USSF Eyes Proliferated Constellation in LEO for Space-Based Targeting

USSF Eyes Proliferated Constellation in LEO for Space-Based Targeting

May 3, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force and NRO will build a large number of targeting satellites to launch into low-Earth orbit as part of the ongoing push to proliferate satellites, the USSF’s top intelligence officer said May 2.

For months now, the two organizations have been working on a program to develop satellites that will provide moving target indication (MTI), helping troops on the ground or in the air keep track of targets and replacing old Air Force platforms that officials say would not survive in a contested environment. But many details of the plan remain under wraps. 

Speaking with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon, vice chief of space operations for intelligence, did not offer specifics on how many satellites will be needed or when they will launch, but he did lay out the basic framework for how they will work and how Guardians will use them to assist combatant commanders around the globe. 

“This will be an asset that’s in LEO,” Gagnon said. “You think about the numbers of these that you will buy, and you think about proliferating this architecture so that it can be difficult to destroy multiple of them … and so the fact that you proliferate your architecture and don’t just have like six satellites that can do this—I won’t give you the real number—but you can have lots of satellites that do this. It makes it difficult for them to disrupt.” 

The Space Force is already building proliferated constellations for transporting data and missile warning/missile tracking in low-Earth orbit. The hope is that a potential adversary such as China won’t be able to shoot down enough satellites to disrupt the network, thus discouraging it from trying in the first place. 

In order for such a targeting solution to work, the Space Force will likely have to buy dozens of small satellites. Spacecraft in LEO don’t stay in one place, and it takes several to provide steady, persistent coverage over an area. On the plus side, small, fast-moving satellites are tough to disable, Gagnon said. 

“if you’re lying in the backyard and you’re looking up and something’s going over at LEO, it’s going over really fast,” he explained. “So you have to be able to know what it is, track it, send that firing solution to a firing element, and get that engagement as it’s zipping over you, because you only have a field of view that’s kind of short.” 

For decades, the Air Force relied on aircraft such as the E-8C JSTARS and E-3 AWACS for moving target indication, but officials worry those could be easily destroyed in a near-peer conflict. Proliferated satellites are thought to be more survivable, but they require a change in mindset about the very nature of military space, Gagnon said.  

“It’s a tactical platform in space, and our use of space as a community has always considered it special and strategic,” he said. “Space is no longer only strategic. Space is tactical. And our adversaries have made it so.” 

The shift to tactical raises questions about who will direct and operate the satellites. For years, agencies such as the NRO and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency conducted intelligence operations from space, but did not focus on real-time targeting. With the shift to tactical, Space Force officials say the combatant commands should have tasking authority over the satellites, with the help of the Space Force components stood up within those combatant commands in recent years. 

“The Space Force proposal, since we’re part of the joint force, and we’ve stood up components in each of the combatant commands, is to make sure that our component can service their component partners, whether it’s the Army component, the maritime component, or the Air Force component, with timely, relevant MTI capability based off the direction of their joint combatant commander,” Gagnon said. 

Recent media reports indicate tension between the Space Force and other agencies about how to fulfill the MTI mission, but Gagnon said he is working with both the NGA and NRO on the problem. 

“I have spent the last three days actually out at NGA with [NGA director Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth] and [NRO director Christopher Scolese]. We’re in meetings where we’re talking about the best way to optimize taxpayer money that supports the joint warfighting need,” Gagnon said. “Because we must be able to do moving target indicator with sensor control from the warfighters so that they can close the kill chain. That’s our remit.” 

Government satellites may not be the only ones providing MTI. Gagnon noted a Space Force pilot program that started last year called “Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking,” or TacSRT, that created a commercial marketplace for such data. Combatant commanders can go to the marketplace, type in the kind of data they need, and then contractors have 72 hours to respond to the proposal, Gagnon explained.

Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s main acquisition arm, then determines if it can fund the proposal and if other intelligence community agencies have contracts or capabilities that can meet the need. 

Allvin Unveils New Details of Integrated Capabilities Command, to Stand Up This Year

Allvin Unveils New Details of Integrated Capabilities Command, to Stand Up This Year

May 2, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force plans to have its new Integrated Capabilities Command stood up by the end of 2024, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said on May 2, offering new details of one of the signature reforms announced by the service earlier this year.

