PACAF Deputy: Large-Scale Exercise Next Summer Will Feature Nearly 300 Aircraft

PACAF Deputy: Large-Scale Exercise Next Summer Will Feature Nearly 300 Aircraft

Oct. 24, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s Note: This story was updated Oct. 25 to include the official name of REFORPAC.

REFORPAC, the large-scale exercise in the Pacific planned for summer 2025, will be on a scale unseen by the Air Force in recent memory: nearly 300 aircraft spread across 25 locations. 

Lt. Gen. Laura L. Lenderman, deputy commander of Pacific Air Forces, detailed the size of the exercise during a keynote address at the AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific conference on Oct. 23. 

“The goal is to integrate and experiment with logistics, sustainment, and enabling capability to bring fifth-gen fighters, command and control aircraft, and airlift and air refueling into the Western Pacific at speed and scale, with approximately 25 operating locations, almost 300 aircraft, and sister services and partner nations involved,” Lenderman said. 

If the Air Force meets those numbers, REFORPAC—short for “Resolute Force Pacific” and sometimes referred to as “Return of Forces to the Pacific”—will significantly outstrip other major exercises the service has held in recent years in terms of number of aircraft and operating locations: 

Even Air Defender, the largest air exercise in NATO history held last June, had 250 aircraft, including 100 U.S. planes. 

Lenderman also said the Air Force will use the exercise to focus on Agile Combat Employment, the operational concept in which small teams of Airmen deploy to remote or austere locations, generate airpower, and move again quickly as needed. 

“We’re conducting multiple simultaneous ACE operations, and it’s an opportunity to refine our capabilities, strengthen our partnerships, test and stress ACE, and shift interoperability into interchangeability,” the general said. 

Lt. Gen. Laura Lenderman, Pacific Air Forces deputy commander, thanked Col. James McFarland for his service and welcomed incoming commander, Col. Julie Sposito Salceies, during the 613th Air Operations Center Change of Command Ceremony on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, June 26, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Mark Sulaica

ACE originated with PACAF, and leaders have stressed its importance in a region where the Air Force may need to “island-hop” or operate from locations with World War II-era airfields. 

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in August that REFORPAC will include elements from U.S. Strategic Command; U.S. Northern Command; U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; and Air Mobility Command, and that it will dovetail with other major exercises like Bamboo Eagle and Talisman Sabre, a large biennial Australian-U.S.-led event.

Officials say REFORPAC is just one in a series of large-scale exercises the Air Force will implement in the coming years as the service attempts to reorient itself for great power competition against China and Russia.  

Service leaders say that shift has to be done with urgency and speed given the pressing nature of the threat. 

“Time is not on our side when it comes to offensive and defensive operations, logistics, sustainment, command and control, or battle management,” Lenderman said. “We no longer have the luxury of long-term development for perfect solutions.” 

Instead, exercises like REFORPAC will help the Air Force identify stress points and innovative solutions to challenges—and Lenderman wants industry to help. 

“What we ask of you is to bring your best ideas, bring your concepts, bring your newest technologies, bring your ready kits to the Indo-Pacific theater at a level ready for experimentation,” she said. “Help us challenge our status quo. Help us stress Agile Combat Employment and our ability to command and control and execute contested logistics and our ability to perform dynamic force movements throughout the theater.” 

WATCH: How BAE Systems Is Delivering the Air Force an Electronic Warfare Advantage

WATCH: How BAE Systems Is Delivering the Air Force an Electronic Warfare Advantage

Oct. 24, 2024

Joshua Niedzwiecki, Vice President and General Manager of Electronic Combat Solutions at BAE Systems, shares how BAE Systems uses mission-based systems (and how those systems will work within the U.S. Air Force’s new Integrated Capabilities Command) to provide an EW advantage to the warfighter’ future fight.

Air Force Missile Cancer Study Samples for New Chemicals, Finds No Health Hazard

Air Force Missile Cancer Study Samples for New Chemicals, Finds No Health Hazard

Oct. 23, 2024 | By David Roza

The latest round of environmental sampling for the Air Force’s Missile Community Cancer Study found trace amounts of potentially harmful chemicals called volatile organic compounds in the service’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) facilities, but not at levels that would pose a health hazard, Air Force Global Strike Command announced Oct. 22.

For the third round of environmental sampling, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine once again tested the air, soil, and drinking water at missile alert facilities (MAFs) and Launch Control Centers (LCCs) across the Air Force’s three main missile bases and Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif, which hosts missile launch facilities. LCCs are the underground capsules where Airmen operate ICBMs, while MAFs include the above-ground buildings where missile operators and the security forces Airmen guarding the facility live, eat, and sleep during an alert shift.

