Congress Aims to Boost Junior Enlisted Pay by 15 Percent in 2025

April 11, 2024 | By David Roza

House lawmakers are pushing for a 15 percent pay raise for enlisted troops ranked E-1 to E-4 as part of a slew of changes meant to improve quality of life for service members and their families.

The changes, which address pay and compensation, child care, housing, health care, and spouse support, were laid out in a new report released April 11 by the House Armed Services Committee’s Quality of Life Panel, which was formed last year to address long-running concerns.

“These 40 pages right here … are going to change the military for the better,” panel member Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) said at a press conference April 11. “We owe it to the men and women who have signed up to fight and possibly die for us, to give them the best.”

Panel members vowed to act on the report by writing its recommendations into the Fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which could be a difficult task due to competing modernization priorities as the military prepares for a possible conflict with China. But lawmakers were emphatic that their recommendations would make it into the 2025 NDAA, and they have powerful voices on their side in HASC chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).

“We’re going to find the room in that bill to do this,” Rogers said. “We’re going to have complications, I’m not going to argue that we won’t. But it won’t be because of this, it’s because of a whole spectrum of threats and platforms and issues. But this is going to be done.”

“By providing a 15 percent pay raise for service members to ensure they and their families can pay their bills, put food on the table, and invest in their future we’re making sure that we recruit America’s brightest,” Smith added in a statement.

A Defense Commissary Agency grocery manager places items outside the store during a sidewalk sale at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., May 12. (U.S. Air Force photo by Mark Herlihy)

Pay Raises

The report found that the military’s methods for calculating pay and compensation for housing, food, and other needs must be updated. For example, calculations for basic allowance for housing (BAH), which 58 percent of service members use to live off-base, require analyzing prices for a minimum number of local rentals, but the Defense Department came up short in 44 percent of locations and housing types.

“As a result, housing allowances may have been set inaccurately in nearly half of the locations, potentially resulting in hardship for service members,” the report wrote.

Another example is the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), which offsets the cost of living in high-price areas. COLA is not adjusted fast enough to keep pace with sudden changes, the report found, such as the surge in utility bills for military families in Europe after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A similar problem applies to basic pay, which has not kept pace with inflation or compensation for comparable civilian jobs. The result of less pay and less housing allowance means service members often “take those cuts … in their commissary bills,” Master Chief Petty Office of the Navy James Honea said during a January congressional hearing.

Indeed, the report cited a 2023 RAND study that found 25 percent of troops report food insecurity, meaning they cannot access enough food for an active, healthy life. The Defense Department currently sets its pay benchmarks at the 70th percentile of comparable civilian compensation, but the report called for raising that to 80 for enlisted and 75 for officers.

“The continued recruiting challenges and concerning reports of food insecurity and unaffordable housing costs require an increase in benchmarks for officers and enlisted,” the report said.

The pay issues hit junior enlisted particularly hard, since the earnings for civilian low-income jobs have risen faster than higher-income earnings, while the basic pay for ranks E-1 through E-4 has declined relative to E-5 pay: hence the call for raising that pay 15 percent.

“This will restore real value to basic pay,” the report states.

An Air Force family uses an envelope system as a method of budgeting. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Sadie Colbert)

Staff Shortages

Another recurring theme in the report was a lack of workers in child care, health care, and managers for barracks, which the Air Force calls dormitories. These shortages contributed to monthslong wait lists for child care, weekslong waits for medical appointments, and a long list of barracks health and safety problems including mold, pests, broken heating and air conditioning, cracked sewage pipes, and unsafe water.

Addressing these problems could require updating hiring authorities and raising pay for child care and health care providers. But the report also recommended creating standards for child care, health care, and barracks oversight across the services.

In the child care space, that could take the form of standardizing perks for day care employees, which could encourage more people to take those jobs. In health care, it could mean setting timelines for waiting for an appointment, while in the housing space, it could involve making the military more transparent with how it requests and uses money for sustaining or modernizing barracks.

