Agreement Ensures Access to UK-US Base on Diego Garcia for Next Century

Agreement Ensures Access to UK-US Base on Diego Garcia for Next Century

May 22, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The U.K. and the U.S. will continue to enjoy access to the ports, airfield, and workshops at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for at least another century, under a deal inked between the U.K. and Mauritius May 22.

The agreement transfers sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago—of which Diego Garcia is the largest island—to Mauritius, but permits the U.K. and U.S. continued exclusive access to the military infrastructure on the island for another 99 years, with an option for 40 years more beyond that. The U.K. government said the deal, which also includes an annual lease payment and Mauritius agreeing not to allow any interference with base operations, was essential to keep “adversary” nations from establishing a presence in the archipelago.

Although America was not a signatory to the agreement, U.S. officials praised the deal, and the British government highlighted the important role the base plays for one of its closest allies.

“Diego Garcia is a vital military base for the U.S.,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X. “The U.K.’s (very important) deal with Mauritius secures the operational capabilities of the base and key U.S. national security interests in the region. We are confident the base is protected for many years ahead.”

The State Department also heralded the deal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that following “a comprehensive interagency review,” the Trump administration feels that “this agreement secures the long-term stable and effective operation of the joint U.S.-U.K. military facility at Diego Garcia,” he said in a statement. “Although the United States is not a party to this agreement, we remain responsible for operating the U.S. Naval Support Facility on Diego Garcia, which continues to play a vital role in supporting forward-deployed operational forces and advancing security across the region,” he said. Rubio said the deal was discussed between Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer at the latter’s recent visit to the White House

The facilities at Diego Garcia have been used and upgraded by the U.S. and U.K. for the last 50 years, at which time the local residents were forced off the island to make way for military construction. It saw heavy utilization as an operating location and waystation for U.S. bombers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, fighters, aerial tankers, and other platforms during the 1991 and 1993 Gulf Wars and throughout the war in Afghanistan. It is a routine operating location during peacetime, but with rotational forces.

The Navy also has extensive berthing capabilities at the island, which can handle nuclear submarines and elements of a carrier battle group.

The Air Force positioned six B-2 bombers at Diego Garcia between March and May, marking the longest and largest overseas deployment for the stealth bomber, during which some of the aircraft conducted strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, in what Washington may also have meant as a message to Iran, as the the base is some 2,600 miles from Tehran. The stealth bombers were swapped out for B-52s earlier this month. The U.S. also recently deployed F-15s to the island to protect it.

The Air Force positioned four inflatable, environment-controlled hangars at the base to permit maintenance of the B-2’s stealth coatings during the deployment.

A U.K. Ministry of Defense press release said the location is “strategically critical” and “irreplaceable” to the U.K. and U.S.,

The base’s availability to allied nations has been “one of our most significant contributions to the transatlantic defense and security partnership,” the British MOD said. The agreement “ensures its continued operation for at least the next century, protecting capabilities essential to U.K. intelligence and counter-terrorism.”

The MOD also called the facility a “critical logistics hub” in the region, and forces based there “protect vital shipping lanes.”

The deal calls for the U.K. to pay Mauritius about $140 million a year as a lease on the island, and permits Chagossians relocated from the island group by Britain in 1975 to return to all of the islands except Diego Garcia. There will also be development grants of varying amounts from U.K. agencies, collectively worth about $5 billion.

In addition to a deep-water port and extended runway, Diego Garcia hosts “advanced communications and surveillance capabilities,” the MOD said, “which have played a key role in missions to disrupt high-value terrorists, including Islamic State threats to the U.K.”

Negotiations over the base have been underway for two years.

The British government said that not just the U.S. and the U.K. will benefit.

“Crucially, all Five Eyes partners—the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—back the agreement, along with India, recognizing the critical role Diego Garcia plays in upholding global stability and deterring adversaries,” the MOD said.

“As the world becomes more dangerous, our military base on Diego Garcia becomes more important,” said U.K. Defense Minister John Healy. “Without this base, our ability to deter terrorists, defend our interests, and protect our troops around the world would be at risk. This agreement will safeguard our national and economic security for generations to come.”   

The MOD also said the deal allows the U.K. to retain control of, and continue to operate, “the electromagnetic spectrum satellite used for communications, vital for countering hostile interference.” The base hosts a ground antenna for the Global Positioning System and part of Space Force’s Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) system. The island also employs nuclear test ban monitoring equipment.

As part of the deal, Mauritius agreed to a 24-nautical-mile buffer zone around the island “where nothing can be built or placed without U.K. consent,” the MOD noted. No “activities” will be permitted on the neighboring islands—some more than 50 miles away—that would disrupt base operations, and no development can take within the archipelago without “a rigorous process of joint decision-making” and U.K. approval.

