How a New ‘Taskrabbit’-Like App Could Help Win Wars, Transform Public Service

Oct. 8, 2024 | By David Roza

Imagine the conflict with China that U.S. military officials have warned about for years is on the verge of breaking out. An Air Force intelligence specialist must scan satellite images for signs of a military build-up along the Taiwan Strait, but the artificial intelligence program needed to parse through all the images needs an improvement, fast.

A new mobile app developed by a team of joint service members may be the solution. GigEagle is like a military version of the civilian app Taskrabbit, where users can find individuals to help put together an IKEA cabinet, move a mattress, or other temporary handy jobs. But instead of finding help for one-time tasks around the house, GigEagle finds talent who can tweak an AI algorithm, operate a small drone, translate documents, or other short- or long-term projects (anywhere from 4 hours to a year) that help accomplish military missions.

The key factor is speed. Today it can take hours to write a proposal and months to hire the right talent. With GigEagle, users can search for the skills they’re looking for or enter the problem they need to solve, and the app’s AI matches them with ideal candidates in seconds.

“What our team is trying to do is really optimize the use of talent: how we identify and then employ talent at a speed we’ve never before been able to achieve,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael T. McGinley, director of GigEagle, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Another key feature of the app: it lets candidates list skills outside their main military job specialty, which is hard to track in existing military talent management systems.

“Whether you’re Active-Duty, Guard, or Reserve, your record is only going to show a small subset of what you’ve actually done,” McGinley said. “So why aren’t we capturing the full person?”

That could be particularly helpful for Reservists or National Guardsmen, who pick up program management, data science, user experience, or a wide range of other skills in their civilian jobs. GigEagle lets service members create profiles similar to LinkedIn where they can describe their skills, experience, and endorsements.

McGinley first started working on the GigEagle project in 2018, with initial tests starting in 2022. The app’s six-month prototype phase is due to end in October, followed by a production phase. More than 3,000 service members have signed up and are already solving real-world problems. For example, the Air Force Research Laboratory needed urgent help with a generative AI task, and within five minutes McGinley used GigEagle to find two Army Reservists with the data analysis and AI skills the lab needed.

“They were shocked, because otherwise how would you get that,” McGinley said. The Air Force’s newly-established provisional Integrated Capabilities Command is already listing gigs on the app, he added.

Today, members of the National Guard and Reserve from across the services can become gig workers or gig managers, meaning they could post requirements or gigs, while Active-Duty members or civilian military employees can be only gig managers. But under new pilot programs due to start soon, Active-Duty service members, military civilian employees, and military spouses in certain organizations and functional communities will have a chance to be gig workers too.

Thinking Big

In 2023, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said advances in sensors, robotics, and artificial intelligence will cause a “fundamental change in the character of war” by making the observe, orient, decide, and act (OODA) decision-making loop faster than ever.

That change requires a fundamental change in military talent, McGinley said, toward quickly finding and engaging people with the skills to solve a rapidly evolving series of problems.

GigEagle is one way of supporting what the general describes as an agile talent ecosystem, where, for example, “instead of just one Airman having to do many things, what we’re able to do now is support that Airman with a network of informed expertise,” the general said.

That network may one day include the entire military, the entire government, industry, academia, and even partner nations.

“Even in a non-conflict situation, if I would like to reach out to a radar expert at Caltech or MIT, I should be able to do that,” he said. “We’re exploring different ways and legal authorities to pull those individuals in.”

That includes military spouses, who often have trouble finding work amid the frequent moves of military life. The GigEagle team is working with the Office of the Secretary of Defense on a SOAR (spouse opportunity access and recognition) version of the app that could help find employment for spouses across both commercial and government job sectors. Team members say they expect the first of three efforts to explore that route will start sometime in fiscal 2025.

Besides matching organizations with talent, GigEagle could also help officials at the headquarters level track trends in talent supply and demand.

“Now I can see who’s calling for that talent, and what types of skills are they calling for?” the general said. For example, “I can show that the Army’s supplying some of this analyst support. Why is that?”

Making an Impact

There may also be other benefits to a capability like GigEagle. In an essay published in War On the Rocks this August, McGinley and his GigEagle partner, Army Maj. Jim Perkins warned that some service members may not always feel as if they are serving in a meaningful way or contributing their most important skills.

GigEagle may scratch that itch, first by identifying service members’ skills, and second by letting them use those skills to directly help their colleagues solve urgent challenges.

