US Aircrews Took a Break From Busy NATO Ops Tempo to Greet Civilians at UK Airshows

July 27, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—As tens of thousands of industry officials, military personnel, and aviation enthusiasts streamed through the Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough International Airshow, many gathered to see U.S. Air Force jets, assembled from across Europe and the U.S., and to speak to the aircrew who fly them.

For the Airmen, the airshows marked a key opportunity to engage with civilians at a time when concerns about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its implications for the continent are dominating the public discussion.

“People that are coming by … are interested in the aircraft and asking all sorts of questions about how NATO is structured and what USAFE is doing here,” Capt. Jacob Herrick, an F-16 pilot from Aviano Air Base, Italy, told Air Force Magazine from the U.S. corral at Farnborough, which also featured an F-15E and F-35 from RAF Lakenheath, U.K., and a C-130H from the Georgia Air National Guard.

Even more USAF aircraft were displayed at RIAT, including a CV-22 Osprey, a KC-46 Pegasus, a KC-135R Stratotanker, and an MC-130J Commando II. And between the two airshows, there was plenty of focus on what comes next—and questions, F-35 pilot Maj. David Bown told Air Force Magazine.

“[I’ve been] answering a lot of questions about the F-35 and what capabilities it brings to the U.S. Air Force, as well as all our partner nations. And then … at Farnborough, [I’ve been] meeting a lot with the industry and trade show partners, kind of seeing what the future holds,” Bown said.

The F-35, in particular, garnered intense interest from spectators, as more European nations move forward with plans to procure the fifth-generation fighter for their own air forces.

Of course, for many, the chance to see all of the fighters up close was unique.

“Everyone comes over to look at the Strike Eagle and talks about the size and how it’s one of the best fighters that they can think of,” F-15E weapons systems officer Capt. Trent Norton said. “It’s a lot of people who … they grew up seeing the Strike Eagle, or just the Eagle in general, and wanting to see it in person, and now they have the opportunity to be real close or even touch it, and they’re all really excited to see it.”

For the pilots and aircrew, the time at the airshows represented a change of scenery after several months of high operations tempo. In response to Russia’s invasion, the U.S. has increased its vigilance on the eastern front of NATO, with more air policing missions in the region and rotations in the area.

“We’re … supporting NATO and supporting our partner countries,” Herrick said. “So everything that they’re telling us to do, we’re out there doing it alongside England, Germany, everybody else that’s supporting NATO.”

For the F-16s at Aviano, in particular, he added that the past few months have been especially busy.

“We’re kind of becoming the quick-reaction force for NATO. Out in Aviano, we’re a little bit more forward deployed than the base … at Lakenheath, so we’re a bit more rapidly deployable,” Herrick said.

For the fighters from Lakenheath, ops tempos have always been high and have stayed relatively steady recently, Norton and Bown agreed. But there’s no denying that world events have created a new urgency.

“There’s a heightened awareness around the base and around the world on what’s going on,” Bown said. “And the motto is just, we’re always prepared, no matter what.”

SASC Advances Two Combatant Commander Nominees

July 26, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the nomination that could make the son of an Airman the Marine Corps’ first Black four-star general.

The SASC advanced the nominations to the full Senate of both Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael E. Langley to become commander of U.S. Africa Command and Army Lt. Gen. Bryan P. Fenton to lead U.S. Special Operations Command.

Langley’s father, retired USAF Master Sgt. Willie C. Langley, who served for 25 years, attended the prospective combatant commanders’ joint confirmation hearing July 21.

Langley currently serves as commander of both U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command and Marine Corps Forces North and as commanding general of Fleet Marine Force Atlantic.

He would replace Army Gen. Stephen J. Townsend. Langley told the senators that like Townsend, he would prioritize more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to deter terrorists in the AFRICOM area of responsibility.

Fenton is commander of Joint Special Operations Command; and of Joint Special Operations Command Forward, U.S. Special Operations Command.

He would replace Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke at SOCOM and said he would strengthen special operations in the Indo-Pacific region with “asymmetric, scalable options … via our special operators’ placement, access, and influence, presenting multiple dilemmas.”

