LaPlante on Why Weapon Production Constitutes Deterrence

Oct. 26, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

One of the biggest lessons to emerge from the war in Ukraine is that weapons that are in production constitute a credible threat to adversaries, whereas weapons that are merely experimental—or are not actually being made in numbers—are not, according to William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s head of acquisition and sustainment. He said those lessons “amplify” the priorities his organization is pursuing.

“Production is deterrence,” LaPlante asserted at an acquisition seminar sponsored by the Potomac Officers Club in Tysons, Va., on Oct. 26.

Guiding his decisions during his term as the No. 3 executive at the Pentagon, he said, is the urgency of the China threat and providing equipment that’s useful in “a real, high-end fight” such that the U.S. can back up its rhetoric with relevant hardware in the hands of operators.

LaPlante said China has been gaining on the U.S. for 20 years in military technology and that the situation is “bad in space, bad in cyber, bad in EW [electronic warfare].” Ukraine has driven home the reality that “we can’t just think of [high-end warfare] as something that might happen five or 10 years from now,” but potentially in the “next year, or next month … That’s the takeaway.”

China is “really good” at modern warfare, he said. “They can do the kill chain. They’ve figured that out.” He said that “anybody who says … ’it’s not as bad as you think’—you’re wrong.”

For LaPlante, “All that matters is getting [equipment] to warfighters at scale,” he said. “If you don’t get into production, it really doesn’t matter. That’s one thing that’s hit home” as a result of the Ukraine war.

Deterrence is based on “the three C’s,” he said: “communication, capability and credibility.” It’s essential that “the other side”—whoever that is in a given situation—“understands what you mean and intend,” he said.

“If you say, ‘we’re going to hold them at risk,’” it has to be backed up with the goods, LaPlante asserted. He later added that “deterrence does work. It’s working right now with NATO and Ukraine. NATO is not at war. Hopefully it will not be at war. But I think part of deterrence is also production lines.”

In space, for example, “if the adversary can see that you can produce smallsats off the line in a couple of days, so that if they take out a hundred of them, you can put up another hundred of them in three weeks, that’s deterrence.”

With Ukraine, the conversation has turned to “how many more precision weapons do the Russians have? How many more do we have? Once you realize that a country can keep going into its magazine, and has production, that’s deterrence.”

The war has also illustrated that “You can’t predict ahead of time what you’re going to need. You can try, but you’ll be wrong half the time.” He said, “Who’d have thought in 2022 that we’d need Stingers, right? That production line stopped in 2008.” Similarly, the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) was last in production from 2014 to 2017, and the U.S. is drawing down its stocks rapidly in providing the weapon to Ukraine. After the war against ISIS, the perceived need for AGM-114 Hellfire missiles was also deemed to have fallen.

“So be humble about predicting what you think you’re going to need. What you have to do is hedge your bets,” LaPlante said.

That means the U.S. is going to have to keep production of some systems going even when stockpiles are solid, and “we’re going to have to pay for it,” he said.

LaPLante noted that “we’ve gone to this just-in-time delivery [scheme] like Wal-Mart … Don’t have any inventory; ‘inventory is waste.’ Cut out redundancy, tooth to tail. Remember all this? Well, what could go wrong there? Nothing … until we have Ukraine.” In that fight, “if you can’t get something in three years, nobody cares.”

The Pentagon needs to remind itself “that the resiliency of the industrial base means you have to pay for it; you have to plan for it, and you have to be willing to put in place measures that you might not even be able to prove” will ever result in being used.

However, regardless of the theater, he said, integrated air and missile defenses are going to be key. Ukraine, with the help of its partners, has “MacGyvered” several kinds of sensors with weapons to produce functional air defenses, he said. But it needs more.

Regarding new weapons, LaPlante called himself “a nerd. I love prototypes. [They’re] interesting. They’re fun for all of us in Nerdville. But it doesn’t really help the warfighter … So I’ve really been focused on delivering … capabilities.”

He said he’s glad to see the Pentagon doing more prototyping and experimentation, as “we were not doing very much of that back in 2014-15 when I last served. Now, to everyone’s credit, there’s so much going on.” But he added that there’s “an excess of it, really.”