“I’ve seen for myself, the mold and the infestations of mice and rodents, the windows that won’t close or the electrical panels that are definitely not up to code,” panel member Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said at the press conference. “That’s why I can tell you with certainty that this panel’s work will make a huge difference. It will save lives, it will improve our national security, and it will help the United States maintain its posture as the world’s most powerful fighting force.”

The panel’s recommendations include the following:

Pay and Compensation

Increase base pay for junior enlisted troops by 15 percent

Raise enlisted and officer pay from the 70th percentile of comparable civilian pay to the 80th and 75th percentile, respectively

Ensure Basic Allowance for Housing covers 100 percent of the calculated rate for military housing areas. BAH today covers only 95 percent

Improve how Basic Allowance for Sustenance and Cost of Living Allowances are calculated

Increase Basic Needs Allowance income threshold from 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines to 200 percent

Child Care

Make every service cover 100 percent of child care fees for the first child of a staff member at a military child development program, and cover up to 100 percent for additional children

Increase pay for military child care workers to compete with civilian counterparts

Eliminate wait lists for child care fee assistance programs by fully funding those programs

Require quarterly briefs from the Defense Department on how the services are addressing child care facility requirements and staffing shortages

Study whether current hiring authorities for child care workers can be improved

Housing

Make the services explain why they do not request 100 percent of the funding required for barracks sustainment, restoration, and modernization

Make the services keep closer track of funding for barracks for single service members, be more transparent on where those funds are used, and explain why it defers maintenance

Explore what authorities may be needed to expand use of privatized barracks

Figure out why there is a shortage of barracks oversight staff

Conduct a feasibility study for providing free wi-fi in all barracks

Health Care

Direct the Defense Health Agency to evaluate how current access to care standards might be creating long wait times for health care

Make the DHA submit data on the health care wait times at each military treatment facility (MTF) rather than the aggregate of all MTFs.

Analyze if new hiring and retention authorities are needed for civilian medical providers

Figure out how to retain more military health providers

Spouse Support

Make the three-year Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot a permanent program

Support interstate licensure compacts so licensed military spouses can keep working after moving to a new state

Expand eligibility for child care for military spouses seeking employment from 90 days to 180

Review the Military Spouse Employment Participation Program for obstacles to participation

First Ever Guardians Graduate Army Drill Sergeant Academy—and May Not Be the Last

April 11, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Two Guardians broke new ground last week when they become the first members of the Space Force to graduate from the Army Drill Sergeant Academy. Now, Tech Sgt. David Gudgeon and Sgt. Yuji Moore are ready to bring their unique experience to the Space Force’s training process for transforming civilians into service members.

What’s more, with two Guardian Drill Sergeants now donning the Army’s iconic “Brown Round” campaign hats, the service hinted at more cross-branch training for its Guardians instructors in the future.

Army Drill Sergeants, just like Military Training Instructors in the Air Force and Space Force, are tasked with training new recruits in basic combat skills, military protocols, and beyond. Space Force recruits attend the Air Force’s Basic Military Training course, with added space-specific curriculum.

The Air Force trains its MTIs at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in a 35-day course. The first Space Force graduate of that school was in September 2021.

The Army Drill Sergeant Academy, located in Columbia, S.C., includes a 540-hour, nine-week course, training noncommissioned officers to teach civilians how to become Soldiers. The program assesses various skill sets including tactics instruction, proficiency with weapons, and leading a squad in a 48-hour overnight field training exercise.

“The biggest takeaway for me was seeing how controlled stresses and failures worked in an environment with tight timelines and manageable failures,” Gudgeon told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “This effectively built the resiliency and leadership we were looking for.”

Moore said what stood out to him was “the importance of being a coach, leading through tactics and procedures, and being part of the team rather than just instructing. The Army’s field exercises emphasized this approach, with drill sergeants actively participating alongside the trainees.”

