‘Sensing Has Become Ubiquitous’: Satellite Imagery in Ukraine Offers View of Future Warfare

Sept. 19, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The proliferation of commercial satellites is changing the character of war, a panel of military experts said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 18.

In Ukraine, Russia has been able to use its own satellite capabilities and has been bolstered by readily available commercial imagery.

“I think both Ukrainians and the Russians on the ground are learning some painful lessons about what I’m going to call the ubiquity of sensing and targeting,” said David A. Ochmanek, a researcher at the RAND Corporation and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development.

“Now, there are ways to counter space-based sensors,” Ochmanek added. “There are ways to counter airborne sensors at all levels. But it seems to me, on this battlefield at least, that if you want to survive, you’ve got to be dispersed, you’ve got to be mobile, you’ve got to be hidden.”

While commercial satellite imagery was once the domain of a few nations with high-end space capabilities, journalists, open-source intelligence trackers on social media, and adversaries can now all access it.

“One of the issues that was raised by the senior officials in the Ministry of Defense and Air Force back when I visited Kyiv was, ‘Can you help us please figure out a way to deny commercial satellite coverage that the Russians are using to see what we’re doing here in Ukraine?’ So, yeah, sensing has become ubiquitous,” said retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in the Air Force. “We see that today unfolding in that battle space, and it’s going to be with us everywhere else.”

Coupled with the proliferation of guided munitions—and the ability to use unguided munitions more accurately—that imagery is putting more and more targets at risk.

“Bottom line, if there’s anything bigger than a bread box that you’re interested in, it’s going to be targeted,” Deptula added.

Air Marshal Allan Marshall, Air & Space Commander (ASC), Royal Air Force; Lt. Gen. Dave A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.), Dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies; Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, USAF (Ret.), Former commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa; Maj. Gen. Charles Corcoran, USAF (Ret.), Former Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations; David A. Ochmanek, Senior International/Defense Researcher, RAND, during a panel discussion on “Ukraine, Russia War: A Prelude to Future Conflict” at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 18, 2024. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

The war in Ukraine has also featured the use of drones—including quadcopters, first-person view one-way attack drones, and Iranian-designed Shaheds—throughout the battlefield. Some of the most high-profile uses have seen Ukraine and Russia carry out deep strikes with unmanned aerial vehicles. But there are other uses as well, such as loitering over infantry units and for artillery spotting.

The U.S. military has long been the world’s foremost operator of ISR drones, but it is also turning to commercial satellite imagery to augment those aircraft.

The Space Force has used its Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking (TacSRT) program, which gets tactical information from commercial providers, to support combatant commanders. Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said the U.S. has been able to use such capabilities to provide “overwatch” of U.S. troops withdrawing from Niger over the past few months.

“That used to be done by an MQ-9 or something like that, and they were able to take this commercial satellite imagery and then put some intelligence behind it and get it down to the operators on the ground in an hour and a half,” added Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFA), during a roundtable with reporters. “That’s not as good as real-time as with an MQ-9 you would have, but it’s better than nothing.”

The proliferation of satellite imagery has not only been employed as a military tool but as a diplomatic one. In the run-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. government declassified intelligence that Russia was planning an invasion—the most striking example in the prelude to the war was imagery showing Russian troops near the border, a sight hard for the Kremlin to brush off.

“I could step back to the couple months prior and then the initial invasion … don’t forget the importance of information sharing and what we did at the beginning to bring together the team that was able to facilitate at least the deterrence on the Eastern flank for NATO,” said retired Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, the commander of USAFE-AFA at the time of the Russian invasion and Hecker’s predecessor. “The way we were able to share information at speed to the right people from the strategic to the tactical level, build trust and confidence across the force—and without that, you’re never going to be able to win.”

Air Force Will Take Lead in Joint Prototype Battle Management Tech

Sept. 18, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The Department of the Air Force will be taking over the Pentagon’s prototype Joint Fires Network, or JFN, as it transitions to a fully fledged program of record, program executive officer for command, control, communications, and battle management Maj. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey told reporters Sept. 18.

“I will have the budget and acquisition authority to actually execute the program,” he told a media roundtable on the sidelines of AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference.

JFN is currently a technology demonstration under U.S. Indo-Pacific Command—an IT platform linking warfighters on land, sea, and in the air with surveillance assets and weapons systems across the region, providing a common situational picture of enemy threats and allowing them to be remotely targeted.