Moreover, there will be “a strict ban on foreign security forces on the outer islands, whether civilian or military,” and a “binding obligation” that the base “is never undermined.”

The MOD said agreeing to the treaty was a must, otherwise “the land, sea and air operations of the base would become inoperable; doing nothing was not an option.” It also said that the deal “was the only route to securing the future of the base and preventing the U.K.’s adversaries from establishing a presence in the region.”

The base has played host to units from Australia, France, Japan, and South Korea.

Various international courts and tribunals have indicated that the U.K. could not continue its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, and that London has determined “the U.K. would not have a realistic prospect of successfully defending its legal position on sovereignty” in litigation, the U.K. Foreign Ministry said.

The Chagos Archipelago has a population of about 4,000 people. It was separated from Mauritius by the U.K. in 1965 and purchased for about $4 million, but Mauritius has successfully argued in international court that it was forced to cede the islands as the price of independence from the U.K.

B-52s Kick Off Bomber Deployment to Spain

B-52s Kick Off Bomber Deployment to Spain

May 22, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

B-52H Stratofortress bombers have arrived in Spain to kick off a new European deployment as the Air Force looks to make its nuclear-armed fleets more flexible.

The Air Force said in a news release that the bombers would operate from “smaller, more flexible locations across Europe and Africa,” a concept the service has also rehearsed with fighter, cargo, and refueling aircraft.

Recent bomber task force missions to Europe have operated mainly out of RAF Fairford, U.K., with long-range flights and air refueling extending their missions.

Two B-52s arrived at Morón Air Base May 20, a defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The bombers are from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and deployed as the 23rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron with tail numbers 60-0044 and 60-0004.

“Bomber Task Force Europe is a clear signal of peace through the strength of airpower,” Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, deputy commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, said in a statement. “This BTF deployment will ensure our forces remain resilient, dynamic, and capable of responding to evolving security challenges with speed and precision.”

U.S. defense officials did not preview the missions the bombers planned to conduct during the deployment. The Pentagon typically declines to comment on upcoming bomber operations.

The U.S. is not the only global power flexing its long-range strike capability. On May 20, the same day the B-52s arrived in Europe, two Russian TU-95 strategic bombers flew over the Barents Sea, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense. The bombers appear to have been carrying air-launched cruise missiles, which are visible in a video released by the Russian government.

The B-52s appear not to have conducted any missions out of Morón since arriving in Spain, according to flight tracking data, though they hooked up with KC-46A Pegasus refuelers from McConnell Air Base, Kan., on their way across the Atlantic.

It is Minot’s second bomber task force deployment of the year to Europe, following another that ended in March. One of the bombers in the current rotation, 60-0044, also participated in the earlier visit, which was based at RAF Fairford and carried out missions across Europe and the Middle East.

Morón Air Base has been a strategic location for the Air Force since the 1950s, when it first served as a key Cold War bomber base and has routinely housed U.S. bombers since then. The U.S. no longer maintains a continuous bomber presence overseas but sends them abroad multiple times a year for training exercises with foreign allies and partners.

U.S. conflicts in the Middle East have also led to rare bomber combat deployments. Four B-52s are currently stationed on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, home to a joint U.S.-U.K. base. Those bombers arrived after six B-2 Spirit stealth bombers participated in the U.S. campaign against the Houthis in Yemen from late March to early May, when the U.S. agreed to a ceasefire with the group. 

In November, six B-52s from Minot headed to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, for a 45-day combat deployment, during which they bombed Islamic State group targets in Syria.

GOP Spending Bill Heads to Senate With $150 Billion for Defense Programs

GOP Spending Bill Heads to Senate With $150 Billion for Defense Programs

May 22, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Republicans aim to funnel billions of dollars into some of the Air Force’s top-priority programs as part of a divisive bill the GOP may be able to enact without Democratic support.

The sweeping tax and spending package narrowly passed the House, 215-214, in a nearly party-line vote early May 22. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where the Republican-led chamber has vowed to revise it.

Defense provisions tucked into the bill look to fast-track President Donald Trump’s signature “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative, boost military aircraft production and further subsidize military housing, among other projects. 

The legislation, which offers the Pentagon almost $150 billion over the next decade, comes as the U.S. warns it is lagging behind Russia and China in designing cutting-edge military technologies like hypersonic missiles.

“After years of chronic underinvestment, our defense industrial base and military capacity have dangerously atrophied to the point where we may no longer be able to sustain a prolonged conflict,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a May 22 statement. “The One Big, Beautiful Bill provides long overdue resources to modernize our military, revitalize the defense industrial base, and improve the quality of life for our service members.”

