Defender Requirements_Final_Aug 2026.docx

DEFENDER

Tactical Security Flight Tracking Tool High-Level Operational Requirements

I. INTRODUCTION

AJR-223 Air Traffic Organization | System Operations Services | System Operations Security requires a Software- as-a -Service (SaaS) platform in support of the Defender program to deliver a secure cloud-hosted applications on a subscription basis. The key benefits include lower initial costs, instant setup, automatic updates, high scalability, quick deployment and easy access from any internet-connected device. This software service is expected to replace AADS – Airspace Awareness Detection System.

II. BACKGROUND

The Airspace Awareness and Detection System (AADS) is a mission-critical tracking platform used by more than 1,100 active users across the FAA, TSA, DoD, and other agencies to monitor the NAS. Since 2021, AADS has been maintained in a sustainment-only posture due to funding constraints and runs on obsolete hardware. Consequently, new mission requirements—including integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Commercial Space Operations—remain on hold.

The National Airspace System (NAS) Defense Program (NDP) is a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system that provides the Department of Defense (DoD) and other National Security related groups with the necessary information to support their missions. Airspace Awareness and Detection System (AADS) is a website accessible to National Security Agencies that consumes publicly available data from various systems and also includes Aircraft Registry and TSA data. AADS then correlates the various source data with aircraft positional track data to provide a complete situational awareness of that aircraft, its owner, and its operator. It links real-time aircraft flight tracks with registry and security data to provide complete airspace monitoring threat detection and overall situational awareness. And it combines live aircraft position tracking with data from the FAA Aircraft Registry and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The FAA and ATO will now create the Defender program to replace AADS.

III. GOAL

The planned software effort will provide a chronological roadmap to design, integrate, and deploy core capabilities required for FAA and TSA missions, delivering a highly responsive, map-centric application supported by secure infrastructure and real-time data ingestion pipelines. This secure platform will be a national security tool that is used among various Federal agencies in support of National defense to include Security of the NAS. Procuring the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform will offer a modern solution to replace the outdated AADS.

IV. HIGH LEVEL REQUIRMENTS

Data Sources Defender will require the following Government Furnished Information (GFI) data sources and elements for FAA/TSA mission use:

· Waiver ID

· Type of waiver

· Subtype of waiver

· Status

· Effective date

· End date

· Callsign

· Aircraft Type

· Company

· Itinerary

· Waiver letter (PDF)

· Controlled airspace (B, C, D and E4)

· FAA/TSA provided TRACONs

· Helicopter Charts

· IFR High Chart

· IFR Low Chart

· VFR Chart/Sectional

· FAA Stadium layer

· High Airways

· Low Airways

· NAVAIDs

· AADS “custom” dark map vector outline

Features

· Airports

· Landing Facilities

· Taxiways

· Sensors

TSA Security program file programs

LIMITED

PARTIAL

User hierarchy and grouping:

· Users are considered individuals with a unique login.

· A Group of users can be formed to exchange data between each other.

· A Super Group is a group of groups.

· Admin users are users empowered to assign users to group(s) and create/edit/remove groups.

· Data Manager users are empowered to override the group shares of other users, and to create certain items for group use.

· A user can be a member of multiple groups.

· On login, the user will select which group the user is joining for that session.

· When sharing information, a user can share to a super group as long as the user is logged into a group within that super group, even if the user does not have access to all groups in the super group.

· Example: The system has four groups:

· DEN

· NCRCC

· CONR

· N/NC

A super group is formed of all four groups called “TacOps”. A user who only has permissions to the DEN and NCRCC groups, and is currently logged in as the DEN group, can share to the TacOps super group.

V. FUNCTIONALITY

Defender will require the following functionality to be developed for FAA/TSA operator use:

· Tracks – searches callsign and ICAO code

· Airports – searches airport ID (FAA and ICAO format) and airport name

· Landing facilities – searches ID and name

· NAVAIDs – searches ID and name

· Fixes – searches fix name

· Cities – searches city name

· Stadiums – searches stadium name and city

· SUA – searches SUA ID and SUA name

· Tracks

· Callsign

· ICAO Code

· Aircraft Type

· Departure

· Destination

· Transponder code

· Altitude

· Airports

· FAA ID

· ICAO ID

· Name

· Location (city)

· Owner

· Phone number

· Landing Facilities

· FAA ID

· ICAO ID

· Name

· Location (city)

· Owner

· Phone number

· NAVAIDs

· ID

· Name

· Location

· VHF Frequency

· TACAN Frequency

· Fixes

· FIX ID

· Location

· SUAs

· Name

· Country

· SUA Type

· Sat Phone

· Callsign

· Phone Number

· DCM data

· Callsign

· Assigned DCM

· TSA Security Program data

· Operator

· Callsign

· Raise the datablock

· Flash

· Show Extended Tail

· Show Flight Plan

· Show Headlight

· Show Predicted Path Criteria available for a Track Force Up are:

· Callsign, including string and character wildcards.