Cropsey’s remarks followed an announcement earlier in the week from Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who said the Pentagon has designated the Air Force as the “executive agent” on the program. This move “recognizes both the progress we have made to date, and the value of achieving integration of JFN and the [DAF Battle Network],” he said.

The DAF Battle Network is the latest iteration of the Air Force’s long-developing, ambitious attempt to create a network of systems and capabilities connecting sensors and shooters around the world. It’s also the service’s contribution to Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or CJDAC2, the Pentagon’s vision of future wars fought seamlessly across all five domains of conflict—land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.

Cropsey’s office is responsible for procuring the systems that will go into the DAF Battle Network. Now he’ll be responsible for folding JFN into the mix. JFN is effectively a prototype of the kind of capability that will be ubiquitously available to U.S. warfighters once CJADC2 becomes reality.

JFN is currently run by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Cropsey said, but involves “a large number of players,” including the Defense Information Systems Agency, the DOD’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer, the Defense Innovation Unit, the Navy, and INDOPACOM.

“We’ve been designated as the lead … that will bring those other pieces together and turn that [JFN] into a sustainable capability over time,” he said.

The problem set, he added, is figuring out “what would it look like for us to do a hot handoff of what they’re doing … currently, and make sure that that effort works at speed and at scale,” he said.

“We’re working [with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering] on a transition plan now.”

Initially, the fully fledged JFN program would be deployed in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility, he said, but eventually “we’re creating a capability that we can then build off of and expand to the other [combatant commands].”

Cropsey also touted progress his office was making with other elements of battle management, saying the Cloud-Based Command and Control, or CBC2, system he promised last year to deploy had been rolled out earlier in the year, along with a hardware component, the Tactical Operations Center-Light, or TOC-L, that will enable frontline units to use it.

“It’s out. It’s running. They’re using it. It’s active,” he said of CBC2, acknowledging that work was ongoing. “These software-defined, hardware-enabled kinds of programs are never really done, right? You’re in continuous integration, continuous development all the time.”

As for TOC-L, he said 16 had been delivered and “the teams are operationally beating the snot out of them right now. And they’re doing that intentionally so that we can understand better … what works and what doesn’t work. And then we’re going to fold that immediately into the next iteration of those [TOC-L] kits.”

Next year, Cropsey added, “we’re going to get busy starting to push them [TOC-L kits] out at scale.”

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Joshua Omernik, 752nd Operations Support Squadron, assembles hardware for the Tactical Operations Center – Light during a training collaboration with the 134th Air Control Squadron at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, Jan. 29, 2024. Members of the 134th ACS observed the setup of the TOC-L to learn how to employ it in future operations. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Matt McCoy

Here’s How a Continuing Resolution Could Hurt the Air Force in 2025

Sept. 18, 2024 | By Rachel S. Cohen

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The Air Force on Sept. 18 warned that a failure to pass a new budget for the federal government for part or all of fiscal 2025 could degrade military readiness and slow the arrival of critical equipment as Congress ticks toward a shutdown in less than two weeks.

Continuing resolutions have become the norm each year as Congress repeatedly fails to approve appropriations bills on time. CRs keep spending levels frozen at the previous year’s marks and prevents new programs from being started.

A continuing resolution would hamper promised pay increases for troops, hinder nuclear modernization, and pause purchases of weapons and aircraft the Air Force sees as key in a future war with China, among other impacts outlined in a fact sheet the Department of the Air Force provided to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“Any length of CR impacts readiness, hinders acceleration of the Space Force, delays military construction projects, reduces aircraft availability, and curbs modernization in the race for technological superiority,” the department argued. “These impacts get dramatically more perilous as sequestration is imposed under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.”

Fresh details on a stopgap bill’s possible impact on the Air Force and Space Force came hours before the House failed to pass a six-month CR proposed by Republicans that would keep the federal government running on the fumes of fiscal 2024 funding until March 28, 2025.

Lawmakers have until Sept. 30 to approve a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown starting Oct. 1.

The Pentagon routinely opposes stopgap spending legislation, arguing the measures erode military readiness by jeopardizing acquisition and training and injecting uncertainty into the defense industry.

The Air Force seeks a budget of $188.1 billion in fiscal 2025; the Space Force requested $29.4 billion.

Under a three-month CR, the Department of the Air Force said, space launch and testing modernization would fall short and technologies that protect space-based communications could not enter production. Such a bill would also hit routine maintenance of aircraft and other equipment, the Air Force’s flight training budget, facilities upkeep, and upcoming contract awards.