Kendall Says F-35 Engine Decision Needed Soon; Won’t ‘Limp Along’ on R&D

July 26, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force will likely make a decision this summer on whether to insert Advanced Engine Transition Program (AETP) powerplants into the F-35 fleet, Secretary Frank Kendall said, because he doesn’t want to waste money on further delay if the program isn’t going forward.

“We need a decision, which is where I am right now,” Kendall told the Potomac Officers Club in Tysons, Va.

“I don’t want to limp along, spending R&D money on a program we either can’t afford or that we’re just not going to get agreement on among the different services,” he said. The fiscal 2024 budget is already being debated in the Pentagon, and Kendall said he hopes the AETP decision will be counted in it. For fiscal 2023, research and development continues in the engine, he noted.

Congress added language to the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act directing the services to look hard at incorporating either the GE XA-100 or Pratt & Whitney XA-101 engine into the F-35 as early as 2027. The AETP was intended to power the crewed sixth-generation fighter at the heart of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) system, but Congress wants the engine to power Block 4 and later F-35s as well.

However, there are “two obstacles” to getting the AETP into the F-35, he said.

“One is the high cost. It’s going to take several billion dollars and a five-year program to move through [engineering and manufacturing development] to get that program ready to be fielded.”

The other, he said, is that the AETP “will not fit all three variants of the F-35.” Specifically, the AETP’s new third-stream airflow makes it incompatible with the F-35B, which uses redirected air and a downward-rotating rear exhaust to be capable of vertical takeoffs and landings.

Former F-35 Joint Program Office director Lt. Gen. Eric T. Fick has said that if the Air Force wishes to pursue the AETP for its own F-35As, it will have to do so at its own expense, because the F-35 program is structured such that “you have to pay to be different” from the other users, to hold costs down for all.

In addition, “there’s other things on the table; there are upgrades to the current F135” that Pratt & Whitney is proposing, Kendall said.

“I am hopeful that we will have” an AETP decision in the fiscal 2024 budget, Kendall said. “I think we need to make some decision about the future of the F-35’s engine and get on with it.”

Kendall said he, personally, “very much desire[s]” to have “the AETP solution” in the F-35 because “you get significant range extension out of that” as well as “more capability that we need” for the F-35. He didn’t specify the added capabilities, but industry officials have said some would entail additional electrical power for F-35 electronic warfare and directed-energy systems as well as additional thrust and some improvement in stealth.

Kendall said the decision may rest with William A. LaPlante, the current incumbent in Kendall’s old job, that of Pentagon undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, who will “help us sort it all out” among the services with a unified “Department of Defense position.”

But Kendall noted that the Air Force “would have a very hard time affording the AETP if it’s only going in the F-35A” variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. He has previously said he has been in talks with the Secretary of the Navy about that service adopting the AETP for its carrier-capable F-35Cs. Industry officials have also not ruled out the potential for the AETP to be used in the Marine Corps F-35B, but acknowledged it would take substantially more modification of both the engine and the aircraft than the standard AETP.

Some 35 members of Congress, anxious to keep the F135 in the F-35, sent LaPlante a letter July 22 urging him to drop the idea of putting the AETP in the F-35. Putting the AETP in the F-35 would be too risky, they said, and it is already “the most complex and expensive program” in the Pentagon’s portfolio. Now that the F-35 is transitioning to high-rate production and sustainment, a new engine would needlessly complicate matters, they said. The letter stressed that the “cornerstone” of the F-35 program is that all users rely on a common logistics base; and that introducing a dissimilar engine would add cost and expand the count of parts needed to keep on hand.

“Now is not the time” to introduce a new variable into the F-35’s struggle to reach affordable sustainment costs, the lawmakers said, also noting Kendall’s own testimony earlier this year that the AETP is likely to be a $6 billion development program to reach operational status.