Maj. Clinton Emry, commander of 1st Delta Operations Squadron/Detachment 1, said the Army Drill Sergeant Academy was happy to collaborate with the Space Force after already training personnel from the Hungarian Defense Force, South Korean Army, Croatian Army, and British Army.

“This is a unique moment in history where the USSF has Military Training Instructors certified by the USAF and we also have Space Force Drill Sergeants,” Emry told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “By having both under one training unit now, we are positioning ourselves for a more deliberate training experience for the newest Guardians coming to Space Force Basic Military Training.”

Emry described Gudgeon and Moore as “highly qualified Guardians that also had a willingness to be bold and take on a new challenge.” The two initially enlisted in the Air Force before transitioning to the Space Force. Adjusting to another new military culture in the Army wasn’t easy.

Moore said he was not always familiar with the Army’s way of doing things, such as tactics or doctrine, and had to rely on his battle buddies for questions. Fortunately, his fellow candidates helped him feel unafraid to “ask those questions and they made the environment very conducive for me to feel comfortable, to be kind of vulnerable and be the new guy there.”

Despite these concerns, the Guardians excelled academically—Gudgeon receiving a cumulative score of 96 percent and Moore of 99 percent, Army Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Hickey, Chief of Training at the Academy told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

They also gained crucial insight into Army culture—a critical skill given that Soldiers continue to transfer into the Space Force

“I think we’re definitely going to be bringing in a different flavor to that training environment that they haven’t seen yet,” Gudgeon said.

For the rest of the Space Force, Gudgeon and Moore are paving the way for further collaborations with the Army—and other branches.

“Based on our mission needs and partnerships, the sky is no longer the limit,” Emry said. “As our Space Force BMT curriculum changes and adapts over time, we must partner with other services to learn their best practices and not try to develop everything alone. Each of the services has its own culture and focus areas that they specialize in, some of those specialties are transferable to our Space Force operations, education, and training methods.”

New Satellite Data Layer Connects Army, Navy, NATO—with Link 16

April 11, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Development Agency is fine-tuning and expanding its data transport satellites’ Link 16 connectivity, preparing for them to become the “backbone” of the Pentagon’s ambitious joint all-domain command and control system—and perhaps beyond that to NATO.

SDA Director Derek M. Tournear said April 10 at the Space Symposium that the agency has signed agreements with the Army, Navy, and other services to use the satellites as they develop their networks to connect sensors and shooters. And it’s not just U.S. forces: Tournear said Norway will host a ground station and demonstrate Link 16 connectivity between satellites and NATO’s terrestrial networks.

At the heart of it all is Link 16, the waveform used by U.S. and allied forces to transmit data. SDA conducted the first ever Link 16 demonstration from space last November, leading Tournear to say at the time that he could not “underscore enough the significance of this technical achievement.”

Five months later, Tournear said in Colorado Springs, Colo., that the first demonstration, while critical, was “very rudimentary.”

“We were able to connect about 50 percent of the time when we were overhead, and we were able to stay connected for about 30 seconds,” he said. “So that’s good but not really something to write home to mom about. But now we’re able to get 100 percent of our passes connectivity, basically with no failure. And we have roughly 10 minutes of connectivity, which is essentially limb to limb as the satellite goes over, so it’s working exceptionally well.”

Proving the reliability of Link 16 from SDA’s low-Earth orbit satellites is critical for JADC2, which the Pentagon envisions connecting sensors and shooters around the world, regardless of where the data originates or what domain the shooter is in.

Space Development Agency director Derek M. Tournear. **Image courtesy of the Space Foundation**

Link 16 is not the only waveform that will be needed—Tournear noted SDA’s satellites can also use Ka band and other signals—and Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks declared in February that JADC2 has reached a minimal viable capability even without SDA’s satellites.

But the ubiquity of Link 16 and the connectivity offered by the hundreds of satellites SDA intends to launch into low-Earth orbit means they will be critical, and Tournear said the organization has taken steps to formalize that.

