How the Air Force Slashed EW Update Time From Weeks to Hours

How the Air Force Slashed EW Update Time From Weeks to Hours

June 10, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s lone spectrum warfare wing is getting faster—much faster—in gathering data and responding to new threats, its leader said last week. 

The world of electronic warfare is often compared to a game of cat-and-mouse, with both sides constantly shifting tactics, frequencies, and software to both jam and evade jamming. For the Pentagon’s EW leaders, that means a need to rapidly detect and adapt to changes, they said June 5 at the C4ISRNET conference.

“We’re in an area of perpetual novelty, and our adversaries are going to be able to move and change and be agile on the spectrum just as much as we are,” said Col. Joshua Koslov, commander of the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing.  

Last September at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Koslov told reporters he wanted his wing to be able to sort through data to detect any changes in an adversary’s EW approach, develop a software solution, and deploy it in three hours. Such a capability, he said, would be a “moonshot” and a vast improvement over the weeks or months it can often take the Pentagon to update software. 

“We just executed our first internal exercise … we call it exercise Rapid Raven, and at AFA I said we need to be able to do this in three hours,” Koslov said June 6. “That’s based off the Force Commander requirements. And quite frankly, we’re very close to that, if not exceeding that in most of the systems that we cover in the spectrum warfare wing.” 

The wing first announced Rapid Raven in March, saying in a release at the time that it “simulated 24-hour operations” by challenging Airmen to sense, respond, and reprogram against new threats in the spectrum. 

The exercise pressed Airmen to work fast and also showcased where the wing needs more resources, the release noted. 

Out of more than 70 EW systems his wing touches, Koslov said “more than half of our systems are near or underneath the deadline that I set out over at AFA. And most of that is just a re-honing of our [tactics, techniques, and procedures] and our process.” 

Broadly speaking, Koslov added, the entire joint EW force has improved its high-end exercises and training by “leaps and bounds.” 

But it’s not just training that will help speed up the process. Spectrum warfighters also need the infrastructure and tools to do so, said Army Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare, and sensors. 

“Some of these capabilities based on the pace of the enemy, they’re going to become very perishable,” Barker said. “So it’s our ability to iterate quickly and having the openness in the architecture and understanding the data, that’s really the critical aspect.” 

For the Air Force, that means investing in things like the Crowd Sourced Flight Data program, which creates “the ability to receive lots of data from joint, coalition platforms and then rapidly turn that into combat capability and transmit that back out to the force,” Koslov said. 

For the system to work, Koslov added, the service must have the architecture to handle the massive streams of data coming in and send out updated software to hundreds of different systems in the field. It will also need artificial intelligence and other technology to sort through and detect changes in that data. Koslov noted that such tech might not quite reach the level of what some call “cognitive” EW just yet, but said his wing is interested in near-term solutions. 

“What we’re proposing is, as we develop the near-term solutions using Crowd Sourced Flight Data, is democratizing the data that we’re able to collect within our data architecture, and providing that to our joint force partners or academic partners or industry partners in order to develop a system that’s able to develop new and novel things very quickly,” he said. 

PHOTOS: Fourth- and Fifth-Gen Fighters Hold Combat Training in Hawaii

PHOTOS: Fourth- and Fifth-Gen Fighters Hold Combat Training in Hawaii

June 10, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

A combination of fourth- and fifth-generation fighters will wrap up a large-scale simulated combat exercise around Hawaii in the coming days.

Sentry Aloha, which first began more than 20 years ago, is a fighter-focused exercise hosted by the Hawaii Air National Guard. The latest edition began May 29 and will last through June 12. F-22s from the 199th and 19th Fighter Squadrons at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam are flying alongside F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-35 Lightning IIs and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, as well as KC-135 and KC-46 tankers and some C-130s.

The biannual fifth and fourth-gen combat training returned in January this year after a two-year break. Hawaii’s strategic Pacific location makes it an ideal military training ground as Sentry Aloha keeps growing and evolving with each iteration.

