The Air Force Is Offering Enlisted Airmen a $10,000 Bonus to Join the Reserve

April 6, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is offering a $10,000 bonus for prior-service enlisted Airmen who join the Reserve and fill an open job in an effort to boost flagging recruiting numbers for the component.

The bonus will be available to Airmen through Sept. 30, 2023, an Air Force Reserve Command spokesman told Air & Space Forces Magazine, with the potential of it becoming a standardized recruiting incentive.

The Active-Duty Air Force’s troubles meeting its recruiting goals have been well documented, as leaders and recruiters struggle with low unemployment rates, a competitive job market, and declining eligibility and propensity to serve.

But things are even harder for the Guard and Reserve, which draw a majority of their force from Airmen leaving Active-Duty—the Reserve in particular aims for around 70 percent of its recruits to have prior service. Retention jumped during the COVID-19 pandemic and is still generally high. Fewer Airmen leaving Active-Duty means a smaller pool from which the Guard and Reserve can pull.

That all added up to the Reserve missing its fiscal year 2022 recruiting goal of 8,400 new members by nearly 2,000—around 24 percent shy, according to an Air Force release. That goal went up to 9,300 accessions for 2023, and an Air Force Reserve Command spokesman said projections have the Reserve coming up 3,500 short, roughly 38 percent, though recent trends have been more positive.

“This bonus is one of many policies and incentive adjustments to help the Air Force Reserve ensure we can recruit the quality Airmen we need to safeguard our combat readiness,” Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas, Air Force Recruiting Service commander, said in a statement. “The move is also important to encourage our Airmen separating from active service to ‘stay blue’ and continue to use their skills and training for the nation as part of the Reserve.”

In order to qualify for the bonus, Airmen must sign on for three years in the Reserve. That’s slightly shorter than required for the initial enlistment bonuses the Air Force offers for the Active-Duty component, which range from four to six years.

The Air Force expanded its use of initial enlistment bonuses several times in 2022 as recruiting struggled. Officials added another financial incentive this year by reinstating the Enlisted College Loan Repayment Program, which helps enlisted recruits pay back student debt up to $65,000.

Moore: ‘It’s Time to Move On’ from Block 20 F-22s, JATM Still on Schedule

April 6, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

It would cost a minimum of $7 billion to upgrade and operate the 32 Block 20 F-22s the Air Force is seeking to retire, money the service thinks is better applied to the Next Generation Air Dominance program. Beyond that, though, it would also take a decade to do and peel limited engineering resources away from the F-35 program, Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., vice chief of staff for plans and programs, said March 6.

Speaking at a panel hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Moore also gave a rare status report on the highly classified AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, saying a surge in future funding for the AIM-120 AMRAAM—which JATM Is supposed to replace—is only an indication that the Air Force is investing more in munitions overall, not a warning sign that JATM is in trouble.

F-22

Just to keep flying the Block 20 F-22s as they are costs the Air Force about $485 million a year, Moore said, for a price of $3.5 billion through the end of the decade. To upgrade those aircraft to Block 35 standards, though—as some in Congress have urged—would cost an additional $3.5 billion.

Such a move would be the wrong investment to make, Moore argued, given that the entire F-22 fleet will be retired in favor of NGAD around 2030. It would cost even more to keep those aircraft on par with the rest of the fleet, but Moore did not provide a specific price for that expense.

On top of price, there is a larger, practical challenge; the effort needed to upgrade the 32 airplanes “would take a decade to get started,” Moore said. “There’s a lot of engineering work that that would take.”

The engineering work is especially troublesome because Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-22 and F-35, has limited capacity, Moore said.

“Lockheed is not fully staffed for engineers,” Moore said. “So if we were to stand up an effort like this, it would be reasonable to expect they would have to pull some engineering talent off of F-35—probably that means Block 4—in order to get this accomplished. I don’t think that is a [worthwhile] trade to us.”