“We have agreements signed with the Army, we have agreements signed with the Navy to make sure that they will utilize us for this JADC2 backbone. So in addition to the Link 16 up and down, we also have Ka that can go down directly to the Army’s Titan systems, or the Navy’s maritime targeting cell—they have one ashore and afloat, which is part of their Overmatch system,” Tournear said. “And so we have [memorandums of agreement] signed so we’re all on board to tie all of those together with Link 16, with Ka, and then we also have agreement signed to use our optical terminals to go down to airborne platforms.”

At the moment, SDA cannot conduct Link 16 demonstrations over U.S. airspace, part of an ongoing dispute between the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration. Instead, the agency has operated from the territory of a Five Eyes partner nation—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the United Kingdom.

“We’ve been in in their country, starting in November when we first did the test, essentially up to Christmas break and then we took off about a month and a half,” Tournear said. “And then we sent the team back out.”

Beyond that, he said, SDA is starting to work with NATO partners too, starting with Norway.

“NATO is using Link 16. Link 16 is what we will use in any fight over the next 10 years,” Tournear noted. “And so [Norway has] partnered with us to test later this summer Link 16 from the SDA constellation directly into their country’s forces, using their existing Link 16 connectivity, using the NATO cryptography.”

Norway has also agreed to host a “ground entry point” through which SDA will be able to connect with their satellites for command and control, Tournear noted.

USSF Doubles Down on Responsive Space with 2 Contracts

April 11, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force’s first rapid satellite launch was so nice, it’s next goal is to do it twice.

Space Systems Command and the Defense Innovation Unit awarded two contracts for the Space Force’s next tactically responsive space mission, dubbed Victus Haze. The deals, announced April 11, go to True Anomaly of Centennial, Colo., and Rocket Lab of Long Beach, Calif.

Each company will build a satellite and a command and control center for rendezvous and proximity operations by fall 2025. After that, the spacecraft will go through a series of steps to prepare for launch.

True Anomaly’s bird will launch from either Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., or Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on a “rapid rideshare” rocket, according to an SSC statement—presumably a SpaceX vehicle. Rocket Lab will launch its own satellite using its Electron rocket, either from either Mahia, New Zealand, or Wallops Island, Va.

“While this is a coordinated demonstration, each vendor will be given unique launch and mission profiles,” SSC announced.

Once in orbit, the two spacecraft must demonstrate “dynamic space operations,” maneuvering in orbit and performing domain awareness work.

The Space Force is sharing the cost of the True Anomaly satellite, with USSF’s SpaceWERX innovation arm each contributing $30 million to the project. Funding for the Rocket Lab contract, valued at $32 million, comes through the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, whose mission is to help the Pentagon embrace and field new technologies faster. SSC’s Space Safari program office will provide programmatic oversight and execute the mission for both satellites.

“It’s an honor to be selected by the Space Systems Command to partner in delivering the VICTUS HAZE mission and demonstrate the kind of advanced tactically responsive capabilities critical to evolving national security needs,” Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement.

“The space domain is one of the most challenging environments in which to test and train, and we applaud the service and Congress for their dedication to the TacRS mission set, which is increasingly necessary for deterrence, space domain awareness, and dynamic space operations,” said True Anomaly CEO and cofounder Even Rogers in a statement.

The Space Force hinted at conduding a double demonstration in its 2025 budget request, noting that Victus Haze would include “multiple mission components.” Following Victus Haze, the Space Force wants to “provide initial operational capabilities” for tactically responsive space, the budget documents say.

TacRS seeks to ensure the Space Force can launch satellites and get them into orbit and operational in a crisis or as a new tactical requirement emerges. The whole idea is to “demonstrate, under operationally realistic conditions, our ability to respond to irresponsible behavior on orbit,” said Col. Bryon McClain, SSC’s program executive officer for Space Domain Awareness and Combat Power, in a statement.