This iteration had a total of 42 aircraft from nine states, with 1,060 personnel participating. A spokesperson for the Hawaii Air National Guard’d 154th Wing confirmed the participating aircraft with Air & Space Forces Magazine:

  • F-22 and KC-135 from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.
  • F-16 from the 177th Fighter Wing, Atlantic City Air National Guard Base, N.J.
  • F-35 from the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
  • F-16 from the 162nd Wing, Tucson Air National Guard Base, Ariz.
  • F-16, A-10, KC-135, and HC-130J from the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Test Center, Ariz.
  • KC-46 from the 157th Air Refueling Wing, Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H.
  • HC-130 from the 129th Rescue Wing, Moffett Air National Guard Base, Calif.
  • MQ-9 from Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Hawaii.
  • C-130H aircraft from the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Test Center and the 189th Airlift Wing, Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.
  • KC-135 from the 186th Air Refueling Wing, Key Field Air National Guard Base, Miss.

The spokesperson declined to say the number of each aircraft type, citing operational security.

The fighters and other aircraft are manuevering through Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, with additional operations occurring around Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay and Kona International Airport in Kalaoa, where the aircraft are staged for the training.

“The state offers great airspace and weather to maximize training such as Agile Combat Employment and distributed operations,” Maj. Michael Oliver, the exercise director and a pilot of the 154th Wing, said in a release.

The 154th Wing is the largest wing in the Air National Guard, hosting Raptors, Stratotankers, and C-17 Globemasters, backed by some 2,500 personnel. In April, the 199th and 19th Fighter Squadrons of the Wing deployed their F-22s to Kadena Air Base in Japan as part of the rotation to maintain a constant fighter presence at the key location.

Tech Sergeant Promotions Inch Back Up After Tough Few Years

Tech Sergeant Promotions Inch Back Up After Tough Few Years

June 10, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s selection rate for promotions to technical sergeant neared 20 percent in 2024, bouncing back from historically low rates the previous two years while still trailing the highs of the late 2010s. 

Out of 35,328 eligible staff sergeants, 6,914 were tapped for promotion, a rate of 19.57 percent. Both the number of those selected and the percentage dwarf last year’s statistics, which set a 27-year low: 5,354 selected for a 14.5 percent rate. 

The full list of those selected for promotion will be available publicly June 13 at 8 a.m. Central Time. 

The E-6 promotion numbers continue a slight upward trend across the enlisted Air Force. In May, the service announced promotions to master sergeant with the highest total number selected in six years and the highest rate in three. And in March, the service had its highest selection rate for new senior master sergeants in six years. 

In 2022, the Air Force warned Airmen to expect lower promotion rates for the next several years, particularly for noncommissioned officers, due to recent enlisted grade structure revisions and high retention. Leaders said too many Airmen were getting promoted without enough experience. 

“The majority of the experience decline was attributable to the Air Force trying to achieve an enlisted force structure with too many higher grades,” Col. James Barger, Air Force Manpower Analysis Agency commander, said in a release at the time. “We also found that experience levels would continue to decline unless the Air Force lays in more junior Airmen allocations and fewer E5-E7 allocations.” 

In both 2022 and 2023, the NCO ranks saw some of their lowest promotion numbers since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War. 

Even the 2024 cycle for new technical sergeants, while an improvement over the previous two years, is a far cry from as recently as 2019, when more than 9,000 Airmen were selected with a promotion rate approaching one-third. Based on data back to 2003 provided by the Air Force Personnel Center, this year’s selection rate is just slightly below historic averages.

Officials have said it could take until 2025 before the service has a “healthier” distribution of Airmen across grades, suggesting at least one more year of lower numbers. 

While the Air Force has now announced E-6, E-7, and E-8 promotion statistics for 2024, E-5 numbers are still to come later this summer. 

Air Force E-6 Promotion Statistics

YEARSELECTEDELIGIBLERATE
20246,91435,32819.57
20235,35436,91314.5
20225,43033,93516
20219,42234,97326.94
20208,24628,35829.08
20199,46729,32832.28
20188,41627,55530.54
20178,16725,55231.96
20167,50133,56922.35
20158,44635,86323.55
20146,68438,34417.43
20135,65437,60815.03
20128,51837,40222.77
Sources: Air Force news releases, Air Force Times
B-52 Crew Awarded for Averting In-Flight Catastrophe

B-52 Crew Awarded for Averting In-Flight Catastrophe

June 9, 2024 | By David Roza

Three Airmen were preparing to land their B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Dec. 13, 2022, when the cockpit lights went out and the 185,000-pound aircraft began an uncontrolled left roll.

“The emergency was sudden and caused brief but extreme disorientation to myself and the other crew members,” Capt. Matthew Walls, the copilot, said in a recent press release. “All the systems kicked off at once, and the aircraft went completely dark, engines flamed out, and controlling the aircraft became a battle.”