Moore did not mention it, but Lockheed is also almost certainly one of the companies vying to build the NGAD, which is already well along in prototyping and risk-reduction. That effort would further tax the company’s engineering corps.

Air Force budget documents show the service already plans to spend more than $9 billion upgrading its remaining F-22s through the end of the decade, equipping them with stealthy external fuel tanks to extend their range; new sensors in underwing pods; improvements to the jet’s stealthy attributes, plus communications, navigation and other upgrades.

The Air Force is also asking for more than $22 billion in its five-year defense plan for NGAD. Moore’s comments indicate the planned F-22 retirements account for about a third of NGAD funding in that time.

In March 29 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical aviation panel, Moore said the Block 20s are not “competitive” with the latest Chinese J-20 stealth fighters. And while the aircraft could be used for training, Moore said they are so out of synch with the combat-coded Block 35s that pilots are receiving “negative” training from them, meaning they have to “unlearn” habits developed in the Block 20 before they can become proficient in the Block 35.

“They’re not combat representative,” Moore added during the Mitchell event. “They will never be a part of the combat force. They don’t have the most modern communications. They don’t shoot the most modern weapons. They don’t have the most modern electronic warfare capabilities. They will not become combat representative aircraft, and so we elected to maintain our position from [fiscal year] ‘23 that it’s time to move on from the Block 20.”

Moore also told lawmakers that if USAF is directed to keep flying the Block 20s as an unfunded mandate as it was last year, it will have to “work with” Congress to figure out how it could comply.

“In the event that we are again restricted from divesting those aircraft but … the money has not been appropriated to fly them, there’ll be a half a billion dollars of something that won’t get done,” Moore said. “Perhaps it’ll be NGAD. Perhaps it’ll be munitions. Perhaps we’ll stand down the F-22 fleet. But no matter what, there’ll be a half a billion dollars worth of something that doesn’t get done unless the restriction comes with an accompanying appropriation.”

The Air Force rarely discusses which budget offsets are used to pay to particular investments, but Moore made it clear that in this case, the savings from the F-22 retirements are meant to go to NGAD.

“In order to get into the early-to-mid ‘30s with a force that can win, we have to get to a sixth-gen fighter and that’s NGAD,” Moore said.

Munitions

While the Air Force is looking to divest the F-22, one weapon slated for a funding surge is the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile funding, after appearing to wind down over several years. Moore was asked if that’s a sign the AIM-260 JATM, which is to succeed the AMRAAM, is having problems, or whether the Air Force simply seeks greater stockpiles.

“We don’t see a delay in JATM,” Moore said. “And we want to get to JATM as quickly as we possibly can.” He said the budget also includes “along with some AMRAAM investment, some facilitization money that will help us get to JATM faster. Once we can start procuring it, we’ll get to quantity as fast as we can,” he added.

Moore added that munitions production has been one of the top questions from members of Congress in this season of budget hearings, given the experience of Ukraine and the heavy drawdowns of U.S. weapons provided in aid to Kyiv.

Lawmakers want to know the Pentagon’s plans to respond to those pressures, and Moore said his reply is that the services are investing in “any munitions line that’s hot and is producing weapons right now.”

That’s not just AMRAAM, he said, “it’s any place where we can buy munitions. Because the reality is, when we tried to surge to go into Ukraine, the surge capacity wasn’t there. And industry is ramping up as quickly as they possibly can.”

To Deter Attacks in Space, US Needs Resilience—and an ‘Offensive Threat,’ Experts Say

April 6, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Space Force officials have frequently touted the young service’s need for resilience, calling for more satellites in different orbits to deter an adversary’s attack.

But in the complex calculus of deterrence, the Pentagon cannot only rely on defensive measures like proliferated architectures, experts and military leaders said April 5 at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum. The U.S. also needs offensive options, they said.

