Saltzman Reveals New Space Units That Put Operations and Sustainment Under One Roof

Saltzman Reveals New Space Units That Put Operations and Sustainment Under One Roof

Sept. 12, 2023 | By David Roza

The Space Force is launching two prototype “Integrated Mission Deltas,” a new type of unit meant to bridge the gaps among operations, engineering, and capability development specialists, hoping to deliver maintenance and upgrades to important systems much faster than before.

“In my mind, performance should be optimized around our missions rather than the functions that support them,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman in his keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space, and Cyber Conference on Sept. 12. “In other words, we cannot afford to split a mission area’s critical activities across organizational seams.”

Today, operators in the space, cyber, and intelligence fields fall under Space Operations Command (SpOC), while engineers and program managers fall under Space Systems Command (SSC). That separation can slow the rate at which operators provide feedback to developers and vice versa in order to maintain and improve systems. 

“[I]t is essential that all elements of readiness—the people, the training, the equipment, and the sustainment—fall into the same organizational structure and that we create unity of command around those elements at the lowest possible level,” Saltzman said.

With the integrated mission delta, those career fields are brought together under a colonel-level composite command team where the commander will represent operations and the deputy commander will represent sustainment, or vice versa.

“The goal there is you have in your command team all the expertise you need to generate those ready forces,” an anonymous Space Force official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

space delta 3
Guardians and Airmen from Space Delta 3 – Space Electromagnetic Warfare, stand in formation for the DEL 3 change of command ceremony June 29, 2023, at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. U.S. Space Force photo by Airman 1st Class Cody Friend

The two integrated mission deltas will cover electronic warfare (EW) and position, navigation, and timing (PNT). The EW integrated mission delta will not be a new unit. Instead, the EW sustainment offices that currently reside in SSC will be realigned to Space Delta 3, the current operational EW Space Delta overseen by SpOC.

The PNT integrated mission delta will be different. Those operators currently share Space Delta 8 with satellite communications operators, but under the new system, PNT operators will have their own delta, a new delta number, and will work alongside PNT sustainers. A Space Force spokesperson emphasized that no relocations or mission changes will occur as a result of the new layout.

“This concept will be thoroughly evaluated and refined before it is considered for implementation across the force,” Maj. Tanya Downsworth told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “This initial effort will not involve the physical relocation of personnel and it will not change the core missions of SpOC or SSC; they will remain responsible for balancing Space Force activities and investments across mission sets, including those led by prototype IMDs.”

The model the integration mission deltas are based on had great success in the launch arena under SSC, where operators and developers expanded the launch windows for new systems.

“Instead of having a three-hour hold for weather, you would have only a one-hour hold for weather, under the safety guidelines, because the operators are able to work with the people who own the tool and get it upgraded to account for operational needs,” the anonymous official said.

The integrated mission deltas are part of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s push to reoptimize the Department for an era of great power competition.

“Both of these deltas integrate operations and sustainment, creating unity of command for all aspects of readiness and enhance our abilities to continue to provide world-class space effects in the face of a determined adversary,” Saltzman said.

There may be administrative challenges ahead. One challenge is that maintenance and acquisition sometimes bleed together in the space domain. The anonymous official stressed that the integrated mission deltas will not touch acquisition, which falls under SSC.

“There are people who do GPS maintenance activities 60 percent of the time, and the other 40 percent of the time they’re working on the next generation of GPS satellites,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest thing that we have to learn: ‘how do we divide the maintenance activities that are done in SSC from the capability, development, acquisition, and next-gen programs.’”

Another possible hurdle is the fact that integrated mission deltas are a fundamentally different model in a military organized by career fields. Though the new model could enhance readiness and increase the command opportunities for Guardians who are not space operators, it could also have growing pains.

“There are no perfect organizational structures,” Saltzman said. “The structuring of people to do their jobs will always create seams. The key is to arrange the organization to maximize performance around what matters most and minimize the negative integration effects that seams naturally create.”