“If you as an Airman feel like you are making an operational impact on the mission, I’m going to bet our retention will improve,” McGinley said. “We’re all wearing the uniform because we believe in the mission. Give people a chance to better engage, more directly engage that mission, and I think magic happens.”

At a time where very few Americans know someone in uniform, the app may also help bridge the civilian-military divide by giving civilians with important skills a chance to serve that was not possible before.

“On a strategic level, that means when you make policy changes, you now have a more educated, engaged population,” the general said. “Those people in academia or industry who come in and provide support feel like they are a member of the team. It is not ‘us and them,’ it is ‘we,’ so we win great power competition together.”

Challenges

While GigEagle shows promise, there are several obstacles to scaling up. The first is making sure all the services can use it easily.

“To be an agile talent ecosystem, you need to be able to think jointly, you need to make sure your language is the same,” McGinley said. “That’s tough, that’s a challenge, because what the Air Force cares about is different from what the Army or the Navy or the Marines care about.”

Then comes the tricky topic of who pays for gigs sourced through GigEagle. The expectation is that the organization seeking the talent will pay for it, but the process can get complicated when the exchange happens between services or components, particularly when the talent is in the Guard or Reserves, which have their own complicated pay and benefit structures. The GigEagle team is working with the Office of the Secretary of Defense to expand funding authorities to improve cross-service gig payments.

“For example, if I have Air Force appropriations to bring on an Air Force Reservist, but the most qualified candidate for my gig/need is matched to an Army Guardsmen, I need additional authority to transfer those Air Force funds to pay for the expert I need—who happens to be in the Army,” explained Col. Beth Horine, GigEagle Policy Team Lead.

The team will also have to figure out guardrails so that gigs won’t get in the way of service members’ primary duties. Service members will need a supervisor’s approval to do a gig, McGinley said, but each service may have different rules and requirements for how members spend their time.

Detachment 24 student pilots train on a virtual reality flight simulator as part of the Pilot Training Next program March 5, 2020, at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas. (U.S. Air Force photo by Sarayuth Pinthong)

Excitement

Despite the challenges, enthusiasm for the new app is high. Lt. Col. Chuck Kubik, GigEagle Product Team Lead, said the team is already seeing widespread adoption by the combatant commands.

“These folks are coming to the platform because instead of posting a role in six different systems, they can come to a single place and hunt for the best talent,” he explained. “Across all the combatant commands, the gigs are pouring in.”

The U.S. Special Operations Command joint leadership team was particularly excited after Kubik briefed them recently.

“They were blown out of the water, like ‘Oh my gosh, where have you been, this is exactly what we need to find the best talent,’” he recalled.

Kubik believes the widespread interest indicates that he and his team are working on something special.

“With very little marketing, the word and the groundswell of what GigEagle is is growing rapidly,” he said. “When people see it, they’re like, ‘yeah, I can’t wait to go build my profile.’ There’s nothing holding them back as soon as they see that. That’s been really exciting.”

Two B-1 Bombers Fly Close Air Support Exercise in South Korea

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Two B-1 Lancers from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, led a simulated close air support exercise with South Korean fighters to maintain “defensive readiness” for both nations last week.

The long-range bombers flew to Korea and back for the one-day training event on Oct. 1 and have returned to Texas, a spokesperson for the Air Force Global Strike Command told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Lancers trained with two Republic of Korea F-15Ks, with support from U.S. Airmen from the 607th Air Support Operations Group at Pilsung Range, located about 160 miles east of Osan Air Base.

Following the exercise, one of the bombers joined a flyover with two ROK F-15Ks as part of the nation’s “Armed Forces Day” celebration over Seoul Air Base, located just outside the capital city of Seoul. The event reinforced the U.S.’s commitment to the two countries’ alliance, and “further enhanced the ability of ROK fighters to integrate with U.S. bombers,” Indo-Pacific Command stated in a release.

south korea B-1b lancers — The Republic of Korea and U.S. conduct a combined aerial exercise in conjunction with the deployment of U.S. B-1B strategic bombers over the Republic of Korea, March 19, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by 1st Lt. Cameron Silver

The Boeing F-15K Slam Eagle, primarily built and operated by the ROK Air Force, is an advanced variant of the F-15E.

Close Air Support (CAS) provides essential airborne attacks against hostile targets that are close to friendly forces. Last week’s exercise marked the second time the long-range bombers have partnered with ROK fighters for CAS training this year. In June, a B-1 bomber conducted its first live munitions drop over the country in seven years, collaborating with two ROK F-15Ks to release 500-pound GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Earlier this year, the Air Force also engaged the Lancers in CAS training alongside Swedish JAS 39 Gripen fighters, aimed at strengthening partnerships and boosting operational readiness.

