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Battle labs to close

All seven Air Force battle labs will be closing their doors, victims of an increasingly tight budget, the Air Force announced today.

The labs, which functioned as centers of innovation and technology aimed to improve or develop tools for combatant commanders, were stood up nearly a decade ago.

Over the past two Program Objective Memorandum cycles, the labs have lost $7.8 billion in funding, said an Air Force spokeswoman.

“Additionally, fiscal pressures on near-term readiness … and long-term procurement priorities … forced us to make tough decisions regarding key innovation programs and closing all seven of our battlelabs is one of those tough decisions,” Maj. Morshe Araujo said.

The labs provided the Air Force with good information, she said, but budget demands make them unsupportable.

She said Air Force Material Command and other service agencies will continue battlelab research functions and practices “to the maximum extent possible.”

Six of the seven labs were established in July 1997 by directive of then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman, who wanted the Air Force to capitalize on innovation. One of the first six, however, the Force Protection Battle Lab at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, was a response to the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in June 1996.

The other labs are the Air Force Space Battlelab, Schriever Air Force Base, Colo.; Command and Control Battlelab, Langley Air Force Base, Va.; the Air Mobility Battlelab, Fort Dix, N.J.; Air Warfare Battlelab, Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab, Indian Springs, Nev., and the Information Operations Battlelab, also at Lackland.