The integrated mission deltas make up ‘Force Generation,’ one of four steps the Space Force is taking to prepare for great power competition. The other three are:

  • Force Design: Designing the service to be prepared for threats, such as by better integrating commercial space capabilities, fueled by a pending study from the Space Warfighter Analysis Center on architectures needed for success.
  • Force Development: Investing in exercises, war games, training, and education, such as through the Intermediate and Senior Level Education program hosted by Johns Hopkins University, to foster critical thinking in the service.
  • Force Employment: Normalizing how the Space Force presents forces by standing up service components to the regional combatant commands. Such components already exist in the Indo-Pacific, Korea, and Central Commands, with new ones coming to Europe and Africa.
Air Force ‘Very Opposed’ to Lawmakers’ Proposed Cost Limits for CCAs

Air Force ‘Very Opposed’ to Lawmakers’ Proposed Cost Limits for CCAs

Sept. 12, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The House of Representatives has proposed cost limits on Collaborative Combat Aircraft as part of its 2024 defense policy bill—but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall expressed puzzlement at the numbers Sept. 11 and indicated the service is not pursuing the kinds of systems Congress is talking about.

“We’re very opposed to those targets,” Kendall told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference in National Harbor, Md. “I don’t know where those categories come from, but they’re not what we’re doing.”

In its version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the House approved a provision setting cost limits of:

  • $3 million each for an “expendable” CCA, defined as an aircraft designed not to be used more than once
  • $10 million for an “attritable” CCA, defined as an aircraft intended to be used more than once but whose occasional loss in combat would be deemed acceptable
  • $25 million for an “exquisite” model, defined as one meant to be reused and whose loss would be deemed not acceptable.

The Senate did not include such a provision in its version of the NDAA, and the idea has not been hashed out in conference yet.

Instead of the three classifications offered by the House, Kendall indicated that “we’ve got two increments planned” but did not elaborate on what they were. He has not set any cost boundaries for CCAs beyond the goal of buying them at “a fraction of [the cost of] an F-35,” which in the last contract with Lockheed Martin was about $80 million per aircraft.

Competition

Kendall said the Air Force plans “an open competition” for CCAs—unmanned, autonomous aircraft that will pair with manned platforms—that will be affected by an ongoing effectiveness analysis and “maturity of the technology.”

An Air Force official said the service doesn’t want to limit the program, which is “in its early stages.”

“What we’re trying to get industry to do is to mature technology and be creative, and then demonstrate to us what kind of capabilities they can provide, and [show] why it’s cost-effective. And that’s how we’re going to be selecting which ones we carry to the next phase of competition,” Kendall explained.

Kendall said the Air Force has not yet settled on an acquisition strategy for CCAs, other than to note that the service has budgeted some $5.8 billion across the the next five years to pursue the effort, which he has described as producing more than 2,000 airframes.

“We’re pretty wide open in terms of possibilities right now,” he said. “We do want to maintain competition as long as we possibly can. I think there’s a lot of value in that.”

Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s acquisition executive, did tell reporters that “continuous competition is the core of our acquisition approach for CCA.”

He also said CCAs will “leverage … the Advanced Mission Systems government reference architecture developed through the [Next Generation Air Dominance] program.” That architecture “gives us a lot of a lot of opportunity to kind of mix and match” capabilities on a single CCA airframe, which is “the idea of a modular open systems architecture approach.”

Hunter said being able to “integrate capabilities rapidly from a wide variety of sources and then upgrade them, [and] iterate them over time” is another key part of the CCA acquisition approach.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall delivers a keynote address at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference on September 11, 2023, at National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

B-21 Back on the Table

Kendall’s original take on his “seven operational imperatives” included building CCA-like aircraft to accompany the B-21 bomber on long-range strike missions. He later withdrew the idea, though, saying it had proved “cost ineffective” in analysis.

However, he left the door open to the idea of CCAs operating jointly with B-21s.

“When we started the operational imperatives, we thought initially that we might find a good cost effectiveness case for dedicated, uncrewed combat aircraft that would accompany the B-21. That didn’t turn out to be the case, as we got into the analysis,” he said, but there may be a viable concept in which “basically, the B-21 picks up CCAs as it gets closer to the operating area.”

CCAs offer “a lot of really interesting tactical possibilities,” Kendall added, and while the planned family of systems that will support the B-21 is classified, Kendall said it includes “things that could be carried by, or possibly accompany, the B-21,” such as munitions and “other things that can be used for defensive purposes, for example.”

Asked to name a mission that might be well suited for a CCA supporting the B-21, Kendall ventured, “defensive capability” for the bomber or providing it with “better situational awareness,” but he cautioned he was speculating.

Much is still uncertain regarding CCAs—Kendall said the service still has not yet settled on how many drones would accompany a crewed aircraft

He has previously speculated that each F-35, for example, could be partnered with up to five CCAs, but “that’s still unknown,” he said.