Townsend: Russia Added to Instability in Africa With New Air Defenses in Mali

July 26, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Outgoing commander of U.S. Africa Command Gen. Stephen J. Townsend said Moscow has used its mercenary Wagner Group to install air defenses in Mali, a troubled West African country that has seen a marked increase in terrorist activity under a new military government.

Ruled by a military junta following a May coup, Mali first kicked out French counterterrorism troops then withdrew from a regional security group, instead increasing its cooperation with the Russian proxy Wagner Group.

“Wagner is a Russian mercenary group working at the behest of the Kremlin,” Townsend told journalists on a July 26 media call from AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

Townsend said that while Russia’s war in Ukraine has pulled some Wagner Group resources out of Libya, Russia has increased its proxy presence in Mali.

“So far, they do not appear to be drawing down in Mali,” Townsend said. “In fact, they appear to be leaning in to Mali as much as they have been throughout. In fact, they’ve deployed sophisticated new capabilities like air defense capabilities to Mali that we have seen appear there recently.”

U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa did not immediately respond to questions from Air Force Magazine about the new threat the air defenses pose to U.S. Air Force operations in the Sahel region.

Townsend said Russia has expanded its influence in Africa through the proxy group, which has contributed to instability and political uncertainty.

“Though the Kremlin likes to deny it publicly, they are an arm of the Kremlin, and they are doing President Putin’s bidding,” Townsend said. “The only thing I see Wagner doing is propping up dictators and exploiting natural resources on the continent.”

Russia was previously estimated to have 2,000 Wagner Group fighters in eastern Libya supporting Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army, which has fought against the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, which is recognized as Libya’s official government by the United States and the United Nations. In 2020, AFRICOM released images of some of the 14 MiG 29s and Su-24s Russia sent to support its Wagner forces in the Libyan desert.

In recent months, Russia has pulled back some of its proxy manpower to fight in Libya, but Townsend said 1,000 remain deployed to Mali, plus a “substantial” number are in the Central African Republic and elsewhere on the continent.

“They’ve gotten a footprint in a number of other countries, but those are probably some of the big ones,” Townsend said.

Townsend acknowledged that the military takeover in Mali and cooperation with Russian forces is hindering Western attempts to contain terrorism in the arid region of West Africa known as the Sahel, where the United States maintains two MQ-9 bases, Air Base 101, and Air Base 201, in neighboring Niger.

“What we see is we see these threats expanding,” Townsend said, describing ISIS-West Africa as the dominant terrorist force in the region.

“In Mali, and Burkina Faso, al-Qaida’s arm JNIM have been on the march towards the south” and the capital of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, he added. “They’re starting operations now in the northern border regions of the coastal state. So, this is a great concern.”

Townsend spoke to journalists as part of a series of media appearances in the final weeks of his tenure as AFRICOM commander. July 26 marked his third anniversary as leader of the Africa-focused combatant command.

In comments to Air Force Magazine in Fairford, U.K., the new commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa Gen. James B. Hecker said MQ-9 Reapers in Africa are operating around the clock.

“If required, we can arm those ISR platforms as well to provide a kinetic activity, if we need that. So that’s a big part of our job in Africa,” he said, nothing that some platforms remain airborne for 24 hours at a time to gather intelligence for AFRICOM.

In the past, AFRICOM has shared that intelligence with French forces operating in Mali and the regional G-5 Sahel Joint Force group, which was made up of forces from Niger, Mauritania, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mali.

But Mali kicked out French forces and withdrew from the G-5 on May 15.

All spell new challenges for both Hecker and Townsend’s successor, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael E. Langley, who is expected to take over AFRICOM in a change-of-command ceremony at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart on Aug. 9, pending congressional approval for a fourth star and confirmation as new AFRICOM commander. The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced Langley’s nomination July 26.

“In light of the continued expansion of terrorists, irregular changes of government in the region, arrival of malign groups like the Russian mercenary group, Wagner, and recalibration by other partners such as France, and others, the United States is also recalibrating our approach,” Townsend said. “We’re striving to find a way to become more effective in the future.”

Brown Adds Two Books, Podcast, Movie to His CSAF Leadership Library

July 26, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. added four more titles to his revived CSAF Leadership Library in July, bringing the number of titles listed by their relevance to Brown’s “Action Orders” to 32.

