US Space Command Boss Wants China to Pick Up the Phone When It Creates Space Debris

Aug. 29, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The head of U.S. Space Command hopes the next time China launches a rocket that leaves behind long-lived space debris, Beijing will give Washington a heads-up, rather than leaving the U.S. to discover the orbital mess on its own.

Speaking at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event held at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., on Aug 28, Gen. Stephen N. Whiting referenced two recent incidents involving Chinese space debris as cause for concern and better communication moving forward.

“We have just seen the launch of their version of a Helio constellation that left 300 plus pieces of debris on orbit—a Long March 6A,” Whiting said. “Less than two years ago, they had another one, it put over 500 pieces of long-lived debris. … I hope next time there’s a rocket like that, that leaves a lot of debris, it’s not our sensors that are the first to detect that, but we’re getting communications that help us understand that, just like we communicate with others.”

The most recent incident involving a Long March 6A rocket took place earlier this month, when the launch vehicle carried the first 18 satellites for a planned communications constellation to rival Starlink. The rocket broke apart in low-Earth orbit (LEO) days later, spreading debris and raising concerns among experts. A private space tracking company reported that the breakup potentially produced more than 900 debris fragments.

A Long March 6 modified rocket. Photo from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation

Whiting noted that the debris originated from the rocket’s upper stage after the satellites were released, indicating the mission was “overall successful.” However, higher altitudes mean the debris will remain in orbit longer.

“We certainly don’t want to see that kind of debris,” added Whiting.

Debris in orbits below 600 kilometers (373 miles) usually re-enters Earth within a few years, while at 800 km, it might take centuries to decay. With more and more satellites in LEO and long-lived debris from careless launches, the odds of collisions keep climbing.

According to retired Gen. Kevin Chilton, Explorer Chair at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Center of Excellence, the U.S. once faced similar issues with high-altitude debris but began venting fuel and gases from rocket stages before they enter orbit. This practice reduced debris and the risk of breakup, and Russia adopted it soon after. Whiting said it is currently unknown whether China is using this method.

“For decades now, the U.S. has so cared about the space domain that we have made available the vast majority of the tracking data that we have, free for the world,” said Whiting. “Every day, we screen every active satellite against all that debris, and we provide notifications out to everyone, including the Chinese and the Russians… because we don’t want satellites to run into pieces of debris and create more debris.”

The rapid development of counterspace capabilities and the surge in satellite deployments by China and Russia continue to be a major concern for how the U.S. does space domain awareness. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein noted that these countries’ recent actions demonstrate their intent to operate in an unsafe manner in the domain.

“They are creating a lot of debris and orbit that we’re having to fly around, or putting things like the International Space Station at risk,” Guetlein said at the AFCEA/INSA Intelligence and National Security Summit in Rockville, Md., on Aug 28. “Not even having a concern for the safety of their own cosmonauts, if that is not unsafe and unprofessional, I don’t know what is.”

In November 2021, Russia conducted an anti-satellite missile test that created a large amount of debris in low-Earth orbit, posing a risk to the International Space Station and prompting precautionary measures from the crew. In addition, Moscow also experienced a series of coolant leaks on its spacecraft in recent years. While there are no scheduled talks with Russia on space development, hopes are high for more active communication with Beijing on domain warnings.

“We provide these notifications to the Chinese, and over the last year, we’ve seen a couple times that they’ve given us a few notifications back, I think that’s positive,” said Whiting. “We do not have any talks with Russia planned.”

Space Force No. 2 Says There Is Risk of China or Russia Launching Large-Scale Attack in Orbit

Aug. 28, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

ROCKVILLE, Md.—China and Russia have been monitoring U.S. efforts to protect its space assets and are trying to devise ways to counter them, to include a potential large-scale attack, the Space Force’s No. 2 officer said Aug. 28.

The Space Force and the Department of Defense have turned to proliferated constellations to make the U.S. satellites less vulnerable to attack and say the U.S. remains ahead in space.

“Proliferation means I’m now spreading out orbitology across multiple different orbits, so that they can’t just take out one satellite; they have to take out a bunch of satellites,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein said at the AFCEA/INSA Intelligence and National Security Summit. “Then through proliferation, we’re partnering with other entities to get just more assets on orbit. That is a significant investment for the United States Space Force.”

But when asked if even disaggregated satellites would be at risk of a “large-scale” attack, Guetlein did not hesitate.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“How is to be determined, what the impact of it is to be determined,” Guetlein said, referring to such an attack. “But they are watching what’s going on in places like Ukraine and Gaza, and they are understanding how the world has become dependent upon space. They’re understanding the impact of those disaggregated architectures, and they are actively working on how to counter that capability.”

Russia has apparently not only been monitoring U.S. assets in space but has also been keeping close tabs on American space officials. On Aug. 28, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement announcing it has permanently banned Guetlein, along with 91 other individuals, from visiting Russia because of the “Biden administration’s Russophobic policy.” Other people banned included Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, the head of U.S. Space Command; Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant, the head of Space Systems Command; and former Pentagon space policy chief John Plumb.

U.S. officials have said that Russia is developing a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon, among other capabilities.