“We would like to have at least two,” he added. “More is better; you get more cost effectiveness if you can do more, but you’ve got to have technology that can allow the crewed aircraft to control that number, and do it effectively.

Excitement in Congress

Air Force officials have reported that lawmakers and staff on Capitol Hill are extremely enthused about CCAs as offering a grand solution to the Air Force’s capacity, cost, and mass problems.

“I’m grateful for the support,” Kendall said. “I’m glad that people are excited. … I’m excited about it. I think it’s a good concept. It’s very cost-effective. And the reaction we’ve gotten from industry and others who’ve looked at it is very positive.”

But there is still much work left to be done, he warned, and the Air Force is still “doing efforts to experiment with operational units to try to get a sense of how our CCAs would fit into an operational unit,” he noted, “and we’re doing some things to mature the technology; particularly for autonomy.”

As far as being the Air Force’s silver bullet problem solver, Kendall said the CCA concept “doesn’t get us out of the woods entirely on long-term affordability, for example, but it’s going to be a much more cost effective” approach than attempting to build mass with crewed aircraft.

The “Replicator” program outlined recently by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, which would build large numbers of “attritable” air, land, sea and space vehicles, is “a completely separate thing” from CCAs, Kendall said. He has previously described CCAs as modular and re-usable vehicles that will be integrated with crewed fighter squadrons, and perform functions like those now carried out by pods on fighters: target designation, electronic warfare, sensing, and as carriers of additional munitions.

“We have some candidates in the Air Force” for Replicators, Kendall said, and when he presented those ideas to Hicks, “some of those she looks on very positively, but we haven’t resolved all that yet,” Kendall said.

But the Air Force is all in on CCAs, Kendall said.

“The more we learn about the idea of the CCA and how it can fit into our operational context, the more interesting and appealing it becomes. That’s one of the reasons [for] … the excitement about it. There’s reason to be excited about it. It offers a lot of really interesting tactical possibilities,” Kendall said.

Space Superiority May Come Only in Blips, Industry Exec Warns

Space Superiority May Come Only in Blips, Industry Exec Warns

Sept. 11, 2023 | By David Roza

A space industry executive warned that the U.S military may have only brief moments of near-complete control of the space domain, so it must be ready to act as a team to exploit those moments to the fullest.

“The thinking that we can attain and maintain space superiority is really fraught with hubris,” Amy Hopkins, vice president and general manager of national security space for Peraton, said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 11.

“The complex evolving nature of the battlespace requires us to acknowledge that there’s a temporal aspect to this,” Hopkins explained. “We are only going to really have episodic instances of space superiority. Therefore I think the question should be: ‘Are we prepared and trained to maximize the effects when we have that? And do we know what to do when we don’t?’”

Hopkins shared her thoughts during a panel on space order of battle, one of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives. The challenge of that imperative is to protect space capabilities, protect military space services, and defeat adversary space capabilities. Defeating adversary capabilities may help achieve space superiority, which a 2020 joint and a 2021 Air Force doctrine publication defined as “the degree of control in space by one force over another that permits the conduct of operations at a given time and place without effective interference from opposing forces.”

The idea of space superiority is similar to that of air superiority, but the Air Force publication cautioned that the state of desired control “may not always be achievable, particularly against a peer or near-peer adversary.” Part of the challenge is that “place” does not refer to controlling physical space, but instead to specific terrestrial areas impacted by space operations. 

“The ability to achieve space superiority or supremacy is impacted by the laws of physics, international law, and existing policy,” the publication explained. For example, it may not be in America’s interest to fully deny space capabilities to adversaries, when denying them may cause collateral effects to friendly forces or third-party users.

On top of political concerns, China boasts “the most rapidly developing counterspace capabilities of any nation,” retired Col. Charles S. Galbreath, senior resident fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute, wrote in a June research paper. Those capabilities include ground-launch kinetic missiles, ground-based electronic warfare tools, and satellites that can attack U.S. assets in orbit.

This illustration created for the Space-Based Weapons section of the “Competing in Space” unclassified report depicts space-based anti-satellite systems that target other space systems. National Air and Space Intelligence Center illustration by Justin Weisbarth.

To defend against those attacks, Galbreath called for the Space Force and industry to work together to quickly develop defensive and offensive capabilities. He also called for more Space Force funding from Congress; clear guidance and counterspace force design; better Space Force situational awareness; telemetry, tracking, and control of satellites; and test and training infrastructure.

The rest of the joint and coalition forces must also be ready to exploit the opportunity if space superiority is achieved, Hopkins said.