As the mission hinges on accuracy, traditionally, low-flying aircraft like the A-10s have been used for CAS training, utilizing the attack aircraft’s 30mm cannons. Although bombers are not primarily built for this role, all three USAF types—B-1, B-2, and B-52—can conduct CAS missions.

CAS has been a primary mission of the B-1 in support of combatant commanders for more than two decades. In previous demonstrations, B-1 Lancers showcased their ability to perform a low-level, high-speed pass as a non-lethal “show of force,” signaling readiness to engage the enemy if necessary. The training emphasizes this type of support to protect ground troops in real-world combat situations. The Lancers carry the largest conventional payload of weapons in the U.S. military, including general-purpose bombs, cluster munitions, and laser-guided missiles.

NRO Joins Pentagon Exercises, ‘Making Progress’ on New Targeting Satellites

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The National Reconnaissance Office is participating in Pentagon exercises and launching dozens of satellites as it prepares to work with the Space Force on tracking targets from orbit, its director said last week.

NRO Director Christopher Scolese also noted during an Oct. 3 event at the Center for International and Strategic Studies that a key challenge in the effort will be the speed and clarity with which his agency can deliver data to warfighters—acknowledging a common concern about the joint military-intelligence effort.

The Department of the Air Force has wanted to get its Ground Moving Target Indication from space, instead of relying on airborne platforms, because anti-air systems pose growing challenges to those aircraft.

Satellites belonging to the NRO and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have long provided the intelligence community with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but have not provided real-time targeting data for moving targets. Critics charge the IC cannot deliver targeting data at tactically relevant speeds; they argue that military commanders should control their own satellites in order to prioritize operationally relevant data collection.

But more recently officials have indicated progress in military-IC collaboration, and Scolese made clear he wants to overcome whatever roadblocks there are that slow down getting data to the warfighter.

“We have to deliver the data at the speed and with the characteristics that the user—and it can be any user—needs,” Scolese said. “So GMTI is obviously going to go off and need information on where an object is and where it is going in real time. We need to deliver that data. Others will also be delivering data. That data has to be fused into a product.”

From a technical standpoint, “there’s still work to be done,” Scolese said, but he believes the NRO is making “good progress.”

Exercises are helping to expose where improvement is needed.

“We put prototypes of the various satellites up there that allowed us to see what they can do,” Scolese said. “It’s also allowed us to participate exercises, where we can go off and test those various things. We’re also doing tabletop exercises and gaming to allow us to go off and test things at the edges…. That’s helping us to identify policy areas or gaps that we need to go off and address.”

The volume of data available is growing rapidly. In the span of just 18 months, from June 2023 to December 2024—the NRO will have launched around 100 new satellites, many of those making up its new proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation, Scolese said. The long-secretive NRO remains tight-lipped about precise numbers, but the agency has had three launches for its new constellation this year alone.

Soon, the real payoffs will be apparent. “We are going from the demo phase to the operational phase, where we’re really going to be able to start testing all of this stuff out in a more operational way,” he said.

Days After Returning, KC-135s Evacuate MacDill Again for Hurricane

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force evacuated aircraft ahead of another hurricane Oct. 6, just days after trying to get things back to normal. Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm, is now forecast to sweep across central Florida on Oct. 9, with MacDill Air Force Base and Patrick Space Force Base directly in its path.

The “large and powerful” storm is expected to carry gale-force winds and a damaging coastal storm surge.

MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, evacuated the 6th Air Refueling Wing’s KC-135 tankers just two days after they got home following a prior evacuation for Hurricane Helene. Wing commander Col. Ed Szczepanik ordered the evacuation effective Oct. 7 at 12:30 p.m. In a video update on Facebook, Szczepanik said the base would only retain mission-essential personnel.

Helene flooded MacDill’s low-lying areas, leaving masses of debris on roads and and causing widespread power outages, and many base services were closed for up to five days.

The KC-135 tankers remained mission ready at alternate locations and mission-essential personnel maintained operations at U.S. Central Command headquarters, located on the base.

Milton is on a path to strike MacDill on Florida’s Gulf Coast, then cross the peninsula and hit Florida’s Space Coast, home to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Patrick Space Force Base.