Victus Nox, the first TacRS demonstration, set out to prove the Space Force and its industry partner, Millennium Space Systems, could build a satellite in 12 months, enter a “hot standby phase” as contractors waited for an alert notification, then launch. That test worked: After receiving the alert, the satellite was transported 165 miles, tested, fueled, and mated it to the launch vehicle, all in just 58 hours. After that, the team went back on alert, waiting for final launch orders and orbital parameters. Once those came in, the satellite launched in 27 hours in September 2023.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman has repeatedly cited that success with pride—and a clear warning that Victus Haze must go even faster.

“I still think we have margin in the schedule,” Saltzman said earlier this year. “And so in Victus Haze, we’re going to set some standards that say nope, we’ve got to compress this more. Five days from warehouse to on-orbit operations is pretty fast. But in the grand scheme of things, when you’re moving at 17,500 miles per hour, five days is still a long time, and a lot can happen in five days. And so I’m going to be pressing the team to continue to reduce that critical path down to hours and hours and hours, rather than days.”

Space Force officials have noted the demonstrations have also shown the service how it can cut down on bureaucratic processes and move faster when needed.

More TacRS demonstrations are in the works. Budget documents cite a third mission, Victus Sol, envisioned to launch in late 2025 or early 2026, and a fourth mission is envisioned to get underway sometime in fiscal 2025.

Kendall: Space Guard ‘Doesn’t Make Any Sense,’ USSF Has New Authorities to Manage Transition

April 10, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall offered his sharpest critique yet of a proposed Space National Guard on April 10, telling reporters at the annual Space Symposium that the idea “doesn’t make any sense.”

The Department of the Air Force has a legislative proposal to fold space-focused Guard units into the Space Force, which can now accept part-time members. Absence a switch in service, Kendall argued it would make more sense to leave the units in the Air National Guard rather than establishing a separate Guard.

The debate over a Space National Guard has raged for several years now, and Kendall expressed frustration that the topic continues to be unsettled and hotly debated.

“We’ve had much, much more political attention over this issue than it deserves in my mind,” he said. “We’re talking about a few hundred people. The numbers for any state are less than, I think, 2 percent of their Guard people and there are only a handful of states are affected.”

The issue has surged to the forefront again in recent weeks after Govs. Spencer Cox (R-Utah) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) issued a statement criticizing the Department of the Air Force for their legislative proposal, which would waive federal law requiring “gubernatorial approval before any modification to Guard units and assets within their jurisdiction.”

The National Guard Association of the United States also criticized the proposal, repeating arguments that the costs of establishing of a Space National Guard have been overstated and that Guardsmen don’t want to move and want to stay available to perform state missions.

But Kendall said those concerns are overblown and that the recently passed Space Force Personnel Management Act, which creates a single component of full-time and part-time Guardians, will help mitigate concerns Guardsmen have and ensure their lives aren’t disrupted.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall receives a tour of the flight line from U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. D. Micah Fesler Assistant Adutant General – Air, and U.S. Air Force Col. Jeremiah Tucker, 140th Wing Commander, Buckley Space Force Base, Colo., Nov 3, 2023. **U.S. Air National Guard photo by Capt. Benjamin Kimball**

“The flexibility … is going to allow people to manage their lives and their careers much more flexibly than traditional means have allowed,” Kendall said of the law, included in the 2024 defense policy bill. “So people should look very carefully at this before they make a snap judgment about whether they’re comfortable with the change or not.”

The policy bill also directed the department to conduct a study of three options: starting a Space National Guard, moving units into the Space Force, or preserving the status quo with space units in the Air National Guard.

That report will be delivered to Congress soon, Kendall said, but he previewed the results.

“We’ve had [units] as part of the Air Guard for four years now roughly, while they are doing Space Force missions,” Kendall said. “They have been sent to, in many cases, Space Force training and schools, where we can formalize that a little bit more than it is right now. Keeping them where they are is one possibility. The preferred result is to make them part of the Space Force and manage them, for the most part, as part-time Space Force people.