Regarding hypersonics, for example, he said, “the ugly truth is … we’ve never been in production with hypersonics in this country, ever. Hypersonics have been in the [science and technology] world for forever—60 years. It’s been the ‘weapon of the future’ for 60 years. Whereas the Russians and Chinese are in production.”

He admitted that “I’m going to be tuning out when you talk about doing a test” of a hypersonic system by the Air Force Research Laboratory, DARPA, etc. “When you get into production, then I’m going to start paying attention.”

His second priority is delivering capabilities “in a way that’s sustainable and cost-effective.” He said it’s “well known” that 70 percent of a weapon’s lifecycle costs are in sustainment, and the support system has to be there if they are to work.

And, “it doesn’t matter if you can’t train to it,” LaPLante said.

He emphasized that it no longer makes sense to think of the defense industrial base as separate from that of the rest of U.S. industrial base. They are one and the same, he said, and the Pentagon must use all the sources it can to achieve its goals.

Finally, he said he’s been concentrating on “workforce, tools, and education,” but acknowledged that the Ukraine situation has consumed “about half” his time since taking up the post in April.

Referring to the weapons provided to Ukraine, LaPlante also pointed out, “The stuff works. For all the criticism we give ourselves, the stuff works, and it works really very well.” The world has seen that, and there is also deterrence in that fact, he said.

With HIMARS, “it takes three 18- to 20-year-olds, not trained very much, to use it, and it’s very powerful.”

Armagno: ‘Call-Up Structure’ for Commercial Satellites Could Mirror Civil Reserve Air Fleet

Oct. 26, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The commercial space industry has proven its potential value to the military since Russia invaded Ukraine—and not just in the fighting. But the Defense Department won’t be able to subscribe to every commercial imagery or communication service and may instead benefit from “some kind of a call-up structure” for satellites, said a top Space Force general.

USSF Director of Staff Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno suggested the idea Oct. 24 at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ ASCEND Conference in Las Vegas, joining a panel of experts to talk about the government’s use of commercial space assets or services in a conflict.

Not only has the commercial space industry—and its satellite imagery, in particular—informed decisions on the ground in Ukraine, it’s delivered a new degree of transparency that David Gauthier of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency said factors into countries’ “deterrence calculus.”

“It forces a bad actor to realize that with the transparency commercial remote sensing provides, they cannot hide their actions anymore from the world,” Gauthier said. “Satellite imagery can deter entire nations from harming us at a nation level.”

The best way to ensure a strong, competitive commercial market, said Steve “Bucky” Butow, space portfolio director at the DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit, will be to “make sure that we’re using these tools every day in an appropriate way as a complement to our tactical and strategic capabilities.”

Recognizing, however, that the department may not be able to “afford to put every good idea on contract as soon as the good idea comes out,” Armagno said—“or maybe we don’t recognize that it’s a good idea that we’re going to need in two to five years”—she cited as an example the arrangements with commercial airlines to call up the Civil Reserve Air Fleet for military transport.

“It’s actually so essential to how our nation fights. Maybe we need some kind of a structure for space,” Armagno said. “Some kind of a call-up structure would be very interesting to explore.”

Amid concern that commercial satellites could become military targets, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks has said the department is considering how to compensate the companies for potential losses.

Boeing Posts $2.8B Quarterly Loss in Defense Business Attributed to KC-46, New Air Force One

Oct. 26, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

Boeing reported a $3.3 billion loss in the third quarter of 2022, driven by deepening woes in its defense business, the company announced Oct. 26. Boeing’s defense, space, and security sector lost $2.8 billion in cost overruns on fixed-price development contracts.

The aerospace giant’s financial difficulties were highlighted by a $1.2 billion hit to the KC-46 Pegasus tanker and a $766 million loss on the VC-25B, better known as the new “Air Force One,” according to Boeing’s chief financial officer Brian West. Boeing also recorded losses on its USAF T-7A Red Hawk trainer, the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray, and NASA’s Commercial Crew program.

“We’re not embarrassed by them,” Boeing CEO David L. Calhoun said of the cost overruns on an earnings call. “They are what they are, and we intend to deliver against these contracts and satisfy our customers.”