Allvin said around 500-800 Airmen will be working for Integrated Capabilities Command at the start, with “satellite locations” across the Air Force, though he cautioned his numbers were still in the works.

For now, the Chief mainly hopes to get started with the command rather than make big institutional waves.

“That transition, it has to be carefully managed. But we cannot afford it to go so slow that it stalls and stagnates, and it makes it easier to go back,” Allvin told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon.

He said the Air Force’s focus on speedily getting the command up and running is the main reason it is not rushing to make a decision on where to permanently base the headquarters. With the command’s standup not that far off, the idea is that its Airmen should initially be based largely where they are now.

“Now, the difficult part, as you would imagine, we’re standing up a command, everybody’s interested in that,” Allvin said. “So how big is the command going to be? Where’s it going to be placed? We are looking at different options.”

The Air Force is not focused on creating new installations and infrastructure for Integrated Capabilies Command, especially as the service has promised the reforms will be largely cost-neutral, he said.

“That is something that I do not want to hold us up, because if we focus on that … there will be all sorts of obstacles that are unnecessary to get us to starting to do the work,” Allvin said. “My anticipation would be by the end of this calendar year, they are doing that work.”

Allvin said most of the Airmen will come from major commands, and the level of coordination and the involvement of organizations such as Air Force Futures have yet to be decided.

“This is a work in progress, but my thinking right now is that the most important thing is to be able to get the work done,” he said. “We don’t anticipate it will be moving hundreds from a place, which is very sensitive politically and to the local community. … This command will have locations throughout. I do not anticipate at this point that it will be a single command with everybody in one building that loses some of the connectivity and the tactile connection with the major command.”

Integrated Capabilities Command was unveiled as part of the Air Force’s “re-optimization” at the AFA Warfare Symposium in February and is to be led by a three-star general. Allvin, along with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, reasoned that Air Force’s major commands had become too siloed and focused on their own command’s tradeoffs between readiness and future capability. Allvin said his goal is to fix the “fragmentation” of the Air Force.

“The idea of Integrated Capabilities Command is really to take that expertise, the requirements generation, those that understand the functional expertise in their operations in their part of the Air Force, put them together, and start understanding what we need the Air Force to do as far as mission outcomes,” Allvin said. “We want to be able to keep up with the pace of technology, the pace of change, and have the operators come together to build one force design, rather than multiple parts that are sort of stitched together at the end.”

Right now, major commands have tended to advocate for their own capabilities while the Air Force as a whole has to make difficult budgetary and programmatic tradeoffs. Allvin also pointed to examples of integration, such as Air Force’s Rapid Dragon program in which palletized munitions, specifically long-range JASSM stand-off cruise missiles, are released from cargo aircraft, which blurs traditional lines between Air Mobility Command and Air Force Global Strike Command.

“With the pace of technology, and the opportunities that arise, they come and go more rapidly,” Allvin said. “If you don’t exploit them, you might miss opportunities if you don’t think outside of your little functional area.”

As for who will command the new three-star job, which may become one of the most important positions in the Air Force, that is still to be determined. One goal of Integrated Capabilities Command is breaking down parochial cultures. Allvin himself is one of the few Air Force Chiefs of Staff who has not been a fighter or bomber pilot, two vocations with their own strong communities.

“I believe it’s best functioning when it’s operator-led,” Allvin said. “From which community, it’s really about the individual. If you’re going to be a leader, if you’re going to be a general officer, if you’re going to take one of these commands, you have show the ability to lead beyond your function.”

DOD Official Confirms Russia Is Developing an ‘Indiscriminate’ Space Nuke

DOD Official Confirms Russia Is Developing an ‘Indiscriminate’ Space Nuke

May 2, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

A senior Pentagon official warned lawmakers that Russia is developing an “indiscriminate” nuclear weapon to go in space, confirming reports from several months ago and describing potentially devastating effects in orbit.

“The concept that we are concerned about is Russia developing, if we are unable to convince them otherwise, to ultimately fly a nuclear weapon in space, which would be an indiscriminate weapon,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John F. Plumb at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

In February, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement warning of a “serious national security threat.” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby then confirmed media reports that the danger involved an anti-satellite weapon the Russians have been developing, which would violate an international treaty that bans the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.