“The worst option, I think, and I think that this is what our report is going to show, is a separate new Space Guard for a few hundred people. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s going to cost to administer. There is not in my mind, any expectation that it will grow. And it’s going to be administratively difficult. So I don’t think that that’s a very attractive option for a number of reasons.”

There are approximately 14 space units in seven states with 1,000 Air National Guardsmen.

Asked about surveys cited by the National Guard Association showing many of those people prefer to stay in the Guard, Kendall said he was “not terribly concerned.”

“I think when you go to people and say ‘Do you want to stay like you are or jump off a cliff?’ They’re going to stay like they are,” Kendall said. “We’re not asking them to jump off a cliff. We’re asking them to go to another arrangement which will be very, very like the one that they’re currently serving under. They’re not going to see much change frankly, as I see it.”

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman noted that as Air Force Reserve space units get folded into the Space Force, Guardsmen will see that the transition is worth it.

“They’ll get to see how we integrate those that are currently in the Air Force Reserves doing space. They’ll see how we integrate them, they’ll get to watch that play out,” Saltzman said. “That’ll give them a lot of valuable information.”

Details on that transition are still being worked out and will be phased in over time, officials said. Saltzman said they would take a similar approach with the Guard.

And if ultimately Guardsmen decide to leave military service or join the Air National Guard rather than join the Space Force, Saltzman argued the service will be able to adjust.

“We can both minimize the risk to mission and minimize the pain associated with whether people want to volunteer to come over or whether they want to stay a part of the Guard,” he said.

Russian Air Force Has Only Lost 10 Percent of Fleet in Ukraine, US Officials Say

April 10, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Russian air force has lost just one-tenth of its fleet while many of its military capabilities remain largely unaffected after more than two years of war in Ukraine, the top U.S. commander in Europe told Congress on April 10.

“We do not see significant losses in the air domain, especially their long-range and strategic aviation fleets,” Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“Russia’s strategic forces, long-range aviation, cyber capabilities, space capabilities, and capabilities in the electromagnetic spectrum have lost no capacity at all. The air force has lost some aircraft, but only about 10 percent of their fleet,” Cavoli added in his written testimony to the committee.

There is no question that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has come at an enormous cost in blood and treasure. Russia has lost more than 2,000 tanks and suffered 315,000 casualties in the conflict, Cavoli testified. The full-scale invasion has cost Russia $211 billion to equip, deploy, maintain, and sustain its forces in Ukraine, added Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

But Russia’s efforts to rebuild its military and the Kremlin’s decision to acquire drones from Iran and ballistic missiles from North Korea have boosted Moscow’s fortunes on the battlefield.

“Russia launches very large-scale attacks every few days keeping with their production rate,” Cavoli said of Russia’s aerial barrages. “They produce, they save up, they launch a big attack.”

In the short term, Russia has sought to gain the edge in Ukraine in what has become a battle of attrition, though the Russians’ ability to integrate air, land, and sea capabilities also has its limitations. As U.S. military aid for Kyiv has remained stalled in the U.S. Congress, Russia is using one-way attack drones and long-range missiles to try to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses. The Russians are currently firing five times as many artillery shells as Ukraine, and Moscow’s advantage will grow without fresh military supplies from the U.S.

“That will immediately go to 10-1 in a matter of weeks,” Cavoli said. “We are not talking hypothetically.”

In the long term, Russia is striving to develop its global capabilities. Russia has poured resources into its nuclear forces. It is also looking to expand its conventional ground forces in the years ahead. To do so, Russia has raised the upper age for conscription from 27 to 30, which has enlarged the pool of potential conscripts by 2 million. It is also planning to restructure ground forces so that it can deploy new formations in Ukraine and opposite Finland, Cavoli told lawmakers.

“Russia is reconstituting that force far faster than our initial estimates suggested,” Cavoli said. “The army is actually now larger—by 15 percent—than it was when it invaded Ukraine.”