For years, Boeing pursued a strategy of offering aggressive bids for fixed-price development contracts. Those contracts put Boeing on the hook for extra costs associated with developing the programs. Calhoun conceded that was largely a mistake for the company.

“Eight-five percent of the business is doing pretty well,” Calhoun said of the defense side of the Arlington, Va.-based company. “It’s these fixed-price development programs that, unfortunately, we’re working our way through. We had to account for recent performance, including a reassessment of our forecast cost to complete. There’s no doubt about it.”

Losses on the KC-46 have now run up to over $6 billion. The Air Force’s initial contract for the aircraft was $4.9 billion.

West said the defense business’s issues were “primarily due to higher estimated manufacturing and supply chain costs as well as technical challenges.”

The KC-46 program encountered a substantial setback when Boeing and the Air Force announced that the Remote Vision System (RVS) 2.0 update would be delayed until 2025, 19 months more than previously planned. RVS 2.0 will be required for all KC-46s to fix problems with the current system used to operate the main refueling boom. Because the fix to the RVS also includes upgrades to display resolution and cameras, Boeing is on not on the hook for all costs. Instead, some will fall on the Air Force, though the company and the service have declined to get into further detail. The company said the KC-46’s issues stem from parts shortages and labor instability.

The new Air Force One jet ran into more trouble after the company signaled the program was getting on the right track earlier in the year. Boeing said the new costs stem from a tight labor market and supply chain issues. Security clearance issues for workers on the highly classified project make the labor issues particularly acute. Boeing agreed to a $3.9 billion contract for the new Air Force One after pressure from former President Donald Trump, who thought the price was too high.

The T-7 contract award followed a bid by Boeing of $9.2 billion to produce the Air Force’s new trainer that will replace the stalwart T-38 Talon. That deal, however, has cost Boeing more than anticipated and run into delays.

Trump got personally involved in the Air Force One contract cost, and Boeing agreed to produce the two VC-25B aircraft at a lower cost than initially planned.

“Well, it turns out our critics were right,” Calhoun said in an interview with CNBC. “We didn’t get enough price. That’s fairly obvious to all of us. In the meantime, we haven’t taken any of these fixed-price development contracts, and it’s not our intention to ever do so.”

Boeing recently made changes in the executive team of its defense division, also known as BDS. The company had a falling out with regulators and the general public following deadly crashes of its 737 Max commercial airliner, which was temporarily grounded. Boeing reported strong demand for the 737 Max, its marquee civilian airliner, in the third quarter of 2022. It has resumed deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner wide-body jet that had been halted after manufacturing defects.

While Boeing cited inflation as one factor driving its losses, the company did not try to blame the issue for all its troubles. The Department of Defense has signaled it may be willing to make adjustments for inflation to companies with fixed-price contracts such as Boeing. However, Calhoun or West did not raise the issue on the call with financial analysts despite repeatedly being pressed on Boeing’s defense losses.

After years of instability, safety, and quality concerns, Boeing’s main focus now is delivering what airliners and the Air Force have already ordered.

“I think that the thing we have to keep in mind is that our mandate is to stabilize and now deliver very important products to our customers who need them,” Calhoun said.

SDA Working on ‘Translators’ to Connect Transport Layer to Other Networks

Oct. 26, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Some of the satellites that will form the planned “backbone” of joint all-domain command and control may include “translation” payloads to let other satellites feed their data into the Pentagon’s massive mesh network, the head of the Space Development Agency said Oct. 25.

SDA is still committed to establishing common standards for networking and communications on the planned National Defense Space Architecture, director Derek M. Tournear said at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum. Of particular importance will be the Transport Layer, which will be responsible for providing data and connectivity to countless platforms across the U.S. military.

That ability to link sensors and shooters across the globe is what will make the Transport Layer a key component of joint all-domain command and control, the Pentagon’s ambitious effort to create a military Internet of Things, Tournear said.

But while common standards will be crucial to avoiding “vendor lock” and allowing different contractors to compete for Transport Layer contracts, Tournear suggested that SDA will also look to incorporate other satellite systems, both government and industry, into the data network via “translator sats.”