This round found trace levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). According to the Environmental Protection Agency, VOCs are human-made chemicals used and produced in the manufacture of paints, pharmaceuticals, and refrigerants. They are emitted as a vapor by a vast array of products including paints, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials, office equipment such as copiers and printers, and permanent markers. Even the “new car smell” comes from VOCs emitted from the materials inside a new car.

VOC exposure can result in headaches, nausea, dizziness, irritation in the eyes and throat, and a few VOCs have been directly linked to cancer in humans, but the extent and nature of the health effects depend on a range of factors such as amount of time exposed and exposure level, according to Northern Arizona University.

The Air Force study found trace levels of VOCs in about one percent of samples, Global Strike Command said in a statement. In every case, those levels were below five percent of the recommended Threshold Limit Value, a method endorsed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for how much of a substance adults can be exposed to without experiencing adverse health conditions, the command said.

“The levels detected in the survey are not assessed to present a health hazard,” Global Strike Command wrote.

The tests took place over the summer as part of an effort to capture seasonal variations in the LCCs and MAFs, the head of Global Strike Command, Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, said in the release.

“Across all three rounds of sampling, we’ve learned a great deal about our facilities and what compounds are present in them, and most importantly how we can clean-up or mitigate those compounds to ensure our Strikers have a safe work environment,” he said.

Capt. Isabella Muffoletto, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine bioenvironmental
engineer, labels different samples at L-01 missile alert facility, or MAF, near Stoneham,
Colorado, July 13, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Joseph Coslett Jr.)

In previous rounds of environmental testing, Global Strike Command found polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hazardous chemicals the EPA has deemed “probable human carcinogens” that were used in electronics and other equipment before being banned in 1979. Many ICBM facilities’ equipment predates then, and Global Strike Command found PCBs above EPA standards at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.; and Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

In June, the command said it would expand its environmental studies to the missile launch facilities, where maintenance Airmen work on the weapons.

The environmental studies coincide with an epidemiological study of cancer rates among missileers and other ICBM-related jobs compared to the rest of the military and the general population. Preliminary data released in March showed elevated rates of prostate and breast cancer. 

The data supporting those observations came from Department of Defense electronic medical records from 2001 to 2021, capturing service members diagnosed with cancer through the Military Health System and Tricare. The Air Force expects that accounts for fewer than 25 percent of the total cancer cases. 

The rest may be accounted for as the study expands. On Oct. 31, Global Strike Command will host a virtual town hall to discuss the results of the next phase of the epidemiological study, which covers Veterans Affairs medical records from 1991-2020, the DOD Cancer Registry from 1986-2020, and the Veterans Affairs Central Cancer Registry from 1976 to 2020.

“We won’t be able to make definitive statements about cancer incidence among the missile community until after we complete the epidemiological study,” Col. Richard Speakman, commander of the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, said in the release. “But we know from previous studies that military members do have higher rates of certain cancers. Hopefully this study will increase our awareness of any higher risk and enable Airmen, Guardians, and their families to make informed decisions.”

Hundreds of people logged onto an earlier town hall held in June. For years, the Air Force dismissed concerns among the missile community about connections between their work and cancer. In early 2023, those concerns were raised again as a result of a possible increased rate of cases of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a blood cancer, at Malmstrom Air Force Base. 

Bussiere, who dealt with cancer while still a captain flying fighter jets, has pledged to take an expansive approach with the study and reiterated to town hall participants that he does not intend to sweep the issue under the rug. 

“I believe it’s our obligation to completely understand the environment we asked our Airmen to operate in and do what we can to mitigate any risk or exposure,” the general said in the town hall.

SDA Sets Approved Vendor Pool to Compete for Experimental Satellites

SDA Sets Approved Vendor Pool to Compete for Experimental Satellites

Oct. 23, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Development Agency has created a pool of non-traditional defense space vendors to compete for experimental and demonstration satellite contracts in low-Earth orbit, director Derek M. Tournear announced Oct. 23. 

The Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit, or HALO, pool includes 19 companies under an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract that pre-clears all participants to compete for individual awards.  

HALO prototype solicitations will seek two identical satellites able to launch 12-18 months after contract award in each round, SDA said in a release. 

SDA, now part of the Space Force, has primarily focused on developing the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a large constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites for data communications and missile warning and tracking. But the agency also has dabbled in experimental efforts, including: 

HALO provides a pool of vendors to compete for such programs.

