SASC Wants Space Force to Report on Strategic Priorities

July 20, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Senate Armed Services Committee asks the Space Force to develop a “comprehensive strategy” and formalize a plan to achieve its priorities in the SASC’s version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization bill, which the committee released publicly July 18.

The committee also wants reports from the Space Force on officer personnel management and its plans to create the hybrid “Space Component,” which would include both full-time and part-time Guardians in a single organization, rather than setting up a separate Space Force reserve.

The SASC’s desire for an overarching space strategy follows a request in the fiscal 2022 NDAA for a broad review of space policy across the Department of Defense. That review is supposed to cover “the threat to the space operations of the United States” and an assessment of its policies “with respect to deterring, responding to, and countering” those threats. The new strategy review, if included in the final NDAA, would require the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Space Operations to “jointly develop strategic objectives required to organize, train, and equip the Space Force” in order to:

Achieve U.S. “space superiority,” defined as “the degree of control in space of one force over any others that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time.”
Provide dependable space-based global communications; command and control; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for combatant commands.
Ensure “the retention, development, and deployment of Space Force capabilities to meet the full range” of the combatant commands’ space requirements.

The committee’s directions would further require the Space Force to detail its objectives and plans to achieve them in terms of its budget, ground-based infrastructure, space architecture, and systems acquisition. This requirement would include detailing those assets owned by other DOD organizations that the Space Force would need in order to achieve its objectives “efficiently and effectively,” and also the leadership requirements in terms of general officers and senior executive civilians needed to achieve those aims.

“The U.S. Space Force is the only entity equipped to develop and lead a comprehensive strategy for integrating space warfighting into U.S. defense strategy,” said AFA President Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.). “The Air & Space Forces Association applauds the wisdom and leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee in recognizing this fact.”

Wright said AFA had campaigned for such a report, seeing it as necessary to help the fledgling service establish the department-wide heft to achieve all the objectives of an independent armed service focused on the space domain. “Guardians of all ranks are the world’s most able space operators,” Wright said. “A strategy and architecture to ensure U.S. space superiority not only today but well into the future is an essential step in establishing the strategy, funding, and objectives of this newest and critically important branch of the armed services.”

The SASC’s NDAA would also require the Space Force to turn in reports on:

Officer Personnel Management and the Development of the Professional Military Ethic in the Space Force to include professional military education, attributes expected for each grade, key assignments along defined career tracks, and how the proposal to reorganize the Space Force’s military personnel into the combined full- and part-time Space Component will affect officer development.
Study of Proposed Space Force Reorganization examining the creation of the Space Component including the “feasibility and advisability” of exempting the Space Component from the conventional “up or out” officer advancement model and whether similar desired outcomes of career flexibility might be achieved via a more conventional component structure.

The House of Representatives passed its version of the 2023 NDAA on July 14.

Fourth Ukraine Defense Contact Group Meeting Adds HIMARS, Avoids Aircraft, Pilot Training

July 20, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III held his fourth Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting virtually from the Pentagon on July 20 amid practically a standstill on the Ukraine front lines in the eastern Donbas region. Austin announced a new presidential drawdown transfer of sophisticated rockets but no aircraft or pilot training.

The Russia-Ukraine war was entering its sixth month as casualties mounted on both sides for marginal gains in a grueling artillery battle, Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley told defense reporters.

Despite a recent Russian operational pause and increasing Ukrainian attacks on supply lines with new precision weapons, Russia had consolidated gains in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a precursor to annexation plans, according to NSC coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby at the White House on July 19.

Austin expressed hope that four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), to be announced this week by the White House, and promised air defense systems will dial back losses and lead Russia to the negotiating table.

“The security assistance that we are rushing to Ukraine is making a real difference in real time,” Austin said in a media briefing following the meeting with more than 50 countries backing Ukraine.

“Ukrainian forces are now using long-range rocket systems to great effect,” he added, noting that DOD is working closely with Ukraine on the careful use of limited quantities of precision ammunition such as the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) used with the HIMARS system.