The bill offers $3.2 billion to increase production of the Air Force’s F-15EX fighter, a fleet the service has sought to pare back amid budget constraints, and $4.5 billion to accelerate the new B-21 Raider bomber. It also provides $678 million to speed the effort to field Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones for Air Force fighters and $400 million for the F-47 program, which is expected to create the Air Force’s most advanced fighter yet.

Lawmakers want to put money toward blocking the retirement of some F-22 and F-15E fighters, which the Air Force has argued are growing too old to succeed in future wars, and to build more C-130J cargo planes, EA-37B electronic attack jets, and MH-139 patrol helicopters. The Air Force may also receive $1.5 billion to continue designing Sentinel, a new ground-based nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, and $2.1 billion for “readiness packages to keep Air Force aircraft mission capable,” the bill said.

Another $4.3 billion would go toward classified military space programs, plus $15.2 billion to develop new missile defenses from space. It’s unclear which pieces of the legislation are part of a $25 billion initial investment the White House has sought for its Golden Dome plan, which heavily relies on sensors and interceptors in space to shield the U.S. from a host of airborne threats.

Other provisions would allow the Pentagon to pay military housing landlords more money to build more homes, and to offer a larger housing stipend to troops living in the barracks or dormitories. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that letting the Defense Department pay for up to 60 percent of a new privatized housing project would lead to one extra construction project per year, at a cost of $500 million for each. The package doesn’t specify how much troops could see their Basic Allowance for Housing rise.

The bill also boosts spending on shipbuilding, efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, cybersecurity, and more.

The 1,118-page bill, formally known as a budget reconciliation package, allows Republicans to pursue key pieces of the party’s agenda without any Democratic votes. Reconciliation bills can skirt a filibuster in the Senate by requiring only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass, rather than 60. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump applauded the House for clearing the bill and urged the Senate to approve it as quickly as possible. Multiple Republican senators have pushed back on the package’s cuts to Medicaid and other provisions, as well as the prospect of adding nearly $4 trillion to the U.S. deficit.

The bill would provide almost $2 billion for defense in 2025 before ramping up to $40.3 billion in 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Defense spending under the reconciliation bill would peak in 2027 at $42 billion.

It’s unclear how it might affect the Trump administration’s full 2026 budget request that is still in the works.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has criticized the administration’s $893 billion topline for defense spending next year, warning the White House not to rely on the reconciliation bill to power its priorities instead of asking for an adequate annual budget. The federal government is operating under a stopgap spending bill in the absence of fresh funding for 2025, and the administration has not yet released details of what it wants in 2026.

“The Big, Beautiful Reconciliation Bill was always meant to change fundamentally the direction of the Pentagon on programs like Golden Dome, border support, and unmanned capabilities—not to paper over [the Office of Management and Budget’s] intent to shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to service members,” Wicker said in a statement earlier this month.

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate panel, has aired concerns that the Pentagon will view the money as a “slush fund” without more specific directions on how to spend it.

But those loose rules create “transformational” opportunities for the Pentagon, argued John Ferrari, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The bill allows for flexibility in funding ideas rather than particular programs alone, like offering $1.1 billion to expand the industrial base for small drones.

“This is a triumph and should defeat the notorious valley-of-death funding while also getting rid of the traditional ‘mother-may-I’ approach to acquisition, where every time a program moved to a different step in its maturation, a different ‘color of money’ was needed from Congress,” he said in a May 8 blog post.

The bill also allows the military to sidestep asking Congress for permission to launch a new program using that money, Ferrari said. Most of the funding would also remain available even if lawmakers fail to pass an annual budget.

Ferrari also echoed Wicker’s concern that the reconciliation bill may prompt lower defense spending overall.

“While Congress is boldly moving our defense establishment into the future, the administration may have decided to slow down,” he said. “The administration has time to correct this oversight and if it does not, then the Congress can correct it as part of the 2026 appropriation process.”

Senators will now hash out their own version of the package before sending it back to the House for approval or working with the House on further changes. POLITICO reported May 22 that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) wants to move the bill through the chamber by July 4.

Military Spouses Fed Up With PCS Struggles, Survey Says

Military Spouses Fed Up With PCS Struggles, Survey Says

May 22, 2025 | By David Roza

A new survey found that record rates of Active-duty military spouses want to leave the military community, with a large number of them frustrated by the difficulty of finding employment, child care, and reimbursement for moving costs after a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) move.

Thirty-two percent of spouses favored leaving the military in 2024, the highest percentage ever reported on the Active-duty Spouse Survey, which the Defense Department’s Office of People Analytics has conducted every other year since 2006 to gauge spouse employment, education, child care, financial status, and other factors. 