The next three minutes would decide the fates of the Airmen aboard and of thousands of people living in Bossier City below. The crew, flying under the callsign Scout 94, were returning from Nellis Air Force Base Nev. and dodging severe thunderstorms, a difficult task even when flying a healthy jet, Dave Prakash, a former B-52 operational test pilot and flight surgeon, explained to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Landing a large, old aircraft requires the focus of the entire crew as they run through their landing checklists and confer with the control tower. When two of the jet’s four electrical generators tripped off, it likely contributed to the “extreme disorientation” the crew felt at the time.

“Trying to troubleshoot when you’re in a critical phase of flight is what’s so disorienting,” Prakash said. “Your mind was focused on this very important task, and now you’ve got to suddenly shift gears, especially when you lose all power in the plane.”

b-52
U.S. Air Force pilots from the 343rd Bomb Squadron guide a B-52 Stratofortress over the Louisiana state capitol buiding in Baton Rouge, May 1, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Lillian Miller)

The aircraft commander, Capt. Charles Powell, realized that all four of the engines on the jet’s left side had failed, a perilous situation for a B-52 at slow speed.

The bomber’s eight engines generate thrust that pushes the aircraft forward, Prakash explained. When the engines on the left side of the aircraft stop producing thrust and the right side continues working, the plane turns towards the left, thereby pushing the swept-back right wing almost perpendicular to the airstream, where it generates more lift. Meanwhile, the left wing generates less lift as the plane turns, which makes the aircraft start to roll over.

“If it happened at like 400 knots at 30,000 feet, it would not have been as dangerous and there would not have been such a rapid roll,” Prakash said. “It’s the combination of slow speed and losing the left wing’s power that caused the problem.”

The crew did have one thing on their side: the plane had likely burned off much of its gas during the flight from Nellis to Barksdale and was therefore much lighter than it had been at takeoff, making the bomber more manageable.

“If it was heavy, it would have been a lot harder to control,” Prakash said. “I can’t tell you how lucky they were that they were at landing weight when this happened.”

Over the next three minutes, the crew traded altitude for airspeed, generating enough airflow to restart engines three and four, which reduced some of the asymmetrical load on the aircraft, the press release stated. At 1,200 feet above ground level, the crew regained control of the aircraft, but they still had to avoid bad weather and contend with the jet’s reduced performance as they prepared to land.

Newer aircraft have more automated systems that reduce the workload for the pilot, but the older B-52 requires much more of the pilot’s focus and brain power as he or she wrestles it to the ground, Prakash said. 

“When you level off and hit the autopilot button, your IQ goes up like 30 points,” he joked. “But when you’re in the seat in an emergency, all of your cognitive capacity is consumed by controlling the aircraft.”

A B-52H Stratofortress lands at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, Dec. 13, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class William Pugh)

Luckily, the crew of Scout 94 knew what they were doing. Both Powell and radar navigator Lt. Col. John Conway belonged to the 11th Bomb Squadron, a formal training unit for B-52 air crews. Instructor pilots teach pilots how to handle a wide range of emergencies in countless simulator runs, and part of the training to become a B-52 instructor involves flying a sortie single-handedly, with a safety pilot standing by in the right seat, Prakash said.

“I was very fortunate to have a crew who handled their responsibilities so I could focus on the one thing that mattered in the moment—fly the jet,” Powell said in the release. Conway was equally grateful.

“I believe that the reason Capt. Powell was able to recover the aircraft safely is because he has trained to a six-engine approach many times and holds himself to a high standard when he trains,” the navigator said. “This allowed him to instinctively fan the throttles and not make a bad situation worse by creating more of an asymmetric situation than we had.”

The Airmen put the bomber down safely on Barksdale’s Runway 15, saving an $84 million jet and avoiding a collision with the city below. They recently received Air Force Global Strike Command’s Gen. Curtis E. LeMay award for outstanding bomber crew performance. 

“I’m very proud of how we handled the situation,” Walls said. “It was fast and intense, and there wasn’t time for discussion, just action. In my opinion, everyone fell into their role and did what was required.”

First Operational F-15EX Arrives in Oregon; Milestone for Air Guard

First Operational F-15EX Arrives in Oregon; Milestone for Air Guard

June 7, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The first operational F-15EX Eagle II was delivered to Portland Air National Guard Base, Ore., on June 6, the first all-new weapon system to be delivered to the Air Guard before serving with the Active-Duty force.