Various Pentagon officials subsequently warned of the widespread destruction a nuke could wreak in space, without outright saying that the Russians were developing such a weapon. Space Development Agency director Derek M. Tournear, for example, noted that detonating a nuclear weapon in space would destroy commercial, civil, and military satellites and constitute an “attack on the world.”

Plumb offered even more detail, saying in his written testimony that such a weapon “could pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe, as well as to the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services.”

In low-Earth orbit (LEO) in particular, Plumb cautioned most satellites aren’t hardened against a nuclear detonation, making them especially vulnerable to damage. The outcome could vary based on factors like the detonation type and location, but satellites in the blast zone would likely be destroyed. He also suggested a sufficiently powerful nuclear detonation in the right location could render LEO unusable for up to a year.

“It is not imminent in the way that we should have to worry about it right now, but we are concerned about it,” said Plumb. “The department and the entire administration, and I know this Congress is taking this deadly seriously.”

The U.S. has a significant number of satellites in LEO, both civil and military, like the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighting Space Architecture and SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

“And those could be what a Russian weapon system might be trying to counter, is that proliferated, architecture that we’re seeing used so well in Ukraine and as part of our overall architecture moving forward for the United States,” Charles Galbreath, senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in February.

In addition to military and commercial satellite damage, Galbreath cautioned of potential indirect effects from the detonation, referencing the Cold War-era “Starfish Prime” test. In 1962, the U.S. detonated a nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit, disabling eight out of 24 satellites and causing a power blackout in Hawaii.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any intention to deploy nuclear weapons in space. However, Russia recently vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution, co-proposed by the U.S. and Japan, urging Member States not to develop such weapons. Russia’s U.N. Ambassador cited the resolution’s inadequacy in banning all space weapons as the reason for the veto.

Moscow is now considering proposing a resolution calling on all nations to urgently prevent the placement of any weapons in outer space “for all time,” according to the Associated Press.

Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said if a nuclear device were detonated today in outer space, it would have “devastating consequences,” and that it’s “irresponsible for anybody to even consider deploying or employing a nuclear device in space.” Austin was addressing a lawmaker’s question regarding Russia’s veto and China’s abstention of the U.N. proposal by the U.S. and Japan, at a separate House Armed Services Committee hearing. Plumb also criticized Moscow and Beijing’s stance at the U.N., calling it “hypocritical and unbelievable,” given the nations’ continued development and fielding of counterspace weapons.

DNI: Russia Gaining Ground in Ukraine with China’s Help

DNI: Russia Gaining Ground in Ukraine with China’s Help

May 2, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The war in Ukraine isn’t likely to end soon, because Russia is gaining ground, making more munitions, and getting more help from China, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers May 2.

“We assess that President [Vladimir] Putin thinks that domestic and international trends are in his favor,” Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Putin is “reconstituting” Russia’s strength after a disastrous first two years of the war, which have seen more than 300,000 Russian casualties and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, Haines added.

Given Russia’s harsh tactics and recent successes, there are few meaningful “pathways out of the war, including through negotiations,” Haines said. “These aggressive tactics are likely to continue and the war is unlikely to end anytime soon.”

Right now, Russia is making slow but steady progress on the battlefield, “with the potential for tactical breakthroughs along the front lines in areas such as Donetsk and Kharkiv,” Haines said. At the same time, the Russians are amping up ammunition production, she noted, while pointing out delays in U.S. aid to Ukraine and Europe’s lack of surge capacity in munitions.

Russia’s gains in armaments production are due in no small part to China’s willingness to provide components and material to Moscow, Haines said—“one of several factors” that have boosted Russia’s momentum in recent months.

While Putin has made comments suggesting he’s willing to enter into peace talks regarding Ukraine, there is no indication “that he is willing to make significant concessions,” Haines asserted.

By striking civilian targets and infrastructure in Ukraine, she said, Putin aims to convince Ukrainians “that continuing the fight will only increase the damage to Ukraine and offer no plausible path to victory.”

Hitting Ukraine’s infrastructure is also creates logistical hurdles for moving forces and supplies, slows defense production, and builds pressure on Kyiv.

Haines said Putin is “doubling down” on the war, boosting defense spending to nearly 7 percent of Russia’s GDP. Military spending now accounts for 25 percent of Russia’s government budget, she added.