Milley said 20 partners had provided Ukraine with HIMARS and that more than 200 Ukrainians had been trained on their use. Austin also said coastal defense capabilities, such as Harpoon anti-ship missiles, helped prevent a Russian amphibious assault on the vital port of Odesa.

Leading the contact group discussion was Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who a day earlier told the Atlantic Council that Ukraine was benefitting from the 12 HIMARS committed by the United States but would need “at least 100” more to change the course of the war.

“We need weapons fast, and in sufficient quantities,” Reznikov told Atlantic Council’s John Herbst, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. “We’re using HIMARS systems precisely like the scalpel of a doctor [in] surgery.”

DOD has been praising Ukraine’s use of the HIMARS and Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) for weeks, and Milley gave examples of how Ukraine had hit Russian supply lines, command-and-control nodes, logistical networks, filled artillery, and air defense sites to slow Russia’s advance.

“These strikes are steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression,” Milley said, stressing Russia’s failed military objectives since the Feb. 24 attack on Kyiv was repelled.

“For 90 days, the Russian advances have amounted to six to 10 miles,” he said. “In the near term, the Russians will likely continue using heavy artillery bombardments to achieve their limited gains in the east. However, these tactical gains have come at an incredible cost in terms of Russian casualties and destroyed equipment.”

Austin did not give a clear case for how Ukraine can turn the tide quickly without air support. Instead, the Secretary said the contact group had shifted gears to sustain Ukraine for a battle that may extend into the winter, when Moscow will increase its war chest from gas sales to Europe and Russian forces can more easily dig in.

“As we’re even more focused on Ukraine’s near-term needs, we’re also looking ahead to provide Ukraine with the capabilities it will need for deterrence and self-defense over the longer term,” Austin said.

Milley, likewise, said the contact group discussed ways to assist Ukraine to “sustain the long fight.”

“This fight will likely continue to be protracted,” he said. “How can we best arm and train them so that they can continue to defend their country and exhaust the Russian military machine?”

Air Defenses Delayed, Aircraft Not Included

Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMSs, promised by President Joe Biden July 1, are not expected to arrive for “several months,” a defense official told Air Force Magazine on July 8. The systems are expected to give Ukraine reprieve from cruise missile attacks against civilian targets and to open some space for the Ukrainian Air Force.

Defense Department leaders had until July 20 avoided talk of providing aircraft or pilot training ever since DOD dismissed out of hand a March offer from Poland to provide its aging fleet of MiG-29s. Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers who met with Ukrainian fighter pilots in June called on the Biden administration to authorize training for Ukrainian pilots on how to fly American combat aircraft such as F-15s and F-16s.

An amendment passed in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act promises $100 million for training on American aircraft. A similar provision does not yet exist in the Senate.

The Ukrainian Air Force told Air Force Magazine recently that it has 30 pilots ready for such training, if approved. Members of Congress said the Biden administration still views the transfer of American aircraft and pilot training as “escalatory” with Russia.

Austin dismissed a serious discussion of pilot training in the near term while admitting that HIMARS would not turn the tide of the war.

“The HIMARS alone will not change—win or lose—a fight, but it’s the integration of a number of capabilities that we have provided and are looking at providing down the road,” he said.

“In terms of predicting where we’re going to be with pilot training in months or years, I won’t venture to do that at this point,” he added. “Their Air Force does have a capability as we speak, and they’re using some of that capability on a daily basis.”

Added Milley: “We look at all kinds of options to present to the Secretary and the president, and there’s been no decisions on any of that, but we do examine a wide variety of options, to include pilot training.”

Airbus, Boeing Reveal New Progress on Autonomous Refueling

July 20, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—The defense contractors vying for the Air Force’s tentative “bridge tanker” program updated the status of their aerial refuelers this week at the Farnborough International Airshow, citing new capabilities aimed at automating the refueling process.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has repeatedly said the likelihood of a competition for the service’s “bridge tanker” program has gone down in recent months, a seeming endorsement of Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus and a blow to the LMXT, the alternative proposed by Lockheed Martin and Airbus.