“The whole idea of proliferation, of disaggregation, is the defensive part of deterrence equation,” said retired Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, the former commander of Air Force Space Command and current explorer chair of the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence. “And history teaches that that’s never enough—witness the Maginot Line. So I think it’s part of a deterrence strategy, but that deterrence strategy also needs to have the offensive threat to signal to the adversary, to deter them from attacking.”

The Space Force’s offensive capabilities are mostly hidden behind a veil of classification—much to the chagrin of some national security observers. However, Maj. Gen. David N. Miller, director of operations, training, and force development for U.S. Space Command, said that the Pentagon is working to ensure it can respond as necessary.

“If we can’t fight through that initial salvo or whatever [an adversary’s] demonstration is, and demonstrate some level of resilience—that we’re going to be able to not just take it, but respond, then it’s not credible,” Miller said. “We will take, at the time of our choosing, whatever the response that we think appropriate. But it is not something that we’re sitting on our hands waiting for, and I want to assure Gen. Chilton that we’re getting after it. We are in a transition from a permissive force design to a warfighting force design.”

The issue of a combat-credible force postured to hold adversaries’ assets at risk is one that Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman has highlighted in both his “Lines of Effort” and his “Competitive Endurance” theory. He noted it again during a keynote address.

“A resilient force can deter attacks and, when necessary, withstand, fight through, and recover rapidly from them,” Saltzman said. “A ready force has the training, tactics, and operational concepts required to accomplish mission across the spectrum of operations—from competition to high-intensity conflict. A combat-credible force has the demonstrated ability to execute and sustain operations in the face of a determined adversary.”

In particular, Saltzman has advocated for responsible counterspace operations—the U.S. cannot have a “Pyrrhic victory” in space in which it wreaks damage that endangers its own assets. That marks a dramatic change from years past, said retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute.

“It wasn’t that long ago that you couldn’t say space and offense in the same sentence together,” Deptula said.

But tangible offensive capabilities are crucial to convincing adversaries an attack is not worth it, Chilton argued.

“The adversary has got to doubt that they can effectively take out all the capabilities that our joint force relies to conduct operations,” Chilton said. “They have to doubt that they can achieve that, they have to doubt that they can blind our operational level from a tactical level and cut off their communications. And they must also believe that we have the capability and the will, and it would be best if we could demonstrate that, to hold immediately their space architecture at risk that they depend on to maintain control of their forces.”

What exactly those capabilities are will likely remain unknown to the public for now. At the AFA Warfare Symposium last month, Saltzman told reporters he is “comfortable” with the Space Force’s current level of public disclosure.

“I think we have the ability to deter and show enough capability through resiliency to disincentivize the attacks,” Saltzman said. “The idea of reveal and conceal—that’s almost a way of saying, ‘If an adversary is not paying attention to you, are they deterred by you?’ You can talk yourself into a lot of circles about, ‘If I don’t know there’s a capability, will that deter me from something?’ That’s not how we need to talk about deterrence in space. I think I can set the conditions that make any attack into space impractical, non-mission-impacting, self-defeating to some degree.”

NATO Air Exercise Will Offer Germany ‘High Value’ Lessons on F-35 Operations, Luftwaffe Boss Says

April 5, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md.—The head of the Luftwaffe arrived in the U.S. this week to strengthen cooperation with the U.S. Air National Guard and its F-35s before a massive German-led exercise that is to take place in June to underscore the defense of NATO.

“It’s going to be high value,” Chief of the German Air Force Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said of his military’s opportunity to learn about the fifth-generation fighter during the upcoming Air Defender 23 exercise.

Germany inked a roughly $9 billion deal for 35 F-35s in December 2022. Gerhartz said the Luftwaffe will begin training on F-35s in the United States in 2026 and operating the jets in Germany in 2027.

Arms sales to Europe have spiked since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, and one of the platforms seeing an uptick is the F-35, the multi-role stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin. Germany, Finland, and Switzerland all signed deals for the jets in 2022.