While the Space Force is facing increasing threats, it is also dealing a flat budget of $30 billion—a slight decrease when accounting for inflation. “That may sound like a lot, but that’s a drop in the bucket,” Guetlein said. “That’s an enormous amount of heavy lift the nation is getting for three and a half percent of the DOD budget.”

The Space Force’s No. 2 officer said the budgetary constraints are preventing the service from addressing “some of the additional mission areas that we think we need to get after.”

When it comes to countering future Chinese or Russian threats, Gutlein said he was hopeful the soon-to-be-established Space Futures Command would help the Space Force field a more resilient force.

“What we’re hoping comes out of Space Futures Command is what we call the ‘objective architecture,’” Guetlein said. “That’s the architecture that we want tomorrow to look like. What that does for you is it defines your risk, because the difference between your objective architecture and your fielded architecture is the risk that you’re accepting today, and the difference between your objective architecture and the architecture that you have funded is the risk that you’re accepting in your current budget. So that really now starts to define where can we go as a Space Force.”

The threat is not just to American military assets but to the broad U.S. economy as well, he added. Guetlein cited a study that he said found the loss of GPS—which is operated by the Space Force—for even just 15 minutes would cause over a billion dollars in economic damage.

While the U.S. has pledged not to test any direct-ascent kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, the Pentagon is developing counterspace capabilities to stay ahead of China and Russia.

“What has become abundantly clear to us is that the adversary has been watching us for the past 20-plus years and the way we operate,” Guetlein said. “They’ve been studying the way our economy works, our way of life, and they have not only become very intent on denying our ability to use space, but they’ve become very capable at it as well. And that … should be enough of an alarm that we all start paying attention.”

What Happens When Recon Airmen Command and Control a Fighter Exercise?

Aug. 28, 2024 | By David Roza

The 9th Reconnaissance Wing has more than 60 years of experience gathering intelligence from the air, but two military exercises earlier this month saw Airmen from the wing do something completely different: command and control fighter and transport aircraft as part of a massive exercise across the western U.S.

“I brought a bunch of reconnaissance Airmen into a situation where they are being asked to think like a fighter wing or a mobility wing,” said Col. Keagan L. McLeese, commander of the 9th RW, which acted as the 9th Air Expeditionary Wing at the exercises. “It’s so far outside the box … that’s the point of the exercise, find our failings and learn from them.”

Known as Bamboo Eagle and Agile Flag, the exercises forced Airmen to project airpower from unfamiliar, unequipped airfields across the West Coast. That meant air and ground crews for fighter and bomber aircraft had to work closer than ever with mobility aircraft and support staff in order to stand up airfields, then quickly relocate if targeted by a simulated missile strike.

“Traditionally a Red Flag or a Red Flag-like exercise stresses aircraft, aircrew, maintainers, and flightline-adjacent capabilities like munitions, fuels, avionics, et cetera,” Lt. Gen. Adrian L. Spain, deputy chief of staff for operations, said at an Aug. 1 media roundtable.

Bamboo Eagle, by contrast, “is designed to stress the entire ecosystem,” he said. “From all the support forces up to and including a wing commander and their staff in their ability to command and control a wide array of force elements under their command across dispersed locations.”

9th Reconnaissance Wing finance, personnel, and contracting specialists collaborate on a project during exercise AGILE FLAG 24-3 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, Aug. 2, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Shaei Rodriguez)

Making that happen fell to the command and control force elements (C2FEs). The C2FEs made sure the mission generation force elements (MGFEs)—in this case, the fighters, bombers, and their maintainers—had the guidance, food, supplies, and other equipment they needed to accomplish their mission.

Both C2FEs and MGFEs are part of the new Air Force Force Generation Model, a system where standardized force elements are available at regular intervals so joint force commanders can recognize and easily integrate the elements into their operations.

“The idea is that you can take any wing, ask them to deploy, and then they can integrate and work with any other unit and still provide that care, feeding, and guidance to enable that unit to go execute,” said Maj. Caleb, who served as the director of operations for the 9th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bamboo Eagle. A reconnaissance pilot, his last name was withheld for security reasons.

But part of being interoperable is knowing who to operate with, and that’s a change for new C2FEs like the 9th Reconnaissance Wing Airmen.

“It was really new working with that Mobility Air Force, because I didn’t have any idea of how an actual resupply of either personnel or equipment actually worked,” said Caleb. “I just knew that at some point, a C-130 or a C-17 would show up at the base and it would have our equipment, or it would have our replacements.”

But at Bamboo Eagle, Caleb and his colleagues at the C2FE had to contend with the nitty-gritty that makes airpower possible: are the bomb carts and power generators loaded properly so that C-17s can safely fly them to a spoke? Once it gets there, are there enough forklifts to quickly download cargo before the C-17 can be targeted by a missile? If the spoke is targeted, how do Airmen request C-130s to take them and their equipment to a new one?

Answering those questions often means knowing who to talk to. For example, there are organizational emails to contact for requesting mobility aircraft, but there are separate processes for requesting C-130s versus C-17s. And if it has to get done fast, it helps to know who to call.