The aircraft, serial #008, is the first of 18 that will serve with the 142nd Wing of the Oregon Air National Guard. Another 13 are slated to arrive within the next year, and four more in the years after that. Military construction is underway to accommodate the influx of new airplanes, which will backfill F-15C/Ds at the base. The jet was flown directly from Boeing’s production facilities in St. Louis, Mo., to Portland.

“It’s incredibly exciting, super humbling,” 142nd commander Col. Michael B. Kosderka of the Oregon Air National Guard told the Armed Forces News Network.

“This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an Air National Guard Base got a major weapon system before the Active component. So it’s a super big deal that the Guard is getting to have this major weapon system, first.”

Aircraft #007, already painted and undergoing final checks, will be delivered in the next two weeks, a Boeing spokesperson said. The aircraft at Portland bear a stylized Eagle tail flash unique to the wing.

Previously delivered F-15EXs are being used in a combined Developmental/Initial Operational Test and Evaluation program, Phase 1 of which—including participation in 19 exercises—was completed last fall.  

The EX program is about a year behind schedule, but Boeing will hit its contractual marks if it delivers the remainder of Lot 1B—five more airplanes—in the coming weeks. The jet is based on the F-15QA developed for Qatar. Indonesia has declared its interest in buying the EX version as well.  

Originally planned to number 144 aircraft, the F-15EX fleet is now anticipated to top out at 98 aircraft, according to the Air Force’s fiscal 2025 budget request. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, voicing concern about the Air Force’s decreasing fighter inventory, have indicated they may add more F-15EXs in the 25 budget.

The F-15EX, which was originally inserted into the 2020 budget by the Pentagon leadership over the Air Force’s objections—it wanted to buy more F-35s instead—is now welcomed by the service as a complement to the F-35, and one which can be absorbed in the fleet more rapidly. Whereas it takes two years or so to equip a wing with new F-35s, the transition from F-15C/Ds to the F-15EX typically takes only a few months, the Air Force has said. Eagle pilots easily adapt to the F-15EX’s fly-by-wire handling and new displays, and the jet can use all the same aerospace ground equipment used by the F-15C/D.

In addition to being new with fresh engines—Kosedrka said they seem quieter than the older F-15s—the EX has additional sensors, a much more powerful processor, a new glass cockpit, and an additional weapon station under each wing. The only obvious physical difference from the F-15C are missile warning blisters on either side of the canopy rail.

However, the fourth-generation F-15EX is not a stealthy aircraft and costs about the same as an F-35 at around $80-$90 million per plane. Boeing has pushed back against the “fourth generation” descriptor, arguing that the aircraft’s electronic warfare suite, the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS), gives the fighter significantly more capability to approach highly contested airspace than the F-15C/D.

The jet can also carry oversize munitions that won’t fit in the F-35’s weapons bay, such as anticipated hypersonic missiles.

While the bulk of the F-15EX fleet is to have conformal fuel and weapons pallets—similar to those on the F-15E Strike Eagle—the Air Force did not buy them for early EX aircraft, but included them on an Unfunded Priorities List it provided to Congress.

Why the Space Force Wants to ‘Flip the Script’ On Space Domain Awareness

Why the Space Force Wants to ‘Flip the Script’ On Space Domain Awareness

June 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force wants to “pivot” and change how it does space domain awareness with a new generation of capabilities, and it wants industry to take a leading role in shaping that future, a top official said this week. 

Earlier this year, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said “actionable” space domain awareness is essential for his Competitive Endurance theory, which is meant to guide the entire service. Col. Bryon McClain is leading that push as program executive officer for SDA and combat power. 

McClain’s team took their first big step earlier this spring when they released a request for information from industry about ideas for space domain awareness in geosynchronous orbit. 

Right now, the Space Force relies on five Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites to monitor GEO, along with one Space Based Space Surveillance satellite and the secretive “SILENTBARKER” collaboration with the National Reconnaissance Office. 

But as the entire service shifts towards smaller, proliferated satellites and dynamic operations, space domain awareness will likely follow suit, McClain said June 4 during the C4ISRNET conference. 

“I think this is really where we’re trying to pivot and do things differently,” said McClain. Specifically, he cited the influence of assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration Frank Calvelli—who has emphasized larger numbers of small satellites, delivered quickly—and Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, former Space Systems Command boss—who has argued the service should only build new satellites when it cannot use existing systems or buy commercial capabilities. 