First up is the Tranche 2 Demonstration and Experimentation Systems (T2DES) program, the successor to T1DES. 

“Through HALO, SDA has an even faster and more flexible contracting mechanism in place to compete and award T2DES and other SDA demonstration projects,” Tournear said in a statement. “We believe HALO will also increase the pool of performers capable of bidding on future SDA programs, including participation in layers of future tranches.” 

Back in October 2022, Tournear suggested that T2DES could be focused on “translator” satellites that can pull data from non-SDA satellites and feed it into the network. In mid-2023, the agency solicited industry feedback on the program. Since then, however, officials have offered few updates.

Of the 19 vendors in HALO, a few have been selected for SDA contracts in the past, such as SpaceX, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, and York Space Systems. Others, like Firefly Aerospace and Impulse Space, have worked with the Space Force in some capacity before. The full list: 

  • Airbus U.S. Space & Defense 
  • Apex Technology 
  • AST Space Mobile USA 
  • Astro Digital 
  • Capella Space 
  • CesiumAstro 
  • Firefly Aerospace 
  • Geneva Technologies 
  • Impulse Space 
  • Kepler Communications 
  • Kuiper Government Solutions 
  • LeoStella 
  • Momentus Space 
  • Muon Space 
  • NovaWurks 
  • SpaceX 
  • Turion Space 
  • Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems 
  • York Space Systems 
Space Force Adds 6 New Satellites to Its MEO Missile Warning Constellation

Space Force Adds 6 New Satellites to Its MEO Missile Warning Constellation

Oct. 23, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Space Systems Command is adding six more satellites to its medium-Earth orbit missile warning/missile tracking constellation, awarding a $386 million contract to Millennium Space Systems. 

The order doubles to 12 spacecraft the number of satellites in the constellation’s Epoch 1, and all will be built by Millennium, a Boeing subsidiary. The deal comes less than six months after SSC canceled a contract with RTX, due to cost growth, schedule delays, and design issues. 

Called the Resilient MW/MT MEO program, the constellation is scheduled for its initial launches in late 2026 and early 2027. 

“Once on orbit, Epoch 1 satellites will play a vital role in delivering advanced missile warning and tracking capabilities,” said Lt. Col. Nathan Terrazone, materiel leader for Epoch 1, in a statement. “Our commitment is to rapidly deliver operational requirements. Awarding this additional plane lets us do that without skipping a beat.”  

After dropping RTX, SSC contemplated shifting some satellites to Epoch 2. But “because of the flexible nature of its acquisition approach,” which used other transaction authorities to award the fixed-price contract, SSC was able to keep the program on cost and schedule and award the additional satellites to Millenium. 

SSC is already soliciting proposals for the next phase, Epoch 2, which will expand the constellation and enable global coverage. Launches are programmed for fiscal 2029.

“We are excited to see what industry offers us for Epoch 2, which will take us to initial warfighting capability in the next few years,” said Terrazone. 

The MW/MT MEO constellation will give the Space Force three missile tracking layers, one in each major orbital regime. In addition to the MEO satellites, the Space Development Agency is fielding a missile warning layer in low-Earth orbit and SSC is developing the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) program for geosynchronous and polar orbits. 

Both agencies are iterating development through “spiral development,” building satellites, launching them, then adding capabilities in a follow-on set of launches. The widely dispersed warning systems aim to dissuade rivals from trying to attack the satellite constellations by putting so many satellites up that attacking them would prove fruitless.  

For Millennium, the project solidifies its prowess at rapid satellite development and delivery. Millenium, which is also involved in SDA’s low-Earth-orbit proliferated architecture, is under contract to provide it experimental fire control satellites.

SDA and SSC are coordinating their missile tracking efforts, each focusing on a different orbital regime. Satellites in LEO offer a more detailed picture and higher speeds, while satellites in GEO offer a persistent stare and a broader field of view. 

Austin Confirms North Korean Troops Are in Russia. Why Remains Unclear

Austin Confirms North Korean Troops Are in Russia. Why Remains Unclear

Oct. 23, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

PRATICA DI MARE AIR BASE, Italy—North Korean troops are deploying to Russia—a potentially “very, very serious issue,” according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III—but it remains unclear if Pyongyang’s forces will directly support Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“What exactly they’re doing? [That’s] left to be seen,” Austin said Oct. 23 during a stopover at an Italian military base near Rome, prior to returning to the U.S. from a weeklong European trip. “These are things that we need to sort out.”