“In many ways, this is prompted by the fact that Russia has paid an enormous price for the war in Ukraine,” she said, noting the casualties and hundreds of billions in sunk costs, but also that it has “precipitated Finland’s and Sweden’s membership in NATO,” which Putin did not want. Putin is using the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO as justification for expanding the size of the army, she said.

Haines said Putin’s career in the KGB shaped his worldview that “Russia is under threat” from NATO and needs to push back against it.  A “larger, better-equipped military will drive that point home to Western and domestic audiences which couldn’t believe” Russia needed a more powerful military, she said.

Putin’s “strategic goals also remain unchanged. He continues to see NATO enlargement and Western support to Ukraine as reinforcing his long-held belief that the United States and Europe seek to restrict Russia.”

Russia also sees the Hamas-Israel war as a means “to divide us from our allies,” Haines asserted.

On the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Haines repeated the Biden administration’s previous assertion that Iran didn’t have prior knowledge of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks but is using the situation to further expand its influence in the region and portray itself as the leading regional opponent of American and Israeli power.

Haines also said that Iran is not directly pursing nuclear weapons, but “what they’re doing is shortening the time period that it would take for them to actually enrich a sufficient amount of material for a nuclear weapon if they make a decision to move forward on it.” That is different from actively pursuing nuclear weapons, she said, deferring further comment to a closed session about how long it would take for Iran to create the necessary materials for nuclear weapons.

In Lebanon, Haines said Hezbollah “does not want the situation to develop into an all-out war with Israel and the United States,” though cross-border attacks by both sides continue with the potential to escalate.

However, the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked international shipping in the region, have resumed “nearly daily maritime attacks after announcing that they intend to escalate strikes and expand their hostile actions to the Indian Ocean,” Haines said.

Meanwhile, Iranian-backed militias “continue to plan attacks against our forces,” Haines said, but “have broadly paused conducting such attacks. … It is not clear how long that pause will last.”

Air Guardsmen, Reservists Gear Up for Wildfire Fighting Season

Air Guardsmen, Reservists Gear Up for Wildfire Fighting Season

May 2, 2024 | By David Roza

Airmen from the California Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve brushed up on their aerial firefighting skills late last month in preparation for the 2024 wildfire season, which could see fires break out across North America. Hosted at the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station in southern California, the training involved classroom sessions, ground operations, and flights aboard C-130 transport planes specially equipped with the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System (MAFFS).

“Completing our annual training each year is paramount as it allows our aircrews to get those critical training hours we need before we respond to a real fire,” Col. DeAnna Franks, operations group commander for the 302nd Airlift Wing, a Colorado-based reserve unit, said in a press release.

MAFFS refers to both the airborne system, which pumps out thousands of gallons of fire retardant a second, and the partnership between the Defense Department, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, CAL FIRE, and other agencies to stop or slow the spread of wildland fires. When civilian firefighting aircraft are stretched thin, the Air Force provides a surge capability with its C-130s, the release explained. The MAFFS program turned 50 in December.

U.S. Air Force Loadmasters and Aerial Porters assigned to the 115th Airlift Squadron load a U.S. Forest Service Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) inside a C-130J Super Hercules aircraft at Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, Port Hueneme, California, Sept. 7, 2022. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Michelle Ulber)

“Modular, the first word of the MAFFS acronym, might perhaps be the best word to corroborate just how flexible and efficient our working partnerships have developed over the last 50 years,” Franks said. The anniversary “was a great opportunity to reflect on just how impactful this mission is and just how special all the people involved with the MAFFS program are.”

Besides the 302nd Airlift Wing and California’s 146th Airlift Wing, the Air Force’s aerial firefighting units include the 152nd and 153rd Airlift Wings assigned to the Nevada and Wyoming Air National Guard, respectively. The roll-on, roll-off MAFFS units fit inside a C-130 without structural modification. It drops either water or a “slurry” retardant made up of 80 to 85 percent water and 10 to 15 percent ammonium sulfate, a jelling agent and red coloring that helps pilots see where they dropped previous loads, according to the Air Force. MAFFS is a dangerous mission where pilots have to fly low and slow, often in difficult terrain.