“Those two ideas, those mentalities really go hand in hand,” McClain said. And we’ve tried to embody that in this RFI, which means … a whole bunch of different ideas that really could mix together.” 

Specifically, the RFI suggests McClain’s office is interested in multiple satellites that can be refueled and move around to get closer to other objects on orbit, that can integrate into existing networks and ground stations and be built quickly and cheaply.  

Many specific requirements, however, were not included in the request, which McClain said was a deliberate choice. 

“Instead of the more traditional system, we just opened up the door and said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to share any requirements documents, because that starts getting into the classified world,'” he said. “‘But I want to figure out what you think you can do in this area.’ Huge number of responses.” 

McClain’s team is sorting through those responses and planning to speak with Guardians who perform SDA missions every day, asking them what they need and what ideas could address that need. 

“Sometimes, we spend too much time thinking we can always guarantee the outcome and know exactly what’s the most important thing,” McClain said. “And so we miss new innovations and new ideas from industry. So we’ll try to flip the script a little bit here and take industry and use that to influence our requirements script, which is why don’t have a specific answer for what we’re looking for.” 

Given fiscal constraints, progress on these new SDA systems may take a few years, McClain said. In its 2025 budget request, the Space Force focused heavily on missile warning/missile tracking and satellite communications—missile warning programs accounted for $4.7 billion or 25 percent of the research budget, while SATCOM got more than $1.6 billion, 8.8 percent. Space domain awareness systems, by comparison, got around $484 million, just 2.6 percent.

“The future for some of that RFI may not be until the 2026-27 timeframe, for some of the uniqueness of it and some of the new ideas,” McClain warned. “You may not see immediate action on it.” 

In the interim, the service could eye commercial capabilities as a way to close the gap. In its new Commercial Space Integration Strategy released in April, the Space Force ranked SDA second among all mission areas in terms of commercial market maturity and the urgency of military requirements. 

To implement that strategy, McClain said, his office needs to understand the commercial marketplace and make sure that the requirements they do set don’t exclude commercial solutions. 

The Need for Speed: Experts Say Ukraine Shows US Must Act, React Quickly in Acquisition

The Need for Speed: Experts Say Ukraine Shows US Must Act, React Quickly in Acquisition

June 7, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

More than two years after Russia started its all-out invasion of Ukraine, U.S. leaders have noted many lessons learned from the brutal conflict, from the value of airpower and drones to integrated air defense to weapons production to electronic warfare.

In a June 6 event hosted by the Center for New American Security, current and former defense acquisition leaders said there is still another truth to be gleaned: the speed of technology and ability to respond quickly to new developments show that the U.S. must accelerate innovation and tap into commercial off-the-shelf systems.

“The overriding lesson of Ukraine is as soon as one side will do something, the other side is quick to counteract it, and that cat-and-mouse game shows the speed” that can be achieved “under necessity,” former House Armed Services Committee chair Mac Thornberry said.

While the U.S. doesn’t face the same pressures as Ukraine, Thornberry added, it must seek to match its velocity in fielding new capabilities, even when not in a hot war.

“We’re a whole lot better at recovery than we are being prepared ahead of time,” Thornberry said. “The problem is, we’re not going to have time to recover if we get into” a major conflict.

“Speed, speed, speed, again,” he added.

Ellen Lord, former undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said that Ukraine shows how essential it is to tap off-the-shelf commercial products and the vast expertise available in civil technology.

“What I think Ukraine has taught us is that commercial technology is absolutely critical, whether it be video from satellites, or all other kinds of sensor modalities, to all of the drones,” she said. If Ukraine did not have access to that commercial technology, “I don’t believe they would be in as strong a position as they are today.”

On top of that, Lord noted that the volume of commercial technology has made a difference too.

“Quantity has a quality all of its own. So an 80 percent solution in quantity makes a difference,” she said.

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said that while “a lot of lessons learned were taken from Ukraine,” Russian president Vladimir Putin has clearly united NATO.

“Every single country is putting a lot more focus on defense and adding a lot more money,” said Shyu. NATO partners are “doing exactly what we’re doing,” in quickly fielding new equipment and helping Ukraine adapt systems to quickly respond to new Russian tactics.

“I think what it has brought us a lot closer together as allies and partners, which is incredibly important, because in any conflict in the future, it makes us much stronger.”