The F-35 deal will enable the Luftwaffe to replace its aging Tornado fleet. In wartime, German F-35s might even be equipped with U.S. nuclear bombs under NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangement.

In the meantime, the Air National Guard will send six F-35s to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany for the Air Defender exercise, which will help the Germans get a head start in familiarizing themselves with the aircraft.

All told, around 220 NATO aircraft will participate in the exercise, which will run from June 12-23. The Luftwaffe plans to have around 60 aircraft participate, including fighters and tankers.

Modernizing the German Air Force has been a high priority for Gerhartz, who assumed his command in 2018. Gerhartz has flown F-4s, MiG-29s, Tornados, and Eurofighter Typhoons. During the conflict in Afghanistan, he flew more than 50 ISAF sorties in Tornados. His official biography states that he has worked to foster German-Israeli ties, which included joint flyovers over the Israeli parliament in 2021.

Gerhartz said the upcoming exercise will provide a learning opportunity for his airmen.

“We can, first of all, connect the legacy fleet of Eurofighter Typhoons with the F-35,” Gerhartz said. “Let’s see, okay, what is the challenge of operating the F-35? So we are, right now, on the learning side to see how the F- 35 is integrated.”

Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh, the director of the Air National Guard, said that the ANG has already been passing on lessons to the Germans.

Air National Director Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh and Chief of the German Air Force Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz walk the flightline at Joint Base Andrews, Md. Photo by Chris Gordon/Air & Space Forces Magazine

The first Guard unit to operate the F-35 was the 158th Fighter Wing out of Burlington, Vt. That unit will be the one heading to Germany for the June exercise and was previously deployed to Spangdahlem last spring to bolster NATO’s eastern flank.

“When you look at a Guard location, it’s not like a big Active-Duty base,” Loh said. “Same thing when you look at a German base.

“So all the lessons learned: here’s the footprint for the simulators, here’s a footprint for the F-35 and for the shelters, and everything else like that, we’ve shared all that data,” Loh added.

Gerhartz and Loh toured the Andrews flightline April 5, which was filled with U.S. assets that will be heading to Germany including F-16s, F-15s, A-10s, MQ-9s, C-17s, C-130s, KC-135s, and KC-46s. Two fighters roared overhead before touching down at the base. A few minutes later, a pair of Vermont ANG F-35s taxied and parked in front of the two generals.

“It’s good for us,” Gerhartz said.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated April 11 to clarify Germany’s role in the organization of Air Defender.

It’s Official: The Re-Engined B-52 Will be the B-52J

April 5, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Once they receive their new Rolls Royce F130 engines, B-52Hs will become B-52Js, according to the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget documents.

The designation resolves a question that had been debated for several years, as the B-52 undergoes some of the most significant improvements in the H model’s 61-year service life.

“Any B-52H aircraft modified with the new commercial engines and associated subsystems are designated as B-52J,” the Air Force said in justification documents for its 2024 budget request.

The service had been considering various designations for the improved Stratofortress, because in addition to new engines, the B-52 will also be receiving a new radar, as well as new communications and navigation equipment and weapons, among other improvements intended to keep it credible and capable through the 2050s.

Given the number of major changes, Global Strike Command had considered using interim designations—“J” model aircraft would have then become B-52Ks.

One of the improved weapons the B-52 was supposed to get was the hypersonic AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), but in the 2024 budget, the Air Force said it’s moving to “close out” the program after a couple more tests and shift its emphasis to the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM).

The B-52 re-engining project name has also evolved from the Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) to CERP RVP, for Rapid Virtual Prototyping, the Air Force said in its budget request.

The re-engining effort was launched as a mid-tier acquisition in order to save time and get capability sooner. The program will become a Major Capability Acquisition at the end of the RVP effort, the Air Force said.

The upgrades will also open the door to other changes, USAF noted.