“A translator sat is a satellite that will be able to basically talk to the SDA Transport Layer and talk to either the commercial or other government agency providers’ layer so we can do that translation to move data from one network onto the other,” Tournear said. “And there’s a lot of reasons you may need to do that. … While not the preferred, that’s another option that we have available to be able to use the SDA Transport layer to tie this whole mission together. The whole mission, in a nutshell, is to get the right sensor data to the right shooter at the right time. And that’s how we enable that.”

Tournear later clarified that such a “translator” likely wouldn’t be a dedicated satellite, but instead a payload, either on a satellite launched as part of the NDSA, or as part of another satellite architecture.

SDA is already “working with our partners” on the translator concept, Tournear added.

Such a capability may be necessary even as SDA has looked to establish common standards. For networking, it is asking contractors to follow standards established by the Naval Research Laboratory’s Space Research Group called Nebula—which stands for “networking beyond the upper limits of the atmosphere.” It also has adopted optical communications standards, “to make sure that my walkie talkie talks to their walkie talkie,” Tournear said.

“We actually have with [the Naval Research Lab], we have developed a test lab so that folks can bring their optical terminals to NRL to demonstrate that they can plug and play with our optical standard, as well as other vendors’ optical communication terminals, to make sure there is no vendor lock situation and it’s all interoperable,” Tournear added.

Yet even with those standards, satellite constellations are already in orbit that may not have the necessary equipment. And there are other reasons why a contractor or agency might not meet the standards.

“You have some of the commercial networks up there and some of the commercial ISR data providers, they may not have either the capability or the ability to put an optical comms terminal that matches the SDA Transport Layer, or, frankly, they may not be able to meet the Nebula standards because of crypto requirements and things like that, which is not an easy thing to solve,” Tournear said.

That’s where the translation payloads come in, but three technical challenges have to be addressed, Tournear said.

First, the vendor running the satellite architecture would need to launch at least one satellite with an optical communications terminal to link up with SDA’s Transport Layer. Then, “what you need is a Nebulizer and a de-Nebulizer,” Tournear said—a way to take networking protocols and put them into SDA’s Nebula standard format so that data can be shared.

“We’re developing generic … software development toolkits for the Nebulizer and the De-Nebulizer that then third-party vendors could take, and they can use that as a starting point and to integrate that in with their system,” Tournear said.

Finally, the vendor and SDA will need to work out cybersecurity issues to ensure that the data being passed is safe, but “that’s something that has a lot of different types of solutions,” Tournear said.

As SDA works on those problems, “translator sats” won’t be part of the agency’s very first launches, scheduled for the coming months. But Tournear hinted that they could be in orbit in the coming years, starting with the planned Tranche 2 Demonstration and Experimentation Satellites, or T2DES.

“This isn’t set in stone, but likely some of those satellites would be demonstrators of different translator sats for different constellations,” Tournear said. “So those would be in your [2026] timeframe.”

Working from ‘Clean Sheet,’ China Building Up Space Power at ‘Incredible Rate,’ USSF Leaders Say

Oct. 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

China is building up its space capabilities at an “incredible rate”—and it has done so by embracing needed principles the U.S. has historically been slow to adopt, top Space Force officials said Oct. 25.

Speaking at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum, both Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson and Space Development Agency director Derek M. Tournear used the analogy of a “clean slate” to explain how the Chinese have been able to rapidly build out their architecture of satellites.

“What the Chinese have done is they have started with a clean sheet and they have built a military space reconnaissance strike enterprise that starts in space, with the ability to collect intelligence—now, by the most recent count, more than 260 ISR satellites,” Thompson said. “They have connected data relays. They have created their own global precision positioning, navigation, and timing system, the BeiDao, to the tune of 49 satellites today. And they have demonstrated that they learned the importance and the value of space power, and they intend to use those capabilities against us should it come time.”

That clean slate has been particularly important when compared to the U.S.’s own satellites. In recent years, Pentagon officials have frequently expressed concern that existing American military satellites, while providing exquisite capabilities, are relatively few in number and largely defenseless—“big, fat, juicy targets,” as Air Force Gen. John Hyten once referred to them, or “Battlestar Galactica,” as Tournear put it.