The percentage of spouses satisfied with the military way of life hit a low at 48 percent. Multiple studies show that spousal support is an important factor affecting troops’ retention decisions.

Screenshot via 2024 Active Duty Spouses Survey

PCS Blues

Frustrations with the PCS process was widespread among military spouses, with 49 percent of respondents saying that finding employment constituted a large or very large problem during PCS season.

That’s a problem when an increasing number of military spouses are in the civilian workforce: 69 percent in 2024 compared to 64 percent in 2021 and 61 percent in 2012. Spouses who made a PCS move were about 33 percent more likely to be unemployed than spouses who had not, the study found.

Employment is an ongoing challenge for many military spouses, who face differing license or exam requirements between states for the same jobs; employers reluctant to hire military spouses; and lack of affordable child care at many bases. 

Unemployment ticked down slightly from 21 percent in 2021 to 20 percent in 2024, but underemployment was still a common concern, with 41 percent of employed spouses saying that they should have a higher position given their credentials, 41 percent saying they are paid less than others with similar credentials, and 27 percent taking a job outside their field. About 62 percent of military spouses have an associate, bachelor’s, or advanced degree.

Besides employment challenges, the process of PCSing was frustrating for many spouses. About 40 percent flagged un-reimbursable moving costs as a large concern, while 35 percent said the same thing about settling claims for damaged or missing household goods, and 31 percent said the same about waiting for permanent housing to become available.

 “In 76 years of the United States Air Force, we have not figured out how to move people without having all of your stuff broken, without your movers holding your things hostage, without creating extra expenses, stress,” Alex Wagner, then-assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, told the Air Force Sergeants Association last August. “It is mindblowing to me.”

Last summer, U.S. Transportation Command began implementing a new contract it said would improve the PCS shipment experience. The Global Household Goods Contract (GHC) hired a single company, HomeSafe Alliance, to coordinate the scheduling, packing, and moving functions performed by hundreds of other companies. 

The GHC was meant to improve communication, reduce wait times, and increase transparency for shipments through new mobile tracking tools. But the transition has been rocky, with long delays, missed pickups, poor communication, and higher out-of-pocket costs for families, according to the National Military Family Association.

Child Care and Income

About 54 percent of Active military spouses with at least one child under the age of 18 flagged the lack of child care at a new duty location as a key problem during the PCS process, while 43 percent said the same thing about their children changing schools, and 28 percent felt the same way about the availability of special or educational services.

Military child care is a scarce resource, with long waiting lists across the services. The survey found 53 percent of Active spouses with children 13 years old or younger used civilian child care without military fee assistance, compared to 37 percent using a military child care center. Top reasons for not using military child locations included lack of availability (73 percent) and inconvenient location (59 percent).

On top of all that, 60 percent of spouses described their financial situation as comfortable, a 10 percent drop from 2019 and lower than nearly all years back to 2006. About 13 percent of Active-duty spouses are on some form of nutrition assistance program, such as WIC (Women, Infants, and Children).

The survey results caught the attention of Defense Department officials.

“We pay a lot of attention to the spouses [who] share that they are dissatisfied with the military [and] would not support remaining,” Tim Dill, deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a release. “And one particular concern that I think highlights just [one of the] many of the challenges that military families face is the PCS move.”

Advocates at NMFA were also alarmed, calling the survey “a sobering picture of life on the home front.”

“While service members may wear the uniform, the entire family serves, and this downward trend reflects a growing strain on military households,” NMFA added. “When families are unhappy, retention suffers, and ultimately, so does readiness on a national level.”

Allvin to Congress: USAF Will Have More Control of New F-47 Fighter

Allvin to Congress: USAF Will Have More Control of New F-47 Fighter

May 22, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-47 fighter will be run differently than previous fighter programs and share the same mission systems architecture as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin told the Senate Armed Services Committee. That means advances in one will fuel advances in the other.

In a wide-ranging hearing, Allvin emphasized the continued need to acquire the E-7 Wedgetail as a successor to the aging E-3 AWACS; the burden on USAF of maintaining excess infrastructure; and reluctance to commit to acquiring the newest versions of the F-16 fighter.

The Air Force contract with Boeing to develop and build the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter gives USAF more control than with previous fighter programs, Allvin told Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the committee chairman. “We have more ownership of the tech base,” he explained. “We own the mission systems.”

Government ownership will make it easier for companies besides Boeing to compete to upgrade the aircraft, he said. Updates can be rolled out “at the speed of software, not hardware,” Allvin said. This is in contrast to the F-35 experience, in which Lockheed Martin owns the intellectual property, giving it a lock on future work, something Allvin said he “doesn’t want to repeat.”