While Russia’s navy has suffered significant losses in the Black Sea, the rest of its naval forces are intact and its worldwide naval activity is at a peak, the NATO commander added.

Ukraine has achieved some success against Russia’s air force, known as the VKS, including taking down at least two of Russia’s A-50 Mainstay command and control aircraft.

But Russian aircraft have generally adapted by staying out of the engagement zone for Ukraine’s air defenses, many of which have been Western-provided. U.S.-made F-16s, which will provide greater capability for the Ukrainian air force, are months away. Relying on standoff weapons, Russian bombers have stayed clear of Ukrainian air defenses. When Russian warplanes have ventured into Ukraine’s airspace, they adjusted their tactics—and so has Ukraine.

“What we saw at the beginning of the war were if they got within range of those surface-to-air missiles, they got shot down on both sides,” a senior U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine in February. That changed soon after the invasion.

“Instead of coming from high altitude where the surface-to-air missile can see you and then shoot long-range shots, they’ll come in at low altitude, where now they can’t see it because of the curvature of the earth, then come out of low altitude, jump up, drop their bombs, and go out right away,” the defense official added. “They weren’t doing that at the beginning, but that’s obviously a lesson that they learned.”

Air Force Vice Chief: Base Infrastructure on ‘Hospice Care,’ but Privatization Can Help

April 10, 2024 | By David Roza

Privatizing junior enlisted dormitories, guest lodging, dining facilities, and other services could take the pressure off of aging infrastructure at many Air Force bases, which has suffered from years of underfunding, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife said.

“I think there’s opportunity here for public-private partnership and, frankly, business opportunities for local businesses to partner with us on privatizing noncore portions of our mission,” Slife said at the Association of Defense Communities National Summit on April 10.

Slife’s comments came a day after Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s quality of life panel, lamented ongoing underinvestment in military barracks, which the Air Force calls dormitories. That lack of funding has contributed to widespread problems such as broken safety systems, mold or mildew growth, pests, broken heating or air-conditioning, and poor water quality. The military had underfunded dorms for a decade, but Congress was under the impression they were fully funded, Bacon said.

“It’s not right, we should know exactly what we’re underfunding and make those decisions together,” the retired Air Force brigadier general said at the summit. “If I had any of those dorms, I would have been fired.”

Still, Bacon acknowledged that there is not much money left over for dormitories, pay, housing allowances, and other quality of life issues as the military tries to modernize with new submarines, stealth bombers, and other technologies meant to sustain an edge over China, especially with a defense budget that makes up a near all-time low percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, he said.

“We’re constrained, because 70 percent of our spending is mandatory and 30 percent is discretionary,” he said. “The military is going to have a hard time doing what we need to do, because of all the fiscal pressures we have right now.”

The Air Force plans on investing $1.1 billion to restore and modernize its dorms, but officials say privatization could help ease the pressure. The most senior enlisted members of the Army, Navy, and Air Force told Congress last month that they were eager to try privatizing barracks at bases where housing is either too sparse or too expensive. But lawmakers were skeptical, citing how military families have suffered unsafe private housing and unaccountable contractors for years.

“I would envision us having, in the not too distant future, hearings like we had with family housing companies,” Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said at the March 20 hearing, “because the privatization process is a failure in terms of maintaining the quality of life of housing.”

The senior enlisted leaders said they learned lessons from the privatized family housing experience—namely enforcing stronger oversight on contractors. They also looked to the Navy’s Public Private Venture program, which bills itself as “resort-style” housing for single enlisted Sailors in San Diego, as a positive example to follow.

“We’re paying close attention to the Navy and the lessons that they’ve learned so that we don’t replicate some of the mistakes that came through our initial contracts that we wrote with privatizing military family housing,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flosi said at the hearing.

Slife took a similar tone at the Association of Defense Communities summit.