This is what Brown had to say about each new selection:

“Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military” by Stephen Peter Rosen

“As we continue to Accelerate Change to [become] the Air Force our Nation needs, we must be mindful of organizational lessons from the past. Historical analysis allows us to synthesize patterns in the character of warfare and incorporate them into our future Air Force design through initiatives like Action Order D and the Operational Imperatives. … Rosen analyzes military and technological innovations during war and peacetime and offers prescriptions for managing uncertainty.” Action Order: D—Design Implementation.

“Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

“Transformation requires we aggressively overcome the organizational inertia of the status quo. [The book] is a story-driven account that reveals insights into the heuristics of our rational and emotional minds and how they relate to each other. I need your help implementing [the Action Order] to switch our organizational behavior to streamline decision-making, eliminate redundancy, and limit bureaucratic layers.” Action Order: B Mod 1—Bureaucracy.

“Bridging the Oceans Podcast: What’s All the RAUKUS About? The View from Washington” by the Royal United Services Institute

“The Air Force does not fight alone, nor do we deter alone. Last September, the United States co-signed a groundbreaking trilateral security pact alongside Australia and the United Kingdom called AUKUS, representing one of the most significant security agreements in a generation. [The podcast] illustrates the magnitude of this agreement and the enormous opportunity it presents for the Air Force to ‘Integrate by Design’ with our Allies and Partners in enhanced and novel ways.” Action Order: D–Design Implementation.

“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” (2003)

“What can a film about the crew of a British ship during the Napoleonic Wars teach us about Agile Combat Employment? In [the film], the climate of mutual trust, shared understanding, and commander’s intent under the military leadership of Captain Aubrey represents a textbook case of mission command. What is most interesting its art the crew’s ability to be ready to execute the mission in unpredictable ways and rapidly respond to the adversary’s moves by moving fluidly across a theater of operations represents the essence of the ACE operating concept.” Action Order: B—Bureaucracy.

Today: The Air Force’s Other Birthday

July 26, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

While the Air Force’s “birthday” is generally celebrated Sept. 18—the day it officially became active as one of the U.S. armed services—an equal case could be made for July 26, the day President Harry Truman signed into law the National Security Act of 1947, which created the service.

Seventy-five years ago today, aboard the VC-54 presidential transport Truman had dubbed Sacred Cow, he signed the Act, which also organized the new Department of Defense out of the old War Department and Navy Department. The legislation additionally created the position of Secretary of Defense from the old post of Secretary of War; codified the Joint Chiefs of Staff; established the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council; and in many other ways set the framework for the modern U.S. national security establishment.

Originally part of the Signal Corps, the Air Service had become the Army Air Corps in 1939 and the Army Air Forces in 1942. After the Air Force was established by the Act, Gen. H.H. Arnold, commander of the USAAF, became the Chief of Staff of the Air Force in September 1947.

The 1947 law was meant to define and streamline the chain of command within the U.S. military establishment and to codify the responsibilities of various intelligence agencies under a single director of central intelligence.

The military organizational changes were deemed necessary because, although the U.S. had won WWII, it now needed to efficiently maintain large standing forces and conduct large-scale intelligence collection with the new Cold War. An independent Air Force was deemed necessary to organize for the mission of nuclear deterrence along with furtherance of the science and technology of military aviation.

The Navy resisted the creation of a co-equal service for Air, believing it would be out-voted by the Air Force and Army and because it wanted to retain its status as the nation’s first line of defense. After ordering the branches to work out their differences—and not getting results—Truman laid out legislation interleaving drafts written by all the services.

Truman proposed the legislation to Congress in February 1947. During congressional hearings, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Chester Nimitz testified in favor of the changes, as did James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy. Truman would later appoint Forrestal the first Secretary of Defense.

After it passed both houses of Congress, the Act went to Truman for signature, and he signed it July 26, 1947. The following April, Forrestal convened senior service leaders to hammer out and divide their military responsibilities in what would become known as the Key West agreement.