“I can email this org box, and someone will eventually see it and get to it,” Caleb said. “But who is on the other line that I can actually call and talk to another human and say, ‘Hey, this is the urgency or priority that I need for them to understand’ and they say, ‘OK, awesome. Let me process that for you.’”

The scale of Bamboo Eagle proved a challenge even for more experienced hands. While the 9th Air Expeditionary Wing provided command and control for a group of “hub and spoke” airfields from its temporary headquarters at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the 23rd Wing performed the same task for a separate group of hubs and spokes from its temporary headquarters at the Mojave Air and Space Port about a 30-minute drive west of Edwards.

Maj. David Tipton, the operations director for the 23rd Wing at Bamboo Eagle, said that as a rescue and attack unit with its own HC-130s, the 23rd has some experience working with mobility assets and knowing what they need. But the size and speed of Bamboo Eagle was something else.

“The Air Force has been doing mobility logistics for a really long time,” Tipton said. “What we’re doing here is trying to abbreviate the timeline so that we can very quickly enable logistics over such a long distance without impacting the fight. What used to take a few days, we’re trying to do in a matter of hours so we can keep generating combat airpower.”

Indeed, Caleb recalled having to direct two C-130s to fly maintainers and equipment to an austere airfield so they could refuel and rearm a pair of F-22s waiting there; get the F-22s off to the next base so they could swap pilots in time for their next mission; then move the maintainers and gear to their next mission, all while balancing the air crews’ limited duty days and getting it all done with just 24 to 36 hours’ notice.

“If you had asked me to do that a week, two weeks before Bamboo Eagle, I would have given you a blank stare. I would not have known what to do,” Caleb said. “But learning through Bamboo Eagle and Agile Flag taught me who to talk to, where to look, who to work with in order to accomplish these overarching goals that the Air Force needs us to be able to execute.”

An Airman assigned to the 94th Fighter Generation Squadron prepares to taxi a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron during exercise Bamboo Eagle 24-3 at March Air Reserve Base, California, Aug. 8, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Benjamin Aronson)

And it was not as if a C2FE could focus on one movement at a time; in the vast scale of Bamboo Eagle, planners had to juggle multiple priorities and contingencies. As the F-22 process unfolded, a real-world crisis emerged when the generator for an MGFE died, leaving the Airmen in 105-degree heat without electricity to cool their tents or purify their water.

That meant Caleb and his colleagues had to find out how much water the Airmen had left, calculate how long that would last in the heat, and how to get the generator fixed as soon as possible. They managed to find the right contractors to get the generators back online within about six hours, but the emergency made the exercise a very real experience.

“Man, for those six hours, it was stressful,” Caleb said. “It ended up working out really well, but it was one of those things where we’re dealing with a real-world concern, and then on top of that we also need to coordinate for this movement to happen.”

Running into those uncomfortable moments and still finding a way to accomplish the mission was part of the goal for Bamboo Eagle and Agile Flag, explained Chief Master Sgt. Steven G. Creek, command chief master sergeant for the 9th Reconnaissance Wing.

“It really has them run through some problem-solving techniques and challenges that they’ve probably never had to run through in their career,” he said. “That’s kind of the beauty of an exercise like this: it’s designed to make people uncomfortable, take them out of their traditional wheelhouse and put them in situations that we hope that they’re going to be able to overcome.”

Better to figure it out now than in an actual conflict, Creek added. In fact, part of the training was to make leaders practice weighing risk as if they were in an actual conflict. Caleb recalled moments where commanders had to decide between moving or sheltering their troops from an incoming missile attack or having them launch aircraft for a vital mission.

“How much risk are you willing to accept? Because at the end of the day, during wartime, we are still going to need to launch aircraft,” he explained. Plenty of exercises simulate risk for air crews, partly since flying is inherently dangerous, he said, but rarely does that simulated risk extend to ground crews.

“I think in a lot of exercises, you rarely get to put a commander in a position where he or she is accepting the risk of loss of life for their men,” Caleb said.

Airmen with the 9th Reconnaissance Wing Force Support Squadron run to seek hardened shelter during exercise AGILE FLAG 24-3, an Agile Combat Employment exercise, at March Air Reserve Base, California, August 6, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Ivy Thomas)

Bamboo Eagle has ended, but the training continues for the 9th Reconnaissance Wing back at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. The size of Beale lets Airmen practice leading notional MGFEs, albeit at a smaller scale than earlier this month, Caleb explained.

The shift to MGFEs and C2FEs is part of a larger concept called Agile Combat Employment, where the Air Force works out of small, scattered air bases instead of large ones that present juicy targets for long-range missiles. But that concept does not work without Airmen stepping outside their usual job specialties to help out with whatever the mission requires. At Bamboo Eagle, Caleb saw that in spades.

“It was really awesome seeing Airmen at every level being empowered to be problem solvers,” he said. “When things like the water situation happened, it didn’t matter who had a good idea or what rank that good idea came from. If it was a good idea, we were going to go with it, because the purpose is to keep our personnel and our equipment safe and sustained.”

It was a hot, unpredictable, and often stressful experience, but it was also the kind of meaningful adventure many people hope for when they join the Air Force, McLeese pointed out.