“As B-52 CERP brings additional capability to the B-52, emerging security/certification requirements (nuclear hardening, cyber security, program protection, etc.) will also need to be addressed. Several concurrent aircraft upgrades during the B-52 CERP may necessitate temporary facilities or facility upgrades/ modifications.”

The Air Force is asking for nearly $3 billion in B-52 procurement across the future years defense plan, starting with a modest $65.82 million in 2024 but ramping up to over $1.1 billion each in 2027 and 2028.

Of the overall amount, the Radar Modernization Program alone claims $845.9 million, peaking in ’27 at $271.95 million. Separately—not included in the procurement account—research, development, test, and evaluation associated with the Radar Modernization Program is requested at $371 million, ending in 2026. The RMP procurement funding is to procure 74 radar kits, three training systems kits, and two engineering and manufacturing development kits.

The new radar is a variant of the Raytheon AN/APG-79, an active, electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar used on the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter. It replaces the APG-166, which the Air Force says suffers from severe “vanishing vendor” issues and parts problems that will make the radar “unsupportable” before 2030.

Besides a dramatic improvement in maintainability, the AESA will add significant new capabilities in search, ground mapping, and electronic warfare. The new radar’s physical footprint is also much smaller than the system it replaces, creating growth capacity in the front of the aircraft. The B-52’s nose-mounted electro-optical blisters will be removed and a new radome installed with the new radar.

The re-engining program is funded for $2.56 billion, all in the RDT&E budget, peaking at $650.5 million in 2025. The program seeks to replace the original-equipment Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines with Rolls Royce F130s. The change is expected to eventually pay for itself through 30 percent better fuel efficiency and elimination of engine overhauls, as the F130 will not need an overhaul for the duration of its expected life on the B-52 wing.

“Along with the new engines, CERP will replace associated subsystems, such as engine struts and nacelles, the electrical power generation system, and cockpit displays,” the Air Force said. “The development, production and installation of new engines and related subsystems will replace the legacy equipment on all 76 B-52H aircraft.”

Including monies expended so far, the total cost of the B-52 CERP Middle Tier of Acquisition effort will be $1.32 billion, including RDT&E, the Air Force said.

The Air Force expects B-52Js with both new engines and new radars to be available for operational use before the end of the decade.

SDA’s Tournear ‘Just Not’ Afraid of Satellite Shootdowns. Supply Chain Is the Greater Worry.

April 5, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

As the Space Development Agency celebrates the successful first launch of its planned constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, director Derek M. Tournear says he’s no longer concerned about China or Russia trying to shoot U.S. satellites down.

“I’m not worried about any physical threats to the satellites themselves. I’m just not,” Tournear said April 5 at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum.

By deploying hundreds of satellites in SDA’s new Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, the Space Force is recalculating the economics of space warfare. SDA’s initial batch of PWSA satellites, dubbed Tranche 0, will number just 28. But close on its heals will be Tranche 1 with more than 150 satellites and Tranche 2 with more than 250. Tranche 1 launches are set to begin in the fall of 2024, and Tranche 2 will follow in 2026.

“We’ll have hundreds and hundreds of these satellites up there,” Tournear said. “It will cost more to shoot down a single satellite than it will cost to build that single satellite. We just completely changed that value equation.”

Replacing a space architecture built of massively expensive bespoke satellites with one assembled from numerous relatively cheap satellites, SDA and Tournear aim to convince adversaries that the math is no longer in their favor, rendering essentially useless China’s and Russia’s direct-ascent weapons. In theory, at least, such strikes effectively become as great a threat to the perpetrator’s satellites because of the debris that they would generate as to the U.S. satellites they might seek to shoot down.

Cost

For the U.S. strategy to work, SDA must hold down satellite and launch costs while driving increased performance. Tournear said SDA aims for a per-satellite cost under $15 million.