“We’re going down to 150 feet and doing it far slower than we would normally do an airdrop because of the way the retardant comes out of the airplane,” Lt. Col. Patrick McKelvey, a pilot with the 152nd Airlift Wing, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in 2021. 

“So, it’s lower, you’re heavier at max gross weight, you’re using far more power,” the former Navy F/A-18 pilot said. “It’s hot, you’re at high altitude up in the mountains, canyons, obstacles, trees. Next to flying around the aircraft carrier at night, this is probably some of the most high-risk flying I’ve ever done.”

A U.S. Air National Guard C-130J Hercules aircraft equipped with the MAFFS 2 (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System) drops a line of fire retardant on the Thomas Fire in the hills above the city of Santa Barbara, California, Dec. 13, 2017. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Nieko Carzis)

Though the Air National Guard and Reserves provides backup for civilian teams, who do the bulk of aerial firefighting, some years stretch both groups thin. In 2021, Air Force crews flew twice the pace as they did in 2020 to put out huge blazes such as the Dixie fire, the largest single source wildfire in recorded California history. At one point, McKelvey flew nine fire-retardant airdrops in one day.

“We found ourselves in the situation of kind of scrambling to put together another month’s worth of a second crew that we didn’t know we were going to need,” he said. “So, I just told the scheduler, throw me in where you need me. Put me in, coach.”

Though last year’s wildfire season was relatively mild in the western U.S., deadly fires in Hawaii, massive conflagrations in Canada, and large blazes in Virginia earlier this spring show that the need for aerial firefighting is not going anywhere soon. But Kim Christensen, deputy assistant director operations for the U.S. Forest Service, was confident that the MAFFS crews can handle it.

“The members of the airlift wings that participate in the MAFFS program are consummate professionals,” she said in the release. “They take the annual training very seriously and are always prepared to assist us with wildfire suppression, whenever asked.”

China is Having a ‘Strategic Breakout’ in Space Too, USSF Intel Boss Warns

China is Having a ‘Strategic Breakout’ in Space Too, USSF Intel Boss Warns

May 2, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

A little less than three years after then-U.S. Strategic Command boss Adm. Charles Richard warned of China’s nuclear forces experiencing a “strategic breakout,” the Space Force’s top intelligence officer says the People’s Liberation Army have done the same in space. 

“The PLA has rapidly advanced in space in a way that few people can really appreciate,” Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon said May 2 at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “I tried to think about historical analogies, about rapid buildups. I haven’t seen a rapid build-up like this. I was thinking about World War II, but even as I was looking more broadly, an adversary arming this fast is profoundly concerning.”

Richard’s assessment of Chinese nuclear capabilities in August 2021 came around the same time that reports first emerged of the PLA building massive nuclear silo fields and has become an oft-repeated term used by lawmakers and Pentagon officials ever since. 

In recent months, top military space leaders started using similar language. 

“Admiral Richard … labeled the moniker “breakout pace” for nuclear forces. He talked about the fact that, we thought they’d have 500 warheads, but they’re rapidly getting to 1,000,” Gagnon said. “The breakout pace in space is profound.” 

Gagnon’s comments come a week after U.S. Space Command boss Gen. Stephen N. Whiting said during a visit to Japan and South Korea that China is moving “breathtakingly fast” in space. They also build on remarks Gagnon and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman made in March at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum. 

“The PRC has more than 470 [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] satellites that are feeding a robust sensor-shooter kill web,” Saltzman said. “… This new sensor-shooter kill web creates unacceptable risk to our forward-deployed force. This is something that most of us are just not used to thinking about.” 

Several years ago, Gagnon said, his warning to other Pentagon leaders and the public was that the Chinese could threaten U.S. satellites with missiles and non-kinetic weapons like high-powered lasers. But more recently, his concern has focused on how China is preparing to use space like the U.S. has—as an integral part of its military operations. 

“For the last two years, they’ve placed over 200 satellites in space, both years,” Gagnon said. “Of that, over half of them are remote sensing satellites—remote sensing satellites that are purpose built to surveil and do reconnaissance in the western Pacific and globally. … And the purpose of reconnaissance and surveillance from the ultimate high ground is, of course, to inform decisions about fire control for militaries. It’s to provide indications and warning of [U.S.] Sailors, Marines, Airmen trying to move west, if directed, to defend freedom.” 