Lockheed Martin, however, continues to state publicly that it believes there will be a competition for the KC-Y program meant to “bridge” the gap between the end of the KC-46 and a next-generation refueling family of systems.

“Our expectation is that the Secretary and the department will continue to go through the requirements and that we’ll have the opportunity to compete fairly,” Erin Moseley, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for strategy and business development for aeronautics, told reporters.

At the same time, Moseley sought to highlight the differences between the LMXT and the KC-46, saying they would “complement” each other and that the LMXT would demonstrate “real technological advances … that could also then segue into what [a future tanker] might look like.”

Airbus cited some of those new technologies developed for its A330 MRTT, on which the LMXT is based. Specifically, the contractor announced that its fully automatic air-to-air refueling system has achieved new milestones, successfully collaborating with the Republic of Singapore Air Force and receiving certification from a Spanish agency to conduct operations in daylight.

Airbus has been working on the system for several years now. It is designed to reduce the workload of the boom operator by using software to fly the boom automatically, keep alignment between the boom tip and the receiver receptacle, extend and retract the telescopic beam, and initiate and terminate the refueling process, all while the boom operator monitors the process.

On top of that, Airbus introduced a new program, Auto’Mate, aimed at developing, testing, and integrating technology that will allow for autonomous air-to-air refueling. The company is hoping to test that tech by 2023.

In response, Boeing revealed that the KC-46 Pegasus tanker has conducted flight tests demonstrating autonomous boom aerial refueling, but in a briefing with reporters, senior regional director of international business development for Europe and the Americas Tim Flood declined to share any more details about that testing, including when it occurred or what exactly it demonstrated.

“This is all part of our ongoing internal development program,” Flood said. “We’re bringing a range of features, including autonomy, to the KC-46, and as part of that broader development and flight test program, and we’re incorporating these types of new improvements and testing them.”

At the same time, Flood seemed to downplay the importance of making sure the KC-46 can autonomously refuel.

“It’s not the only important thing to provide the Air Force,” said Flood. “It’s all about providing capability for aerial refueling. So right now the U.S. Air Force has delivered over 80 million pounds of fuel [with the KC-46], so it’s not hampering the success to deliver.”

The Air Force has been pursuing automated and autonomous refueling for years now, and autonomous refueling operations, for both tankers and receivers, was listed as a potential requirement in the service’s recent request for information starting the new Advanced Aerial Refueling Family of Systems program.

Boeing does have some experience in the field. In 2009, the Air Force Research Laboratory gave the company a contract to explore the technology, and in 2021, its MQ-25 drone completed its first aerial refueling of an F-35C as part of a Navy program.

But when asked if Boeing could apply what it had learned from the MQ-25 for the KC-Z program, Flood demurred. Instead, he emphasized that the contractor’s main focus is on delivering the KC-46. The program has been plagued by issues, most prominently with the Remote Vision System, but the Air Force has closed the preliminary design review for the system’s successor, RVS 2.0, and Flood said the company is now on a “steady path” in that regard.

As for Boeing’s second priority, “we’re really excited about KC-Y,” Flood said. “We’re going to focus on what that requirement looks like, what the Air Force strategy is, and then focus on that.”

Czech Republic Plans to Buy F-35 as New Fighter, Would Be 16th Customer

July 20, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Czech Republic plans to buy 24 F-35As, which would make it the 16th nation to either buy F-35s or announce the intent to do so and the 10th member or soon-to-be member of NATO to select the jet.

In a July 20 Prague press conference, Czech prime minister Petr Fiala said the nation has “decided to enter into negotiations with our U.S. partners for the acquisition of the fifth-generation, supersonic F-35 multirole aircraft.” He also announced that the country will seek to buy Swedish infantry fighting vehicles. These moves will strengthen the Czech Republic’s armed forces “for decades to come,” he said. The country is interested in the F-35A conventional takeoff version.

The aircraft will replace 14 leased Swedish JAS-39C/D Gripen fighters, which will serve until 2027. The Czech Republic was also considering the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen JAS-39E, which has been upgraded with new capabilities. Notably, the Swedish offer would have allowed the Czech Republic to retain at no cost the Gripen C/Ds it has been using.

