Northrop Grumman Opens New Hypersonic Propulsion Facility in Maryland

Aug. 3, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Northrop Grumman opened its new hypersonic propulsion factory in Elkton, Md., August 3, where it will build scramjet engines for the Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile as well as ramjets, warheads, and other components for future hypersonic systems.

The 60,000-square-foot “Hypersonic Capability Center” employs just over 50 people now in digital and production work, but Northrop designed the facility to be “rapidly expandable” and reconfigurable to increase manufacturing capacity for HACM and accommodate other projects. Northrop’s aim: to build hypersonic elements “at scale,” company officials said.

Northrop provides the air-breathing scramjet propulsion system and warheads for HACM to its prime contractor, Raytheon. The team won a cost-plus development contract for the weapon in September, 2022. The initial asset is expected circa 2027.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said USAF switched its “focus” to HACM as its primary hypersonics effort after the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) failed to impress in early testing. HACM’s smaller size and longer range—thanks to its air-breathing scramjet propulsion—makes it more attractive for the Air Force, Kendall and Andrew Hunter, his chief acquisition executive, have said. The smaller weapon can be carried by fighers, as well as big bombers like the B-52.

The HACM is based on development work done led by the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, building on the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) and work Raytheon did in a joint program with Australia called SCIFiRE, for Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiments. Initial HACM flight tests are expected to be conducted in Australia.

Raytheon’s version of HAWC flew successfully in September 2021 and July 2022.

The HACM is “obviously a key and critical program for us,” said Chris Haynes, Northop director of business development for missiles.

The HCC, he said, “is going to be a combination of modern equipment, as well as leveraging digital engineering techniques…We’re really trying to drive” having engineers work “side by side with operations, fully integrated on the floor. So as we’re making design decisions, we understand the implications of those decisions as it relates to…delivering weapons that are reliable, affordable and at scale,” Haynes said.

The design of future weapons will have to take manufacturing into account at the outset, in order to hit the price points government is willing to pay, he said.

The facility is “purpose-built…for design, development and manufacturing of hypersonic air breathing propulsion, all under one roof,” he said. There is no capability to build hypersonic propulsion systems “at scale in the industry today,” Haynes said. The “foundational elements” of such a capability don’t exist at the scale that they do for solid rocket motors, he said.

Ground was broken on the HCC in 2021. The new facility consolidates some of Northrop’s engineering talent from its Ronkonkoma, N.Y., and Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., facilities to concentrate the company’s critical mass of hypersonic expertise.

Haynes noted more than five active hypersonic programs among the Army, Navy, and Air Force and said the company expects the number of programs and the number of deliverables to increase substantially.

“As an industry leader on the components and missile side of things, we’re obviously well positioned to play a critical role in developing these new systems from the propulsion perspective, from a fusing perspective; warheads, advanced materials; they’re all critical to delivering this capability,” he said. The underlying goal is “affordable mass.”

Northrop’s provides HACM’s scramjet, solid rocket motors, and fusing capabilities, while Raytheon provides control actuation, forward section electronics, and endgame sensors, Haynes said. The weapon will be delivered out of Raytheon’s facilities in Tucson, Ariz.

Haynes said the two companies “fully integrated” their efforts through digital thread and integrated networks across the whole of the HACM effort.

“We are able…to collaborate [in] real time with our partners, with our supply chain, to be able to make design decisions [and] make manufacturing decisions,” Haynes said.

Haynes said Northrop also will build hypersonic engines for “future air-breathing systems,” but did not elaborate. Elkton will also produce the third stage rocket motor for the Navy’s Standard Missile, another Raytheon product.

Jones also said that Northrop is partnering with “local high schools and universities and colleges to create programs dedicated towards building a trained skill set within the community. So we have a workforce of the future, essentially.” Elkton is about 8 miles from the University of Delaware, just over the state line in Newark, Del.

Niger Coup Could Jeopardize US Counterterrorism Operations in Africa

Aug. 2, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The toppling of the democratically-elected president of Niger on July 26 is jeopardizing U.S. counterterrorism missions in much of Africa and raising questions about America’s ability to carry out military operations in that region.

The U.S. and France have condemned the military’s power grab, led by Abdourahamane Tchiani, Niger’s new self-proclaimed leader. A group of West African nations on July 30 imposed sanctions and even threatened force if President Mohammad Bazoum is not restored to power.

Yet there are no signs that the military junta that seized control is backing down, and concerns have grown that Russia might try to take advantage of the upheaval.