Austin’s trip included an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Oct. 21 for meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top defense officials there.

“If they are co-belligerents, if their intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf, that is a very, very serious issue,” Austin said. “It will have impacts not only in Europe, it will also impact things in the Indo-Pacific as well.”

Austin’s comments are the first official U.S. confirmation that North Korean troops are in Russia. Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence officials have said there are upwards of 10,000 North Korean troops heading to Russia. Speaking after Austin, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said there were at least 3,000 North Korean troops training at three sites in Russia.

“A lot of things to be answered,” Austin said. “Our analysts will continue to work this.”

Austin said American intelligence officials were still trying to assess what role the North Koreans might play. American officials do not know if the North Korean soldiers will be sent to fight in Ukraine, ease Russia’s manpower shortages by guarding rear areas in Russia, or if their presence is intended as a warning to Ukraine that Moscow is determined to fight on. 

“Number one, why are the troops there? We’ll continue to pull this thread and see what happens here.” 

Russia has already turned to North Korea for ballistic missiles and artillery shells. And Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea in June to discuss military cooperation. But the use of North Korean personnel would mark a major increase in Pyongyang’s help for Moscow’s war effort.

“There is a strengthened relationship, for lack of a better term, between [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] and Russia. You’ve seen DPRK provide arms and munitions to Russia—and this is a next step,” Austin said, using the formal acronym for North Korea.

Austin said it was unclear what North Korea would gain from the deployment, but suggested it was a sign of Russia’s weakness. The Pentagon said Russia is facing its highest casualties of the war in recent weeks, and more than 600,000 casualties since its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

“This is an indication that [Putin] may be even in more trouble than most people realize,” Austin said.

“He went tin-cupping early on to get additional weapons and materials from the DPRK and then from Iran,” Austin said. “And now he’s making a move to get more people if that is the case if these troops are designed to be a part of the fight in Ukraine. But we’ll see.”

USAF Spends More, But Fighter Readiness Lags. GAO Wonders Why

USAF Spends More, But Fighter Readiness Lags. GAO Wonders Why

Oct. 22, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force ramped up operations and maintenance spending to keep its F-35A fighters flying over the past six years, but readiness continues to lag behind goals, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. 

Indeed, the Air Force is spending more and more to sustain its entire fighter fleet, but has seen only middling gains in mission capable rates, which measure the percentage of time an aircraft can fulfill at least one of its missions, the government watchdog found. 

GAO did not include precise, year-by-year figures on sustainment funding and mission capable rates by aircraft type in its public report, bowing to concerns from the Pentagon that deemed that data sensitive. But the analysts noted that:

  • O&M funding requests rose almost 27 percent from fiscal 2018 to 2023 for to sustain A-10, F-15, F-16, F-22, and F-35A aircraft;
  • O&M spending outstripped those requests during that period, rising by 40.7 percent;
  • And all told, the service spent nearly $34.2 billion on fighter sustainment—not including engine depot maintenance, service life extension programs, and certain spare parts procurement. 

Yet that jump in spending also came at a time of high inflation, erasing many of the increases.

Not once in that period did any of the Air Force’s F-15E, F-22, and F-35A fighters meet their objective mission capable rate. The aging F-15C and F-16C fleets hit their marks three times, meanwhile, and the A-10, F-15D and F-16D all met their goals once. 

Source: GAO

Sustainment troubles also plagued the Navy and Marine Corps, according to GAO, which found that “none of the 15 tactical aircraft variants [across the services] met their mission capable goals in fiscal year 2023.” 

Air Force leaders counter that mission capable rates are just one way of measuring readiness across different units, and that changes in the way rates are calculated contributed to the negative picture. The F-35 Joint Program Office, responsible for overall F-35 sustainment, has pushed back on prior GAO criticism, arguing that sustainment costs are coming down.  

Still, availability issues with the F-35 were already deemed bad enough In March 2023 for the JPO to declare a so-called “War on Readiness,” with the goal of increasing mission capable rates by 10 points, to 64 percent, within a year. 

It wasn’t to be. The Air Force said this summer its F-35A fleetwide mission capable rate was 51.9 percent in fiscal 2023—down from prior years and below its goal. Now, the GAO reports that during that fiscal year, the Air Force exceeded planned O&M spending on the F-35 by nearly 7 percent.  

Steady increases in projected sustainment costs for the F-35 are not unexpected, given that the size of the Air Force fleet is growing over time. Yet for four years in a row now, the service has spent more than expected on operations and maintenance for the Lightning II. 