“Can we execute a joint and coalition air, sea, land, subsurface beating with such magnitude during that window that we can achieve the maximum effects and really no adversary can then stay ahead of what we have prevented forward?” asked Hopkins, who called on the Space Force to train and exercise “to this idea of the temporal aspect of space superiority—when we have it and when we will not have it.”

In the meantime, the Space Force is working hard to make its own capabilities more difficult to deny. By building larger constellations of satellites, the service hopes to create networks that can withstand losses and make destroying individual spacecraft not worth the cost. The Space Force is also working to make its ground and launch systems more resilient to cyberattack.

Hopkins and her co-panelists also called for making commercial capabilities a key part of the wider space security posture, in line with what other space industry executives have said in the past.

“We have to train how we’re going to fight [and] we all know we’re going to leverage commercial capabilities … everything from rapid launch” to satellite communications and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Hopkins said. “The more you can incorporate commercial partners into the training and the exercises, the better-positioned we will be for the fight that is yet to come.”

New Air Force Recruiting Boss Calls on Every Member to Be a Recruiter

New Air Force Recruiting Boss Calls on Every Member to Be a Recruiter

Sept. 11, 2023 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Amid military-wide recruiting struggles and bleak long-term trends, the Air Force is set to miss its annual recruiting goal for the Active-Duty component by around 10 percent when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30, with slightly worse numbers for the Guard and Reserve, officials said Sept. 11.

Seeking to close the gap, the Air Force Recruiting Service is looking outside its traditional workforce of recruiters to retired members and everyday Airmen and Guardians, AFRS boss Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein and others said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference.

The Challenges

The Air Force first started projecting a 10 percent recruiting shortfall in March, and the service subsequently implemented changes to relax restrictions on tattoos, naturalization, and body mass index, part of a broader effort to “make sure we’re not unintentionally placing barriers [in front of] Americans who might want to join our formation,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Yet there are broader cultural issues that make talent acquisition difficult, Amrhein said. Fewer youth today have parents with military connections, and results a generational gap in military knowledge and experience passed down within families:

  • Nine out of 10 American adults cannot name all five branches of the military nowadays
  • Only 23 percent of American youth are eligible for enlistment in the military, and less than half of the pool express interest in joining
  • Among the approximately 20 million Americans aged 17 to 21, only about 370,000 meet the eligibility criteria, possess the academic qualifications, and show interest in pursuing a career in the Air or Space Force.

“In 1995, about 40 percent of parents were either serving or had served in the military,” Amrhein said. “But in the last couple of years, it’s been only around 13 percent inside households.”

Amrhein also noted a recent study on parents’ and grandparents’ support for their children or grandchildren joining the military. According to the study, around 50 percent of grandparents and fathers favored the idea, while only about 36 percent of mothers said they would support their children joining the service.

“That’s where we come in. People aren’t recommending the service as much as they used to for various reasons,” said Chief Master Sgt. Rebecca A. C. Arbona, Command Chief Master Sergeant of AFRS.

Another factor exacerbating the gap between the military and the community is the shortage of recruitment distribution due to the increasing cost of talent acquisition. As an example, Amrhein pointed out that there are only four Air Force recruiters in the state of Montana.

The Solution

To address these issues, Amrhein said AFRS has introduced E-recruiters—retired Air Force recruiters who stay engaged with the community through virtual platforms. They effectively cover regions that regular recruiters cannot reach.

Amrhein also noted the partnership with AFA and AFA’s recruiting task force and their role in expanding recruitment, adding that he’d like to have a document outlining tactics, techniques, and procedures that he can distribute to chapters nationwide

More broadly, Amrhein urged Air Force and Space Force personnel to share their personal journeys. He emphasized the importance of Active-Duty and retired service members, along with their families, telling their stories to inspire the next generation.

 “What was your ‘why’? Why did you join the Air Force, and what do you do every day?” he asked. “It’s important. Tell your story. You are an influencer just as much as you are a recruiter, for every Airman and Guardian.”

To illustrate the diverse motivations behind Airmen’s decisions to join the service, four members from the audience took the stage. Tech. Sgt. Cam Kelsh said his decision to enlist was deeply influenced by the shock of witnessing the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the news alongside his mother when he was only in sixth grade. It was at that moment, he said, he realized that his homeland was not invulnerable.