A six-month CR could stop the Air Force from buying greater numbers of high-end munitions like the extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, and Stand-In Attack Weapon. That could trigger a $400 million fine for failing to meet contract obligations, the Air Force said, and hurt Air Force and Navy stockpiles.

Such a bill would delay production of the first seven T-7A Red Hawk training jets by a year and keep flat the number of MH-139 Grey Wolf patrol helicopters in production at Boeing, the service said. Fighter programs are also at risk; a CR may restrict future F-35 Lightning II contracts and delay further production of the new F-15EX Eagle II, “potentially leading to [a] production line break and [delaying] support for fielded active and ANG aircraft,” the Air Force said.

After six months, the Air Force may also struggle to cover increases in military pay or dole out bonuses designed to keep Airmen in critical and undermanned career fields. A CR could delay Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve training and affect funding for “must-pay” housing and subsistence stipends, the service said.

And while less likely, a yearlong CR may postpone progress toward the department’s strategic goals, stall the Space Force’s advancement, and prevent dozens of major construction projects from getting underway.

Work on Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the Air Force’s top priority effort to field a fleet of drone wingmen, would also see delays under a yearlong CR, the service said.

If a CR is still in place on April 30, 2025, federal discretionary spending would automatically be slashed to meet caps imposed by the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“These actions not only stifle modernization, but inalterably give ground to our adversaries by reducing [Department of the Air Force] buying power by $15 [billion],” the department said.

CRs also prevent the services from launching new programs, slowing research and development, and pausing projects to restore or replace neglected buildings on base.

The Department of the Air Force flagged 33 new construction projects totaling $2.1 billion, from aircraft simulator facilities to a child care center, that would be put on hold under a CR. At least $1.3 billion more in research, procurement and maintenance initiatives—not including classified programs—would also face delays.

Military officials are asking for an exception to the restriction on new starts for at least five efforts. Those include a Space Force program to develop secure tactical communications satellites, “bunker-buster” bombs designed to penetrate targets deep underground, and nuclear weapons security.

Service leaders fear potential budgetary woes could hit programs of all sizes and across all missions.

Speaking to reporters at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference here Sept. 16, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said a sweeping new training exercise, slated for next summer to practice for a prospective war with China, could be pared back without adequate funding in place. Space Force Brig. Gen. Kristin L. Panzenhagen, the top officer overseeing launch facilities at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, said the service may have trouble awarding the next National Security Space Launch contract—which hires commercial firms to take military satellites and payloads to orbit—if they don’t get a new budget.

Air Force Undersecretary Melissa G. Dalton predicted that a CR could delay bringing on the service’s secretive new B-21 Raider stealth bomber as well as postpone development of a new land-based nuclear missile and efforts to maintain the current arsenal.

“The stakes are pretty high,” Dalton said Sept. 18. “We need resources aligned and on time.”

As a last-ditch effort to support top priorities that would be neglected by a CR, service leaders can ask lawmakers to repurpose existing funds away from other programs. It’s unclear whether the Department of the Air Force will lean on that option in the absence of stable funding.

“We’re going to be doing as much as we can to continue our momentum on moving things forward,” Allvin said. “If that requires reprogramming, then we’ll … pursue those as necessary. But I really can’t give you a very precise answer on that now, until we see … how long that continuing resolution would be.”

News Editor Greg Hadley and Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed to this story.

USAF Experiments with Drones to Better Monitor Russia in the Arctic

Sept. 18, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—U.S. Air Forces in Europe is testing more uses for drones to extend its Arctic surveillance, emphasizing that while sharing information might be “the easiest and cheapest” option, it’s far from enough, its leader said.

“We’ve been experimenting with MQ-9s, with Global Hawks … trying to go up farther north in the Arctic Circle, which we haven’t done in the past,” Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of USAFE and NATO Allied Air Command, said at the AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

The MQ-9 Reaper, dubbed the “hunter-killer,” provides medium-altitude surveillance with 27-hour endurance, focusing on time-critical, high-value targets in permissive environments. Meanwhile, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude “deep look” ISR platform, complements satellites and manned aircraft, staying airborne for up to 34 hours depending on the mission payload.

An MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft from the 556 Test and Evaluation Squadron flies over the Nevada Test and Training Range during a live-fire exercises with Hellfire missiles and GBU-12 Paveway II bombs. Airman 1st Class Victoria Nuzzi

Last month, USAFE deployed the RQ-4 to RAF Fairford in the U.K. for the first time for an undisclosed duration. The command noted that this deployment will include operations through “international and Allied airspace.” NATO also currently operates five RQ-4D Phoenix aircraft from Sigonella Naval Air Station, Italy.

Hecker also expressed interest in high-altitude balloons or experimental, solar-powered drones as a way to improve domain awareness in the Arctic, a crucial region where NATO and Russia frequently come into contact.

And it’s not just USAFE that wants to expand the use of surveillance drones. Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said earlier during the conference that these drones as a potential “gap filler” while the service works to procure over-the-horizon radars (OTHR). He emphasized that the UAVs would need to be adapted for the Arctic’s unique conditions to maintain endurance and altitude.

While MQ-9s and RQ-4s can soar tens of thousands of feet above the ground, Hecker also said he wants to boost low-altitude surveillance and defense. In particular, he Ukraine’s cost-effective ISR system known as “Sky Fortress,” a smartphone-based network of acoustic sensors that detect drones by sound. These sensors relay data to mobile teams, enabling them to shoot down UAVs with minimal training.

“I had a demonstration done at Ramstein where they brought up these sensors, put them around the air base, and we saw that it worked,” Hecker told reporters during a roundtable at the conference. “We did another demonstration in Romania, and several other countries came and saw that it worked. … I briefed all the NATO Air Chiefs on this and had the guys come in and brief the physicists. They’re very excited about it. Now, we just need to have them pony up, get some money, and try to put these sensors out there.”

Air Force Gen. James Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and NATO Allied Air Command, Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham, Commander, Alaskan Command, U.S. Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Jonas Wikman, Air Chief of the Swedish Air Force, and Major General Øivind Gunnerud, Chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Force at ‘Deterring Russia in the Arctic’ panel discussion at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

At just a few hundred dollars per sensor, it’s an affordable and highly effective system that has already proven its value against Russian drones, Hecker said.

The urgency to enhance ISR in the Arctic is fueled by an uptick in Russian aircraft activity in the region, on top of Moscow’s increasing coordination with China. Other Arctic nations like Norway—with a large portion of its territory inside the Arctic Circle—are seeing it too.

“On average, per year, we intercept Russians once or twice per week, and we see their ships all the time,” said Maj. Gen. Øivind Gunnerud, Chief of Royal Norwegian Air Force. “And since the climate is that harsh, search and rescue is also important.”

Sweden and Finland—two Arctic neighbors close to Russia—also joined NATO recently, beefing up the alliance’s presence.

“What we add is changing the geography in the Arctic completely,” said Maj. Gen. Jonas Wikman, Air Chief of the Swedish Air Force. “That means a huge thing that enables new plans, and achieving true deterrence in the Arctic is going to be making use of that new geography, combined with our strengths, making new plans, and exercising those plans. Because true deterrence against Russia comes from demonstrating that we are an alliance.”

With more territory comes broader surveillance, and NATO is putting information sharing at the forefront.

“A lot of countries have a lot of different capabilities… and if we share that information, that’s going to give us a lot more than we have,” said Hecker. “We’re already doing that, and we have agreements to even do it more. It’s not for any one country, there’s no way you can do it (by yourself), so we have to do it together.”

Could Trainees Start Carrying Real Rifles in BMT? There’s Interest, but No Timeline Yet

Sept. 18, 2024 | By David Roza

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—There is no timeline yet on when, if ever, Air Force and Space Force trainees might be expected to carry actual weapons at Basic Military Training, the head of the 37th Training Wing said Sept. 18. The decision to do so would have to be made at higher levels such as the commanders of the Second Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, and even the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

“It’ll have to go through that entire process to make sure we understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and then just to ensure that we are actually prepared to do that in a safe manner,” Col. Willie L. Cooper told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

Starting in late July, future Airmen and Guardians were each issued an inert M4 carbine after completing the initial weapons familiarization course during the first week of training. The carbines have a red flash suppressor to show that they are inert, meaning they cannot be fired. Trainees then carry the weapons for the rest of the 7.5-week program and store the rifles in lockers when they’re in the dorms.

But the “desired end state” would be to have Airmen carry actual weapons, ones that are capable of being fired, throughout their BMT experience, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flosi told reporters at the conference.

“We really would want to get the real ones, because the threat’s real, the environment is dangerous,” he said.