In addition to the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, the F-35 is flying for Australia, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Korea, and the U.K. It has been officially selected by Belgium, Finland, Germany, Poland, Singapore, and Switzerland. Canada has announced that the F-35 is its “preferred” choice for a new fighter, and negotiations are underway with Greece.

Turkey was a founding F-35 partner but was ejected from the program when that country purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems. Other users objected because the arrangement would have allowed Russian technicians the ability to observe F-35s at various ranges with their own equipment and potentially reveal vulnerabilities in the jet’s stealth properties.

Industry sources said the F-35 is under consideration by “several” other European nations and that some current users are exploring options to increase their inventory or planned buys.

Czech Defense minister Jana Cernochova said her government has authorized her to negotiate until October 2023 but that if an agreement isn’t reached on pricing by then, the F-35 isn’t necessarily off the table. She also said the Czech Republic is inclined to get a deal soon because the price of materials is increasing. The country wants F-35s to fill in closely behind the Gripens, indicating a desired delivery in 2027.

Gen. Karel Rehka, Czech Republic chief of staff, said the F-35 will remain “highly competitive” with other world fighters at least into the 2040s and perhaps into the 2060s.

“We’re really looking at the long term,” Rehka said in the Prague event. The F-35 is a multirole platform, but “it’s part of a … network on the battlefield; not just a fighter or bomber but … a platform that can serve as a command-and-control center and at the same time a very advanced sensor and spy aircraft.”

A Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the company is “honored the Czech Republic government is interested in the F-35” and will provide any support needed for “discussions about an acquisition.” Any further comments will have to come from the two governments, she said.

“We are confident the F-35 offers unmatched value as the most capable and lowest-life-cycle-cost aircraft, while delivering the strongest long-term industrial and economic opportunities compared to any fighter on the market,” the spokesperson said. The F-35’s selection by so many countries in the alliance makes it “the foundation of NATO and European alliance’s next generation air power.”

At Readiness Hearing, Air Force Calls to Retire Old Aircraft, Space Force Asks for Advanced Training

July 19, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness asked Air Force and Space Force leaders July 19 how the Ukraine conflict and competition with China have required increased readiness at a time when sustainment costs are constrained by investments in new technology.

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin focused on the need to retire legacy platforms to free up funds, while Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson said existing levels of training were “not sufficient” to teach Guardians how to counter adversaries’ threats in space.

HASC subcommittee on readiness ranking member Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said the challenge for the services and Congress is to strike a balance between readiness and modernization.

“As we’re seeing in Russia and Ukraine, it’s a reminder that we have to sustain high levels of readiness,” said Waltz, a colonel in the Army National Guard, in his opening statement of the July 19 hearing, referring to the logistics and sustainment challenges faced by Russian forces in Ukraine.

In the Pacific theater, Adm. John C. Aquilino had told Waltz that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command needed forward forces to counter China’s aggression. Meeting that request, said Waltz, a former Green Beret, requires sufficient operation and maintenance (O&M) funds.

“If we continue to tread water, within the next decade the [Chinese Communist Party] will modernize its military, bring it to parity, and in some areas overmatch with our own,” Waltz contended.

The Air Force’s fiscal 2023 O&M budget is $68.1 billion. In the Active-duty Air Force, “core readiness” programs, including weapon system sustainment and flying hours, received 23 percent and 10 percent of the proposed budget, respectively.

Allvin said readiness funding is constricted when the Air Force is required to maintain an aircraft beyond its planned lifespan.

“The age of our fleet, the programmed lifecycle maintenance projection, they sort of go out the window once the aircraft is sustained past its design life,” he said. “Every year, we try to be able to retire those legacy systems. And every year that we don’t, we just don’t park them, we try again to maintain them, and it costs more to maintain them.”

Allvin explained that once a platform is kept for up to 10 or 15 years past its anticipated life, anticipated maintenance issues no longer apply. Rather, the platform breaks in “new and different” ways, requiring longer time in depot maintenance.

