentagon to submit a report by March 3, 2014 as part of the committee’s markup of the 2014 defense budget.

 “The committee continues to support the F-35 development and procurement program, and believes a software development review by the Department will ensure that the F-35 program remains on schedule to provide a fifth generation capability in support of our national security strategy,” Congress said in a statement.

The JSF program developmental strategy is broken into a series of incremental software “drops”, each adding new capabilities to the platform.

There are more than 10 billion individual lines of code for the system, broken down into increments and “blocks,” F-35 program officials explained.

“Software development remains a focus area of the joint program office. We have a solid baseline and we need to be able to execute on that,” said Joe DellaVedova, F-35 program spokesman. “With Block 2B you can provide basic close air support and fire an AMRAAM {Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile}, JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] or GBU 12 [laser-guided aerial bomb]. This allows the plane to become a very capable weapons system."

The F-35 program is making substantial progress from Block 2B to its technical refresh Software drop 3I, slated to be ready by 2016, DellaVedova said further.