While the 1947 National Security Act resolved many of the World War II problems of dissimilar bureaucracies and priorities, the chronic issues of duplication of effort and operational confusion persisted through the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, coming to a head in the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, which lessons-learned reports characterized as poorly coordinated among the services.

In 1986, some of the structure laid out in the 1947 National Security Act was revised when President Ronald Reagan signed the Goldwater-Nichols Act. It reorganized the wartime chain of command from the Secretary of Defense down through a new system of regional, joint commanders, taking the service chiefs and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of the chain of command and making the “man, train, equip” mission their top priority. The new system was tested only four years later in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, when Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the head of U.S. Central Command, led air, naval, and land component commanders from all services in the first Gulf War, to great success.

Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 aboard the Sacred Cow because he was about to fly to the bedside of his ill mother, but he delayed the takeoff until the document could be couriered to the aircraft.

Some pieces of the Sacred Cow flew in space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, which orbited in April 1997 for mission STS-83 to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Security Act of 1947—and the “other” birthday of the Air Force. The aircraft is part of the collection of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

Austin Heads to SOUTHCOM, Brazil to Push US Priorities in a Neglected Region

July 25, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

China has made inroads in Latin America in recent years, and Russia has disrupted the information space against America and democracy—and both U.S. competitors provide military assistance to Venezuela.

Countering the two countries’ objectives in America’s “neighborhood” are among the challenges Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will face on his first trip to the region after nearly a dozen combined visits to Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

“We tend to look east and west a lot and not so much south, and I call it south blindness,” commander of U.S. Southern Command Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson said July 20 at the Aspen Security Form. “There are adversaries that are taking advantage of this region every single day, right in our neighborhood.”

Austin was scheduled to meet with Richardson on July 25 before flying to Brazil for the three-day biennial Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) in the capital, Brasilia, according to a Defense Department news release.

The conference agenda includes discussions on cybersecurity; humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; the role of women, peace, and security; and migration. Austin will address integrated deterrence, according to the release, and encourage the 34 participating countries to work together to deter aggression and threats to regional democracy.

“Malign actors, including non-state actors, are advancing a continuum of competitive activity short of armed conflict,” states a discussion paper labeled “U.S. Thematic Basis” available on the CDMA website.

The goal of the “malign actors,” according to the paper, is “to gain diplomatic, informational, military, and economic advantages and favorable balances of power” through “increasingly coercive and aggressive strategies favoring their asymmetric interests.”

Integrated deterrence is the means to deter China in the region, Richardson said.

“When you talk about the rules-based international order, I think the PRC, China, would like to replace the United States. That is their goal,” Richardson said. “When I talk about the integrated deterrence, I look at that as all of the levers out there, all of the elements of national power that we have in the United States.”

For SOUTHCOM, integrated deterrence has meant leveraging the convening power of the U.S. government to attract business executives to a partner nation; or academic partnerships that benefit nations.

Austin will have a tough case to make in a region with economies hit hard by the coronavirus and the impacts of natural disasters in recent years. All the while, Richardson said at the Aspen forum, China has made investments in infrastructure, including deepwater ports, telecommunications, and spaceports with projects in 25 countries in the hemisphere. In Brazil, the biggest economy in the region, China is the top trade partner.

Venezuela is not among the CDMA attendees, but the regional migration of six million Venezuelans caused by its economic crisis will be a topic of discussion.

“Venezuela has caused a lot of instability in the region. It’s caused a lot of migration,” Richardson said, declining to discuss security threats posed by the socialist country. In 2018, Russia sent two TU-160 supersonic bombers on a mission to the country. Venezuela is also the top regional buyer of Chinese arms, according to an April 2022 report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Austin will make a case for upholding democracy and strengthening integrated deterrence, a whole-of-government collaboration to achieve security goals, according to the DOD news release.

“Countries must work together to bring to bear a collective deterrent ability against mutual threats,” the U.S. discussion paper reads. “This especially means sharing information and helping each other to strengthen our capabilities.”