The Air Force also has spent more than requested on F-22 sustainment while still missing its mission capable goals. USAF is planning billions of dollars in Raptor upgrades and modernization in the coming years, now that it’s clear the aircraft will be needed longer than previously anticipated. The Air Force took a “pause” on its Next-Generation Air Dominance Platform, meant to replace the F-22, this summer potentially setting that project back by several years.

The only aircraft on which the Air Force spent significantly less than projected was the A-10, with costs falling 13.5 percent below expected. The A-10 fleet is gradually being retired.  

Costs for the F-15 and F-16 fleets came in basically on target, as USAF divests its F-15C/D fleet. 

GAO noted the apparent disconnect between rising sustainment spending and stubbornly low aircraft readiness.  

“The variances observed between the executed and requested amounts for tactical aircraft are not meaningfully associated with mission capable rates,” the watchdog report states. 

Space Force Component Eyes More Exercises in Indo-Pacific

Space Force Component Eyes More Exercises in Indo-Pacific

Oct. 22, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Two years after standing up, U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific is bolstering partnerships and expanding exercises across the Indo-Pacific theater, said Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, the Space Force’s first component commander.

The command is replacing bilateral engagements with multilateral ones, building ties to counter competitors including China, Russia, and North Korea, Mastalier said in a conversation with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

“What you have at stake is a scaling issue, and understanding how you’re going to scale from the conflicts that we have faced in the past to one that may include [China], North Korea, and Russia,” Mastalir said . “So being able to understand not just which weapons systems do we need in place, but across the entire paradigm, from potential policy friction points, whether it be information sharing with allies and partners, to integrating for counter-C5ISRT operations across multiple domains.” 

That sweeping approach is in line with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s broader pivot toward great power competition, Mastalir said, but it is heavy lift for a small Space Force component command launched not quite a year ago with just 20 Guardians.  

SPACFOR-INDOPAC’s spent the past 11 months figuring out its organization and its place within INDOPACOM. Now it is plunging into new challenges. 

“The rate of discovery learning is decreasing, and that’s a good metric,” he said. “But the demand signal is increasing as we tell our story and as we continue to integrate across the other components, and they learn about what it is Space Forces Indo-Pacific brings to the fight.” 

A patch for U.S. Space Forces, Indo-Pacific, the USSF’s first overseas component to a combatant command. Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Wright/United States Forces Japan

Exercises

Exercises are a key focus. Guardians are developing the tactics, techniques, and procedures needed for a high-end fight, Mastalir said, and other service components and allies need experience working with the Space Force and leveraging all its capabilities.  

“One of the points of emphasis is to transition from numerous bilateral engagements and exercises to more multilateral,” Mastalir said. “Demonstrating on a daily basis with your allies and partners that you’re prepared to fight and win a war, should you need to, is really the ultimate way to deter a war.” 

SPACFOR-INDOPAC took part in Pacific Sentry, an Army-led exercise with Australia in 2023; this year, it joined with Australia and Japan on Keen Edge, traditionally a bilateral U.S.-Japan exercise. More efforts are planned with South Korea as well. 

“When you look at the Freedom Shield and Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises that we do in [Korea], again to start bringing all of the components into those exercises and really start to prepare for how we need to work together,” Mastalir said. “We’ve been doing that, certainly in the other domains, for years, and now that space is on [Korea], and soon we’ll be in Japan, that’ll really further our effort to integrate space into that.” 

Sub-Components 

Space Forces Indo-Pacific added its first sub-component in South Korea just a month after it stood up itself, and this summer Space Forces Korea was elevated to an O-6 command when Col. John Patrick took over as its new commander. Patrick came to the job after a stint at the NATO Space Centre, where he gained extra insight into working with partners and allies, Mastalir said. 

Another sub-component, Space Forces Japan, will stand up before the end of 2024. “That’s what we shared with Japan, and they’re very excited about the prospects of that,” he said. Space is still a nascent area for many military forces, and the U.S. has a lot to offer.

“We can engage with those partners where they’re at and really kind of bring them along,” Mastalir said. “As both Korea and Japan look to develop their space capabilities—and they have, I would say, aggressive plans to develop military operations where the space domain is concerned—it allows us to [practice being] integrated by design. So as they build their capabilities, having a component right there in country, working with them, having them exercise with us, is really great awareness for how they might consider building those capabilities so that it can integrate across the joint force.” 