Space Launch Delta 45, which oversees both installations, raised its alert level to HURCON 4, which officials said mean anticipated winds in excess of 58 miles per hour could occur within 72 hours. Both bases remain open and no evacuations have been ordered.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Oct. 7 carrying a payload for the European Space Agency. But a planned Oct. 10 launch of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for NASA from the Kennedy Space Center has been postponed.

Indeed, SpaceX had been scheduled to launch several Falcon 9s from Cape Canaveral early next week, but the rocket is grounded while officials investigate an anomaly late last month. SpaceX got FAA clearance for the Oct. 7 launch, but no other launches have been cleared so far, according to media reports.

A spokesperson for Space Launch Delta 45 told Air & Space Forces Magazine there are no currently no rockets on pads or launches scheduled for the rest of the week at Cape Canaveral. The National Hurricane Center is projecting up to 12 inches of rain in the area and a flood warning has been issued.

Practical Applications for AI in Military Operations

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Adam Stone

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence, but actual no-kidding military applications can be hard to identify.

“If you have a data problem, or if you can make a problem into a data problem, it’s probably a good fit for AI,” says Angela Sheffield, an internationally recognized expert in nuclear nonproliferation and applications of AI for national security.

Sheffield has been cited for “transforming” the National Nuclear Security Agency’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation with innovative AI research and development. There, as Senior Program Manager for AI and Data Science, Sheffield developed next-generation tools for detecting early indicators of illicit nuclear weapons development.

Now Sheffield has a new role as director of AI programs at SAIC, a leading systems integrator and solutions provider for federal and defense applications. A former Air Force intelligence officer, she sees numerous opportunities to bring AI to a host of defense requirements and says getting started is often the hardest part, because it means getting past all the reasons not to move forward.

“We will forever have legacy systems,” Sheffield says. “We will always have fragmented and siloed data repositories. Those aren’t things that we can wish away.”

But they also don’t need to be barriers to automation. Whether one is tackling a complex problem like Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control, major initiatives to modernize weapon systems, or efforts to automate Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (TCPED), mundane tasks that involve routine work can be automated to to reduce the human cognitive load.

“There are a lot of other applications ripe for opportunity, for modernization and innovation and AI,” Sheffield said. And it doesn’t have to be the hard, super complex use cases: Business operations and other routine operational tasks “are really great opportunities for us to leverage AI. Automation can free up our Airmen and our other service members and civilians … to tackle the challenges DOD faces today.”

In some ways, that is beginning to happen. Enterprise IT is gaining a foothold with AI-driven capabilities integrated into email and other collaboration activities.

“We’re beginning to expect that as the part of the services that we get from our enterprise IT,” Sheffield said. AI can also support efficiencies, she added, in business operations and mission execution “to fulfill requirements in computing, in managing disparate data sources.”

This is where an integrator can be especially valuable. “SAIC is part of bringing those solutions to the Air Force and the rest of the joint force, with concepts like data layers that interconnect stove-piped or fragmented data systems,” she said.

Once data can be shared across systems, everyone benefits: “You can get a single-site picture or a single understanding of all of your resources captured in those different repositories,” she said, enabling AI-supported process automation, enhanced analytics, and informed, accelerated decision-making.

Users will not necessarily buy into automation easily, she said. Trust must be earned—and built—over time to ensure users gain confidence in intelligent systems. They need to see that the software works, Sheffield said, and “to understand how it is working, if it’s performing within the intended envelope.” And they need to be confident that the AI is not generating erroneous “hallucinations,” she said.

AI must be a primary driver for enabling CJADC2 because without it the data sets are too large, the problems too demanding, to maintain an information advantage at the speed of modern warfare. CJADC2 demands real-time sharing of data across service, national, and digital boundaries.

That means overcoming legacy IT roadblocks and information systems that can’t talk to each other. Interoperable databases and AI-driven automation are part of the solution. “CJADC2 will happen as a result of that modernization in a way that’s even more powerful than what we’re beginning to see in pilot demonstrations,” Sheffield predicts.

For example, Indo-Pacific Command’s Joint Fires Network, a Battle Management System delivers real-time actionable threat data to joint, partner, and allied forces. SAIC is involved in that pilot, and Sheffield foresees more AI-driven implementations like it, “where we’re closing kill chains faster and achieving those successes.”

Disparate systems and technologies, often purpose-built with proprietary technology, must be integrated to make them work. “That’s where an integrator like SAIC can help,” she said.