“When you’re a kid and you’re thinking about joining the military, you kind of think about living in a tent and roughing it a little bit in order to do combat operations,” he said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing here … and that’s why you see smiles on their faces, because you’re actually getting to do what you came into the service to do.”

Study Contracts for CCA Engines Will Help Air Force Explore the ‘Art of the Possible’

Aug. 28, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is getting ready to award $10 million worth of study contracts for engines that could power later versions of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, but has not yet nailed down performance specifications, service engine officials said last month. They are continuing to take the pulse of industry for innovative solutions that will meet CCA propulsion needs for the long-term.

“Our intention is to award those propulsion studies here in the near future, and then continue to refine that, find that way,” John Sneden, director of the Air Force propulsion directorate, said at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference in Dayton, Ohio, at the end of July. He didn’t specify when the awards would be made. The Air Force has not disclosed previous contract awardees for CCA elements, such as for autonomy, to maintain security.

The study tender was released July 18 and responses were due Aug. 2. It did not specify how many respondents would be picked to split the $10 million in research money.

While the contractors for the first increment of CCA—Anduril and General Atomics—have engines as part of their offerings, the Air Force continues to reach out to industry “to see what is available for the second increment,” Sneden said.

“The final requirements are still in a state of evolution,” he said. The requirements will dictate the thrust and class of engine needed, and USAF “is just going to really assess what is in the art of the possible … so we can inform the propulsion way ahead.” But he emphasized that the service is “not locked into any specific thrust class right now and trying to stay open.”

That openness corresponds to a wide playing field in industry across thrust classes, Sneden said, with many options that could conceivably provide a winning solution or be part of one.

“We’re not in a place where we’re really kicking anybody out,” he said.

The Air Force will “go through the prototype study evaluation, in the 2025 time frame, and then start … getting into next steps and their prototyping. But again, that’s all going to be a function of where the program gets taken and how much funding” is available, Sneden said.

The Air Force held an industry day in June to talk with suppliers about what they can offer for CCA propulsion.

Last year, the service released a request for information that specified engines in the 3,000-8,000 pounds of thrust class, but that shouldn’t be construed as a final requirement, Sneden said. That RFI was “basically looking at: what can the industrial base do for us?”

Moving forward, the propulsion directorate is “looking at what technology options we have at three years, at five years and seven years.” That will include prototypes and studies to consider cost, schedule, and performance.

At the Farnborough Air Show last month, GE Aerospace and Kratos Defense announced they are partnering to develop a small class of engines they believe will be applicable to CCAs. Their first such powerplant is in the 800 pounds of thrust class but could be scalable to “just under 3,000 pounds” of thrust, GE officials said. The GEK800 engine is applicable to drones, loitering missiles, cruise missiles and other small powered weapons, but could be scaled to power a CCA, they said, adding that final decisions will depend on where the Air Force finally settles as to the class of engine it wants.

“We have numerous initiatives underway” to enhance the CCA propulsion “ecosystem,” Sneden said.

“We’re continuing efforts to drive speed and options across our enterprise. That includes things like doing digital trends, having an advanced manufacturing repair ecosystem, using big data analytics to inform our maintenance and deployment activities, as well as establishing another transactional authority contract vehicle that will help expand the propulsion industrial base,” Sneden said.

He said the focus of CCA propulsion right now is on the future, and everything the directorate is doing is aimed at “driving propulsion capability options for the long-term future of CCA.”

Experts: Time Is Running Out for DOD to Execute Its Commercial Space Strategy

Aug. 28, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

Time is running out for the Pentagon to fully integrate commercial space capabilities into its architectures as it said it would in its April strategy, former officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

U.S. officials, including CIA Director William Burns, have repeatedly warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready by 2027 to conduct an invasion of Taiwan, a breakaway self-governing democratic island 100 miles off the Chinese coast.

But the next generation of weapons systems the U.S. military is relying on to prevail in—and thereby deter—a potential war over Taiwan will not be deployed by that time, said Kari Bingen, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former senior intelligence official in the Department of Defense under President Donald Trump.

Instead, the U.S. must rely on employing existing capabilities better than the adversary to deter and ultimately win a conflict, Bingen told Air & Space Forces Magazine on the sidelines of the INSA/AFCEA Intelligence and National Security Summit on Aug. 27. “We need to maximize the premium we get by better integrating the capabilities we have today,” she said, “These next generation systems won’t be online by 2027.”

China is not the only concern. Other U.S. adversaries might be able to benefit from the global revolution in commercial remote sensing and earth observation that the U.S. had unleashed, Bingen said. “Others around the world can also access the same commercial technology. We see that diffusion overall and a much more competitive landscape.”

In its commercial space integration strategy released in April, the Pentagon declared it would “benefit by making commercial solutions integral—and not just supplementary—to national security space architectures.”

The U.S., through government and commercial systems, continues to have an edge on adversaries in space capabilities, said David Gauthier, a veteran of the NGA, the U.S. agency that collects and interprets remote sensing intelligence like earth observation imagery.