In a section called “A Broader Call to Action,” the U.S. discussion paper notes that malign state-based actors as well as illicit groups foster corruption to erode democratic institutions. The paper cites “gray zone” activities such as illegal fishing and economic coercion, two known Chinese tactics affecting the region.

Richardson said illegal fishing robs the region of $3 billion in revenue. The U.S. has helped countries in the region to counteract illegal fishing with shared space-based intelligence and maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

The Pentagon said in the release that Austin will hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the event. DOD and SOUTHCOM did not respond to interview requests by Air Force Magazine for this story.

Austin’s argument will lean on the oft-cited network of U.S. partners and allies around the globe to encourage the countries of the Western Hemisphere to further integrate and strengthen “the region’s long-standing consensus in favor of democracy.”

Disinformation campaigns by Russia also threaten democracy and U.S. influence in the hemisphere, Richardson said.

“The PRC is playing chess while Russia is playing checkers,” she said at Aspen. “They have short-term goals in terms of undermining our democracy, causing destabilization through the information environment [that is] off the charts in this region, over 30 million followers in social media.”

Richardson cited Russian state media sites Sputnik and Russia Today in Spanish and Portuguese.

“We are not in competition in that space. We are in conflict in the information environment,” she said.

In a November 2021 interview with Air Force Magazine, SOUTHCOM’s military deputy Air Force Lt. Gen. Andrew A. Croft said SOUTHCOM helps nations in areas such as values, human rights, rule of law, democracy, and migrant patterns; and delivers humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to nations hit hard by earthquakes and storms—”all those things we care about that the Chinese and the Russians will not. They’re going to do things that just purely benefit them,” Croft said. “It’s very transactional if you’re China and Russia.”

New Application Lets Airmen Give Feedback on Their Gear

July 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has launched a new application allowing male and female aircrew the ability to provide feedback on their gear beyond the unit level.

The hope of the program, called GearFit, is to reduce the number of administrative layers that feedback has to go through before it reaches AFLCMC, giving officials a better sense of the biggest problems aircrew have with certain pieces of equipment or gear.

A previous version of GearFit, launched in 2020, specifically targeted female aircrew members who often had to use gear not designed for them but modified after the fact and that still fit poorly. Beyond being uncomfortable, the poorly fitting equipment also presented a safety issue.

That situation led the Air Force to announce in 2019 that it was going in a “new direction” for female-specific flight equipment, launching the Combat Ready Airman program. That program extended to looking at the gear for female special warfare operators.

This new GearFit program, however, goes beyond those career fields and is available to both male and female aircrew members.

The Combat Ready Airman program, meanwhile, has expanded to other career fields to include fully 91 percent of Airmen, AFLCMC said in an announcement.

“We focus solely on maintainers, Security Forces, medics, anybody that isn’t aircrew or special ops,” Taylor Harrison, Combat Ready Airman program manager, said in an AFLCMC podcast.

In the GearFit application, aircrew members can submit comments on different pieces of gear and equipment. Those comments are then shared directly with the AFLCMC teams responsible for designing and acquiring that equipment, with the goal of offering standardized equipment across the force.

“We are getting feedback from our Airmen, the end user,” Harrison said. “We are not just delivering and hoping that we hit the mark.”

The Air Force has rolled out or is set to introduce several new pieces of equipment for Airmen in recent years. In June, the service selected a prototype for its new aircrew helmet. In June 2020, the service announced that it was purchasing new body armor for female Airmen, followed by new handguns for both men and women that same month. Security forces got new helmets starting in October 2020, and security forces, pararescuemen, Guardian Angels, and explosive ordnance disposal Airmen got nearly 1,500 new rifles this past April.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Aug. 18 to clarify which Airmen can now submit feedback on the GearFit application.

Lockheed Military Space Boss: We Have ‘Opportunity to Expand Beyond’ GPS

July 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—Military and defense industry officials are proud to say the Global Positioning System of satellites has entrenched itself as the world standard of position, navigation, and timing.

But new threats—and some futuristic considerations—are leading some to think bigger than GPS when it comes to the systems that help undergird military operations and daily life.