As a federal program manager, she recalled, “I often relied on my contractors or performers to provide that visibility — lessons learned from one agency to another,” she said. Commercial partners “helped me have that visibility of what’s happening across the interagency.”

That’s exactly the value Sheffield says she brings to her work at SAIC. “Looking across our multi-mission portfolio and bringing the best solutions for DOD’s missions is something they can rely on us to do,” she said.

At This Air Force Depot, Advanced Manufacturing Is Cutting Edge No Longer

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla.—Air Force leaders and industry officials have long extolled the benefits of additive manufacturing, promising a future where maintainers use 3D printing technology to manufacture replacement parts faster than they can be shipped across the world.

Now, a small group of engineers, technicians, and machinists here are moving that additive manufacturing technology out of the future and into the present.

It’s “not because we’re just saying, ‘Hey, this has potential in the future,’” Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center technical director Eric Bartlow told Air & Space Forces Magazine during an August visit. “We grow with our customer need in that area. And so is it bleeding edge? We’ve been doing 3D-printing since the ’70s. I think the rest of the world is kind of catching up, and you’ll continue to see that scale.”

Across more than 8 million square feet of industrial floor and office space, more than 9,000 personnel work at the OC-ALC, where welding and wrench-turning are still the norm. But an increasing number of programs—collectively dubbed an “innovation ecosystem”—are now applying these techniques to breathe new life into aging aircraft.

“We use the term ‘tired iron’ a lot out here,” said Clay Jordan, chief engineer for a program called PROACT. “We have some really old ‘tired iron’ that we are trying to bring back to life.”

Coming into Its Own

Brig. Gen. Brian R. Moore, commander of the OC-ALC, says this shift is the result of years of work.

“Mr. Bartlow and the team have been thinking about digital transformation and what that means for an industrial complex, probably before I came over in 2018 and 2019,” Moore said. “But really you can see the manifestation of it in the last six years.”

Case in point: The Reverse Engineering and Critical Tooling (REACT) program, which started several years ago to produce parts that aren’t commercially available anymore. REACT started small but now comprises a team of 50 that has become the Air Force Center of Excellence for advanced manufacturing.

REACT offices display examples of that transformation: Scanners that map and model the shapes of products ranging from small parts to entire aircraft; digital design tools used to process and refine scans; and more than a dozen additive production systems, high-end 3D printers that can “print” using materials ranging from resin to cobalt chrome.

Paul Greenway, with the 76th Commodities Maintenance Group’s R.E.A.C.T Cell, made and provided the CAD drawings for the mechanics to cut and form the keel beam.

The B-1 bomber is among REACT’s greatest success stories. A plastic panel in the crew compartment might have taken five years to replace using conventional contracting processes; REACT reverse- engineered the panel produced test products, and now produces replacements for the entire fleet, said flight chief Kyle Taylor. Now REACT is now producing other parts for the BONE cockpit, replacing honeycomb composite materials that degraded over time.

“They’ve leaned forward a lot with additive,” Taylor said of the B-1 program office. “And because of that, they’ve kind of pulled the whole Air Force along with them. Others [system program offices] come over here and they see all these B-1 panels that we’re printing, and they say, ‘Oh, we have little switches and knobs and things, and we haven’t really implemented additive as much as B-1 has.’ So because B-1 has kind of led the way, other weapon systems can get the benefits of the testing they’ve done, and the approval processes they’ve gone through.”

The results are stark: 12,000 parts in back orders.

REACT’s bank of polymer 3D printers are “just churning out parts consistently,” said Taylor, operating at a continuous, dull whine.

Said Moore: “Every jet that comes to Tinker for depot maintenance is getting around 200 polymer parts put on it.”

Going Upscale

Additive repair is another area of emphasis: PROACT, the Process, Repair, Operations, and Critical Tooling program, employs 40 specialists for engine repair.

“We’ve been doing additive for repair for decades now, through things like thermal spray and weld repairs, where you build up material on wear surfaces,” said Blake Grimwood, the engineering section chief for PROACT. “We’re just using the newer technologies that people think of as additive manufacturing, as opposed to the legacy ones.”

One new technology is directed energy deposition, in which a laser melts a metal or metal powder and deposits the material onto a surface for precise welding, and cold spray, in which metal powder is applied without heat.

“We’re able to look at the problem and say, ‘this is the wear condition we’re seeing, these are the types of repairs we do for this wear condition. OK, what’s the right approach?’ And if we can’t figure out a right approach, then that gives us an opportunity to say, ‘Let’s go find a new technology to solve this,’” he said.