In contrast, the focus in future plans has been on proliferated constellations of cheaper, less capable satellites that, taken together, provide a mesh network and greater resiliency. In many ways, Tournear has led the charge on that front with SDA’s planned National Defense Space Architecture.

The two keys of the approach, Tournear said Oct. 25, are proliferation and “spiral development”—constant, regular updates to the architecture instead of waiting years to meet requirements.

“They clearly have embraced those pillars … before we have,” Tournear said of the Chinese. “And that’s kind of their model going forward, and they use that. And so the only thing I’d say about that is they also didn’t have all of the legacy that had given them the exquisite capabilities up to date. So they kind of started with a cleaner slate [and] were able to do that.”

Tournear was quick to note that the U.S.’s space architecture was born out of the time and technology in which it was fielded, and Thompson added that the Pentagon has done “a tremendous job” of adapting that architecture as needed to “push those space capabilities and effects … as far down as we could to individual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines in some cases.”

As a result, Thompson argued, the Pentagon still has an advantage in space with the existing architecture. But the gap is closing.

“They are building and fielding space capabilities at an incredible pace. … Their latest version of BeiDou, they have built and fielded over the course of about five years,” Thompson said of China. “Their space capabilities are still not quite as good as ours. But they are really, really, really good.”

When asked if the Space Force is projecting a timeline for when China might match or surpass the U.S. in space, though, Thompson demurred.

“I can’t really sit here and tell you today, at this point in time, when will they be a threat? They are a threat today,” Thompson said. “Are they better than us? Are they not as good as us? Will we win—will they win? Are we at parity? I can’t say that. All I can say is they are a serious challenge. They are a serious threat. They are serious about what they need to do. Their capabilities are close to ours. We simply need to do what we need to do, to continue to resource and field new capabilities, resilient capabilities, train our forces and be prepared, first to deter, but if necessary, to win.”

Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter Dies at 68

Oct. 25, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Ashton Baldwin Carter, who served as the 25th Secretary of Defense from 2015 to 2017, during the presidency of Barack Obama, died Oct. 24 at the age of 68. Carter served in national security roles and held numerous academic research, teaching, and leadership positions.

During his tenure as Defense Secretary, Carter directed the anti-ISIS special operations and air campaign in the Middle East—”Operation Inherent Resolve”—which ultimately led to the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. He also opened combat jobs to women and permitted transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. military.

From 2011 to 2013, Carter was deputy secretary, charged with managing the department’s response to the Budget Control Act sequestrations and reform of the Pentagon’s export control system, which had stymied some commercial and many military exports. He also directed the U.S. military’s “shift to Asia,” which put greater emphasis on the Indo-Pacific and reapportioned U.S. forces accordingly.

From 2009 to 2011, Carter served as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. He counted as one of his signature accomplishments the provision of more than 1,000 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to U.S. troops, who had been taking heavy casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan from roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). He also oversaw the selection of the KC-46 in the KC-X aerial tanker competition and instituted the “Better Buying Power” acquisition reforms.

From 1993 to 1996, under President Bill Clinton, Carter served as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, crafting nuclear policy, particularly as it applied to the former Soviet republics and North Korea; and working on other strategic issues. He oversaw the 1995 extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1996 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and “Project Sapphire,” which removed nuclear weapons and fissile material from several former Soviet states.

Carter ordered the opening of all military jobs to women in 2015 after a three-year study, which determined in part that many military women were already serving in combat positions, but were not receiving commensurate pay, career recognition, command opportunities or appropriate decorations due to their non-combat specialty codes. The change permitted women to compete for special operations, fighter pilot, and other frontline combat positions.

In 2016, Carter lifted a ban on transgender personnel openly serving in the military, saying anyone who could meet the military’s standards “should be afforded the opportunity to compete to do so.”

Graduating summa cum laude from Yale with degrees in physics and medieval history, Carter worked in the Congressional Office of Technology, returning to the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1984 to chair the International and Global Affairs faculty.