But Gauthier, now chief strategy officer for CXO, a consultancy which works to get government contracts for startups, said that is at risk; the U.S. is losing its edge.

“There are, I guess, stagnant elements of our bureaucracy that are slowing down progress and our lead in commercial remote sensing is fading away,” Gauthier said.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time to plant a tree is today,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine after the panel where he and Bingen spoke. “Today is the deadline. It’s urgent.”

Gauthier said the DOD intelligence enterprise in space was “completely unbalanced” between build and buy. “Right now, we’re 99 percent ‘build it’ and one percent ‘buy,’” he said. “And we’re going backwards.”

That imbalance is costly.

“Unfortunately, the kind of integration that the U.S. system has preferred in the past,” Gauthier explained, involved government-built proprietary technology which then has to be integrated. “So we pay a huge amount of money to the system integrators” to bolt on commercial capabilities like managed services afterwards.

A better model for integration would be “more of an open system, where everyone’s using standards and APIs and we can have managed services [from different vendors] work with each other,” he said. “That would be flipping the system upside down.”

Bingen said the challenge isn’t just buying the right capability, but figuring out how to get it into the hands of the warfighter in a timely fashion.

“You need all this plumbing to be able to get that data to the edge,” she said.

In computing parlance, the edge typically refers to the farthest reaches of the network: the devices—phones, laptops, desktop computers—in the hands of end-users.

In the military context, the edge also implies the front line. It’s the furthest extent of the military network. In her remarks on the panel, Bingen recalled her frustration as a Pentagon political appointee at the resistance of Defense Department agencies and military services to adopting common data standards. There was no one, she said, whose “core job was to actually have all these systems talk to each other.”

Rick Freeman, the president of government business for Amazon’s Kuiper LEO constellation, said Amazon’s vision for the satellites, slated to come online next year as the first real competition for Elon Musk’s Starlink, is to make its constellations a marketplace for government capability vendors, much in the way smartphones created an ecosystem of apps.

An Android or iPhone “is merely the platform for all of the applications that provide value. … In a marketplace like amazon.com, or wherever you’re shopping, every time you buy something, you’re not buying an Amazon property, you’re buying something from someone else that uses their platform to create an ecosystem of products and applications that you need. We need to be thinking like that about space, via a platform” like the Kuiper constellation, he said.

McConnell Returns to Operations After Show-Stopping Storm

Aug. 27, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas is back to full operations after a freakish “microburst” weather event on Aug. 24 injured multiple people but did relatively little physical damage to aircraft on static display for a planned airshow, base officials reported.

Around 10 people—base personnel and vendors—received minor injuries, according to local news media. The microburst occurred before the airshow opened Aug. 25 and the event was canceled.

“With the start of that rain and lightning, we asked the early arrivals to stay in their vehicles in the parking area off-base” a base spokesperson said. USAF personnel were also told to stay indoors because there was lightning within five miles.

“But that storm didn’t move. We had a period of about 2.5 hours of rain and lighting, coupled with wind gusts of up to 54 mph,” the spokesperson added.

The winds drove anything unsecured across the flightline, sweeping away tents, tables, chairs and portable toilets, and throwing debris at the nearly 80 aircraft on static display, representing most types in the Air Force inventory and a number of retired “warbirds.”

“The operators and maintainers with each military aircraft were able to each do complete inspections of their aircraft. No military aircraft received damage from Sunday’s microburst and all were able to depart McConnell,” the spokesperson reported. No further damage assessment is being done, he added.

“Most cleanup was accomplished Sunday, including the runway and taxiways. This allowed for the early departure of several aircraft which were present for the airshow,” he said. The 22nd Air Refueling Wing conducted a “FOD Walk”—for Foreign Object Damage—on Aug. 26 “and began receiving a few of its aircraft back that day.”

Another FOD Walk was conducted Aug. 27, “and then the base returned to normal flying operations.”

Airmen assigned to the 22nd Air Refueling Wing conduct a foreign object debris (FOD) walk following the Frontiers in Flight Air Show Aug. 26, 2024, at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas. The FOD walk included Airmen from every group in the wing to clear the flightline of materials such as rocks, loose hardware and litter from the air show. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Gavin Hameed).

Of the aircraft that were struck with flying projectiles or flipped around by the winds, “most just need minor repairs,” the spokesperson said.

“The two receiving the most damage are the Commemorative Air Force Cessna UC-78 Bobcat, and the Cessna 150,” he reported. Photos of the latter aircraft flipped on its back circulated on social media after the storm.

That aircraft is “actually a privately-owned aircraft, painted with exceptional detail to resemble a Civil Air Patrol aircraft from an earlier era,” the spokesperson said.

The Cessna was righted by the 22nd Maintenance Group’s Crash Damage and Disabled Aircraft Recovery team on Aug. 25.

“The owner and several volunteers removed the aircraft’s wing today and loaded it on a flatbed truck, to take the Cessna 150 back to its home airfield, and it has since departed McConnell,” the spokesperson said.