Allvin identified three factors as part of the “continuous spiral” that ensues when a legacy platform is not retired:

The depot maintenance pipeline becomes clogged by the number of aircraft requiring maintenance; the overall budget increases because new systems require new logistics support dollars; and the maintenance workforce cannot transition to learn new platforms because they are still required on the older platforms.

“The high costs to sustain and operate these systems, along with their decreased relevance, is making your Air Force less effective,” Allvin said.

Alvin said that in other areas, the Air Force is making progress, such as a $27 million budgeted recruiting outreach effort in fiscal 2023, which is now being debated in Congress. The effort would improve Air Force outreach to underrepresented groups, geographic regions, and academic sources.

A pilot shortfall improved by 250 pilots in the past year, leaving some 1,600 vacancies, with monetary and non-monetary incentives helping to narrow the gap. An aircrew deficit, however, remains, something that could improve if legacy systems were phased out, Allvin said.

A New Metric for Readiness

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) called on all the services to meet a fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act requirement that the services submit a report on the readiness of every weapon system.

“These metrics show where Congress is getting the most out of its investment in military readiness,” a staffer from McClain’s office explained to Air Force Magazine. “This data also shows whether legacy systems are still cost effective or they can be retired to redirect resources elsewhere.”

None of the services had met the requirement to consolidate a metric of readiness to include with the fiscal 2023 budget.

McClain said knowing how much is spent to maintain readiness of a legacy system can help lawmakers decide to retire it or make the investments in the supply chain to keep the weapon system cost effective.

Space Force Needs Advanced Training

The vice chief of space operations said Space Force Guardians are currently able to meet “routine day-to-day operations” but not able to respond to an adversary in contested space unless advanced training is funded and integrated into the Space Force.

“Much work remains to be done,” Thompson said. “The training standards and equipment that served us well in the past are not sufficient to address the threats we expect to contend with now and in the future.”

The Space Force’s fiscal 2023 O&M budget of $4 billion includes investments in field centers for doctrine development, warfare, intelligence, and professional military education.

Thompson outlined the new investments in advanced training that are part of Space Force’s fiscal 2023 plans.

One shift is a new force generation model that introduces a rotational cycle to allow Guardians time for advanced training. The model would allow a satellite operator, intelligence specialist, or cyber defender the time to improve their skills individually, he said, then bring them together as a crew to complete their training.

In the second change, new equipment will help Guardians practice the tactics required to counter adversaries in space. Live and virtual training opportunities will use high-fidelity simulations and models to hone Guardian training.

“The development and building of this infrastructure is one of the highest priorities of the Space Force,” Thompson said. “Without it, Guardians would not be able to have defendable systems, proven tactics, or the ability to practice their craft against an opposition force.”

In the third change, Space Force plans to modernize its force design to keep up with evolving adversary capabilities.

“We must counter and defeat a thinking adversary who becomes more and more capable and dangerous every day,” Thompson said. “We must transition away from legacy systems to new force designs that complicate the adversary’s decision calculus and likelihood of success, first and foremost, to deter conflict in space, but ultimately to win, should an adversary choose to attack.”

After Successful Flight Tests for Skyborg, XQ-58 ‘Continuing to Evolve’

July 19, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, UNITED KINGDOM—A pair of XQ-58 Valkyrie drones completed a series of tests for the Air Force’s Skyborg program, an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous system to control uncrewed aircraft in a future manned/unmanned aircraft teaming concept.

Defense contractor Kratos, which manufactures the Valkyrie, announced the successful tests but offered no details on what those tests demonstrated or when they occurred.

They do, however, mark a milestone for Skyborg’s testing. The Autonomous Core System, the “brain” of the system, flew for the first time in April 2021 on a Kratos UTAP-22 Mako air vehicle. The next month, it flew on a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger. The XQ-58, meanwhile, has conducted a limited number of flight tests—six as of April 2021—showcasing some of its capabilities including releasing another drone in flight and carrying technology allowing an F-35 and F-22 to share data in-flight.