Carter did research on quarks and charmed particles at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He was a Rhodes scholar and received his doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Oxford. He did postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University and the MIT Center for International Studies. He taught at Harvard University from 1984 to 1990.

He received five awards of the Defense Department Distinguished Public Service Medal, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Medal and the Defense Intelligence Medal.

Carter wrote 11 books on ballistic missile basing and strategy, missile defenses, international security, and defense management.

At the time of his death, Carter was the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he taught public policy.

Space Force to Get New CSO, INDOPACOM Component in November, Vice Chief Says

Oct. 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force is poised for two major changes in November, with a new Chief of Space Operations (CSO) taking on the role early in the month and the service’s component for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command standing up a few weeks later.

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson announced the dates for both developments at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum on Oct. 25. The former will mark the first change of responsibility for the Space Force’s top job, while the latter will result in the service’s first component for a combatant command outside of U.S. Space Command.

New CSO

First, retiring Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond will pass the baton to Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman “a week from today,” Thompson said.

The Space Force later confirmed that the ceremony will take place Nov. 2 at Joint Base Andrews, Md. That’s in line with prior Space Force projections of a change of responsibility ceremony in early November.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall will all attend the ceremony.

Saltzman was first nominated to succeed Raymond as head of the Space Force in late July. He appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing in mid-September, stressing the need for investment in test and training technology. The full Senate confirmed him in an uncontroversial voice vote Sept. 29.

“I’m humbled and honored to be confirmed as the next Chief of Space Operations,” Saltzman said in a statement after his confirmation. “I look forward to leading the U.S. Space Force and building on the strong foundational leadership Gen. Raymond has provided for almost three years.”

“Congratulations to Chance Saltzman on his confirmation to serve as the next Chief of Space Operations,” Raymond said in a statement. “I couldn’t be more excited for the Saltzmans and for our Space Force. The team is in great hands.”

Saltzman will take on the role of CSO after previously serving as the deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, a job he first took on in August 2020. He has also commanded at the squadron, group, and wing levels in the Air Force.

Raymond, meanwhile, will retire after making history as the Space Force’s very first Guardian and Chief of Space Operations. Through the service’s first three years, Raymond oversaw numerous milestones and markers, as the Space Force stood up, defined its structures, strategies, and operational procedures, and consolidated many space-focused units and personnel from across the Pentagon.

Still more work awaits Saltzman. In the coming years, the Space Force plans to launch a new resilient constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit and build up its “lethality” and capability to respond to aggressive actions by competitors such as Russia and China. At the same time, the service must also refine and finalize its plans for essential personnel issues such as a “holistic health” program to replace traditional PT tests, and the organization of Reserve and part-time elements.

INDOPACOM Component

As Saltzman takes the reins from Raymond, he’ll oversee major developments in how the Space Force integrates with the Joint force, starting with the establishment of a service component within U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

According to Thompson, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III “just recently” authorized the component’s establishment. This follows on comments from Saltzman this past May that a decision was imminent and necessary “to effectively integrate space capabilities.”

“On the 22nd of November, [INDOPACOM commander Adm. John Aqulino] will establish and hand the Space Force component flag to Brig. Gen. Tony Mastalir and establish the first true Space Force component, built on the foundation and the structure of the Space Force that we developed with the Air Force over decades,” Thompson said.

Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir was confirmed as a general officer by the Senate in May. He previously served as commander of Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.

While INDOPACOM will be the first earthbound combatant command to get a Space Force service component, it won’t be the only one—components for U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command will follow “very quickly thereafter,” Thompson said.

Such moves will allow the Space Force to move beyond its work with U.S. Space Command to ensure it collaborates “closely with other combatant commanders to make sure that not only can we understand what they need in terms of space capabilities, but they truly and deeply understand the full suite of capabilities available to them in the United States Space Force, from other military services, to our IC partners, and through the commercial sector,” Thompson said.

LaPlante: DOD Won’t ‘Kick the Can’ on F-35 New Engine Decision; Won’t Break Up JPO

Oct. 25, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon will soon decide whether to move ahead with a new engine for the F-35, and officials won’t simply table the issue indefinitely, Defense Department acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante said at an acquisition conference. He also said calls to break up the F-35 Joint Program Office and distribute its development functions to the services are premature but that he supports the services taking over sustainment of their own F-35 fleets.