“I’m counting on internal investments in industry to help push this forward,” Tournear said. “My goal is just like the cell phone model—we will keep the price of the satellites to the government essentially flat. Just like your cell phone has a certain fixed price … But the capabilities will continue to advance. So for that same price, every tranche will give you more and more capabilities for the same price. That’s kind of the model, just like the cell phone. Basically, the price is flat, but each new model has more and more capabilities.”

Numbers

The value equation also depends on SDA continuing to put hundreds of active satellites into orbit. Its first Tranche 0 launch this past weekend is a start, but Tournear aims to develop subsequent generations in parallel, similar to the way commercial technology products are developed. He’s already looking to Tranche 1 and Tranche 2, even before he completes Traunche 0.

Tranche 1 contracts for 126 data transport satellites and 35 missile tracking satellites are already signed, as are orders for 12 satellites in the Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation System. Tournear confirmed that Tranche 1 launches are slated to start in September 2024, with monthly launches to follow.

Expanding on initial projections that Tranche 2 would consist of a 250-satellite Transport Layer and a 50-satellite Tracking Layer, Tournear said April 5 that the Tranche 2 data transport layer will be split three ways:

100 Alpha satellites, similar to those in the Tranche 1 Transport Layer

72 Beta satellites with ultra-high-frequency and tactical communications payloads

44 Gamma satellites, carrying “advanced waveform” payloads

SDA will issue a request for proposals for the Beta satellites “next week,” Tournear said, with RFPs for the Alpha and Gamma satellites to follow in late 2023 or early 2024.

Tournear was thin on details about the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer, saying requirements are still being developed by SDA’s Warfighter Council. But he suggested it will encompass “on the order of 54” satellites and said an industry solicitation is likely in between the Alpha and Gamma RFPs.

Threats

Looking ahead, Tournear said he is confident SDA’s plan will deter physical attacks on U.S. satellites, but he remains concerned by “common mode failures”—problems or threats that could affect the entire constellation.

“You can’t proliferate your way out of common mode failures,” he said.

The two threats in particular: cybersecurity and breaches of the supply chain.

Defense officials have increasingly voiced concerns about cyber vulnerabilities in space, including by means of ground stations which had not previously been seen as lucrative targets. But Tournear said SDA is now taking steps to ensure those architectures are also secure.

“That’s why we have a lot of protections and constraints in place on our contracts that aren’t typical on what you would call a commercial, commoditized procurement,” Tournear said. “We put some requirements in it.”

Satellite supply chains are also of concern. Supply chains in general garnered far greater attention as a result of weaknesses exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because breaches at the chip or component level are so difficult to, making the supply chain vulnerable to the likes of China.

Tournear said both problems concern him. “One is just your benign supply chain problems—can we really build these satellites this quickly?” Tournear said. “And we’re building up industry, so yes, we can, so we’re kind of keeping down that supply chain risk. The second one is more the nefarious supply chain [issue], and that’s the actual interdiction by a nefarious actor into a supply chain,” he continued. “We actually put a lot of protections in place in our contracts so that we can evaluate and make sure that we have nondestructive testing in place to detect that.”

Space Force Looks to Build Ties with More Combatant Commands—Like CYBERCOM and SOCOM

April 5, 2023 | By David Roza

Three years after its initial launch, the Space Force is increasing its integration with the joint force by building relationships and standing up components within more and more U.S. combatant commands, top generals said April 5 at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum.

Already, the service established components under U.S. Central Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and its subcomponent, U.S. Forces Korea, late last year. Now, leaders are working to establish a component within U.S. European Command—and U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Special Operations Command could potentially follow.

Lt. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, the deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, said these steps are part of the Space Force’s process of “normalizing” as a service.

“Every service presents service components to combatant commanders in order to present forces, to be part of the planning, and to deal with that service’s very specific mission and business and to talk to those threats,” Burt said in a panel discussion.