“If Western operations are significantly impacted by this, it’s going to be bad for the Nigerien people,” retired Army Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, who led U.S. Africa Command from 2019-2022, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “It’s going to be bad for the region. It’s going to be bad for Europe before it’s bad for America, but it’s going to be bad for everybody.”

For now, the U.S. has halted security cooperation with Niger while American personnel are largely staying on their bases, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters Aug 1.

“We continue to stay in contact with the Niger military, but in terms of training, for example, those types of things, that’s been suspended,” said Ryder, who declined to say whether U.S. drone operations had stopped.

Taking a wait-and-see approach, the Biden administration has not officially declared the removal of Bazoum a coup, which would require the U.S. to cut off military assistance under U.S. law, undermining efforts to combat terrorism in the area. The U.S. says it still holds out hope that Bazoum could be restored to power and U.S. officials and analysts said the situation on the ground is still unfolding.

“Currently, the position of Gen. Tchiani is fragile because he is torn between different political and military actors within the CNSP itself,” said Tatiana Smirnova, an expert on Niger at the University of Quebec in Montreal, referring to the junta’s formal name, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland.

The U.S. has roughly 1,100 troops in Niger, where the U.S. military operates two air bases. That has enabled the U.S. to fly drones, such as Air Force MQ-9s, to gather intelligence on militant groups in the region, including al-Qaeda, ISIS affiliates, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), a terrorist group active in Niger and other parts of West Africa. In 2017, four American service members were killed while hunting for an ISIS leader.

“We don’t want this to be something like Afghanistan,” an Air Force officer serving in Niger told Air & Space Forces Magazine in 2022.

John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, told reporters Aug. 1 that “there’s no indication that Russia was behind this” despite Russian flags being seen being displayed in Niger’s capital.

But Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner group Wagner, hailed the coup in a Telegram message and suggested his troops would help Niger maintain order.

“The Niger coup is condemnable enough in its own right, but other West African states and Western governments should be particularly worried given the recent history of regime change in the violence-plagued Sahel,” wrote James Barnett, a Hudson Institute research fellow who is based in Lagos, Nigeria. “In both Mali and Burkina Faso, coups in 2021 and 2022, respectively, were followed by a further rise in jihadist violence, geopolitical spats between the juntas and their traditional Western security partners, and, in the case of Mali, the arrival of the Wagner Group.”

Smirnova said there may not be overwhelming pro-Russian support among the general public, but noted that anti-Western sentiment runs strong while there is “general fatigue” with the current government among the population.

“Russian flags in the streets of Niamey do not necessarily mean that there are pro-Russian sentiments in the country, while anti-Western sentiments have been persisting for some time already,” Smirnova told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“People are tired of not-equitable distribution of resources,” she added. “All that may explain why so many political actors do not condemn the coup now.”

France, Italy, and other European countries have moved to evacuate their citizens, a step the U.S. had not yet taken. On Aug. 2, the U.S. State Department announced the partial evacuation of U.S. government personnel and their family members. But for now, the U.S. military is staying.

“There are no changes to the U.S. military force posture in Niger during the Department of State-led ordered departure,” Ryder said in an Aug. 3 statement. “The Department of State has not requested DOD personnel or equipment as part of the ordered departure. We continue to monitor this fluid and evolving situation and reiterate our focus on a diplomatic solution.”

As yet, a diplomatic solution remains elusive.

“Military coups are deeply ingrained in their history there, so I think it was always not far beneath the surface,” said Townsend. “I’m very disappointed, but I’m not shocked by what happened in Niger.”

Editor’s note: this article was updated on Aug. 3 with additional comments from Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder.

Here’s What Units Will Move to Davis-Monthan to Join AFSOC’s New Power Projection Wing

Aug. 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force unveiled plans for the new 492nd Power Projection Wing that will replace the A-10 mission at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., on Aug. 2, describing for the first time which units will be included.

The new wing will be part of Air Force Special Operations Command and draw units from around the country. The 492nd Special Operations Wing will be re-missioned and re-designated, providing the headquarters element; it will relocate to Arizona from Hurlburt Field, Fla., where it is has led AFSOC’s training and education efforts.

The 492nd will be AFSOC’s third Power Projection Wing, but the Air Force did not immediately say what other wings will get that designation. The new term is meant to encompass all of AFSOC’s mission capabilities—strike, mobility, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and air/ground coordination—so the command can “regionally focus each power projection wing on a geographic combatant commander,” according to a release.