Senior Airman Kristina Schneider said she had a lifelong desire to be part of the Air Force. However, she initially believed it was an impossible dream due to starting her family at a young age. As her children grew older, she mustered the courage to ask them if they were comfortable with her pursuing her dreams. To her surprise, they encouraged her to go for it, and she was able to join the Air Force before reaching the age limit for enlistment.

Amrhein stressed how these unique, individual experiences of all members of Air Force and Space Force could have an impact on the community. And he encouraged everyone to take a more active role in staying connected and sharing information, while highlighting the crucial role of social media, especially to engage with Generation Z.

Amrhein assumed command of AFRS on June 2, acknowledging that he was taking over “in a challenging time.”

PACAF Boss: China Risks ‘Disaster’ With Unsafe Intercepts of US Aircraft

PACAF Boss: China Risks ‘Disaster’ With Unsafe Intercepts of US Aircraft

Sept. 11, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Chinese pilots are risking “disaster” with repeated unsafe intercepts of American planes operating in the Pacific, the top U.S. Air Force general in the region said Sept. 11.

“We do fly a lot close to China,” Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space, & Cyber Conference. “It’s not uncommon for U.S. military aircraft to be intercepted 10 times a day.”

For the most part, the intercepts—which the U.S. military stresses occur in international airspace—are “safe,” Wilsbach said.

Sometimes, however, there are incidents the Pentagon deems risky. The U.S. and many of its allies have taken to publicly identifying some of these incidents, seemingly trying to shame the People’s Liberation Army for operating their aircraft and vessels recklessly. China has a different view.

“When we call them out on these unprofessional, unsafe [intercepts], they’re not willing to have a discussion,” Wilsbach said. “We don’t have that kind of conversation. They blame it on us.”

China claims most of the South China Sea, over which American surveillance aircraft such as USAF RC-135s routinely fly, as its territory.

“Their typical response is, ‘This is your fault because this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t here,’” Wilsbach said. “Now, let’s just get to the gist of the problem, which is what they’re saying is they don’t want us to exercise the same right that they have to be in international airspace.”

Wilsbach said the U.S. does not take issue with the broad premise of its aircraft possibly being intercepted. NORAD aircraft often intercept Russian aircraft in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), an early warning buffer that extends beyond U.S. airspace. The U.S. military typically stresses those incidents do not violate American sovereignty.

“All we’re asking them to do is just execute safely and professionally,” Wilsbach said. “You can intercept. That’s your right to intercept, just like we do when we have aircraft flying inside of our air identification zones. So do it safely, do it professionally, and everybody will be OK. We won’t have a miscalculation. We won’t have a disaster.”

Wilsbach, speaking broadly about Chinese pilots’ capabilities, said he “wouldn’t think that any of them have prowess like an American fighter pilot,” though he did not cite Chinese aviators’ skills as a safety concern.

“They are not in the same category as what we are trained to,” Wilsbach added.

The U.S. is particularly concerned about the actions of Chinese aircraft because of a lack of high-level communication between the two sides. Military-to-military channels have largely been frozen since Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met his then-counterpart last November.

Since that meeting, tensions in the region have only grown between the U.S. and China. A Chinese jet came within a few yards of U.S. Air Force RC-135 over the South China Sea in December, and in February, an F-22 Raptor shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that transited the continental U.S. U.S. officials have stressed they want communication to avoid escalation.

A Chinese J-16 fighter passes directly in front of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint over the South China Sea on May 26, 2023. Courtesy video/U.S. Indo-Pacific Command

“It’s really important that the most senior folks can talk to each other as quickly as possible when something happens,” said Dr. Mara Karlin, who is performing the duties of deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, at a Defense Writers Group Event in August. “So Secretary Austin keeps asking for that.”

The often opaque nature of decision-making by the Chinese Communist Party and its People’s Liberation Army under leader Xi Jinping makes it difficult for the U.S. to judge intentions without interactions, experts note.

“We have been trying really hard to set up communication channels and they have not been enthusiastic about those,” Karlin added. “That’s really problematic.”

China insists U.S. sanctions prevent a meeting between Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu and Austin, though U.S. leaders say that is not the case. China’s Defense Ministry also insists military-to-military talks have “not stopped.”

In a meeting that occurred after Karlin’s comments, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. John Aquilino spoke to Chinese military officials at a defense forum in Fiji last month. But overall, substantive talks remain limited.

A previous encounter between U.S. and Chinese aircraft turned deadly and led to a diplomatic crisis. A Chinese fighter and a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane collided in 2001, resulting in the temporary detention of U.S. personnel after they were forced to make an emergency landing in China. The Chinese pilot was killed.