Thornberry said the single most useful thing Congress can do to help speed the acquisition system is “flexible funding.” He and Lord noted that the multiyear system of setting requirements and putting new programs in the budget is incompatible with the needed speed for adaptation. Changes in software, for example, can’t come in years, but in “days … hours,” Lord said.

Shyu agreed that some funds are needed in the year they are appropriated for things that couldn’t be foreseen when the budget was crafted, and Lord noted that this was one of the key findings of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) Commission, which she co-chaired, and which published its two-year study on acquisition reform earlier this year.

Congressional adds to offices such as the Defense Innovation Unit, which funds prototyping and experiments, is “a hopeful sign,” said Lord. Shyu noted that Congress has gone out of its way to fund programs that small businesses can compete for, and noted that one such initiative has grown from $100 million to $300 million in three years.

“If you give me more, I can help more” small business break into defense work, she said.

MDA Boss: Let’s ‘Think Creatively’ for Hypersonic Defense While Waiting for New System

MDA Boss: Let’s ‘Think Creatively’ for Hypersonic Defense While Waiting for New System

June 6, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

While lawmakers are pressing the Pentagon to move faster in developing a new missile defense system for intercepting hypersonic weapons, the Missile Defense Agency should focus on developing more immediate, make-do solutions now and not rush to field the more advanced weapon, its director suggested June 6. 

The in-development Glide Phase Interceptor “is a tip-to-tail designed system to counter the threats out of 2035, not today,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath A. Collins said during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Yet there is growing concern regarding China and Russia’s hypersonic capabilities—Russia has used hypersonic weapons in its war with Ukraine, and a 2023 Department of Defense report described China as having the world’s leading hypersonic weaponry. In response, Congress passed a provision late last year mandating that GPI reach initial operational capability by 2029. 

MDA’s budget documents don’t project delivery of the interceptor to even start until 2035. And Collins, who previously served as the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons, seems less interested in trying to hurry the program along than he does in finding another solution. 

“It is an important program to get us where we need to, but it’s going to take some time,” Collins said. “But to bring that long-look capability to the hypersonic fight, we’ve been tasked to think creatively and bring capability sooner—2029, ’30. And that is really going to take maybe some different style of thinking than the traditional ‘start a new weapon.’ It’s most likely going to be a weapon that already exists today. What can we do to get the most out of it?” 

The Pentagon fields a variety of interceptors already, from THAAD to Aegis to SM-6 to the Ground-Based Interceptor. Collins offered few hints on which, if any, could be used for hypersonic defense. 

“We do need to sharpen our pencils,” he said. “I was the weapons buyer for the Air Force. There are other things that are being purchased by other agencies. Can any of those be brought to bear?” 

Whatever MDA decides, it likely won’t be perfect or capable of matching every threat, Collins added. But it could be crucial given the pressing danger. 

“Hypersonic weapons are being used today,” he warned. “And the inventories of our threats are increasing in the years to come.” 

At the same time, Collins said he is not opposed to moving fast on GPI, so long as it remains “fundamentally viable.”

“I could claim that we’re going to do it in 2028 and skip all the testing, and then I would be a case study in acquisition school,” he said. “So I want to increase that as quickly as possible.” 

The U.S. and Japan are collaborating on GPI, signing a formal agreement last month that will help lower costs for the Pentagon. Japan will lead development of rocket motors and propulsion components, with Breaking Defense reporting last week that the Ministry of Defense plans to award a contract by March 2025. 

Collins also offered an update on MDA’s work to detect and track hypersonic launches through its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor prototyping program. In February, MDA and the Space Development Agency worked together to launch a batch of missile tracking satellites into low-Earth orbit, including MDA’s HBTSS and SDA’s Tracking Layer spacecraft, and Collins said MDA’s satellites are set to begin its hypersonic testbed calibration within a week.

The test will feature “both of those sensors tracking and in looking to see how they’re doing and how they could potentially close the fire control loop,” Collins explained. 

Another calibration flight will follow later this year, he added. 

Air Force Expands Missile Cancer Study to ICBM Launch Silos

Air Force Expands Missile Cancer Study to ICBM Launch Silos

June 6, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Global Strike Command’s sweeping study of cancer cases in the intercontinental ballistic missile community will expand this summer to include environmental samples from the launch facilities themselves, one of several next steps officials detailed during a virtual town hall June 5. 