When the Space Force has a presence at combatant commands, it allows Guardians “to do security assistance and security operation, and talk space with our coalition and allied partners by being at the table in all of those meetings with the combatant commands in each of the theaters,” Burt said.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman made a similar point in an earlier keynote.

“Strong relationships with combatant commands are critical to our success,” he said. “We will use the service component model to strengthen space integration in all the combatant commands.”

In particular, the Space Force enjoys a “very tight relationship” with both SOCOM and CYBERCOM, Burt said. Those ties are only natural, given how much space, cyber, and special operations depend on each other, suggested Maj. Gen. David N. Miller, director of operations training and force development at U.S. Space Command.

“It’d be a disservice for the Space Force to only talk with the Space Force,” Miller said in a separate panel. “I spend more time with the CYBERCOM and SOCOM J3s [operations than almost any other J3 … and it’s because of the partnerships that are being developed.”

Burt said a Space Force presence at EUCOM is “on the horizon” and that both CYBERCOM and SOCOM were also interested, “so we’re working through the mission analysis of what those look like.”

However, she also cautioned the small Space Force has to be strategic about its growth plan.

“I can’t grow to the point that I can’t execute,” she said. “And so I want to make sure that we have the right resources, we’re getting them the right personnel, we have all the right players in the right places to do the mission.”

Burt likened the task to changing the engine out of a car while driving it. The Space Force “had to keep delivering space capabilities, because the entire joint force and our way of life depends upon it. … Adding these components is now taking us to the next level to deepen that relationship with each of the combatant commands personally and get after their specific problems or challenges in each of their [areas of responsibility].”

Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of CENTCOM, voiced a similar opinion when the Space Force stood up a component there late last year.

“Space underpins every element of warfighting in the CENTCOM region,” he said in a press release at the time. “Today’s ceremony catches us up to the reality of history: since the Cold War, space has ceased to be a sanctuary. It is no longer solely the realm of progress and peace. Space is now a domain of conquest, conflict, and—for us—cooperation.”

Lockheed Martin Looks to Boost LRASM Production as US Rushes to Buy Anti-Ship Weapons

April 4, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Lockheed Martin has opened a second production line to make two of the Pentagon’s most in-demand weapons: the LRASM anti-ship cruise missile and the JASSM-ER air-to-surface variant.

Wargames have shown the utility of the missiles in countering a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The problem is that the simulations also show that the stocks of AGM-158C LRASM and JASSM-ER from which it is adapted would be quickly expended in a conflict, putting pressure on the services to boost their modest inventories.

“I think one of the most glaring gaps in our portfolio is anti-ship weapons, especially air-launched ones, and LRASMs are particularly important since it gives you the ability to attack from standoff,” Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“For several decades, we got out of the ship-killing business,” Pettyjohn added. “You actually do have to invest resources in it.”

Department of Defense documents outlining its latest budget request stressed that its goal is to “maximize” its procurement of LRASM.

Right now, Lockheed Martin is producing north of 500 LRASMs and JASSMs a year for the U.S. military, and the defense giant says it is working to increase its current capacity so that it can produce roughly 1,000 LRASMs and JASSMs per year. To do so, the new Lockheed Martin facility has increased automation and made other improvements compared with the original production line, both of which are located in Troy, Ala.

“We were able to quickly bring the production line up to speed in order to meet the orders we’ve committed to our U.S. military partners,” Dom DeScisciolo, the LRASM business development lead at Lockheed Martin, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The DOD has placed “quite a requirement on Lockheed to increase that production rate substantially,” DeScisciolo said in earlier remarks April 3 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Md.

The Air Force has mapped up an ambitious long-term plan to acquire LRASMs. The Air Force budget calls for buying just 27 of the missiles in fiscal 2024, with the Navy requesting 91. But the Air Force wants a multiyear procurement contract for LRASMs that would stretch to 2028. That would more than quadruple USAF yearly buys for around 380 additional LRASMs.