“It’s predecisional. We’re in the middle of lots of meetings” on the Adaptive Engine Transition Program, or AETP, LaPlante said at an Oct. 25 acquisition conference sponsored by the Potomac Officers Club. But, he pledged, “We are not going to kick the can. We are going to make a decision,” he said, suggesting that the choice will appear in the fiscal 2024 budget request. “And that’s what’s going on right now.”

The Pentagon has been debating for more than a year whether some or all of the F-35 fleet should be refitted with new engines, after some members of Congress urged the Pentagon to pursue such a program. General Electric has prototyped the XA-100 and Pratt & Whitney the XA-101, both of which can fit the F-35A, but which are less easy to fit to the F-35B and C models.

The Joint Program Office has said that if the Air Force wants an AETP engine in its F-35As, it will have to pay for the development and integration itself, because the rules of the international F-35 partnership are, “you have to pay to be different,” former JPO director retired Lt. Gen. Eric Fick said in 2021.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said at the fiscal 2023 budget rollout that he’s been talking to the Navy about going in on the AETP together but has not commented recently on the progress of those discussions.

GE Aviation has been pressing for the AETP to be fitted to the F-35 fleet in the Block 4 version of the F-35, saying it can have the engine ready by 2027. GE has been locked out of the F-35 engine market since Congress voted to terminate GE’s alternate F136 engine for the fighter in 2011. Pratt & Whitney—part of Raytheon Technologies—has said it can also provide its AETP engine, but has been pushing for an upgrade of the existing F135 powerplant, which it alone makes. The AETP was originally envisioned as not only exploring more powerful and efficient engines, but potentially setting up an annual engine procurement competition between the two companies.

Some members of Congress have also come out against refitting the F-35 with an AETP powerplant, saying it would be cost-prohibitive for the Air Force to do it alone and that it would undercut the commonality of aircraft among the various users that the program has painstakingly preserved.

LaPlante said the AETP initiative has “in my view … done everything it was advertised to do, in terms of getting efficiencies both in power and potential for range and fuel savings.” The only thing standing in the way of a production program, he said, is “just money.”

It’s a matter of “whether we take it and go to the next phase—which is going to some of degree of serious engineering and manufacturing development—and then cut that in” to the production line, “or do another option.” The F135 update is the other option.

However, “Doing nothing on the F-35 engine is not an option … We have to do life extension” on the engine, and “We have to do something about its ability to generate power. And, we may have to do something—or want to do something—on performance. Which gets you to AETP,” he said.

“All of those factors are under consideration right now,” LaPlante added.

He dismissed the idea of disbanding the F-35 JPO in the near future as “pretty stupid.”

The F-35, he said, is “still in development” with the Block 4 version. “You don’t break up a program office that’s doing development … We need the JPO to finish development,” something he predicted would happen in about five years. “Then,” he said, “we can revisit it.”

The Pentagon is, though, trying to “get the sustainment back to the services … to make sure the services own the sustainment … So that’s where I see that moving.”

An important consideration, he added, is the F-35 international partners, eight of which are “plank holders” who have been part of the program since its inception.

“This is not FMS,” he said, referring to Foreign Military Sales. The international partners are “part of the governance” of the F-35, and “They love the JPO.”

They view the JPO as “an honest broker … trying to balance the equities between the partners, and maybe even our services in this country,” and they would likely object to the JPO’s being undercut. This fact “doesn’t get much attention in Washington.”

“The fact of the matter is, the JPO does incredible work” keeping the partners informed and involved on the program’s progress, LaPlante said.

“The partners trust the JPO, and it’s one of the most successful programs, I think, ever in the history of DOD.” For now, he said, “in the sense of moving to the next phase,” it will only be about moving the sustainment of the F-35 “back to the services.”

Lockheed Martin Says LMXT Still a Possibility for KC-Y Program

Oct. 25, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

Lockheed Martin says it is still pitching its LMXT tanker to the Air Force amid a looming requirements announcement for the KC-Y tanker program. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has cast doubt on whether a KC-Y program would field a wholly new aircraft and has said the program may end up being an upgraded KC-46 Pegasus.