Using space for ISR is something only the U.S. has been doing for years. Now, though, “that monopoly is over,” Gagnon said.  

And like the U.S., the Chinese are not content with only a few, technologically exquisite satellites, Gagnon warned. Rather, they are putting up so many satellites to proliferate just like the Space Force is trying to do—making it harder for an adversary to block the ISR and targeting capability. 

It is, Gagnon warned, “an architecture that’s designed to go to war and sustain at war.” 

The Space Force is countering that architecture with more sensors and a new squadron—the 75th Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Squadron—for targeting space assets, their networks, and their ground stations. 

All told, Gagnon said, the service is using around 600 sensors around the globe to monitor around 1,000 “priority” satellites in orbit. That marks a rapid growth from just a few years ago, when the Pentagon had no more than a couple dozen sensors, and it gives the Space Force’s intelligence enterprise greater insight into how the Chinese and other competitors are working in space. 

When the Space Force first stood up, “we’re pushing out … six to seven maneuver alerts a month. ‘Hey, we saw something maneuver out there,’” Gagnon said. “Today, we’re putting out 11,000 a month.” 

US Needs Better Coordination, Cheaper Ways to Counter Drones: Pentagon Officials

US Needs Better Coordination, Cheaper Ways to Counter Drones: Pentagon Officials

May 2, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The U.S. needs a better-coordinated approach to defend against unmanned aerial systems but is at the mercy of local politics on the issue, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. Slife told lawmakers May 1.

Asked by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) how satisfied he is with the degree of coordination between the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, other government agencies, and the military services on counter-UAS capabilities, Slife was direct in his response: “Not satisfied.”

“Although the services coordinate effectively together, and leverage each other’s capabilities, every single locale has its own story,” Slife added. “And so, there is no national approach to counter this small UAS issue. It is local issue by local issue.”

Air Force officials have been extremely tight-lipped about what they’re doing to thwart drone operators who fly their small craft near or over domestic Air Force bases, where they could conceivably fly drones into the path of aircraft, conduct surveillance, or cause other problems. In March, for example, The War Zone reported that unidentified drones repeatedly swarmed Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia over the span of several months.

Officials have said a menu of counter-UAS capabilities have been developed, to include RF jamming guns and other devices that cause the drones to lose contact with their operators and land vertically. A series of ad-hoc ordinances have sprung up in some locales but not others, preventing a uniform approach to airbase security.   

“We’ve been having some testimony and some hearings—some open, some classified—about UAS challenges,” Sullivan said. “Obviously, they’re a threat in combat, but increasingly, they’re also a threat to our installations both at home and overseas. Addressing this threat requires an awful lot of coordination. … I worry a little bit that we’re maybe not really coordinating.”

Asked by Sullvian, Slife noted that he and William LaPlante, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, are leading the Pentagon counter-UAS effort.

Together, they co-chair a panel and a “Tiger Team” that reports to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on UAS defense, and there are “a couple other forums that do this. And all the services are part of that forum that [LaPlante] and I co-chair.”

Last week, LaPlante said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event that counter-UAS needs urgent attention, given the increasing role of drones in state-on-state conflict. Drones are a cost-imposing tactic on defenders, and he said the U.S. spends up to $100,000 to destroy just one uncrewed air vehicle, which can be launched in large swarms.

When the U.S. helped Israel shoot down some 300 drones and ballistic missiles in April, it used air-to-air missiles, ground-fired Patriot interceptors, and ship-fired Standard missiles, among other weapons, all of which have a price tag likely higher than the targets they were intercepting.

It’s “getting too expensive” to deal with attacking drones that way, LaPlante said. The Pentagon needs counter-UAS weapons that can be successful at less than $10,000 per round, he said.

On the same panel, undersecretary of research and engineering Heidi Shyu said her organization, in concert with DARPA, the Army, and the Navy, is pursuing high-powered microwaves, lasers, and other directed-energy solutions to address the lopsided cost of missile and UAV defense.

New Air Force PT Uniforms to Hit Shelves in July

New Air Force PT Uniforms to Hit Shelves in July

May 1, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force’s new physical training uniforms will hit shelves in July, an official said May 1.