· Departure, including string a character wildcard, and can be multiple selections.

· Destination, including string a character wildcard, and can be multiple selections.

· Transponder Code, including support of a range of codes and different modes.

· Altitude, including support of a range.

· ICAO Code, including string and character wildcards.

· NAS Interaction, including:

· Domestic

· Overflight

· Inbound

· Foreign

· Outbound Users also provide:

· Name of the Track Force Up

· A list of Groups or Super Groups the Track Force Up is viewable to (users should only be able to add groups the user is a member of).

· Callsign, including string and character wildcards.

· Departure, including string a character wildcard, and can be multiple selections.

· Destination, including string a character wildcard, and can be multiple selections.

· Transponder Code, including support of a range of codes and different modes.

· Altitude, including support of a range.

· ICAO Code, including string and character wildcards.

· NAS Interaction, including:

· Domestic

· Overflight

· Inbound

· Foreign

· Outbound

· Track attributes, including:

· Commercial

· Non-commercial

· Unknown

· Correlated

· Beacon Only

· Primary Only

· Government Users also provide:

· Name of the Track Filter

· A list of Groups or Super Groups the Track Filter is viewable too (users should only be able to add groups the user is a member of).

· Callsign and/or ICAO Code (supporting string and character wildcards).

· Priority level of the entry (1 – Green, 2 – Yellow, 3 – Red).

· Free text note.

· Contact email (supporting multiple addresses)

· Phone number

· A list of Groups or Super Groups the Lookout List is viewable too (users should only be able to add groups the user is a member of).

When a track or FP/FPL flight plan, is detected that matches the criteria of the Lookout List, a preformatted email is sent to the email address(s) contained in the Lookout List. For users in a group approved in the Lookout List, the track must have a ring/circle around the track symbol indicating the priority of the Lookout Entry, and users viewing the Track Report of a track meeting the criteria of a Lookout List must be able to view the Lookout List, including the user who created it.

· Circle

· Multisided polygon

· Buffered Line Geofilters can be created by a user either directly drawing on the map, or by entering the appropriate location information. Depending on the type of Geofilter being created, users should be able to enter location using the following formats:

· Latitude/Longitude (DMS or DD.dd format)

· NAVAID Fix/Radial/Distance

· Airport Additionally, users must be able to create a Geofilter by uploading a properly formatted KML and/or shapefile (zipped).

Users also provide:

· Name of the Geofilter

· Color

· Metadata tag

· A list of Groups or Super Groups the Geofilter is viewable too (users should only be able to add groups the user is a member of).

Criteria available for Geofilters are:

· Callsign, including string and character wildcards.

· Departure, including string a character wildcard, and can be multiple selections.

· Destination, including string a character wildcard, and can be multiple selections.

· Transponder Code, including support of a range of codes and different modes.

· Altitude, including support of a range.

· ICAO Code, including string and character wildcards.

· NAS Interaction, including:

· Domestic

· Overflight

· Inbound

· Foreign

· Outbound

· Actions to take for tracks within the Geofilter, including:

· Raise the datablock

· Flash

· Show Extended Tail

· Show Flight Plan

· Show Headlight

· Show Predicted Path

· Actions to take for tracks projected to enter the Geofilter in a user defined time, based on current vector and altitude, including:

· Raise the datablock

· Flash

· Show Extended Tail

· Show Flight Plan

· Show Headlight

· Show Predicted Path

· Quick Geofilter enable/disable checkbox (to control the presence of the Geofilter in the users’ Quick customizable map menu)

· POTUS

· SpaceOps

· TFR

A Data Manager must have the capability to make a list of Metadata Tags for each group in which they have Data Manager permissions.

· Point Out

· Friendly

· Suspect

· Sorted When a user inputs a Track Marking, they may input:

· Free text track tag

· Free text message

· Group or Super Groups (optional) When a use marks a track, the following actions occur for that user and all users in the group(s) identified by the creating user:

· A small popup window appears to all logged in members of the group(s) the marking is shared with indicating a track has been marked, which track it is, and the message. Clicking this popup centers and zooms the map to the track.