Trainees used to carry inert weapons until the program halted in 2012. The 737th Training Group, which oversees BMT, brought it back to prepare for possible conflict against China or Russia, which experts say will be more bloody than any the U.S. military has experienced for decades.

“Incorporating practice weapons into realistic scenarios in a controlled environment builds confidence, corrects errors, and manages stress by providing regular practice that reduces hesitation and increases combat effectiveness,” group commander Col. Billy Wilson Jr. said in a press release in August.

air force rifle — U.S. Air Force Basic Military Training trainees carry weapons at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland on August 2, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Ava Leone)

In a near-peer conflict, Airmen may have to work in small teams and perform tasks outside their usual career field, such as carrying a rifle and guarding an airfield.

“So understanding lethal means and understanding the responsibility that comes along with it, that’s time well spent,” Flosi said. “It’s a little bit of individual responsibility and accountability, and also its another reminder that you’re in the profession of arms.”

Both Marine and Army recruits carry weapons with them throughout boot camp, during which they learn to fire at the rifle range. Currently, Air Force trainees learn to fire rifles during the fifth week of BMT, then wield training rifles during PACER FORGE, the 36-hour combat exercise at the end of BMT.

“Carrying a weapon … gets that training, the awareness, the confidence, the ability to handle it safely, as they go through the pipeline,” Cooper said.

The colonel said the 37th Training Wing will continue to refine BMT so that it prepares trainees for the end user: the deployable combat wing.

“How do we get our folks, our trainees, acclimated to what they’re going to face at that combat wing, what they’re going to be expected to do,” he said. “That’s where you’ll continue to see tweaks at PACER FORGE and throughout their career.”

A group of Basic Military Training trainees walk together during a simulated deployment exercise known as Primary Agile Combat Employment Range, Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise or PACER FORGE at Joint Base San Antonio – Chapman Training Annex, Nov. 20, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Vanessa R. Adame)

‘A Fine Balance’: How to Manage More Exercises Versus Readiness

Sept. 18, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The Air Force and Space Force will have to manage a delicate balance between building readiness and preparing forces as they conduct more realistic, large-scale exercises, senior leaders said Sept. 18 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

“An exercise is a great way to build skill sets. We build interoperability, and there’s a lot to be gained,” Gen. Kevin B. Schneider, commander of Pacific Air Forces, said during a panel discussion. “There’s also a burn that’s associated with exercises.”

The Air Force wants to move towards more limited-notice, large-scale exercises. That push is headlined by REFORPAC, a roughly two-week exercise set to place across the Pacific next summer, which will integrate the U.S. Air Force with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s plans for operationally relevant training for a fight in which forces need to disperse to different bases under simulated attack and communications may not be available. REFORPAC is modeled on the Cold War-era REFORGER exercise aimed to prepare the U.S. to face a threat from the Soviet Union. The Air Force is already moving in that direction with the Air Combat Command-led Bamboo Eagle exercise in 2024 and the Air Mobility Command-led Mobility Guardian last year.

“We’re understanding better how the training events need to be improved,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told Air & Space Forces Magazine in August. “We’re putting together more regional training sites so they can deploy before they get to a big Bamboo Eagle. Now we look to expand that because we’ve got to scale it to the entire Air Force.”

However, exercises, while not real-world fights, do impact readiness. Aircraft are flown, using up equipment and taxing Airmen.

“For us, as we continue to do more, we have to take a hard look at the prioritization and understand the impacts on readiness because we do not know when the next crisis is going to happen and we’ve got to be on our toes for all that,” Schneider said. “It’s an ongoing focus item … to make sure that at the same time, we don’t consume too much of our force to give us the opportunities to respond.”

The Air Force conducts exercises for several different reasons. In addition to training the force to fight, exercises are often alliance-building events. Some are diplomatically driven to build relationships with countries.

In 2023, the Air Force brought A-10 Warthog close air support aircraft and more to South America, an ofteen-overlooked area in U.S. military circles, for an exercise led by U.S. Southern Command.

A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II from the 64th Air Expeditionary Wing prepares for takeoff at Chiclayo, Peru, July 12, 2023 U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Chris Hibben

“The influence the [People’s Republic of China] has there is immense,” the head of Air Force Reserve Command Lt. Gen. John P. Healy said. “So it was an absolute show of force. And what we tried to do is we tried to put a mini Air Force there, everything from C-17, A-10, C-130s, tankers to show that we have the capability, with many eyes watching, of doing things like this.”