The study, which began in February 2023, has already looked at hundreds of air and swipe samples from launch control centers—the underground bunkers where missileers work in 24-48 hour shifts—and launch control support buildings. Of those hundreds of samples, four were found to have elevated amounts of a possible carcinogen at two launch control centers at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., and a Launch Control Equipment Building at Minot Air Force Base, N.D. 

Now, military bioenvironmental experts are preparing to go into the silos that house the ICBMs. 

“We’re targeting this between July and September,” said Brig. Gen. Dave Miller, director of logistics and engineering at Global Strike Command. “We’re working again with the program office and [the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine], and the Surgeon General’s office to build a sample of locations out in the missile fields. As of the current plan right now, we’re going to look at two launch facilities in each of the squadrons at each of the wings, assess that data to take a look at, are we targeting all the right areas, before we go out to the rest of the locations to sample.” 

The goal is to start collecting samples in July and continue through September, officials said during the town hall, which was open to Active-Duty Airmen and members of the public. 

The focus of the sampling will likely be on polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), the chemical that was found in the control facilities and are “probable human carcinogens” according to the EPA. Officials said they also study samples for “fertilizers, pesticides, volatile organic compounds,” and more. 

It’s not just missileers who have concerns. A Military.com report published last week shared the fears of maintainers who enter the missile silos to conduct repairs. Security forces, food service workers, and others are also worried. 

While they wait for the lab results from the launch facility samples, AFGSC says it will release the findings from its third round of environmental testing in the control facilities at the three active ICBM bases later this summer. 

“Our sampling plan across the three rounds was, we’re there looking for seasonal variations in use of industrial, occupational, environmental, and local chemicals or potential contaminants that might be in the environment. And some of those do fluctuate with us depending on the season,” Col. Tory W. Woodard, commander of the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, said. 

In the few facilities where PCBs were detected above EPA limits, Global Strike officials said they took immediate steps to conduct cleanups. Beyond that, however, Miller said the command is taking steps to deep clean its facilities, standardizing the process across all locations. A finalized contract for that cleaning is coming soon, he added. 

In addition to the environmental sampling, the study is also comparing cancer rates among missileers and other ICBM-related jobs to those among the rest of the military and the general population. Preliminary data released in March showed elevated rates of prostate and breast cancer. 

However, that data only covered Department of Defense electronic medical records from 2001-2021, capturing those who were diagnosed with cancer through the Military Health System (MHS), including through the Tricare health insurance program. The Air Force anticipates the initial data makes up fewer than 25 percent of the total cancer cases that make be captured during the study. 

A second release of data, planned for September and dubbed “Phase 1B” of the epidemiological part of the study, will include more records, including: 

  • Those diagnosed with cancer through the Veterans Affairs health system back to 1991 
  • Those diagnosed through the military system and put in the DOD’s cancer registry back to 1986 
  • Those diagnosed through the VA and put in the DOD cancer registry back to 1976 

Another batch, “Phase 1C,” will follow in the fall and include death records from the National Cancer Institute. 

“Our future will include Phase 2, which is where we get a virtual pooled registry where we pull cancer statistics from a pool of data from 45 different states,” Woodard said. “What we are learning from that and that will be a little bit delayed, probably into 2025, is that it takes us months and months and months to get that data from those multiple states.” 

Elsewhere in the town hall, the first opened to members of the public, many former service members who worked with ICBMs were eager to know how the study would capture their experiences, especially given that many installations and facilities are now closed or decommissioned.

“If you had one of the AFSCs that placed you in the missile community from 1976 going forward, those AFSCs are all involved,” Woodard said of the epidemiological study. “It’s not just those that worked at our current bases, but it’s anybody who worked at our previous bases.” 

Hundreds of participants logged on for the town hall, reflecting the intense interest in the study. 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 possible increased cases of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a blood cancer, at Malmstrom Air Force Base. 

AFGSC commander Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere 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 will tell you that it’s personal to all my commanders in the field, it’s personal to my deputy commander sitting to my right, and it’s personal to me,” Bussiere said. “Because we all have experience over our lifetimes, in our careers with dealing with the various different levels and aspects of cancer both inside the department and outside the department.  

“From a personal perspective, Capt. Bussiere dealt with cancer in a different career field in our Air Force. … I also had many friends and colleagues back in the ’90s that had experienced different forms of cancers. And 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.”