“We’re at a time when we have the opportunity to expand beyond just that concept of a singular [medium Earth orbit] constellation,” Johnathon Caldwell, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s military space division, told Air Force Magazine in an exclusive interview at the Farnborough International Airshow. “There are opportunities to put different orbits into play, to provide greater resilience for the civilian applications and the military applications.”

Lockheed Martin has been working on GPS for more than a decade, winning a contract from the Air Force in 2008 to develop the constellation’s GPS III satellites, followed by the GPS III Follow-on program in 2018.

And the system has been extraordinarily successful. “GPS is the world standard [and] will remain the world standard for a long time,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson told Congress in May.

Caldwell credited that success in part to the focus on the system as “software enabled,” so that improvements can be made rapidly.

“We’ve been able to evolve the technology over time,” Caldwell said. “So that first GPS III that we launched in December 2018 … we’ve evolved that product line along the way. … We’re constantly upgrading the software and how it operates to deliver performance. It’s modular, so we can constantly pull in the latest technology to make sure that it’s resilient.” Since that December 2018 launch, four more of Lockheed’s GPS III satellites have gone into orbit. Three more have been declared available for launch. At the same time, the contractor has developed a ground control software update that is helping to operationalize the ultra-secure and jam-resistant M-code signal.

But at a certain point, GPS has become almost too successful, Thompson noted to lawmakers, saying “it is perhaps fair to say that we’ve come to rely on it solely and exclusively and too heavily.”

Both China and Russia have tested antisatellite weapons in recent years, creating new urgency in the Pentagon to develop a resilient space architecture. And while much of that resiliency talk has focused on the Space Development Agency’s data-transport and missile-tracking constellations, PNT has gotten some attention, too.

The Air Force Research Laboratory is on the verge of launching the third Navigation Technology Satellite, or NTS-3, in 2023. One of the Air Force’s first PNT demonstrations in decades, it is also slated to become a program of record. The satellite will help AFRL test “advanced techniques and technologies to detect and mitigate interference to PNT capabilities and increase system resiliency,” according to the lab’s website.

The Air Force is not alone in paying more attention to PNT. Thompson noted in May that the Army is actually leading the way on that front, with the Navy and Air Force following closely, and Caldwell told Air Force Magazine that other countries’ militaries have also been looking into the issue for some time now.

“The Australians have been enormously interested in the future for something like PNT augmentations,” Caldwell said. “So you get precise, we call it precision pointing—you get an augmented system. And they’ve invested heavily with us in a testbed.”

The United Kingdom is another country that is considering how it might rethink PNT, Caldwell said, sparked in part by the country’s departure from the European Union and corresponding departure from Europe’s GPS alternative, Galileo.

Indeed, during the Farnborough airshow, the British government announced that later this year, it will be launching a satellite that will provide “an innovative new signal … to provide data from space that can be used on the ground to obtain a position or an accurate time.”

And despite its heavy involvement in the GPS program, Lockheed Martin is eager to partner with other companies or governments interested in further developing the future of PNT, Caldwell said.

“There are interesting and unique technologies coming into play, and we are trying to find ways to put as many of those into test beds as we can to get real-world on-orbit data,” Caldwell said. “And we’re very focused right now on these demonstration platform sets, demonstration satellites, and finding different companies to partner with and say, ‘Hey, if you’ve got a great idea, … what could that mean for timekeeping?’”

The implications, he noted, could be far-reaching.

“What would PNT look like in lunar, cislunar space? How would a cislunar PNT [vehicle] operate with a terrestrial PNT system?” Caldwell posed. “Someday, gosh, we’re going to get to Mars, right? So what is Martian PNT going to look like? Because eventually there’ll be enough rovers or one day even people to be there and they’re going to arrive and be like, ‘Where am I’ if there’s not a system in place. So I think now’s a really good time to be experimenting.”

Already, the Space Force has started considering how it will monitor and police cislunar space. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond predicted in January that the service will need cislunar space domain awareness within five years, and AFRL is already seeking input for a satellite to do just that.