Competitor Collaboration 

China, Russia, and North Korea, meanwhile, are also collaborating more among each other, Mastalier noted. “There is evidence of collaboration, and we have not seen that before,” he said. “So that’s very disconcerting.”  

Their collaboration changes the dynamics of potential conflict, and blurs the lines of where conflicts could occur. “There’s been a tendency to view in a silo some of these potential conflicts, and how we’re going to operate,” Mastalir said.

But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all three have become more collaborative, both militarily and economically. The result, he said, is altering the way U.S. and allied forces must view its rivals. 

B-2 Back in Service 3 Months Faster After New Inspection Process

B-2 Back in Service 3 Months Faster After New Inspection Process

Oct. 22, 2024 | By David Roza

Changes to the depot inspection and maintenance process for the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber resulted in one aircraft returning to service around three months ahead of schedule—a significant improvement for the B-2 fleet, which numbers just 19 jets.

The “Spirit of Nebraska,” tail number 89-0128, completed its programmed depot maintenance (PDM) at Palmdale, Calif., on Oct. 15 in 379 days, 91 days ahead of the usual 470 it takes for a B-2, according to an Oct. 21 press release from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

PDM is a top-to-bottom inspection, overhaul, and repair process, usually done at a higher-level depot facility. All Air Force aircraft receive regular depot work, which becomes more important as the aircraft get older, explained Col. Francis Marino, B-2 System Program Manager within the Bombers Directorate at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

“As any aircraft continues to age, you’re going to see more and more issues that need to be repaired on a PDM line,” Marino said in the release.

Airmen with the 190th Air Refueling Wing and 131st Bomb Wing teamed up to conduct training for hot- pit refueling of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers at Forbes Field Air National Guard Base, Kan., March 2, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Phoenix Lietch)

“Spirit of Nebraska” entered service in 1995, and the average age of the B-2 fleet is about 28 years old. The main objective of the B-2 PDM is to restore its low observable materials, which help reduce its footprint across the visual, electromagnetic, and acoustic spectrum. 

“Many aspects of the low-observability process remain classified; however, the B-2’s composite materials, special coatings and flying-wing design all contribute to its ‘stealthiness,’” according to the Air Force.

With “Spirit of Nebraska,” the PDM team sped up the process by moving its fuel system inspection up on the schedule. In past PDMs, the inspection team might not flag a fuel leak until after some of the low observability restoration was complete, delaying the process by 45 days as they pulled off parts and materials to fix the leak and then reassemble the jet. 

It also helped that the PDM team conducted pre-inspections of the jet before it arrived at Palmdale, which gave them a head-start spotting problems, ordering parts, and planning the repair schedule.

“The pre-inspection is great because it reduces the number of surprises at PDM,” Marino said.

B-2 Spirit bombers assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing conduct operations in support of Bomber Task Force Europe 20-2 over the North Sea March 12, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Matthew Plew)

That’s important because there are not many B-2s available: the fleet started with 21, but one was lost in 2008 after crashing at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and the Air Force decided it would be too expensive to fix another after it crashed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., in 2022. 

That leaves 19 B-2s, but not all 19 are available for combat at any given moment, retired Air Force Col. Mark A. Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at The Mitchell Institute, wrote in a 2023 paper. At the time, only 16 of the 20 B-2s were available for combat after subtracting those in testing or maintenance, he wrote. 

In a conflict with a nuclear power, some B-2s would likely be held back to deter nuclear attacks on the U.S. homeland, and the vast distances of the Indo-Pacific mean that any B-2s left over would spend a lot of time airborne and not be able to generate many sorties.

“In other words, DOD’s long-range, penetrating strike capacity in a conflict with China could consist of only six to eight B-2 sorties per day depending on B-2 basing, sortie durations, and the time needed to turn aircraft between sorties,” Gunzinger wrote. “The loss of a single B-2 in combat or due to a peacetime accident would equal the loss of at least 10 percent of this sortie potential. This is the definition of a fragile force.”

The next-generation stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, is currently in flight test. Air Force officials have indicated they plan to buy 100 B-21s by the mid-2030s. The B-2 is notionally scheduled to start retiring in 2032, but until then, much responsibility rests on the shoulders of those who maintain it.

“Until the B-21 is fielded, the B-2 is the world’s only long-range penetrable strike bomber and the only aircraft that can do what we need it to do today,” Marino said. “As long as the aircraft is operational and our adversaries continue to come out with new and advanced weaponry across the electromagnetic spectrum, we’re going to have to continuously invest in the B-2s lethality, its survivability, and of course its readiness.”