“The transition will also allow AFSOC to further diversify its locations to protect against natural disasters by ensuring it can maintain its ability to respond to president-directed missions on very tight timelines,” the release stated.

Units coming to Davis-Monthan include:

One MC-130J Commando II squadron from Cannon Air Force Base, N.M.

One AO-1K Armed Overwatch squadron from Hurlburt Field, Fla.,

The 21st Special Tactics Squadron from Pope Army Airfield, N.C.

The 22nd Special Tactics Squadron from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

The 492nd Theater Air Operations Squadron will activate at Duke Field, Fla., and transfer

The AT-802U Sky Warden aircraft can be easily broken down and reassembled for transport. **Air Tractor AT-802U/Twitter**

Davis-Monthan is losing most of its A-10 Thunderbolts, as three squadrons inactivate and send their 78 A-10s to the boneyard:

The 47th Fighter Squadron

The 354th Fighter Squadron

The 357th Fighter Squadron

In addition to the 492nd PPW, Davis-Monthan will also gain five HH-60W helicopters from the 34th Weapons Squadron and 88th Test and Evaluation Squadron, which will relocate from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev..

The moves will occur slowly over five years and pending an environmental impact analysis.

The Air Force first revealed plans for the 492nd Power Projection Wing in its 2024 budget documents, and Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. provided further details during a congressional hearing in April.

“Their access to the ranges that are there in Arizona and in the western United States will increase their training opportunity,” Brown said.

For years, Arizona lawmakers in Congress have been some of the fiercest advocates for the A-10, repeatedly blocking Air Force attempts to retire the venerable close air support aircraft. The arrival of the 492nd and other missions, however, has seemingly softened that opposition.

This spring, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), along with Reps. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), released a joint letter saying they were “encouraged by the Air Force’s intention to bring new, durable flying missions” to Davis-Monthan, noting that the base’s population will hold steady at roughly 9,600 Airmen and civilians.

U.S. Air Force Airmen inspect an A-10 Thunderbolt II from the 924th Fighter Group during the 355th Maintenance Group’s 4th quarter crew chief competition at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., Jan. 6, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Paige Weldon

Air Force Propulsion Czar: NGAD Engines Will Have Different Size, Similar Tech to AETP

Aug. 2, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

DAYTON, Ohio—The engines for the hyper-secret Next Generation Air Dominance fighter will be a different size than the adaptive engines developed for an F-35 upgrade, but many of the technologies will “port over” to the new powerplant, the Air Force’s propulsion czar told reporters Aug. 1.

John R. Sneden, propulsion director for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, also said the Air Force plans to keep both GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney in the prototyping phase for the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) engine which will power NGAD, after the two engine-makers participated in the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) meant for the F-35.

“The engines that we developed for AETP were sized for the F-35,” said Sneden. “Those that will go into NGAD are different engines; they will be differently-sized engines. But the technology baseline … is essentially the same.”

Asked later if the NGAP engines will be larger than the AETP ones, Sneden said through a spokesperson that, “as with any new weapon system development, the NGAP propulsion systems will be sized appropriately to meet thrust, weight, and other integration requirements.”

There has been a steady increase in the size of fighter powerplants from the F100 of the 1970s to the the F135 of the 2000s—the F100’s fan diameter was just 34.8 inches, compared to 43 inches for F135. AETP is even larger, at 46 inches.

The AETP engines—Pratt’s XA100 and GE’s XA101—were developed with the F-35 in mind, but the Pentagon opted to forego the program in its fiscal year 2024 budget request. While they fit in the F-35A, the engines would need a redesign to fit the carrier-capable F-35C and short takeoff/vertical landing F-35B. Instead, the services have opted for the F135 Engine Core Upgrade offered by Pratt & Whitney. The ECU can apply to all F-35 variants.

But while the AETP engines will not be used in the F-35, Sneden argued the technology they helped develop is “critical” to NGAD and necessary for ensuring the U.S. maintains its advantage in propulsion over China.

According to officials, the AETP engines offer double-digit gains in both specific thrust and fuel efficiency. Sneden said the program also developed next technologies like advanced materials and composites, ceramic matrix materials, thermal management improvements, and additive manufacturing which collectively will deliver the increased capabilities the NGAD will need.

As a result, those advancements won’t be “lost … or wasted,” he said. “It just gets incorporated into a design that’s critical for the NGAP system.”