Airmen right a Cessna 150 that had been flipped on its back during a violent microburst just before an airshow at McConnell Air Force Base, Kans. Aug. 24. McConnell Air Force Base/Facebook

The Bobcat “sustained damage to its tail assembly when winds pushed it into a parked vehicle. We are working with the owners to determine the next step on repairs and transport,” the spokesman said. Two Stearman Model 75 biplanes, a CAP Cessna 182 from the Kansas wing, the Bobcat and a Kansas Highway Patriol Cessna 206 are remaining “on station” for further assessment.

“Our Airmen displayed some truly exceptional teamwork and commitment to respond to the damage to the airshow area, render the area safe, clean up the entire flightline and work with vendors and visiting aircrew,” the spokesperson said. “That allowed for an early departure of some visiting aircraft on Sunday, as well as Monday, along with the return of McConnell KC-135s and KC-46s to home station. The magic of Team McConnell was on full display this week.”

The lack of damage was lucky, as the static display included F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning IIs, whose stealth surfaces are extremely unforgiving of foreign object damage.

Types on static display included:

Two Stearman Model 75 Biplanes

One B-29 Superfortress “Doc”

Two KC-46 Pegasus tankers, including the one which recently conducted a round-the-world flight

One C-130J Super Hercules

One A-10 Thunderbolt II

Two F-15E Strike Eagles

Two F-16 Fighting Falcons

Two F-22 Raptors

Two F-35 Lightning IIs

One B-1B Lancer

One B-52 Stratofortress

One RC-135 Rivet Joint

One T-38 Talon trainer

One T-6A Texan II trainer

One T-1A Jayhawk trainer

One T-53 Kadet II

One UH-60 Blackhawk

One HH-60 Blackhawk

One CH-47 Chinook

One Boeing’s “Dreamlifter” supersize 747

Cessna 421, 414, 310, 185, 182, 172, 150

One Beechcraft Baron

One Fairchild PT-19

One A-26 Invader “Lady Liberty”

One UC-78 Bobcat

One Ryan PT-22 Recruit

Space Force Working on New Tailored PME for Noncommissioned Officers

Aug. 27, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Space Force’s highest ranking enlisted leader offered more details on a new training program for noncommissioned officers, the latest move by the service to customize its training and development enterprise.

“We went through the first couple of iterations of what are referred to as the ‘noncommissioned officer academy,’” Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna said at the Senior Enlisted Leader International Summit on Aug 27. “We’ve done two or three iterations within the new fellowship model; it’s more an experience than traditional education. We just completed two of our senior noncommissioned officer fellowship experiences. We’re learning after each iteration.”

The service first introduced the fellowships this spring, marking a shift for its Forrest L. Vosler Non-Commissioned Officer Academy. Chief Master Sgt. April Brittain, Vosler Academy commandant, said at the time that “the curriculum that we were using was Airman-centric and just wasn’t catered enough to the service needs that we see in front of us.”

In particular, the fellowships focuses less on traditional academic approaches like lectures and more on “foundational Space Force competencies” and dynamic, engaged learning, according to officials.

Bentivegna said a timeline for finalizing this new noncommissioned training is pending. But it marks yet another step in the Space Force’s shift toward transforming its PME. Back in October 2022, the service announced it was partnering with Johns Hopkins University for officer intermediate- and senior-level developmental education instead of establishing a War College.

And in February, the service announced plans for a new Officer Training Course that will cover intelligence, cyber, and space operations—all three career fields of the Space Force. The inaugural course is set to kick off next week at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo. Over the course of 12 months, future officers will learn a comprehensive set of space skills. They will only focus in on one area after that.

“We’re looking at how we redefine professional military education to be unique and targeted towards the Guardians, so they thrive and succeed in the operational environment,” Bentivegna said.

Bentivegna stressed the importance of these efforts, particularly at a time when actively controlling the space domain, rather than merely defending it, is essential.

“It’s the space superiority—controlling the domain—that is extremely vital, and that’s what we’re focusing on as a service,” said Bentivegna. “It’s not just about protecting the capabilities that we have or providing them to our coalition allies and the joint force, to ensure that GPS is there, the SATCOM is there, but we have a responsibility. The domain has changed, how do we train our guardians, specifically our enlisted guardians, for the fight?”

Both China and Russia have made rapid advances in space recently, military and global leaders have warned in the last few months. Bentivegna highlighted in particular the scale of their forces:

Russia, which first created a space force known as VKS in 1992, has seen it dissolve and reform several times over the decades. Reestablished in 2015 as part of its Aerospace Force, the VKS boasted around 165,000 personnel before the beginning of the Ukraine conflict.

China established its Strategic Support Force (SSF) in 2015, which included a Space Systems Department responsible for space operations. The SSF, with an estimated 145,000 personnel in 2022, was dissolved and replaced by the Aerospace Force in April this year. It is now integrated into China’s military structure as one of four services.

The U.S. Space Force currently has about 14,000 Guardians. Bentivegna noted that the branch is on track to reach its recruiting goal of 15,000 Guardians by the end of the year. Of this total, nearly 5,000 will be enlisted members.

When Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman redefined the roles of officers, enlisted personnel, and civilians in the service earlier this year, he described the enlisted force as “technical specialists” and “weapon system experts,” while also noting their leadership contributions. Bentivegna echoed this view, underscoring the sought-after expertise of Guardians across combatant commands, joint staff, and other agencies.