But top commanders said they do not want to tax the force too much.

“We come up with events, and we’ve got a few where a Delta commander feels like this is not a readiness-generating event, there are no learning objectives that satisfy any of my requirements to meet a EUCOM or PACOM requirement, we don’t send the force element to go,” said Lt. Gen. David N. Miller, the head of Space Operations Command. “That has generated some hard feelings reports, which are my job to receive. But I think that has also disciplined our structure.”

At the tactical level, wing commanders say they also carefully judge tradeoffs to ensure they don’t overextend their troops. The 31st Fighter Wing based at Aviano Air Base, Italy, has deployed its F-16s to the Middle East twice in the last year to fend off Iranian aggression while still fulfilling multiple exercises focused on integrating with European allies and preparing to defend NATO, conducting a myriad of exercises in the past few months.

Wing commander Brig. Gen. Tad D. Clark echoed senior leaders, noting his Airmen and aircraft cannot be overused and that careful consideration must be made not to conduct too many exercises that would harm his ability to be ready to fight or scale down how many forces the wing commits to an exercise.

“We have a strategic calendar, we think it through, we see what the taskings are, and we try to plot it out, so that we give it deliberate thought of what we’re committing ourselves to, what we’re committing ourselves to, and what we’re not able to fully support,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“That’s why we try to be as deliberate as possible and have good communication with the headquarters, expressing what we’re able to do, and then lay out the [tradeoffs],” Clark added. “There are some exercise opportunities that have not been tasked but have been made available, and we’ve respectfully communicated that we’re just going to have to … not participate based on our operational cycle, how busy we are, how many aircraft we have, and some limitations—because we could do it all, but to what cost is the question.”

An F-16 Fighting Falcon from Aviano Air Base, Italy, lands at an undisclosed location in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility in April 2024. **USAF**

Senior leaders say they are cognizant of those concerns.

“Exercises help build readiness, but exercises also come with a cost,” Schneider told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an interview. “You can exercise so much that it actually starts to decrement your readiness, because you can’t reconstitute.”

“It’s a fine balance, and I work with the wing commanders to understand how much is too much,” Schneider continued. “When it comes to exercising, there’s tremendous benefit that comes from it. There’s also tremendous benefit from being able to just focus on the things you weren’t able to do during an exercise: take care of maintenance, take care of some of the other things, and make sure that your people and your equipment are healthy to be able to respond across the spectrum.”

Space Force Close to New Launch Contracts—But Only If Congress Passes a Budget

Sept. 18, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The Space Force is preparing to award billions of dollars in launch contracts by the end of this year—provided Congress passes a budget. If Congress only passes a continuing resolution, the schedule may have to slip.

By the end of 2024, Space Systems Command wants to award a contract for the next phase of its National Security Space Launch program. It also wants to observe a final certification flight from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket and see the first certification flight from Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle.

All three events are key to Phase 3 of the NSSL program, which will be responsible for launching the military’s most important new satellite systems into orbit from 2025 to 2029.

Brig. Gen. Kristin L. Panzenhagen, SSC’s program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference that much work remains to be done. The Space Force took a “dual-lane” approach to this phase—Lane 1 prioritizes commercial-like missions where a higher risk tolerance is allowable, while Lane 2 is for the “most stressing heavy-lift launches” where full mission assurance is essential.

Contract winners will get to compete for task orders for specific missions within the program. ULA, Blue Origin, and SpaceX all got contracts for Lane 1 in June. Source selection is ongoing for Lane 2 and awards are expected toward the end of this year, Panzenhagen said.

“It’s a big important contract, we’re definitely doing a lot of due diligence on that,” she said.

Panzenhagen and SSC commander Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant both said the contract award could be complicated if Congress fails to pass a budget by the start of fiscal 2025 on Oct. 1. If they pass instead a a continuing resolution, spending levels will be frozen at 2024 levels and new programs can’t be started.

“Pending a budget, we will make those awards,” Garrant told reporters in a virtual roundtable.

As for launch operations, he added, “We do have the ability to prioritize where our CR funds go, and clearly space lift and National Security Space Launch is important.”

SSC has previously said it will award up to three Lane 2 contracts in a bid to increase competition in a launch market that is now dominated by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. ULA and Blue Origin are widely considered the top two competitors after getting Lane 1 contracts, but neither company has an active launch system that is certified for NSSL’s most important missions.