While the Air Force has said it is ready to move on from AETP, some lawmakers are not—the House approved funding to resurrect the program in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, while the Senate did not. Both chambers agreed to fund the Air Force’s request of nearly $600 million for NGAP.

Asked if AETP could be put on hold and developed for the F-35 at some future point, Sneden demurred.

“Our current focus right now is just to get the technology to a logical transition point” for NGAP, he said.

In order to have both the best choice for NGAP and to sustain what he has described for two years now as a fragile propulsion industrial base, both GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney will likely be carried into a prototyping phase, he said.

“With the way we’re funded, we think we can carry both through prototype, and both are leaning in fully,” Sneden said. “And so then we’ll [contract for] the prototype” and carry out a test and evaluation program. That could continue until a winner is chosen, unless one is an early and clearly superior performer, he said.

“We still have that opportunity to do a downselect if we start seeing … huge separation between the two,” he said. Previous plans had called for choosing one company to develop NGAP based on proposals alone, without a competitive prototyping effort.

While Sneden would not provide a timeline for NGAP, he did say the program is undergoing “detailed design activities right now. And within the next couple of years, we’ll be moving into prototyping testing.”

Asked why traditional airframers Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman received NGAD propulsion contracts last year—in addition to awards to GE and Pratt—Sneden said it was to ensure “that there was an interface methodology between the airframe company and the propulsion company.”

Northrop recently said it would not bid on NGAD.

The Air Force will settle on one design that will fit any of the NGAD designs, Sneden said. After selecting one engine and one air frame, “there could be some optimization of that system and that particular design.” But all the companies are observing “the propulsion constraints that we’ve studied, and evaluated, and provided to each,” he added.

Industrial Base

Given the limited number of contractors working in advanced propulsion, Sneden said his team is focused on maintaining the industrial base and bolstering U.S. advantages in the space. That means “competition, wherever possible, and continuing to fund both vendors for as long as we possibly can.”

NGAP in particular is critical to the U.S., Sneden argued, because of advancements China is making in the arena that threaten U.S. dominance. It’s a warning he issued last year as well.

“Through intellectual property theft, working with Russia, and frankly, just their own development, activity and budget … they’ve made significant leaps and bounds over this last roughly eight-plus years,” he observed.

With greater investment in propulsion, China has closed the gap to the U.S., Sneden said.

“Our focus is not letting them do that,” and he said the adaptive engine technology “is the right way, and incorporating into the NGAD system is our assurance of long-term air dominance and propulsion superiority.”

Surveying the state of the American engine industrial base, Sneden said the current process takes too long and cannot respond to threats fast enough.

“In fairness to my industry partners, they haven’t really been challenged or incentivized through the majority of our contracts,” Sneden said. “The sole-source nature of our enterprise also exacerbates that same problem by removing some of those competitive forces that drive innovation, speed and cost control.”

USAF Will Retire the U-2 in 2026. Until Then, Expect ‘Unique, Innovative’ Uses

Aug. 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

DAYTON, Ohio—The Air Force plans to retire its U-2 Dragon Lady fleet in fiscal 2026—but until then, officials say they’re hard at work to keep the iconic high-altitude surveillance planes flying and testing out technology that may be used on future aircraft.

The plan to divest the U-2 was first reported by Aviation Week and Air Force Times, citing a line tucked into Air Force budget documents that “expectations are for protective NDAA language to be waived … allowing the USAF to move forward with U-2 divestment in FY 2026.”

Col. William Collins, senior materiel leader for high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, confirmed the plan to reporters at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference on Aug. 1—the first official Air Force comment on the future of the U-2 since the plan emerged.

“Our focus right now is working with [Air Combat Command] to maintain full viability of the plane through the service life, maintaining as much trade space for senior leaders,” Collins told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We are working toward the Air Force’s position to the best of our ability. But what we’re doing predominantly is focusing on how we ensure that we don’t create a scenario in which we’re not able to meet mission need because of things like obsolescence.”

While the orginial U-2 first flew in 1955, the current aircraft date back to the 1980s, with the final one delivered in 1989. That was followed by an upgrade in the early 1990s. But the fleet’s average age is now nearly 40 years old, and the Air Force faces diminishing manufacturing sources for key parts, Collins said.

Still, the U-2 remains unique in the Air Force inventory as the service’s only manned high-altitude ISR platform. An icon of the Cold War era, the Dragon Lady returned to headlines earlier this year when one flew over the Chinese surveillance balloon transiting the continental U.S. The Pentagon subsequently released an image from the U-2 cockpit showing the balloon.