The Air Force’s new workout apparel has been a long time coming. The clothing set was first unveiled in 2021, with a promised 2022 debut. But supply chain issues delayed its arrival multiple times, according to the Air Force. But finally, Airmen are expected to be able to buy the new uniforms in July, Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) spokesperson Chris Ward told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

In the meantime, the new PT gear has been rolled out to Airmen at Basic Military Training, an Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The new Air Force PT uniform consists of a jacket, pants, and two types of shorts—one for running, and the other for all-purpose wear. The workout T-shirt is grey with the Air Force logo on the upper left chest and a stylized “Air Force” pattern across the back.

The new uniform looks much like the old PT uniform, introduced two decades ago. But like most civilian workout attire that has come along in the years since, the new Air Force gear is less bulky and features “performance” fabric that is billed as softer, quick-drying, and moisture-wicking. It also comes in men’s and women’s styles, unlike the old unisex uniforms which were criticized as noisy and heavy.

The military began modernizing PT uniforms about a decade ago when the Army introduced new workout gear that was more in line with civilian attire. The Navy soon followed in the late 2010s. The Space Force recently debuted its first PT uniforms for Guardians in the life of the young service. The Air Force’s introduction of its new PT uniforms leaves the Marines as the only service without a new PT uniform after the USMC ditched plans for a redesign in late 2023.

Airmen still have time before having to purchase the new workout attire, as the Air Force has promised a four-year transition period before the uniform becomes mandatory.

Spectrum Warfare Wing Adds Two New Squadrons to Handle Growing Mission

Spectrum Warfare Wing Adds Two New Squadrons to Handle Growing Mission

May 1, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing added a new squadron April 25 and will activate another May 2—expanding the structure of the service’s lone spectrum warfare wing as it looks to grow its numbers too. 

The 563rd Electronic Warfare Squadron, which stood up at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, is “really focused on developing software capabilities for electronic warfare,” 350th commander Col. Joshua Koslov told reporters in a May 1 briefing. “They’re the first folks that have focused specifically on software for EW, not a weapon system or some sort of electronic warfare waveform type of thing.” 

That focus will solve several problems the wing and the broader Air Force faces in EW, an area in which leaders have acknowledged they let their focus slip in recent decades. 

“Our operational-level tools that we use as a force to plan, integrate, synchronize, and collaborate electronic warfare effects are basically nonexistent,” Koslov said. “And so we’re building that capability with this unit and those coders are going to be able to develop those tools that the joint force needs in order to execute in a wartime situation.”

The wing needs tools to parse through the “mountains of data” coming from adversaries in order to spot their strengths and weaknesses, Koslov said. That task falls to the 388th Electronic Warfare Squadron, which will activate at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. on May 2. The 388th’s analysis will help make sure “that the combatant commands have the confidence that what we provide to them will achieve effects in the battlespace,” said Lt. Col. Timothy West, the squadron’s soon-to-be commander.

In the fast-changing and hotly contested arena of EW, making sure the right effects are used on the right targets requires tight coordination with the intelligence community, West said. 

“A huge part of our mission is under validating and verifying the information we receive on Red based off of what we know about the electromagnetic spectrum, and what we know Red is doing and comparing that with known data from the IC,” he said. “And so … based on an adversary that’s completely agile in the spectrum, how do we know when they’re spoofing us versus when that’s a real capability that we now need to develop a target for and go forward from there?” 

U.S. Air Force Col. Josh Koslov, 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing commander, speaks during the activation ceremony of the 350th SWW’s first detachments Robins Air Force Base, GA, Oct. 25, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ericka A. Woolever

Neither squadron will be very big to start, Koslov told Air & Space Forces Magazine. But the hope is to grow them over time—150 to 200 people each within two to three years. That’s in keeping with one of the 350th’s main challenges: a lack of personnel. 

In April 2023, Koslov said during an AFA Warfighters in Action event that he had more than 200 civilian and military vacancies in the wing. A little over a year later, he said they still have a “tremendous number” of open jobs. 

Yet while neither new squadron will bring a surge in manpower to the 350th, they are part of a dedicated buildup in the wing’s architecture, helping to define missions and showcase where more jobs are needed, Koslov said. 

“The wing is very much still a work in progress,” he said. “Just in the past year, we have stood up six units in my time here. And I predict that the wing will continue to grow, probably by at a minimum of another four units … but there’s probably some room for more than that as well.”