Mission-driven sustainment for Army readiness

How Astrion enables agile embedded support in high-threat environments

In high-threat environments, the margin for error is razor-thin. That’s why the Army is rethinking sustainment, not as a support function, but as a strategic capability that fuses logistics, software, and field-level integration. This evolution is reshaping how we keep systems mission-ready under pressure.

Today, sustainment builds on traditional logistics. It combines supply, maintenance, and operational support with embedded teams and digital tools that ensure systems are ready when and where they’re needed.

This shift is already underway. At the 2025 Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting, Secretary of the Army John Driscoll called for an “agile, adaptive, and lethal” force capable of fielding, integrating, and sustaining capabilities in real time. His remarks opened the largest land warfare exposition in North America, where the Army showcased sweeping modernization efforts from contested logistics to counter-unmanned aerial system support (UAS) and electronic warfare transformation.

Meeting those demands takes more than faster deliveries or extra parts. It requires smarter logistics that are data driven, predictive, and built to support both hardware and software from the start through the entire system lifecycle.

Astrion teams have contributed to this transformation firsthand. Working alongside warfighters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe, we’ve supported high-threat missions and maintained readiness in real time. We’ve also seen what happens when sustainment is an afterthought.

Mission success starts with logistics that arrives on time, fully capable, and ready to act.

Tools that enable proactive readiness

Modern sustainment is not reactive. It is proactive and embedded. As the Army embraces distributed logistics and digital transformation, sustainment teams must anticipate issues before they affect the mission.

That’s where integrated diagnostics, radio frequency (RF) awareness, and real-time situational tools come in. By turning data into insight, these technologies accelerate repair cycles, support condition-based maintenance, and improve mission assurance across domains.

This focus on embedded and forward deployed capabilities reflects the Army’s broader modernization priorities. As missions grow more complex and span multiple domains, sustainment tools must do more than support; they must anticipate, adapt, and accelerate action across environments.

Astrion equips its teams with purpose-built, proprietary systems that align with this shift. Among them:

• RIMFIRE (Reliability & Improvement through Failure Identification & Reporting) combines teardown data and interactive dashboards to identify root causes, analyze trends, and support corrective actions. It’s both a process and a platform helping organizations extend lifecycle performance and reduce sustainment costs through smarter maintenance planning.
• Rascal captures and analyzes the surrounding RF environment to detect interference, assess spectrum use, and support mission planning. For sustainment teams, this electromagnetic insight helps reduce risk, improve system uptime, and ensure consistent performance in complex or unfamiliar operational settings.
• VeriPod enhances localized airspace awareness and supports counter-UAS missions by providing real-time situational insights. This improves coordination, base protection, and site safety, critical factors in sustaining operations in high-threat environments.

Together, these tools help sustainment teams operate with the speed, foresight, and flexibility modern operations demand, keeping logistics aligned with the fight.

This isn’t just a new model of logistics, it’s a shift in how we define operational readiness.

Integration where it counts

As Army platforms grow more software-defined and network-connected, sustainment must expand beyond traditional logistics. Supporting readiness now means ensuring that software is fielded, updated, and validated securely, especially in classified and contested environments.

One proven approach is embedding support teams across Army Field Support Brigades (AFSBs) to deploy and validate mission-critical software in classified environments. These teams perform updates on C5ISR platforms at the tactical edge, where speed and security are equally essential.

For example, our support teams have deployed to operational environments to verify software updates to C5ISR platforms before those systems return to the field. This ensures systems operate as intended in classified, high-threat environments, reducing downtime and enabling warfighters to act with confidence.

Astrion’s organizational structure places technical decision-makers close to the mission, enabling fast response, direct troubleshooting, and integration of updates without delay. This model supports greater agility, improves system uptime, and reinforces trust between sustainment teams and operational commands.

As the Army continues to modernize and accelerate capability delivery, this type of close-to-mission sustainment will be critical to ensuring readiness.

Agile. Adaptive. Mission-ready.

Warfighters do not operate from a safe distance. Sustainment should not either.

As the Army evolves to meet future threats, it needs partners who can keep pace, bringing the right tools, teams, and insight to the point of need. Meeting that call requires a sustainment model built to move with the mission. One that delivers validated solutions, supports secure software integration, and enables real-time response in high-threat environments.

That’s the standard the Army expects, and the one we must be ready to deliver.