With the ability to fly at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet, demand from combatant commanders continues, Collins said, so the Air Force wants to keep the fleet in flying shape into 2026. USAF asked for $16.8 million in research and development, $54.7 million in procurement, and $17 million in operations and maintenance to the U-2 in fiscal 2024.

The aircraft’s uses also aren’t limited solely to ISR, said Col. Joshua Williams, program executive officer for ISR and special operations forces.

“We’re using U-2 in unique and innovative ways and as a surrogate platform, decreasing risk for our fifth-gen fighters,” said Williams. “All we’re doing is decreasing risk and increasing the technical mature for stuff we’ll use on the F-35, F-22.

According to budget documents, that “stuff” includes sensors and capabilities related to the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System and the Pentagon’s broader Joint All-Domain Command and Control effort.

“What we’re focused on is a code-compliant processor capability that provides open mission systems, so that we can bear out that ability to be leveraged on fifth-gen, sixth-gen platforms,” Collins said. “We’re also looking at demoing some [signals intelligence] capability that can also be potentially used on future platforms.”

In addition to buying down risk and freeing up fighters like the F-35 and F-22, using the U-2 as a surrogate has another benefit.

“We’re focusing on showing that as we develop future capability, not only are we doing the survivability, but also the ability to plug and play sensors, not being platform-specific, but platform agnostic,” Collins said.

Particularly for ABMS, Air Force leaders have stressed the importance of sensors being able to fit into a broader architecture.

But while the U-2 may benefit sixth-generation platforms and ABMS by testing out future tech, the Air Force’s plans for its main mission of high-altitude ISR are changing fundamentally, as well. The service’s other high-altitude ISR platform, the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, is slated to be retired in 2027, a year after the sunset of the U-2 fleet.

“There’s going to be a lot more space involved,” Williams said. “Especially in the contested environments the U-2 and these platforms fly in, it’s a different problem and a different answer.”

Cropsey Wants to Keep Things Simple: ‘Complexity … Is Going to Kill Us‘

Aug. 1, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

DAYTON, Ohio—With a striking story and four basic guidelines, the Air Force’s command, control, communications, and battle management czar Brig. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey laid out his priorities for industry at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference on Aug. 1.

Cropsey, the Department of the Air Force’s integrating program executive officer for C3BM, is responsible for coordinating the department’s drive to connect sensors and shooters and the ambitious Advanced Battle Management System. The many elements will form the “DAF Battle Network,” the department’s contribution to enabling joint all-domain command and control.

Service Secretary Frank Kendall has called Cropsey’s job “the hardest acquisition job I’ve ever given anybody”—unsurprising given the technological and logistical complexity of integrating every kill chain as some have envisioned ABMS doing. Having spent his first six months setting a course, Cropsey is now out preaching his gospel, in this case an audience of industry and Air Force leaders. His focus, he said, is in making this concept work, not connecting everything.

To convey the idea, Cropsey reflected on his childhood in Africa, where his father was a surgeon. One day, his father asked him to bring a drill, a bit, and a medical textbook to the operating room.

“A patient had come in who had been hit by a car on his bike and had a massive head contusion,” Cropsey said. “And in the process of diagnosing this guy, he went through the basic diagnostics around what happens when you have a bleed on your brain, and this guy had all the symptoms. But he didn’t have any of the sophisticated diagnostic equipment that you would expect here in the States to tell him this is exactly what was going on. So he needed the book from his med school days to try to figure out some basic things about where this guy might actually be bleeding out of his brain.

“And then he needed the drill and the bit, because the only way to relieve that pressure was to literally drill a hole in this guy’s head.”

As his father did then, so Cropsey now faces his own extremely complex problem—one that does not hold a single life in the balance, but that nevertheless demands immediate action.

“Complexity in this space is a lot like that brain bleed … It’s going to kill us if we don’t figure out how right now we are going to deal with it, and we have to deal with it effectively,” Cropsey said. “But quite frankly, we don’t have time to go into all the nuances here. We’ve got to get down to the simple.”

Cropsey has spoken in the past of not wanting to “boil the ocean” when it comes to his job—trying to take on too much and being doomed to fail. Instead, he emphasized that starting simply is necessary to build progress. That extends even to the long-standing idea that ABMS must “integrate everything.”