“That’s a bit of a change in philosophy in space operations,” said Bentivegna. “What you can really do is tap into the maturity and talent of the enlisted Guardians and empower them to take on more in day-to-day execution. We’re training and developing them to embrace these responsibilities.”

Clearing the Air On the Nellis Boonie Hat Controversy

Aug. 27, 2024 | By David Roza

A social media storm kicked off earlier this month after the commander of the 99th Air Base Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., was denied permission to authorize his Airmen to wear camouflaged floppy campaign hats, known popularly as boonie hats, to better weather the intense heat of the Las Vegas summer.

The denial sparked an outcry among Airmen and others on the unofficial Air Force subreddit and the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, where users criticized as unfair the decision by Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, the head of Air Combat Command, to deny Col. Joshua D. DeMotts’ request. They cited the extreme summertime heat in not only Nevada, but across the continental U.S. Many said the decision exposed maintainers and other flightline Airmen to heightened skin cancer risks.

Wilsbach’s decision appears to conflict with other Air Force regulations authorizing commanders to ensure a safety and healthy working environment, but that authority varies based on the type and location of the Air Force unit involved.

As it turns out, Airmen on the Nellis flightline are allowed to wear boonie hats—and have been for at least 18 years, according to a spokesperson at Nellis Air Force Base. Department of the Air Force Instruction (DAFI) 21-101, which governs aircraft and equipment maintenance management, authorizes the commander of the 57th Maintenance Group, which oversees flightline maintenance at Nellis, to designate personal protective equipment (PPE) for maintenance Airmen on the flightline based on guidelines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the spokesperson said.

The trouble for DeMotts is that most of his Airmen work on the main base, not the flightline. The non-flying 99th Air Base Wing oversees base operations and support functions, while the 57th Wing, of which the 57th Maintenance Group is a component, oversees much of the flightline activities.

DeMotts sought relief for his Airmen in July. “Due to extreme heat at Nellis AFB that tops 120-degrees during the summer, it is imperative to adjust aspects of the uniform to ensure appropriate protection is afforded to our Airmen performing their duties,” the colonel wrote in his memo to Wilsbach. “The boonie hat will allow the relief of excess body heat and protection for the neck and face from the intense summer sun.”

Wilsbach denied the request. When asked why the request was denied, his staff said in a response to Air & Space Forces Magazine: “Local commanders may request exceptions to policy outside of current Department of the Air Force instruction, and it is within the ACC commander’s authority to approve or disapprove.”

The situation seems to be different for flightlines: Air Force guidance states “each base will develop a local flightline clothing policy that addresses wearing of hats, badges, and passes aimed at [foreign object debris] prevention while considering climate and safety.”

The Nellis spokesperson said that authorizes the 57th Maintenance Group commander to consider not only wide-brimmed hats, but also shorts, lightweight work pants, ballistic sunglasses, and other forms of PPE clothing. That authority also lines up with OSHA’s direction that “employers are to use effective forms of protection such as wide-brim hats and long sleeve clothing,” the Nellis spokesperson pointed out.

However, other Airmen who work outside, such as Security Forces, civil engineers, and communications specialists, are not covered by flightline policies. The Nellis spokesperson said recent revisions to Department of the Air Force Instruction 36-2903, which governs dress and personal appearance, raised the waiver authority required to permit boonie hats for those Airmen all the way to the top of the major command, which for the 99th Air Base Wing is ACC.

“This applies to portions of the main base,” said the Nellis spokesperson. “Main base is defined as being outside of the flight line, weapons storage area, and other similar areas.” That’s why DeMotts, as the commander of a non-flying air base wing, had to ask ACC headquarters for permission to authorize boonie hats.

The complicated lines of authority seem to conflict with a separate Air Force instruction directing unit commanders to “provide workers a safe and healthy work environment … including thermal illness prevention.”

Senior Airman Tyler Horschel and Airman Taylor Howard, 386th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chiefs, inspect the horizontal stabilizer of a C-130J Super Hercules at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, March 22, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Nicholas Larsen)

Making matters even more complicated is an ongoing concern over standards and military discipline, fueled in part by the Air Force’s sweeping preparations for possible future conflict with China. In June, Wilsbach ordered inspections for the nearly 80,000 Airmen under his command to ensure they were meeting dress and appearance standards.

“[W]hile the majority of Airmen maintain professional standards, there is a discernible decline in the commitment to, and enforcement of, military standards in the Air Force,” he said at the time, arguing that attention to standards is essential to prepare for near-peer conflict.

“What I learned many years ago is if you pay attention to the details, when it gets hard and you need to do something difficult, because you’ve been disciplined to pay attention to the details, you can be good and you can succeed,” he said earlier this summer.

In July, a supplement dated May 20 circulated through social media that would limit the use of cold weather clothes such as beanies and fleeces to only certain colors, places, and times of year for Airmen assigned to ACC. While the supplement was in draft form and had no expected date of being implemented, Airmen assigned to bases that are cold most of the year, or who work in heavily air-conditioned data centers, worried what the changes would mean for them.