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. — Blake Grimwood, the Process, Repair, Operations and Critical Tooling section chief at the Oklahoma City Air Logistic Complex, briefs members of the Leadership Moore program on PROACT’s capabilities during their tour of Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, Jan. 11. Leadership Moore is a program organized by the Moore Chamber of Commerce that offers opportunities for leaders from the business, government, and not-for-profit sectors to discover the inner workings of their community and challenges facing the region. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Carter Denton)

The goal, he added, is not just to find the most advanced possible tech, but rather the most sustainable and useful over time.

“Just because we develop a new repair doesn’t mean we don’t have the old repair as well, if that’s needed for capacity,” he noted. “But a lot of these repairs are faster and more consistent, so we can fit more into a timeframe if needed.” PROACT also has a team of tool designers who create tooling needed to facilitate each particular repair.

REACT is also expanding into metal 3D printing and is even casting its own parts—a necessity in an era when commercial sourcing for small volumes of unique products is prohibitive or even impossible.

“Right now, we can pour 120 pounds of aluminum. So what we can do is take our knowledge in reverse engineering and modeling, you can bring us a part, we reverse engineer the whole thing,” Taylor said. “We’ll come up with three or four different designs that we think will work, print all of them, pour all the hot metal into them and see which one came out best. We can work with the materials lab here on base. We can give them parts. They can chop up all the parts and say, this one has the lowest porosity, this is your best pour. And then we can just 3D print however many molds we need.”

Hurdles

REACT and PROACT leaders say excitement over additive manufacturing does not make it the right solution for every need. “We have an additive expert … and I joke that about half of his job is saying no to additive parts,” Taylor said. “Sometimes it’s going to take you longer, it’s going to be more expensive. Additive is just another tool in your toolbox,” not the answer for every problem.

Bureaucratic hurdles are another issue. Approval processes and procedures haven’t all caught up to new manufacturing methods. “Airworthiness certification right now is definitely a challenge the whole Air Force is seeing,” said Taylor. “Leadership knows that’s a barrier we have.”

Standardizing new “inspection criteria on those metal parts, think about them in terms of risk and safety factors” is still a work in process. The Air Force, Moore said, needs “to be able to close that gap and bring the future faster.”

In some cases, new repair technology not only meets an existing specification, Taylor said, but it can also be a better solution for the long-term integrity of the part. “For instance, if I could weld repair something in the past with the gold gas tungsten arc welding, I can also do the [directed energy deposition] repair, but now I’m putting less heat, I’m not warping parts.”

Each new advance opens up new possibilities, experts say. Just having the tools in place opens the aperture on future applications.

“We’ve got the stuff,” Barlow said. “More importantly, we’ve got the people. We have the intellectual capability to do anything. If a human can think it through, we can do it.”

New Boss Succeeds Van Ovost at TRANSCOM, Vowing ‘Nothing Will Distract Us’

Oct. 4, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.

Speaking at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III noted that since Van Ovost took command in late 2021, TRANSCOM:

Delivered more than $21 billion in military aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia

Rushed military aid to Israel in the wake of Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack

Dropped thousands of pounds of aid into Gaza in one of the largest humanitarian airdrops since the Berlin Airlift

“We’ve asked a lot of you over the past three and a half years, and you have delivered, and you’ve made history,” Austin said.

That string of heightened operations came just months after Operation Allies Refuge, the largest non-combatant evacuation operation airlift in U.S. history, which rescued more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan as the U.S. military withdrew in 2021. Van Ovost helped oversee that operation in her previous job as head of Air Mobility Command before taking the TRANSCOM post that October.

Beyond combat operations, TRANSCOM under Van Ovost started to implement a new global household goods contract for managing the thousands of moves service members make every year.

All the while, the command worked to prepare for great power competition with the likes of China—Austin noted the importance of exercises such as last summer’s Mobility Guardian, which involved thousands of Airmen and dozens of aircraft surging into the Indo-Pacific.

That balancing act between readiness today and future preparation was difficult, Van Ovost noted, but one her team took head on.

“You delivered on readiness, buying down risk today while providing the trusted assessments necessary to advocate for accelerated recapitalization and modernization of critical fleets, addressing manpower shortages, and reorganizing teams to address the strategic environment,” she said.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, outgoing commander, U.S. Transportation Command, delivers a speech during the USTRANSCOM change of command ceremony on Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Oct. 4, 2024. DoD photo by Iain Page

Indeed, the demands facing TRANSCOM are only growing and will make the command’s job all the more important in the years ahead, Van Ovost predicted.