“My sense is that we’re going to be able to be more agile, and as more disruptive technology comes into play, to be able to develop more advanced systems,” Allvin said. Once developed, advances can be added “not only into the F-47 but into those two Collaborative Combat Aircraft,” Anduril’s YFQ-42A and General Atomics’ YFQ-44A.

“They’re all going to be under the same mission systems architecture,” Allvin said. “So we won’t just be upgrading one platform, we’ll be upgrading a system. … The American taxpayer will get more combat capability out of their money.”

Wedgetail

How the Air Force helps its advanced fighters identify and destroy moving targets came up as Allvin responded to a question from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). The E-3 Sentry AWACS, the aircraft now performing the moving target indicator mission, is quickly aging out of the fleet. The E-3s are “self-divesting, it’s really getting old,” Allvin said. The Air Force will outfit at least two E-7 Wedgetail prototypes as a stopgap measure and cannot assume targeting can be handled exclusively with space-based assets.

“The E-7 offers advantages that the E-3 does not have, with respect to enhanced capability, range and some of the other capabilities,” Allvin said. “So the ability to maintain a viable battle management, especially in the Indo-Pacific, and some redundancy between the air and space layers—as the space layer matures—is going to be very important.”

Could the E-7 be bypassed in favor of a space-based system? Hirono wanted to know. “My understanding is that the administration may still be considering whether to cancel the E-7 altogether in favor of a space based system,” she said. “But that is going to take time, and I think that you need to have this replacement for aircraft that are over 50 years old.”

Allvin agreed. “I do believe that we need to maintain that viability,” he said. But he stopped short of any disagreement with his civilian leadership. “I don’t want to get ahead of where the administration is on this budget.”

Infrastructure

Allvin expressed frustration with the burden imposed on the Air Force by having 23 percent more buildings and about 60 percent more roads, runway, and property than it needs. In all, he said, the Air Force is carrying 30 percent excess capacity.   

“It costs us an additional maybe $1.5 billion a year just to be able to maintain that,” he said. Closing bases, though, is a huge political hurdle, one Congress has not addressed significantly since 2011, when it approved the last in a series of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) efforts.

New F-16s?

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) pressed Allvin over whether existing plans to buy F-35s and F-15EXs are sufficient to restore the Air Force’s fighting edge, and whether new-production “Block 80” F-16s—a notional variant—would be valuable. Allvin responded that he believed the Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 production line in Greenville, S.C., is already near full capacity producing fighters for export.

Would CCAs be a useful substitute for crewed aircraft? Cotton asked.

Allvin demurred. “My assessment, as of right now,” is that CCAs “would not be a good one-for-one replacement” for crewed fighters, he said. Rather, they will greatly augment the 5th-generation fighter fleet, “even before the F-47 gets fielded.” CCAs, he added, “will help us deliver more combat capability at a better cost point.”

Cotton asked if the Air Force could use Block 70 F-16s if new aircraft could be diverted from foreign military sales; the CSAF declined to answer until later.

“I don’t want to give you a yes or no, because specifically understanding what the export variant can and can’t do, and any sort of adjustments we would have to make” to integrate them “with our US-built fighters,” is central to the question. “I would need to see what the integration opportunities and costs would be before I could give you a good answer.”

Cotton asked him to do so, given that the bulk of the USAF F-16 fleet is aging and that new F-16s could help answer Allvin’s call for “more Air Force.” Allvin remained cautious: New F-16s would have to compete for funds with nuclear modernization, munitions, funding to support Agile Combat Employment, and numerous other priorities, he said.

Air Force Conducts Test Launch of Minuteman III ICBM

Air Force Conducts Test Launch of Minuteman III ICBM

May 21, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Air Force test launched its second unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., May 21.

The missile, carrying a single Mk21 high-fidelity reentry vehicle, took off at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time to travel more than 4,200 miles at over 15,000 miles per hour, striking a designated target area near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

“This ICBM test launch underscores the strength of the nation’s nuclear deterrent and the readiness of the ICBM leg of the triad,” Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, said in a statement. The Air Force so far has conducted about 300 routine ICBM test launches, including one earlier this year.

The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the Marshall Islands collected the reentry vehicle’s travel data, while advanced sensors tracked the missile’s flight during the terminal phase to assess its performance.