But while the Air Force values standards, some standards are enforced more than others. Retired Master Sgt. Chris McGhee, a former F-16 fighter jet maintainer, said regs for “Black Flag” extreme heat days require 20 minutes of moderate physical work be followed by 40 minutes rest, or 70 minutes of work followed by several hours’ rest.

“Certainly, on the flightline we sought shade and rest where we could, but it was a running joke that we were even close to this work/rest cycle,” said McGhee, who is now a VA disability attorney.

The Air Force wants to train how it fights, but some dress and appearance standards change depending on one’s proximity to the fight. For example, Air Force regulations allow Airmen to wear boonie hats while deployed but not at home station unless authorized by their major command, despite many home stations being just as hot as bases across the Middle East.

McGhee recalled weeks at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., located about 240 miles southeast of Nellis, where the reported temperatures pushed north of 115 degrees, while the actual temperature on a hot concrete ramp surrounded by F-16s may have been north of 130 or 140 degrees.

“At the time I had a two-gallon water jug that I used at work, and I was drinking two of those per day,” he said. “My T-shirt was caked with salt from my sweat and at the end of the day was stiff as if I had used an excessive amount of starch.”

Maintainers from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, service and inspect the B-1B Lancer at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, July 30, 2018. (Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Arthur Wright)

Air Force patrol hats or baseball caps are authorized more widely than boonie hats, but boonie hats provide better protection from the sun and greater relief from the heat, according to the Australian government’s Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, though the agency cautioned that any hat needs to be combined with other protections such as sunscreen, sunglasses, and proper clothing to be effective.

Though not bald, McGhee wound up getting a biopsy about halfway through his career for some concerning moles on his scalp.

“They were determined to be potentially cancerous and they were removed, which ended up giving me visible scars on my head,” he said. Air Combat Command declined to respond to concerns on social media that greater exposure to the sun contributes to skin cancer.

There are plenty of vectors for carcinogens in the Air Force, such as firefighting chemicals, dilapidated dormitories, and radiation-emitting radars and jamming equipment. But social media users pointed to boonie hats as a low-lift way to reduce the risk and improve quality of life. Fort Bliss, Texas, authorized boonie caps for Soldiers back in October to offer some relief from the El Paso sunshine.

McGhee argued that waivers to Air Force regulations are supposed to serve as a pathway for common sense solutions to specific problems.

“When people or organizations submit waivers that are common sense solutions, and those waivers are denied, it undermines the trust of those below the waiver authority that the authority either has the intelligence, empathy, or both that would make them a capable leader,” he said.

Air Force Delivers Its First EA-37 Electronic Attack Aircraft to Home Base

Aug. 27, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s first mission-ready EA-37 Compass Call aircraft flew into Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., last week, the start of a major upgrade to the service’s electronic warfare fleet.

Air Combat Command boss Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, 16th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley, and 55th Wing commander Col. Mark Howard all flew on the new aircraft to deliver it to its new home Aug. 23 and hailed its arrival as a key moment for the Air Force.

“The EA-37B is the right choice right now because as we continue to pivot toward great power competition, we have adversaries that are developing long-range kill chain ecosystems and anti-access area denial capabilities,” Hensley said in a statement. “The Compass Call will allow us to do things in the non-kinetic spectrum as well as the electromagnetic spectrum to give us the advantage and not them.”

The EA-37 is replacing the EC-130H Compass Call, which is aging and struggling—at the end of fiscal 2023, there were just six remaining aircraft in the fleet, with an average age of 49 years and a mission capable rate of just 33 percent. Since then, another aircraft has been retired, leaving just five.

“The EC-130 has served its purpose for years, but this new airframe and its delivery mean that we have a combat-credible threat,” Howard said.

Based on a Gulfstream G550 business jet modified by L3Harris, the EA-37’s mission hardware is built by BAE. Back in September 2023, the first jet was delivered to the Air Force for testing.

The new jet will be able to conduct jamming of radars, electronic systems and communications. The aircraft will also play a role in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) mission by disrupting an enemy’s ability to coordinate sensors and command-and-control weapon batteries that target friendly aircraft.

It will also have better speed and altitude than the EC-130—the EA-37B can fly at 40,000 feet and 600 knots versus the EC-130’s ceiling of 25,000 feet and 300 knots.

At Davis-Monthan, the first aircraft will be used for pilot training to start, with another jet scheduled to arrive before the end of the year and five more in 2025. All told, the service plans to buy 10 of the new aircraft.

It’s all part of series of changes to both the broader Air Force’s EW capabilities and Davis-Monthan’s assets.

Since the retirement of the EF-111 in the late 1990s, the service’s electronic attack capabilities have narrowed. The establishment of the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing a few years ago has reignited focus on EW, and the new jet will add a fresh airborne element at a time when leaders said EW is only getting more and more important.

Meanwhile, Davis-Monthan is shifting from legacy platforms like the EC-130, HH-60G, and A-10 to new flying missions like the EA-37, the HH-60W, and a “Power Projection Wing” for Air Force Special Operations Command. The service also stood up one of its first Air Task Forces at the base last month.