“This has to get down to the details about how you’re actually going to do that mission,” Cropsey said. “How that mission is going to play out in terms of how you see the flow, the assets that you have available to do it, and the way that they’re going to be connected. When you do that, and you get down to the specifics, you find out that actually, you don’t have to have everything, everywhere connected. You don’t have to know where all the data is all the time, everywhere.”

Instead, Cropsey said he is following four basic principles as he presses ahead:

“Alignment around the operational outcomes we want to achieve.” Echoing Kendall’s push for operationally-focused ABMS, Cropsey said any offering from industry must meet a specific operational need.

“We do C2, we do all C2, and we don’t do any more than C2.” While Cropsey wants any solution he identifies to be scalable across the entire Air Force, he warned that getting away from command and control would cause the entire effort to “collapse” under its own weight.

“Architecture wins over products.” Given the desire to connect sensors and shooters, Cropsey said he favors contractors and products that can easily connect with the overarching system. “In order to win the long term, you actually have to have an architecture that’s relatively agnostic to the individual nodes or agents that you have in that architecture,” he said.

“Capability has to be continuously deployed over time.” Cropsey said he will push programs to produce and field viable capabilities, then iterate on them quickly—a model more like commercial software development than conventional military acquisition. “I’m pushing my team for quarterly deliverables,” Cropsey said. “Something needs to come out the door every quarter—what are we developing this for? Who is it getting delivered to? How are we making it better? I’m front-loaded to do 90-day sprints.”

Emphasizing rapid, continuous development echoes the approach championed by the Space Development Agency under Director Derek M. Tournear. Indeed, meeting with reporters after his keynote, Cropsey said he and Tournear speak regularly about their mutual pursuit of innovation.

“We are absolutely synched up with other aspects of the organization that have like-minded, similar perspectives,” Cropsey said. “We’re swapping stories all the time about what works and what doesn’t work.”

Just as SDA recently notched a major success with the first launch of its Tranche 0 satellites, Cropsey also shared progress his team is making.

At the unclassified level, Cropsey said, the Air Force has made progress on some lines of effort related to ABMS. For example, the KC-46 will get a palletized communications system that will allow it to better process incoming data and communications shared by other aircraft, and NORAD has received its first “minimally viable product,” ABMS cloud-based command and control.

Cropsey also hinted at progress in the classified arena on integrated kill chains. “In my quarterly update with SECAF [Kendall] in June, we actually gave him our first analysis around what that initial architecture would look like for this specific operational problem,” Cropsey said. He promised details in a classified briefing this fall.

Pentagon Seeks ‘Escalation Management’ With China, Top Policy Official Says

Aug. 1, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Though a parade of senior American officials have visited China as of late to try to encourage a working relationship with Beijing, the Pentagon has yet to make significant progress in establishing substantive communications between the American and Chinese militaries—a tool for avoiding miscommunication and escalation during a potential crisis.

“Escalation management in the Indo-Pacific is so incredibly important, and we would be delighted to have increasing communication channels and connectivity with the [People’s Republic of China],” Mara Karlin, a senior policy official at the Pentagon, told reporters Aug. 1 at a Defense Writers Group event.

But so far, that has yet to happen. Beijing has repeatedly rebuffed attempts by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III to establish a channel for talking with his Chinese counterpart.

“Secretary Austin has requested multiple times to have communication channels, particularly crisis communication,” said Karlin, who is performing the duties of deputy under secretary of defense for policy. “It’s really important that the most senior folks can talk to each other as quickly as possible when something happens. So Secretary Austin keeps asking for that.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for “reunifying” Taiwan with China, perhaps by force if need be, and objected to U.S. efforts to improve Taiwan’s defenses with military aid. The Chinese have ramped up military drills near the island in recent years, including sending warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone.

Tensions between the U.S. and China in the region have also grown. A Chinese jet came within a few yards of U.S. Air Force RC-135 over the South China Sea in December. In February, an F-22 Raptor shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that transited the continental U.S. And in May, the Pentagon released video of another “unnecessarily aggressive” maneuver by a Chinese fighter intercepting a U.S. RC-135.

Heightening the potential for miscalculation is the often opaque nature of China’s decision-making. That tendency was highlighted by dramatic moves in late July when Xi sacked the head of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, which is in charge of China’s land-based nuclear missiles, and his foreign minister in short order.

The reason for the moves are not clear. But it comes as China is engaged in a substantial nuclear buildup that could leave it with a stockpile of 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, according to a Pentagon report released last year on China’s military power.