An unarmed Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launches during an operational test at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, May 21, 2025, at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Kadielle Shaw

For the test launch, a randomly selected Minuteman III missile was pulled from Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. The Air Force stations these missiles across fields in Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. For “Glory Trip” tests, a partially disassembled missile is pulled from a silo, transported by truck across the country, and reassembled at the California test site. Crews from Malmstrom’s 341st Missile Wing and the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., supported the maintenance efforts for the May test. The service’s release said that Airmen from all three ICBM wings—the 90th, 91st, and 341st Missile Wings—participated in the test launch.

“This powerful safeguard is maintained by dedicated Airmen—missileers, defenders, helicopter operators and the teams who supports them—who ensure the security of the nation and its allies,” Bussiere added.

The 95th Wing’s 625th Strategic Operations Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., additionally plays a key role in ensuring ICBM command and control. The squadron writes and verifies missile targeting instructions and supports the Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS)—a backup system that can send launch commands from the air if ground systems are compromised. Aboard a U.S. Navy E-6B Mercury aircraft, the ALCS preserves nuclear command and control, ready to trigger launches remotely if needed. Last month, the squadron conducted its routine ALCS test as part of its biannual exercises, and the Air Force conducted an airborne ICBM test launch last November.

“Minuteman III remains the bedrock of our nation’s strategic deterrent, and the unwavering dedication of the Airmen who ensure its readiness are a testament to its inherent lethality,” said Col. Dustin Harmon, commander of Vandenberg’s 377th Test and Evaluation Group, the unit that oversees the tests.

The Air Force plans to replace its 55-year-old Minuteman III with the new Sentinel ICBM, though service officials now say the Minuteman missiles could stay in service until 2050, far longer than its original 2030s decommissioning timeline.

In last month’s defense reconciliation bill, lawmakers proposed adding $1.5 billion to the Sentinel program in the 2025 budget resolution, along with roughly half a billion to keep Minuteman operational. The service leaders and experts have advocated for critical upgrades to the system, including modifications to its silos, electronics and warheads to ensure the weapon’s continued viability.

 “As we look to the future, these same Airmen are paving the way for the Sentinel ICBM, ensuring a seamless transition to this next-generation capability and the continued security of our nation,” added Harmon.

Can Spacecraft Sweat? New Tech Could Make Them Reusable

Can Spacecraft Sweat? New Tech Could Make Them Reusable

May 21, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

Building spacecraft that can survive the heat of reentry by “sweating” a thermally protective layer of gas has been a dream of aerospace engineers for 50 years. Now an Air Force Research Laboratory grant aims to make that a reality.

Transpiration cooling, as the sweating process is more formally known, is the key to designing truly reusable spacecraft and hypersonic vehicles, Hassan Saad Ifti, an assistant aerospace engineering professor at Texas A&M University, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The school is sharing a $1.7 million grant with Canopy Aerospace, a Colorado-based advanced materials-manufacturing startup, to produce a model vehicle to test transpiration technology for a variety of applications, including atmospheric flight and reentry from orbit. AFRL awarded the grant in August, and the team hopes to have a model for static testing ready by the end of the year, Ifti said.

Transpiration cooling occurs when pressurized fluid spewed from the front of a hypersonic vehicle instantly evaporates, forming a protective layer of gas that insulates against the extreme heat generated by friction between the vehicle and the atmosphere, according to Canopy. It is “one of the only researched technologies that could enable true reusability for mass return from orbit on ballistic trajectories,” the company added in September.

Several Air Force and Space Force missions could benefit from the idea, such as the development of a hypersonic cruise missile or the plan to more widely adopt reusable rockets to bring national security satellites to orbit. The technology may also bring to life a vision of an orbital economy where spacecraft can take off and land like commercial aircraft in the span of a few hours.

Sweating can allow hypersonic systems, or those that travel at five times the speed of sound and can change direction, to move faster and “perform more aggressive maneuvers,” Canopy said. The U.S. is racing alongside Russia and China to build an arsenal of hypersonic weapons that can strike anywhere in the world within hours.

Current state-of-the-art technology isn’t fully reusable because it relies on heat-resistant ceramic tiles like those employed by the U.S. space shuttle program and SpaceX’s Starship, Ifti said.

The tiles can be damaged during reentry, when space vehicles can reach up to 25,000 mph, or 36 times the speed of sound. Inspecting the tiles and replacing those that are damaged may take as long as six months, Ifti said.

Perhaps the most notable example of the tiles’ limitations is the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003, when a piece of foam insulation broke off of the shuttle’s propellant tank and hit its left wing. The impact damaged or knocked off some of the tiles that were designed to keep the shuttle from overheating. The shuttle broke apart upon reentering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members onboard.