However, the KC-46 and its manufacturer Boeing face growing disquiet over numerous delays and problems with the aircraft. The KC-Y is the so-called “bridge tanker” envisioned for production between the current KC-46A and a next-generation KC-Z family of aerial refueling systems.

While the company does not yet know what the requirements of the KC-Y will be, Lockheed Martin said the Air Force has expressed possible interest in a “KC-Y plus,” which the company says could be its LMXT.

“We see this airplane as already being in that KC-Y plus scenario—it is already embodying next-generation technologies,” Lockheed Martin’s LMXT director Larry Gallogly told reporters Oct. 25. “I would certainly say that that’s a potential outcome.”

The Air Force recently announced that necessary updates to the KC-46’s problematic Remote Vision System (RVS) will not be complete until 2025. Lockheed Martin says its offering, which is based on the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport—in service or on order by over a dozen countries—already has the many kinks worked out.

“This is kind of backwards for the U.S. government,” Gallogly said of the LMXT’s development process. “Normally, the U.S. government invests in a weapons system, and we go through all of these growing pains with their weapons system. We get that weapon system up to speed, and our friends and allies get to take advantage of all of that development that we’ve done on that … But our friends and allies have made all of that investment. Now we’re going to get to take advantage of that.”

Lockheed Martin highlighted the fact that the Airbus-designed refueling system for LMXT has undergone numerous improvements over the past decade. Like the KC-46’s RVS, the LMXT uses a screen-based system for operating the main refueling boom.

Lockheed Martin makes the case that the LMXT, a derivative of the commercial Airbus A330 wide-body jet, can also help the Air Force shift toward the Pacific, which it says presents a “tyranny of distance.” Aircraft will need more pit stops to refuel to cover the large area. The Air Force wants to develop the concept of agile combat employment, which means having dispersed operations. Lockheed Martin claims the larger LMXT would support that. With a 271,000-pound fuel capacity, the larger LMXT would carry about 60,000 more pounds of fuel than the KC-46, land at the airbases, and then could operate as a ground refueling station. It could also refuel KC-46s and free them up for other missions. Kendall has repeatedly reiterated his focus on improving the U.S.’s ability to counter China.

“This aircraft does that, I believe, more than any other of the assets that we have,” Gallogly said. “Gas is going to be king.”

As part of the Air Force’s push for flexibility, it plans to use KC-46 as a communications node. Lockheed Martin says the LMXT will have its own dedicated communications hub set up for joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) operations. It will also have a permanent aeromedical suite. This would limit time on the ground needed to configure a plane during which a lumbering tanker could be subject to attack. Airbus’s automatic air-to-air refueling system, which the LMXT would retain, could help reduce the number of crew, or at least their workload. Under Gen. Mike Minihan, Air Mobility Command is pushing for longer sorties with smaller crews.

“Our answer was we’ve designed the configuration so that in 90 percent of the situations, you won’t have to reconfigure this airplane ever,” Gallogly said. “It has all of that all of the time, so it makes it much, much more effective in a combat environment where that time on the ground is critical.”

Still, Lockheed Martin faces a challenging environment if it hopes to sell the LMXT to the U.S. government. The Air Force hopes to push up the timeline on the KC-Z program, which will feature a family of systems for aerial refueling, with some work on the program beginning as soon as 2023. However, if dissatisfaction with Boeing grows over KC-46 delays, Congress could compel the Air Force to have a competition for the KC-Y to prevent the service from relying on a sole source that is already plagued with issues. If not, Lockheed Martin says the LMXT would not die.

“If the competition doesn’t go forward [on the KC-Y], I’m not convinced that the next competition would be for a Z,” Gallogly said. “They may just say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a competition for the next-generation tanker, and here’s what we want it to do.’ And then we’ll evaluate those requirements and see, does this airplane fit that criteria?”

Ultimately, Lockheed Martin and Boeing are awaiting decisions from the Air Force on what will happen with its future tanker programs.

“Only they know for sure,” Gallogly said.