China’s unwillingness to engage in substantive talks or establish lines for discussion in a crisis, in particular, creates concern for regional commanders like Wilsbach when incidents occur.

“That’s concerning to me because some of these could be very close to a disaster,” Wilsbach said.

Air Force C3 Modernization Czar: ‘We’re Deploying Capability Starting Now’

Air Force C3 Modernization Czar: ‘We’re Deploying Capability Starting Now’

Sept. 11, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

After years of planning, experiments, and discussion, the Department of the Air Force is ready to start modernizing its command, control, and communications capabilities now, the top general overseeing the effort said Sept. 11. 

“The modernization of [C3] isn’t tomorrow, it’s today,” Brig. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey, integrating program executive officer for command, control, communications, and battle networks, told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. “We’re deploying capability starting now. It will obviously continue to happen in the future. But this isn’t something that’s five years away. This is today. So we’re putting capability out in the field.” 

Cropsey’s declaration comes two years after Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall first expressed concern that the Advanced Battle Management System, the department’s ambitious plan to connect sensors and shooters across the globe, was not focused enough on deploying operationally relevant capabilities.

Specifically, Cropsey said his team is prepared to declare initial operational capability for its Could-Based Command and Control (CBC2) network for U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command next month. CBC2 will aggregate and integrate military and commercial air defense data sources into one common picture to support homeland defense. 

Cropsey also said that before the end of the year, the Air Force will start fielding a new digital infrastructure needed to support new system architectures his team has been helping to develop for months. 

CBC2 

CBC2 was previously called Capability Release 2, intended to be the second deliverable product of ABMS. In the works starting in 2021, the system officially became a program in May 2022. 

According to an Air Force release, CBC2 fuses data from 750 radar feeds into a single interface and allows operators to create “machine-generated courses of action to help shorten the tactical C2 kill chain and send a desired effect via machine-to-machine connections.” 

The system is replacing the Battle Control System-Fixed network and integrating data from other air and missile warning and missile defense systems. But rather than attempting to build one massive capability, Cropsey said his team chose to “thin slice” it. 

“We didn’t do an overall CBC2 contract and hand it off to somebody that kind of did all the typical integration kinds of things,” Cropsey said. “We actually went directly to the experts in their respective layer of the stack, and we said, ‘Hey, who’s the best at ‘fill in the blank’ and we went and we got them on contract.” 

One of the biggest contracts went to SAIC, which got $112 million as the software integrator for the system, “but we’ve got a lot of contracts all operating together on that CBC2 piece,” Cropsey noted. 

The Air Force has referred to the various capabilities from those contracts as “microservice applications,” with an emphasis on regularly releasing updates.

That process, called agile development, security, and operations or DevSecOps in the software world, is one the Pentagon writ large has struggled to adopt, but Cropsey said his team and U.S. Northern Command are dedicated to making it work. 

“The [combatant command] ponied up to giving us operational people, so for every microservice that we’re generating inside of the CBC2 architecture, we have literally a dedicated operational person with that team that’s generating that microservice,” Cropsey said. “So we’re actually generating the kind of user and development cycle that an agile process actually calls for. That may be the single biggest reason why CBC2 is moving as well as it’s moving.” 

Given that success, Cropsey said he’s already started thinking about how to scale and implement CBC2 in other combatant commands and regions of the world. 

Digital Infrastructure 

For much of fiscal 2023, Cropsey said, his office has worked on the architectures necessary to enable modernized command and control—the connections and organizations needed for the Air Force’s ambitious plan to connect sensors and shooters around the globe. Leading that effort has been Dr. Bryan Tipton, C3BM chief of architecture and engineering.

In recent months, Tipton and his team have delivered analyses to the Secretary of the Air Force on the architectures needed in air and space for modernized C2. The contents of those analyses are classified, Cropsey said, but a key underlying element is the digital infrastructure—the computing power, programs, and process necessary to make the architecture work. 

“Regardless of where you’re going to fight, what you want to communicate, the data and the information that you need to flow through that system, if you don’t have a digital infrastructure to do it on, it’s a pipe dream,” Cropsey said. 

The Air Force’s IT systems and computing power are often a source of frustration for the average Airman, but Cropsey projected optimism that the “DAF Battle Network” will have what it needs. 

“We’re going to start putting digital infrastructure out into the field this year,” said Cropsey. “So, super excited about that. It’s fundamentally an enabler of anything that you want to actually do from a C2 perspective.”