Future Airborne Capability Environment/ FACE

Definition

FACE is an open standard, also stewarded by The Open Group, defining a portable software architecture for avionics. It separates platform-specific code from portable Units of Conformance (UoCs) using a Transport Services Segment, a Portable Components Segment, and an Operating System Segment. FACE-conformant components are certified once and reused across aircraft, accelerating capability fielding and reducing per-platform regression cost. FACE is mandated alongside OMS for many U.S. Army aviation and Air Force CCA software lines.

Reference attributes

Steward

The Open Group FACE Consortium

Conformance unit

UoC (Unit of Conformance)

Key segments

TSS, PCS, OSS, IOSS

OS basis

ARINC 653 partitioning common

Related terms

• Open Mission Systems (OMS)
  U.S. Air Force government-owned interface standard for airborne mission systems.
• ARINC 653
  Industry standard for time- and space-partitioned avionics operating systems.
• Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA)
  U.S. DoD acquisition mandate requiring open architectures and standardized, replaceable modules.