LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The 480th Intelligence Wing celebrated the new year by officially changing its name to the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at a midnight ceremony Dec 31.
The changes within the 480th ISRW were directed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force in January 2008. Previously under Air Combat Command, the 480th ISR is now assigned to the Air Force ISR Agency in San Antonio, Texas, which is directly under Headquarters Air Force at the Pentagon.
The purpose of these changes was to bring together worldwide Air Force Distributed Common Ground System assets under one wing. Due to this reorganization, the 480th ISRW can provide intelligence to warfighting forces within 10 minutes.
The Air Force DCGS is a weapon system capable of performing distributed ISR operations; it has the ability to conduct ISR without wing intelligence analysts needing to be physically in the deployed area of operations. The DCGS gathers data from several air frames to do this, such as the U-2, Global Hawk and the Predator.
"This name change culminates a year of tremendous growth and progress in the 480th as we've helped the Air Force become a leader in executing distributed ISR operations," said Col. James Marrs, 480th ISRW Commander. "As the Air Force team that specializes in regionally focused, globally networked, ISR warfighting operations, our Airmen play a major role in how we take a powerful global capability and apply it wherever our joint forces require."
As part of the realignment, several intelligence groups were moved under the 480th ISRW. Five geographically separated intelligence groups were also renamed ISRG. Each ISRG presents an array of ISR capabilities to one or more warfighting forces around the globe.
The groups include the 497th ISRG also here; the 548th ISRG at Beale Air Force Base, Calif.; the 692nd ISRG at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii; the 693rd ISRG at Ramstein Air Base, Germany; and the 694th ISRG at Osan Air Base, Korea.
"We bring in 2009 postured to continue to excel in our role as a global Air Force wing," said Colonel Marrs. "Our Airmen's efforts have resulted in the significant advancement of how the Air Force conducts joint and coalition global operations."