· The track color and datablock changes for the following marking types:

· Pointout (Hex #00ffff)

· Friendly (Hex #92c4fc)

· Suspect (Hex #e57c2d)

· Sorted (Hex #ffff5c)

· Callsign

· Type

· Operator Type

· ICAO Airline Code

· Operator Name

· Country

· Operator Telephony

· Origin

· Destination

· New Destination

· Reporting Facility (lookup list)

· Primary Event Code (lookup list)

· Secondary Event Code (lookup list)

· Remarks

· Sensitive (True/False)

· Significant (True/False)

· MOR Initiated (True/False) Additionally, information about the logged in user must be sent to SkyWatch to for the incident to be correctly recorded.

· Font size

· Default (on login) Home Point

· Default (on login) Map selections

· Default Predicted Path time

· Default Headlight Radius

· Datablock Contents

· Latitude/Longitude format (DMS and DD.dd supported)

· Track selection actions (what happens when the user selects a track), including:

· Show Extended Tail

· Show Flight Plan

· Show Headlight

· Show Predicted Path

· Track to point

· Track to NAVAID

· Track to track

· Point to point (distance) Vectors will provide key information including:

· Entities (track name to point/NAVAID name/track)

· Radial (if from VOR type NAVAID)

· Magnetic bearing (if from track to point)

· Intercept data (if track to track)

· Range/distance

· Calculate time based on current track speed

Data manager users should be empowered to create and manage rings and share them with groups they are a member of. They must be able to use include and exclude criteria, provide a name for the ring, and select Groups or Super Groups the ring is shared with.

Criteria for rings includes:

· NAS Interaction, including:

· Domestic

· Overflight

· Inbound

· Foreign

· Outbound

· Track attributes, including:

· Commercial

· Non-commercial

· Unknown

· Correlated

· Beacon Only

· Primary Only

· Government

· TSA Security Participation

· Registration Status

· ICAO Code Mismatch (transmitted vs. expected from registry)

· Track Histories

· Track Reports

· Flight Plan Search Results

· Finder Results

· Current map view Administrator users must be able to export via download or email:

· Current active users

· Inactive Users

· Groups

· Track information received from sensors

· Track location and attributes

· Registration

· Flight Plan

· TSA Security Program participation

· AAP Waiver(s)

· JetNet

· Sat Phone

· 7400 – Lost Link

· 7500 – Hijack

· 7600 – Lost Comm

· 7700 – Emergency

VI. SUPPORTED WORKFLOWS

Defender will require the following workflows to be developed for FAA/TSA operator use:

· Hover the cursor over a track raises the datablock of the track

· Left click on a track selects the track and takes defined user preference options

· Double left click on a track shows the track report

· Right click on track provides access to and toggle for:

· Show Datablock

· Show Extended Tail

· Show Flight Plan

· Show Headlight

· Show Predicted Path

· Track History

· Track Marking

· Create SkyWatch Incident

· Track Filters

· Track Force Ups

· Lookout Lists, and

· Geofilters These items will fall into one of three categories:

· Mine – items the logged in user owns

· Shared – items other users have shared with the group the logged in user has selected

· Archived – items the logged in user does not own, but have been shared with the group they are currently in, and the logged in user has “archived” from their Shared list. Items can be unarchived and return to Shared.

Users with Data Manager permissions can edit items owned by another user, which the owner has shared with the group the Data Manager currently has selected. The Data Manager can change all elements of the item, including criteria, groups the item is shared with, or completely delete the item from the system, including from the owner’s account.

Users should have the capability to use Metadata Tags to refine/filter a list of filters.

· Create remove and edit groups

· Edit user membership within groups

· Enable/Disable data managers

· Enable/Disable users

· Reset user account passwords

· Update user profiles/contact information

VII. NOTES

General design philosophy for Defender should focus on a few key areas:

· The system responsiveness should be very fast (sub 300ms) for interacting with the map or tracks.

· To the extent possible, the map is the focus of the system, and covering portions of the map, or unnecessary white space, should be kept to a minimum.

· The system must be secure

When referenced:

· ICAO Code refers to a hexadecimal representation of the assigned or transmitted fixed 24-bit address, depending on context.

· Transponder Code refers to either Mode 3 or Mode 2 octal code the aircraft is transmitting, or assigned by flight plan, depending on context.

· Track elements are the following:

· FAA/TSA Specific track symbology and Track Filter Bar as shown below:

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Microsoft_PowerPoint_Slide.sldx Elements of a Track

Datablock

Track Tail

Track Trail

Predicted Path

Headlight

Flight Plan

Track Symbol

Federal Aviation

Administration

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Microsoft_PowerPoint_Slide1.sldx Track Filter Bar - Tracks

Commercial Correlated

Non-Commercial Correlated

Beacon Only

Beacon Only

TFMData Only

Coasting

Military

Primary

Toggle All Tracks

Federal Aviation

Administration

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