The U.S. military’s shift to the Pacific is the main reason for the focus on anti-ship weapons. But the lessons from Ukraine also loom large. Kyiv has been bolstered by massive munitions donations from the U.S. and Western allies, straining U.S. supplies.

“There is no constituency to support munitions during peacetime,” said retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “I think Ukraine has kind of shaken the dust out of peoples’ eyes.”

But earlier conflicts also showed the need to maintain large munitions stocks. When the U.S. fought ISIS in Operational Inherent Resolve, it used an enormous quantity of precision-guided ordnance. A 2021 RAND report assessed that 115,983 weapons, mostly precision-guided munitions, were released in coalition airstrikes, and led to shortfalls in U.S. stocks of JDAM guided bombs and Hellfire missiles.

LRASMs and JASSMs have many common components and are made on the same production lines. “As the missiles come down the production line some are earmarked as LRASM, some are earmarked as JASSM,” DeScisciolo said. “They’re all sequenced through based on the demand of the customer.”

Lockheed Martin is now exploring using HIMARS mobile-missile launchers to launch LRASMs. The HIMARS launchers have been an enormous asset for Ukraine, which has used them to conduct so-called “shoot and scoot” precision fires against their Russian adversary.

“The concept of coupling the unique lethality and range of LRASM with the survivability of the combat-proven HIMARS for a ground-launch variant provides a powerful combination deployable in a variety of scenarios, including conventional and asymmetric warfare,” DeScisciolo said.

The company is also looking at other “next-generation” LRASM capabilities, he added. Lockheed Martin hopes to make LRASMs work with more aircraft too. Right now, the only aircraft that can launch the weapon are Air Force B-1 Lancer bombers and Navy F-18 Super Hornet fighters. But Lockheed Martin and the military are working on integrating LRASMs with the multi-service F-35 Lightning II fighter and the Navy’s P-8 Poseidon.

Deptula and Pettyjohn said that strengthening deterrence against China does not depend on a single missile and that cheaper and more diverse options are also important. LRASMs cost upwards of $3 million per missile, according to budget documents.

“We do need to find ways to buy larger quantities of more affordable weapons,” Pettyjohn said.

B-52s Land on Guam for Latest Bomber Task Force Deployment

April 4, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force continues to BUFF up its presence in the Pacific.

Four B-52 bombers and more than 200 Airmen from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., arrived at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam on March 30 to kick off the service’s latest Bomber Task Force deployment in the Indo-Pacific.

The aircraft and personnel are part of the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron. While deployed to Andersen, they will participate in training exercises and missions with other services, as well as allies and partners, Pacific Air Forces announced in a release.

“The bomber task force, and specifically the B-52s in the Indo-Pacific region, not only allows our crew force to hone their superior technical and weapons system expertise, but also sends an extremely important message,” Lt. Col. Vanessa Wilcox, commander of the 96th Bomb Squadron, said in a statement. “It demonstrates our continued readiness and commitment to our allies in the region to ensure freedom of movement now and in the future, as well as ensures stability in the region.”

The B-52s’ arrival comes a little less than a month after the end of the last Bomber Task Force rotation at Guam—B-1s and personnel from the 34th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron returned home to Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., on March 5.

USAF bombers have been active in the Indo-Pacific region since the start of 2023, particularly around the Korean Peninsula as part of the Pentagon’s commitment to expand exercises and cooperation with South Korea, officially known as the Republic of Korea, in response to increased missile tests and threats from North Korea.

B-1s have flown with South Korean fighters four times since the start of February, and B-52s also flew over South Korea with ROK aircraft in early March.

In addition to the Pacific, B-52s have conducted Bomber Task Force missions in both the Middle East and Europe this year, though in both cases, the bombers were from Minot Air Force Base, N.D. This latest deployment to Guam marks the first BTF for Barksdale aircraft and Airmen in 2023, though the base did send B-52s to Andersen for a quick three-day Bomber Task Force mission in late December.