This marks the first public announcement of the Valkyrie flying for the Skyborg program. The drone was first developed as part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology portfolio and flew its first several tests before Kratos was selected in late 2020 as one of three companies to conduct Skyborg flights.

“It’s been a stepping stone type of project. You start small, and you keep growing and adding and adding capabilities to the flights,” Jeffrey Herro, a senior vice president in Kratos’ unmanned systems division, said in an interview with Air Force Magazine at the Farnborough International Airshow. “And this is like every other test program—it’s exactly what you do. In our business, we call it crawl, walk, run.

“And that’s what the Skyborg program has been doing. … This is a program about autonomy, really. That’s what the program is. So, how can I take these autonomy systems and evaluate them and then implement them on an unmanned aircraft? And it just so happened that our aircraft was chosen to be the testbed for these autonomy tests. And so we’ve been flying various payloads in support of the government’s activities on Skyborg.”

Herro declined to share any more details on the flight tests or what he believes they mean for the future of Skyborg, but he did say the program has acted as a “proof of concept” for the Air Force as the service pushes forward with its efforts to develop uncrewed, autonomous aircraft to fly alongside fighters and bombers—efforts that Air Force Secretary Kendall has included among his top priorities.

“I think it’s been a very important program for them,” Herro said. “I think that has been informative, so they’ll use it to inform certain decisions on how they can take this autonomy they’ve been working on … and employ it either on our aircraft or other aircrafts.”

Regardless, though, Herro expressed hope that the XQ-58 would advance to become its own program of record within the Air Force. While the drone has become associated with the Skyborg program, it was originally intended simply to be a capable, reusable drone whose cost would make its loss in combat permissible. That objective dovetailed with some of Skyborg’s goals, but Herro said it can be useful in other ways.

“There are other activities going on with the Valkyrie system right now,” Herro said. “We’re very happy with the performance of it. The performance on these last flights … was very good. We’re really happy with that. And we’re continuing to evolve other capabilities for other platforms. … Because at the end of the day, we’re building an airplane. And we’ve presented this airplane as a multi-mission-capable system.”

USAFE Won’t Add Extra F-35 Squadrons—But Will Get Rotation of F-22s, New Commander Says

July 19, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FAIRFORD, U.K.—At a NATO summit in June, President Joe Biden highlighted the two F-35 squadrons the U.S. is placing in the United Kingdom as part of his administration’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But once those two squadrons, both stationed at RAF Lakenheath, are built out, the U.S. has no immediate plans to further expand its permanent fleet of F-35 fighters in Europe, the new commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe said.

At the same time, Gen. James B. Hecker said in an exclusive interview with Air Force Magazine at the Royal International Air Tattoo, the number of American fifth-generation fighters on the continent will be bolstered.

“Right now, we have, I think it’s like 11 aircraft [at Lakenheath], so it’s just the one F-35 squadron that’s kind of stood up, and they’re half-filled,” Hecker said July 17. “They’re going to eventually have … by 2024 two different squadrons of F-35s there for a total of 52 aircraft, F-35s. We’ll still have the Strike Eagles there, so another two squadrons of [F-15E] Strike Eagles. Right now, that is the limit of the F-35s that we’re going to have in Europe from the United States.”

In addition to those Lakenheath fighters, though, Hecker said USAFE will continue to get help from F-35s stationed in the U.S.

“We have some at Hill Air Force Base. We have some at Vermont. Vermont, right now, coincidentally, has 12 F-35s over here in Europe,” Hecker said. “So we can get them here in a hurry, pretty quickly if we need to build up.”

Those F-35s from the Vermont Air National Guard arrived in early May at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, replacing F-35s from the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, which had arrived in February. While in Europe, the Vermont fighters have assisted with NATO’s air policing mission, conducting missions over Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, among others.

When they leave, Hecker indicated they’ll be succeeded by still more fifth-gen fighters.

“We’re bringing over F-22s … that are going to be coming over shortly, within a month, and they’ll spend four or five months over here,” Hecker said. “So we’re going to constantly cycle in fifth-generation in addition to what will eventually be two permanent squadrons at Lakenheath. So we’ll be cycling it in here in the meantime.”