Strictly speaking, neither company’s rocket needs to be certified before a contract award—SSC’s criteria only requires that the bidders have a plan to achieve certification by October 2026. However, the criteria also note that “the Government may assign a significant strength or a strength if the offeror demonstrates the proposed Launch System is ready earlier than the required readiness date.”

The upcoming flights of Vulcan and New Glenn could help demonstrate that readiness, though Panzenhagen noted that the NSSL contract award is not waiting for any particular contractor’s flight.

Vulcan is set to launch Oct. 4 with an inert payload for its second certification flight. If all goes well, Panzenhagen said her team will work to make sure the rocket is certified for NSSL missions, which it will have to do to get launches under Phase 2 of the program, where ULA and SpaceX are the only contractors.

“I’m definitely looking forward to that second certification flight. It’s not instantaneous that if they have a clean flight, they’re automatically certified,” said Panzenhagen. “We have a lot of data to go through after that just to make sure that everything performed up to expectations.”

Blue Origin, meanwhile, does not have a firm launch date for New Glenn but is targeting the first half of November. The launch will carry technology from Blue Origin’s Blue Ring logistics vehicle and will be targeted for NSSL certification, the company has said.

“Every time we can get more providers, we’re looking forward to that,” Panzenhagen said. “You don’t have the similar expectations because with Vulcan we had a first flight to look at. This will be the first flight of a brand new rocket, so we’re very excited to see how that performs: the first step of a longer certification path for them.”

The stakes for Lane 2 are particularly high, consisting of nearly 50 missions and encompassing only three providers. Competition for individual missions in Lane 1 will likely grow, as additional providers can join that program via periodic “on-ramps.” Panzenhagen confirmed that her office held an industry day for the next on-ramp last month and expect to release a solicitation next month.

New B-21 Bomber Now Flying Up to Twice a Week

Sept. 18, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The B-21 Raider bomber, which began flight testing last November, is now generating sorties as frequently as twice per week at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and ground testing of two similar aircraft is well underway, program officials said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

“We’re really starting to strike up a flight cadence,” Northrop Grumman aeronautics president Tom Jones said in a panel discussion on the B-21.

Also during the panel, officials released the first official video of the B-21 flying, though amateur videographers have captured footage of the aircraft before.

“We’re actually able to generate two test flights, sometimes, in a given week, which, if you think about how far [in the flight test program] we are, that’s great,” Jones said. When the B-21 contract was awarded in 2015, “we made a vow that we were going to design this system to be a daily flyer.”

“Clearly,” Jones said, “I think we’re well on our way to delivering the kind of asset that can be that daily flyer” for Global Strike Command, something that has only rarely been achieved with the B-2, due to its need for heavy maintenance after every sortie.

The first B-21 to take to the skies is still the only one that has flown, however.

Jones said Northrop’s goal with T-1—the first flight test aircraft—was that it would be as near to the eventual production version, P-1, as possible. Flight tests so far have largely validated the digitally predicted performance.

“Everything we’ve heard is, it flies very much like the model,” Jones said. “We’ve been able to make significant expansions of the flight envelope to date, and we’re finding the model to be accurate enough that we’re actually using the model itself to inform our test points and our test plan, in which I think is very good place to be.”

“The handling qualities are better than expected coming out of the simulated environment—validating the accuracy of the digital models the team has developed and analyzed over many years,” Northrop test pilot Chris “Hoss” Moss, said in a release.

There are three aircraft in test, Jones said. Panelists did not disclose any planned flight test milestones or say when a second B-21 might take flight.

“We’ve got the one in flight test, and we’ve got two in structural tests,” Jones said. One is in a structural life test, wherein metal bars, pulleys, and wires pull and push on the airframe to find out where it might break after years of flying. The tests will determine how the B-21 ages over time. This is not “flashy,” Jones said, but “if you intend to build a lot of these and operate them for a long time, this is very important work. … All components that have to advance if you’re going to be successful.”

An Air Force spokesperson said the three B-21s referenced by Jones are included within the six B-21s the service has acknowledged are in some stage of construction.

“I’d say…I think the program is progressing very well,” Jones said. “I don’t want to jinx myself, but we’ve had more issues with test fixtures and training of our test personnel that we actually have of the test article itself, which, again, is a pretty good place to be at this point.”

Jones said the goal of making T-1 nearly the same as P-1 “saves a lot of…risk” on the program, chiefly because it will smooth and streamline the progression from flight test to production-level aircraft.