In recent weeks the U.S. has attempted to stabilize the U.S.-China relationship. On July 12, Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng met with Ely Ratner, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.

So far, however, the establishment of a military-to-military channel remains stalled despite recent visits to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and climate envoy John Kerry.

“We have been trying really hard to set up communication channels and they have not been enthusiastic about those,” Karlin said. “That’s really problematic. When we look at history, it is usually quite helpful for us to be able to sit down and speak with those whom we disagree, not least so we can get an understanding of what they’re doing, what we’re doing, what we all think is escalatory, and how we might understand it in different ways.”

Austin shook hands with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu in June at a Singapore security meeting but did not have a substantial exchange, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said in a statement at the time. Li is under U.S. sanctions, though the Pentagon says those would not prevent talks between the two defense chiefs.

Austin met with the Chinese minister’s predecessor, Wei Fenghe, in November 2022.

Karlin pointed to how the U.S. has tried to manage the risk of escalation with Russia despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

She highlighted the example of the U.S. postponing a routine test of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile that had been scheduled for March.

“Now, this was just a regular old ICBM test,” Karlin said. “But understanding in that context was critical because the context was, of course, Russia’s military had just attempted this massive invasion. It wasn’t doing terribly well. Ukraine’s military was fighting a lot harder than perhaps some folks had expected. And so what would appear to be just a traditional old here’s what we do, not interesting, actually might be meaningful for escalation management.”

First E-7 Wedgetail Can’t Come Any Sooner. But Maybe USAF Can Complete Its Fleet Faster

Aug. 1, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

DAYTON, Ohio—Neither intense interest nor extra funding can move up the 2027 date when the Air Force takes possession of its first E-7 Wedgetail. But USAF acquisition officials said July 31 that actions taken now could help them aquire the 26-plane fleet more quickly.

“There’s a lot of fixation on how fast we can produce the first one,” Steven Wert, program executive officer for the digital directorate, said at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference. “[But] there are limitations to that. Boeing has to build a green aircraft and then they have to convert it to a configuration that can support the radar, and then the mission systems, and then you have to test and certify air worthiness and those things. There’s only so fast you can do the first one.”

How fast the Air Force can get the rest of its new E-7s, however, has been a topic of intense interest since USAF announced its decision to replace its aging E-3 airborne early warning and control aircraft with the Wedgetail.

Acquiring planes faster is still possible, said Thomas Ramsey, airborne warning and control system division chief.

“The rapid prototyping, the first two, we’re going as fast as we can,” Ramsey said. “The way to fill the fleet faster is to do it through production. Advanced procurement of the 737, the radar, the reinforced section will let us jump start each block buy by a year. So there’s definitely benefit there. And then the other way to go faster is to buy more per year.”

The Air Force fiscal 2024 budget request did not include that advanced procurement, but USAF did list a $600 million requirement on its unfunded priorities list for Congress. The funds would pay for long-lead items and help Northrop Grumman ramp up production capacity for the Wedgetail’s Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar.

Congress seems split on the matter. The House version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization bill included half that amount, $300 million; the Senate version includes none.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers in 2022 “there are things that we could do … to maybe get access to aircraft earlier one way or another.” Just how was never clear.

Australia has six E-7s in operation, and the United Kingdom is in the process of buying three. At last year’s Life Cycle Industry Days conference, Wert suggested that “we see tremendous opportunities to accelerate test and evaluation, given that we’re buying a system very similar to the UK E-7. Much of the testing can actually be done on a UK E-7.”

The U.S., British, and Australian air chiefs signed a “joint vision statement” in July, pledging to work together to develop and deploy the E-7 Wedgetail, and noting a collective desire to “accelerate E-7 capability delivery.”

But that deal is mostly focused on long-term enhancements, not short-term deliveries, Wert said.

“The intent of that statement is looking to the future,” he said. “We expect, for example, Australia to leverage the work we’re doing on open mission systems on our rapid prototyping aircraft. So it’s looking at the future of modernization across the three fleets and how we can work together to leverage each other’s investments or even a coordinated program at some point.”

The urgency of the need to replace the E-3 AWACS fleet is no secret. The age and deterioration of the U.S. AWACS fleet makes the old Boeing 707-based aircraft hard to maintain.

But while simply acquiring new E-7s into service as quickly as possible remains the top priority, but Air Materiel Command is also keeping an eye on future enhancements. “I believe some of their future requirements will be things like even more improved radar, which some level of development funding Australia has already, … [and] but it would need to be further developed.”