That approach of swapping in and out extra fighters will last for around a year, Hecker said, as part of a broader Pentagon strategy to mainly rely on rotational forces to bolster the U.S. presence in Europe.

“This is not strictly just to the Air Force, but this is what the Army is going to be doing as well … So what we’re going to do is just kind of have six, 12 kinds of airplanes that will come in here for four months, and we’ll do that for about a year or so, in addition with all the permanent aircraft that we have stationed here,” Hecker said. “And that will increase our presence here, and then we’ll have to readjust and see what this thing looks like a year from now, and then we can adjust as necessary.”

There are several reasons why more permanently based F-35s won’t happen right now, Hecker added.

“We can’t just permanently bring a bunch of aircraft over here. We have about half the number of fighter squadrons that we did 30-some-odd years ago. So we just don’t have enough where we can just permanently put a bunch here,” said Hecker. “Likewise, the pacing threat is China. So being a team player, even though I’m [USAFE-AFAFRICA] now, I realize the National Defense Strategy says we need to keep our eyes on China as well. So we can’t just be asking for everything here because we also have to make sure we’re deterring China in the Pacific.”

But while the number of permanently based U.S. F-35s will stay at the 52 aircraft spread among two squadrons, the total number of F-35s across Europe is slated to grow substantially as more and more partner nations indicate they’ll buy the Joint Strike Fighter.

In recent months, Germany, Greece, Finland, and Switzerland have all indicated plans to buy F-35s, on top of nations like the U.K., Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland that have already signed deals to do so.

In 2021, former head of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Tod D. Wolters predicted that by 2030, there would be 450 F-35s spread across Europe. A year later, he bumped up that prediction to 550.

Now, Hecker is predicting even more, albeit by a later date.

“Right now, we have six countries that have the F-35 over here and have 120ish F-35s, which is very capable,” Hecker said. “But if you look down the road, by about the 2040 timeframe, we’re going to have over 600 F-35s here, and that will be a big, big deterrent against anybody who wants to take on NATO.”

Such a future will obviously increase interoperability, Hecker said. But the allies will still need to train and practice things such as tactics, he said—and they will need to work alongside fourth-generation aircraft, too.

“Not everybody is going to have F-35s. … Almost all countries will still have fourth generation,” Hecker said. “So we need to work on, how do we integrate fifth-generation with fourth-generation? Because once the mass goes up, we’re not going to have enough strictly fifth-gen that that’s all we use,” Hecker said. “So we need to use the F-35 to kind of knock down the door, gain some air superiority where we can get the fourth-generation in to finish and complete the job they can do once we get air superiority.”

F-35 JPO and Lockheed Martin Reach Handshake Deal for 375 Aircraft

July 19, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

More than 10 months beyond the originally expected goal, the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin have reached a “handshake deal” on Lots 15-17 of the fighter, which collectively will amount to only 375 aircraft.

No pricing information was included in the JPO’s July 18 announcement, which awaits formal signature. The announcement included no by-country or by-variant breakdown.

While the per-year production rate is unlikely to be the same across all three lots, at 375, production will average 125 aircraft a year. That’s well below the 156 per year that Lockheed Martin CEO James D Taiclet told stock analysts in a January conference call. In that call, acting Chief Financial Officer John Mollard said “the last thing you want is a sawtooth pattern” of up-and-down rates of production.

Negotiations had been dragging because of disagreements between Lockheed Martin and the JPO about volatile inflation and labor costs, both of which have shifted dramatically since the fall. Former JPO program executive officer retired Lt. Gen. Eric Fick had predicted a deal in November 2021, and then again in March of this year, but agreement on escalation costs proved elusive.

Both the JPO and Lockheed have suggested that the years-long pattern of lot-over-lot unit price reductions on the F-35 will end with Lot 15-17 because the package includes more-capable aircraft and because the military services have reduced their annual buys in anticipation of ramping up again when the Block 4 version of the airplane becomes available.

Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William A. LaPlante, in a statement released through the JPO, said he is pleased to announce the “handshake deal … on the basis of 375 aircraft.” He called the agreement a milestone for the program, the F-35 enterprise, “and our international partners.” He promised specifics when the contract is awarded.

“Our plan is to expedite contract award and deliver additional F-35 capacity” to the U.S. and its international partners, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt, the new F-35 PEO, who assumed his post in the last few weeks.

The JPO said “significant progress” was made in negotiations over the last three months. There were “significant real-world challenges—including the COVID-19 pandemic, associated supply chain impacts, and workforce disruptions, and inflation.”

The JPO said the quantity “may change based on any adjustments made” by Congress in its fiscal 2023 budget negotiations “and any orders requested by international partners.”

The company and the JPO said they are working first to ink a deal for Lots 15 and 16 “as a high priority.” The JPO will “exercise a contract option for Lot 17 in FY 2023” after the fiscal 2023 budget is made final, in order to take into account any congressional adds or international orders.

Lockheed Martin said through a spokesperson that the deal was reached through “a collaborative effort” with the JPO, “our suppliers and teammates, “in the midst of COVID-19 impacts and decreased F-35 quantities.”

The company said the parties were “able to achieve a cost per jet lower than record-breaking inflation trends” and noted that the version negotiated “includes modernized hardware needed to power Block 4 capabilities,” such as the Tech Refresh 2 and 3 upgrades that offer increased processing power. These improvements “will ensure the F-35 remains the world’s most capable aircraft in production today.”

SDA Awards $1.3B to L3Harris and Northrop Grumman for 28 Missile-Tracking Satellites

July 18, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Development Agency awarded L3Harris and Northrop Grumman Strategic Space Systems contracts to build Tranche 1 of the Tracking Layer for its planned National Defense Space Architecture, a multipurpose defense constellation.

Each company will build 14 low-Earth-orbit satellites to detect and track the infrared signatures of missile launches and flights. The fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act passed in March added funds to speed up contracting.

Emphasizing the project’s rapid timeline, SDA Director Derek Tournear told reporters July 18 that within two days of the appropriation “we released a solicitation for the Tracking Tranche 1 satellites, and [now] here were are, about 120 days later, with two performers on contract.”

SDA awarded $700 million to L3Harris, or about $50 million per satellite; and $671 million to Northrop Grumman, or about $44 million per satellite. The total cost to operationalize those satellites will total about $2.5 billion, including four rocket launches and the ground architecture to operate the constellation, Tournear said.

The rapid development timeline favored proven suppliers that have already commoditized satellite components, he acknowledged, making it possible for the satellites to be “developed and produced very quickly in a factory type of model.” He declined to name which subcontractors were working with the two primes. He offered only that the winning proposals involved “new entrants in a lot of the sub-component vendors.”

America’s ability to detect missile launches becomes more resilient with the addition of the Tracking Layer, Tournear said. The size of the constellation means the loss of any single satellite will not interrupt the ability to detect and track.

The Space Force’s Space Warfighting Analysis Center wants the missile-warning architecture to be proliferated constellations in both low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO). “So essentially … you have to take out LEO and MEO to take out the capabilities,” Tournear said.

SDA expects the new Tracking Layer to provide the added benefit of being able to not just detect missile launches but to track maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles, Tournear said. “We don’t have zero capability to do tracking, but most everything we do is designed around doing what we call missile warning,” Tournear said. “So we will not only be able to do the old-school mission of missile warning—detect the launch and predict the impact point—but we’ll be able to detect it as it’s maneuvering and changing its impact point and be able to send that [data] down and … tell an interceptor exactly where that missile is headed.”

The planned constellation includes the Tracking Layer and a Transport Layer for moving data around, which are together projected to number in the hundreds at any given time. New tranches going up every two years will refresh the technology. The satellites have a five-year predicted lifespan.

The first tranche of data-transport satellites will precede the first 28 missile-tracking satellites into space. Four launches required to take the tracking satellites to four different orbital planes start in April 2025.