The B-21 has been designed with an open architecture to be able to adapt to changes in the threat, said William Bailey, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which manages the B-21.

“Hopefully people are tracking the fact that the threat environment is very complex, and it’s very dynamic,” Bailey said. “You know, our adversaries have been watching us for 30 years … and they are not stupid, and they are not static, and they are demonstrating that they can develop and field things that complicate our plans, and that’s why this pursuit of an open design is so important. You need to plan for this.”

The Air Force is “not stupid or static, either,” he added. “We watch them as well, and really at that point it allows us to not only take into account an environment where there’s going to be new threats, but it also enables the opportunities for new technologies, for new companies that did not exist when we first pursued these things.”

AFSOC Will Deploy Ospreys in ‘Weeks,’ But Full Fleet Readiness Is Still Months Away

Sept. 18, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Air Force Special Operations Command will deploy some of its CV-22 Ospreys in the coming weeks after months of limited operations, its commander said Sept. 18. But even when deployed, Ospreys will be required to operate within 30 minutes of a safe landing zone—a factor that will inevitably impact operations and planning.

Speaking with reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Lt. Gen. Michael E. Conley said around 60 percent of the command’s Osprey fleet is flying again, 11 months after a fatal crash in November 2023 triggered a lengthy grounding. Aircraft started flying again in May, following safety restrictions and a slow, phased approach. In July, the Air Force withheld CV-22s from a planned exercise in Japan to focus on “internal training.” Aircraft and crew alike are still working their way back.

“My whole fleet is not operationally ready yet,” Conley said. “But I have enough capacity and the right crews trained to provide capabilities on the battlefield.”

Conley declined to say where the Ospreys would deploy but noted it would not be in Europe or the Indo-Pacific, where AFSOC already has CV-22 wings at RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom, and Yokota Air Base, Japan.

“We will go back to the missions that only the CV-22 can do, or what the combatant commanders need us to do,” he said.

Conley estimated that all of AFSOC’s 51 CV-22s would return to full flight within the next few months.

“We’re bringing about three [aircraft] every 10 days or so that are ready” for functional check flights, he said. “And so we’re tracking late ’24, early ’25 that the 51 tails in AFSOC will be fully operational.”

Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command at Air, Space & Cyber Conference, September 16, 2024. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/ Air & Space Forces Magazine

But fully operational comes with an asterisk. Conley and a command spokeswoman both said Ospreys must stay within 30 minutes of a spot to land, which they termed “a mission planning issue,” not a flight restriction. Applying that to potential combat zones and hostile territory \will require planning and deconfliction, the spokeswoman said.

New safety procedures now in place advise pilots to land after a second warning about metal fragments in the Osprey gearbox. Previously the standard waited for three warnings before a mandatory landing. The Air Force Accident Investigation Board, headed by Conley, that looked into the November 2023 accident in Japan determined the cause of the fatal crash was a failed gear.

“Our criteria prior was three chip [warnings] was a ‘land as soon as practical,’” Conley said. “We’ve changed that to one, and then two becomes a ‘land as soon as possible.’ At the end of the day, there will always be aircraft commander and crew discretion. It’s the nature of what we do. The environments are unique, depending on where we fly and what we’re doing, but we have tightened up the guidance to try to make it less ambiguous to the crews up there.”

Conley’s timeline for AFSOC’s CV-22s to be fully operational is slightly ahead of the Navy’s schedule for its Ospreys. Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, head of Naval Air Systems Command, told Congress in June that the Osprey would not be cleared for full, unrestricted flight operations until mid-2025.

Chebi has been a “great partner,” Conley said.

The Osprey fleet as a whole has come under intense scrutiny in recent months—the crash in Japan was the fourth deadly V-22 mishap in just over two years across the U.S. military, and lawmakers and family members of troops killed in the accidents have demanded answers.

Conley insisted that AFSOC has taken a deliberate and safety-conscious approach in returning it to flight. “To be blunt about it, I would not put the men and women of AFSOC back on the plane if I wasn’t confident that it could do what we needed it to do,” Conley said.

“As part of my Accident Investigation Board duties, I spent time with families after the report came out, and that’s hard,” he continued. “Those families are still grieving, and I appreciate that. They were all gracious to me and my team as we met and spent time with them. I owe it to the families to make sure that we’re giving [Airmen] the safest aircraft we can. And I wouldn’t put them in harm’s way if I didn’t have confidence in it.”