“Just a few days ago, we celebrated the 37th birthday of TRANSCOM, a command that was born out of necessity, that was built to deploy U.S. forces,” she said. “Over time, our mandate has expanded to project, maneuver, and sustain the joint force at a time and place of our nation’s choosing. If we were a necessity before, we are indispensable now.”

Reed, who ascends to the job after a stint as deputy commander of Air Mobility Command, has experience flying most types in the mobility fleet—including time as a C-141 pilot like Van Ovost. And like Van Ovost, he emphasized to the service members of TRANSCOM that he aims to both modernize and stay ready for any contingency.

“Nothing will distract us from delivering, be it humanitarian aid or combat power. Make no mistake, the work we must do now to deter growing threats is serious and demands a sense of urgency,” Reed said. “Nevertheless, we will never shy away from the contested environment in any domain. Instead, we will do our part to strengthen the joint force to fight and to get to the fight and remain in the fight, to carry the day.”

Reed continues a long tradition of Air Force generals leading TRANSCOM—Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, who led the command from 2018 to 2021, was the only non-Airman to take the helm so far.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Randall Reed, commander, U.S. Transportation Command, delivers a speech during the USTRANSCOM change of command ceremony on Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Oct. 4, 2024. DoD photo by Iain Page

Two New Tactically Responsive Space Missions to Demo Maneuver in Orbit

Oct. 4, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Space Force’s “Victus” series, aimed at showing the service can respond to new developments in orbit on tactically relevant timelines, gained steam Oct. 4 with the announcement of two new missions in 2026.

Victus Surgo and Victus Salo, as the new missions are called, will offer new wrinkles to the “Tactically Responsive Space” (TacRS) effort by testing a new system for maneuvering in orbit and aiming not just at low-Earth orbit but geosynchronous orbit as well.

Both missions will be focused on space domain awareness.

Space Systems Command announced it inked a $34.5 million contract with Impulse Space, a startup founded by one of the first employees of SpaceX, for the two missions.

Each mission will send a spacecraft using Impulse’s ‘Mira’ Orbital Maneuver Vehicle (OMV), a propulsion system that provides swift “last-mile delivery” to carry payloads into space. After being launched into space, the OMV helps adjust or reposition the payload. The vehicle is designed to carry the payload up through LEO, MEO, GEO, or even to cislunar space.

“We are continuing to push the boundary to prove out how to quickly deliver on the warfighters’ urgent needs,” Col. Bryon McClain, SSC’s program executive officer for Space Domain Awareness and Combat Power, said in a release.

Team Vandenberg successfully launched a space vehicle for the United States Space Force into low Earth orbit aboard Firefly’s Alpha vehicle from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-2, Sept. 14, 2023, at 7:28 p.m. PDT. U.S. Space Force photo by A1C Kadielle Shaw

Victus Surgo includes a commercial off-the-shelf optical payload—often referring to a type of imaging system—carried by the OMV. Additionally, the mission will see Impulse’s first use of its ‘Helios’ technology.

The imaging system will initially be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO)—a pathway to reach GEO. Once in GTO, the Helios will separate from the rocket and provide additional propulsion to help maneuver the spacecraft all the way up to GEO. The Helios vehicle can lift more than 5 tons of payload from LEO to GEO in less than a day, according to the company’s description.

Once in GEO, the OMV will help the optical payload readjust to its final position. The Defense Innovation Unit is co-sponsoring this mission and will add its own payload or equipment to the Helios system.

Victus Salo, on the other hand, will be launched into LEO on one of SpaceX’s rideshare rockets. It will carry a government-provided payload developed by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. SSC did not immediately provide any further information on the payload’s type or capabilities.

“Victus Surgo and Victus Salo will offer more responsive solutions to address urgent on-orbit needs,” said Lt. Col. Kahoa Miller, SSC’s materiel leader for Space Safari.

The projected launch timeframe for Surgo is “late summer/early fall of 2026,” while Salo is scheduled tentatively for the fall timeframe of 2026, an SSC spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The spokesperson added that the exact launch dates are “still being coordinated and finalized.” The project is set to be completed by no later than December 2026.

The Victus series is part of the service’s broader “Tactically Responsive Space” (TacRS) initiative, aimed at drastically reducing the time it takes to launch payloads and improve readiness in response to potential threats.