More than two decades later, “the dream is full reusability” of space vehicles, Ifti said. Advances in materials and 3D printing could finally make that dream a reality “within a few decades,” added Ifti, who has worked on transpiration cooling in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

The technology could also assist commercial hypersonic jets, like a “next-generation Concorde” that could fly from New York to Tokyo in less than two hours, Ifti said. Venus Aerospace, a Houston-based startup working on hypersonic flight, announced May 14 it had successfully tested an engine that could allow aircraft launched from conventional runways to reach Mach 5 or 6, compared to commercial airliners that average cruising airspeeds slower than sound.

“At those speeds, you have to think about the heating problem on the nose and the leading edges of the wings, and that’s where you could use transpiration cooling,” Ifti said.

The Physics of ‘Sweating‘

Ifti likened transpiration cooling technology to the way a puffer jacket creates a barrier of air that traps heat in and keeps cold out. Similarly, a layer of gas around a returning spacecraft stops temperatures as high as 10,000 degrees Celsius from reaching the vehicle.

Canopy Aerospace’s 3D-printed materials are already being tested in Texas A&M’s state of the art wind tunnels. The university has several wind tunnels for testing hypersonic flight materials, Ifti said. He argues advances in testing is the third factor, alongside new materials and 3D printing, that can make transpiration cooling a reality.

Those diagnostic tools have come a long way in recent years, he added. For instance, the cameras used to record the experiments in the A&M wind tunnels captured up to 7 million frames per second. “We can see things that our colleagues a decade ago could not,” Ifti said.

The data collected helps Ifti and his colleagues understand how gases behave at high speeds and temperatures, particularly as air grows more turbulent for a vehicle approaching Earth.

Following wind tunnel testing of Canopy’s material, the joint team aims to build a mock vehicle no longer than 1 meter by the end of the year, Ifti said.

The model will have reservoirs of thermally protective gas spread throughout the spacecraft that “sweats” out through porous material, Ifti said.

By the time the project concludes next year, the lessons learned could inform how engineers build a model for flight testing.

“The dream is a flight test,” Ifti said. “But that’s not cheap.”

Pentagon Allows Trump to Use Qatari Jet as Air Force One

Pentagon Allows Trump to Use Qatari Jet as Air Force One

May 21, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted a Boeing 747-8 jet from Qatar that President Donald Trump plans to use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said May 21.

“The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

Parnell referred further questions to the Air Force. A spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine the service will award a contract to convert the former Qatari royal plane, offered as a gift to Trump earlier this month, to serve the needs of the U.S. commander in chief.

It is unclear what the aircraft needs to transform into a flying White House and how the Qatari jet may differ from the current VC-25A presidential airlift fleet, called Air Force One when the chief executive is aboard, or its planned replacement, known as the VC-25B in military parlance. The Air Force declined to provide further details about the plans for the aircraft, citing classification and security concerns.

Before the transfer was announced, Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink and Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told Congress May 20 that they were already preparing to modify the Qatari aircraft.

“As we lay out the plan, we will make sure that we do what’s necessary to ensure the aircraft is fit to carry the president with all the communications, safety, and self-defense measures required,” Meink told the Senate Armed Services Committee. The cost of modifying the jet is expected to be significant and could take years to complete, though officials have not revealed any specifics.

Meink said he would be “quite clear” with Trump and Hegseth if the gifted jet poses “any threats that that we are unable to address.”

Lawmakers and government watchdogs have raised ethical and legal concerns about the military’s decision to accept a free plane from a foreign country. News reports have suggested Trump wants to use the jet after he leaves office by having it donated to his presidential library. If new, the custom 747-8 would be valued at up to $400 million.

“Trump must seek Congress’ consent to take this $300 million gift from Qatar,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote on X May 11. “The Constitution is perfectly clear: no present ‘of any kind whatever’ from a foreign state without congressional permission. A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift (and a grift).”

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the decision to accept the jet a “national embarrassment” in a May 21 statement.

“President Trump is outsourcing a core symbol of American sovereignty, power, and ingenuity,” Reed said. “He is forcing U.S. taxpayers to shell out potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to refurbish this so-called gift which will likely only be in official service for a short time.”

He argued that using the Qatari 747 is “reckless and would create unacceptable vulnerabilities for our nation.”

“There must be transparency and accountability about the costs of retrofitting this plane, the counterintelligence risks involved, and how it will be used once President Trump leaves office,” Reed said.

Boeing is already under contract to modify two unused 747-8s to ferry the president around the world. Meink said he’s unaware of any changes in requirements for the VC-25B program, the Air Force’s effort to replace the modified 747-200s that have served as Air Force One since the early 1990s.