Ramsey, the airborne warning and control system division chief, said communications enhancements are also likely. “Every battle management platform will always need more advanced communications—bigger pipes and more bandwidth and more radios to get information on and off,” he said.

KC-135 Recapitalization Requirements, Request for Information Coming in September

July 31, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

DAYTON, Ohio—What is now officially known as the KC-135 Tanker Recapitalization Program—formerly called KC-Y or the “bridge tanker”—should clear the Pentagon’s joint requirements process by the end of September, at which time the Air Force will issue a Request for Information to industry for potential solutions, Scott Boyd, USAF’s deputy program manager for mobility aircraft, told reporters July 31.

However, Boyd said the service is not yet ready to discuss the timing and exact number of aircraft in the program, as much of that will depend on the success and timing of the Next Generation Air-refueling System, or NGAS, which will come after it.

The Air Force will complete an acquisition strategy for the KC-135 recap tanker in the third quarter of fiscal 2024, he added. It will be based on an analysis of alternatives that will also launch this fall.

The KC-135 recap effort should complete the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process next month. Around the same time, the RFI will be published, Boyd said during Air Force Materiel Command’s annual Life Cycle Industry Days conference.

“As soon as I get a systems requirement document,” the program will get underway, Boyd said. It will be the first official requirements statement for the program and will translate the requirements “into the language of industry,” he said. No additional time will be needed to write the RFI because the Air Force already has all the information that went into the requirements and no changes are expected, he said. Responses to the RFI would be due next year.

Boyd said “nothing has changed” with regard to the KC-135 recap, in that no particular airplane has been ruled in or out. Senior Air Force leaders have said they are leaning toward buying more KC-46s from Boeing as the KC-135 recap, but Boyd said the Air Force still has time to do “market research.”

Lockheed Martin is offering USAF a tanker based on the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport dubbed LMXT, and company officials have argued NGAS will likely not be ready by 2035, the Air Force’s target date.

When NGAS enters the fleet will affect how many tankers the Air Force buy as part of the KC-135 recap program, Boyd noted.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says the service needs to get the NGAS as soon as possible. The original plan called for the future tanker—expected to be small, stealthy, and capable of accompanying combat aircraft in contested airspace—around 2040, but Kendall has “dramatically pulled that in and said ‘no, we need to go faster because it’s that NGAS capability … that scares China,” Boyd said.

With that updated NGAS schedule, Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter said in March he thinks the KC-135 recap program will consist of around 75 airplanes, after the service had previously said it might buy 150. Lockheed officials, on the other hand, have suggested 2040 is a more realistic timeline for NGAS, which would necessitate more KC-135 recap tankers.

While Kendall and Hunter have hinted they may simply opt for more KC-46s instead of a tanker competition, some lawmakers from states where Lockheed would assemble its LMXT offering have tried to mandate competition through legislation.

Despite all this, “I’ve honestly not felt pressure from Congress or from within the Air Force to do anything different than what we were already doing,” Boyd said.

In response to questions from reporters, Boyd also offered little indication whether the forthcoming requirements will tip the program toward the KC-46 or LMXT. He said the JCIDS document for the recapitalization program will not include anything “revolutionary” and could “potentially be satisfied” by continued buys of KC-46s.

On the other hand, he also noted the document “is not going to declare that we cannot create a new logistics” tail for the airplane to be acquired—which LMXT would require, because there is no similar airplane in USAF’s inventory.

“It may speak to sustainability of the weapon system in ways that tell you that I probably don’t want to create a new [logistics and support train], but it’s not going to be clear that you can’t,” Boyd said. “It’s going to come down [to] … the business case analysis that we’re doing, and the final market research that we do to decide what is the best value approach for the Air Force. And that’ll be our recommendation.”

There will also be lessons learned from the KC-46’s troubled development—Boeing agreed to a fixed-price development and production program on the KC-46, but so far has borne more than $7 billion in overages on the project—that will apply to the new tanker program, noted Col. Leigh Ottati, chief of the KC-46 program office.

“Everyone needs to understand” the scope of a program like a new tanker, said Ottati. The KC-46, originally thought to be a simple conversion of a cargo jet into a tanker, turned out to be “more development than everyone thought,” and Boyd said that lesson will be front of mind as the Air Force pursues the KC-135 recap and NGAS.

Industry and government need to both understand “the scope of what’s being asked,” he said.