“The commercial space industry is delivering products we need to provide highly capable options for future TacRS operations,” added Miller.

Last September, the Space Force set records with Victus Nox, deploying a satellite in LEO just 27 hours after receiving launch orders. Next up is an effort Victus Haze, a dual effort that Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman wants to go even faster than Victus Nox. Budget documents have also suggested another mission, Victus Sol, after that.

Victus Surgo marks the first TacRS mission deployed into GTO, with the final destination intended for GEO, the spokesperson added.

“The collaboration with Impulse, MIT LL, and many others further enables our ability to rapidly integrate, deploy, and operate on tactically relevant timelines,” added McClain about the two newly announced Victus missions.

Impulse Space was founded in 2021 by Tom Mueller, a former SpaceX engineer known for his work on propulsion systems. Early this year, the company welcomed retired Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, former Chief of Space Operations to its board of directors.

Leidos Says New ‘Black Arrow’ Small Cruise Missile Is Ready for Flight Test

Oct. 3, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Leidos is readying its Small Cruise Missile—nicknamed “Black Arrow”–for guided flight tests out the back of an Air Force Special Operations Command AC-130 this fall, the company announced. The missile is being developed for multi-service use.

The flight testing follows successful captive carry and separation tests which were accomplished in December, 2023, Leidos said. Those tests “confirmed digital twin predictions of safe separation, benign store dynamics, and trajectory characteristics,” a company spokesperson said. The system has been integrated with the Naval Surface Weapon Center Battle Management System. Flight testing has demonstrated its operational flight software, navigation and “flight safety functionality.”

Leidos initiated the Small Cruise Missile design in 2021, building off its experience with the GBU-69 Small Glide Munition—which equips the AC-130–and X-61 Gremlins program with the Defense Advanced Projects Agency. The Gremlins program launched an air vehicle from a C-130 and also recovered it in midair.

The company signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Special Operations Command and AFSOC in 2022 to develop the SCM, intended as a “low-cost, service-common, mission-adaptable ‘delivery platform,’ designed to facilitate future spiral upgrades for both kinetic and non-kinetic missions,” the company said.

“The SCM is envisioned as service-common ‘bus’ capable of being launched from a ramp, via a pallet or conventional means,” a Leidos spokesperson said. Its modular architecture allows the adaptability to kinetic and non-kinetic applications.

The Defense Innovation Unit published a request for one-way uninhabited aerial systems earlier this week; a program seemingly targeted at vehicles that will be capable of multiple missions with different payloads. The Leidos spokesperson said “low cost” will be defined by “the quantities and subsystems” of the final product.

The experience with “rapidly fielding” the GBU-69 and demonstrating Gremlins, “as well as our focus on agility and innovation, have led to achieving important milestones with our Small Cruise Missile offering,” according to Mark Miller, Leidos senior vice president for missile and aviation solutions.

“We have…made significant investments to integrate on, and test off, the AC-130J, preparing us to proceed with further activities once the CRADA is complete.”

The company said it’s using model-based systems engineering, additive manufacturing techniques and artificial intelligence “to support the timely and cost-effective development of the SCM, which aims to provide adaptability and utility for the warfighter.

The weapon’s “modular airframe and open system architecture…accommodates distributed manufacturing for individual subsystems, which can then be rapidly assembled and tested separately before final assembly,” the company said in a press release. The approach was used on the SGM, “which has delivered over 4,000 units to date.”

Leidos’ “open architecture SCM solution is intended to integrate the best subsystem solutions, regardless of the source,” Miller said. “We believe that recognizing that subsystems and payloads will evolve with different use cases is critical, and that innovation will come from outside typical prime contractors and venture capital companies entering the market with vertically integrated solutions,” he said. This was likely a reference to Anduril Industries, which recently announced an initiative to build low-cost cruise missiles for the armed forces that can be produced “at scale” and with few tools and requiring only brief training of workers.

The Air Force has been experimenting with a number of munitions for launch from cargo aircraft, notably the Rapid Dragon tests that dropped palletized AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Missiles from the ramp area of C-130s and C-17s.

AFSOC has also explored launching several kinds of missiles that from AC-130s, either from wing stations or the cargo bay, specifically for the Special Operations mission.

Air Mobility Command sponsored a number of these initiatives with the idea of complicating an adversary’s targeting problem, requiring an opponent to treat cargo aircraft as potential shooters. But critics have said the Air Force would need all its airlift aircraft for transport in the event of a major conflict.