Trump has expressed frustration with that program’s delays and has pushed for ways to receive a new plane sooner. Boeing was initially supposed to deliver the VC-25B in 2024 under a 2018 contract, but estimates for its introduction slipped to 2029, when Trump will no longer be in office. Boeing has incurred more than $2 billion in losses on the project and has cited labor shortages, especially among workers with security clearances, and supply chain issues as the cause of the delays. The Qatari plane has largely sat idle for years.

After public pressure from Trump, the Air Force now says it may be able to get the two Boeing-modified jets in service by 2027, though it has insisted it is not relaxing security requirements to do so. It has not offered a public timeline for modifying the Qatari 747.

More B-21s May Be Necessary If B-52J Upgrade Goes Awry, Allvin Says

More B-21s May Be Necessary If B-52J Upgrade Goes Awry, Allvin Says

May 21, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force might want to buy more than the planned fleet of 100 B-21 Raider bombers, particularly if the coming B-52J upgrade proves more challenging than anticipated, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told the Senate Armed Services Committee May 20.

If the B-52 modernization program “goes worse than we hope, then we would need more” money for B-21s, Allvin told Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). When the senator asked if the Air Force’s plan for B-21s was “anywhere close” to what the service actually needed, Allvin replied that he would “take all I can get with the funding,” though he did not specify how many aircraft he wanted.

The B-52J upgrade consists of the Commercial Engine Replacement program (CERP) and Radar Modernization Program (RMP), both now underway, which seek to replace the engines and pylons of the entire 76-airplane B-52H fleet, along with its radar, some communications upgrades and other improvements—all to be delivered starting at the end of this decade. However, the upgrade faces headwinds.

The radar upgrade has resulted in a Nunn-McCurdy Act breach for exceeding projected costs, requiring the Air Force to assess and possibly reconfigure the program. The breach is considered “significant,” meaning there’s a 15 percent or more deviation from the base cost or schedule.

Allvin said the B-21 is an “incredible capability” that has gone “pretty well” so far in flight testing.

“The 100 minimum is certainly something we can stand behind,” he said. “When we look at what the maximum is, I really want to look at the risk over time, and opportunities over time.”

Allvin’s comments are an evolution from what he told the SASC last year. Previously, he said he was not inclined to go beyond 100 B-21s, saying that by the time all those aircraft are delivered, technology might have advanced to the point where the Air Force may want to shift to a different platform.

Recently, the commanders of U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Global Strike Command have championed 145 B-21s as a new target.

In March, STRATCOM chief Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton said 100 is an absolute minimum to buy, and that he’d be more comfortable with an accelerated rate of production. The current rate—classified, but believed to be only seven or eight per year—was “set when the geopolitical environment was a little bit different than what we face today,” with a rapidly growing Chinese strategic forces and Russia’s war in Ukraine and accompanying nuclear threats.

After questioning Allvin, Rounds, whose state will host some of the B-21 fleet, asked AFGSC boss Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere during a SASC subcommittee hearing on strategic forces if more B-21s are needed to cope with a world in which three nations have substantial strategic nuclear forces. The first B-21 base where the bomber will be operationally deployed is Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.

Bussiere replied that the fleet “could be as high as 145,” and he noted Cotton’s remarks to that effect this spring. Bussiere noted the 100 number was set around 2018 in a different strategic environment before the Pentagon had assessed that China’s nuclear forces are rapidly growing and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“I support assessing the increase of the production from 100 to 145,” Bussiere said. “But I think the real question for the Department [of Defense] and for the nation is, what’s the right mix of long-range strike platforms versus other strike platforms? It’s a reasonable question the nation has asked several times in the last year or two,” He said there are “ongoing efforts” in Congress and the DOD to “assess what the correct number of long-range strike platforms are in the Department of the Air Force.”

Bussiere said he is “pleased with the progress so far of the B-21 Raider platform,” and that the first test aircraft, known as T-1, is going through its paces at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. He noted aircraft are currently on the production line, though the number is classified.

Rounds said the B-21, to his knowledge, “is working, it’s on time, it’s on budget,” and that there is a lot of interest “to see B-21 come on at a higher rate than what’s currently planned for.”

Northrop Grumman chief executive officer Kathy Warden, on the company’s April 22 quarterly results call, said that Northrop took a $477 million charge on the B-21 to cover higher-than-expected materials costs, and changes to the manufacturing process that will allow for accelerating production, if the Air Force opts to do that.

The process change “positions us to ramp to the quantities needed in full-rate production,” Warden said, and will allow Northrop to “ramp beyond the quantities in the program of record.”

The House and Senate budget reconciliation package, agreed to last month but not yet signed into law, would provide $4.5 billion to accelerate the production of the B-21. However, no details were provided on the rate Congress wants or whether the number purchased would exceed 100 airplanes.