“We’ve learned some valuable lessons, some good, some not so good, about privatized housing,” he said.

The VCSAF said the Air Force is looking into granting easements right over the fence line from a military base, where contractors can build “what amounts to an apartment complex” for young Airmen. He proposed a similar model for guest lodging, food, and other services that “are not the point of the Air Force.”

“Looking for innovative ways that we can do public-private partnerships on the installations that we have might help us recapitalize some of this aging infrastructure,” Slife said.

The need is great, because many of the recapitalization timelines for that infrastructure “are nowhere near where they ought to be.”

“One of my colleagues used to say that the most expensive medical care is hospice care,” he said. “There are elements of our base infrastructure that are essentially on hospice care, and it’s pretty expensive to maintain those things.”

The Homefront

Beyond privatizing dorms and DFACs, Slife said he believes there are other areas for new kinds of partnerships between Air Force bases, local communities, and companies. In the past, he said, the relationship between bases and their civilian neighbors used to revolve around only civil issues such as schools, housing, and spouse employment. But new threats such as cybersecurity and small drones allow state and non-state enemies to harm water, power, gas, and communications infrastructure that affects both service members and civilians.

“The homeland is no longer a sanctuary,” Slife said. “As we think about reoptimizing the Air Force, how do we harden our homeland infrastructure? How do we build more resilient bases? And much of that, frankly, depends on the relationships that we have at a very local level from base to base.”

The framework used to be that issues on base were handled by Air Force law enforcement, while issues off base were handled by local law enforcement, he added. But small drones complicate that framework. Airmen can’t just leave the base and shoot down every quadcopter that looks like it might spy on the installation, he said. It requires working with law enforcement in new ways that have not been done before.

“These are nonstandard things that I’m asking for,” he said. “There is a warfighting aspect to our bases as power projection platforms that I think we have to come to grips with on a very local level.”

Space Force’s New Commercial Strategy Emphasizes SATCOM and SDA

April 10, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force will integrate commercial satellites and systems into a broad range of missions, starting with satellite communications and space domain awareness, according to the new Commercial Space Strategy released April 10.

The new strategy reaffirms the Defense Department’s broad Commercial Space Integration Strategy released last week, aiming to leverage commercial space capabilities in a way that goes beyond conventional Pentagon-industry partnership.

Speaking at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman cited the example of commercial coal stations proving vital to the U.S. Navy during the Spanish American War.

“The Navy’s operational infrastructure at that time was not complete without the commercial services completely incorporated,” Saltzman said. “In space operations, we have become more comfortable with using commercial capabilities to add capacity than we have with fully integrating commercial capabilities into our force design.”

In a foreword to the strategy, Saltzman and Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition Frank Calvelli added that they envision a future state when the Space Force has “hybrid space architectures” with U.S. military, commercial, and allied space systems.

Saltzman noted in his speech that the strategy does not dictate exactly how those hybrid architectures will be crafted or how much money will go to different mission areas.

However, it does lists and ranks eight mission areas in terms of commercial market maturity and the urgency of military requirements:

Satellite communications

Space domain awareness

Space Access, Mobility, and Logistics

Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking

Environmental Monitoring

Cyberspace

Command and control

Position, navigation, and timing

There are still a few mission areas where the Space Force is not looking for commercial capabilities: missile warning, electromagnetic warfare, nuclear detonation, and “combat power projection.”

The strategy also notes that SATCOM, SDA, and launch already have mature commercial markets, while the rest are still emerging. In some cases, the military will be the “anchor customer” as the market develops.

SATCOM is already a major focus of Space Force investment, with some $3.7 billion included in its 2025 budget request for projects including the Space Development Agency’s data transport layer, Evolved Strategic SATCOM for nuclear command and control, and the new jam-resistant Protected Tactical Services (PTS) program.

But satellite communication bandwidth requirements go well beyond those needs, and commercial SATCOM services are increasingly available around the world, led by SpaceX’s massive Starlink constellation, which has proved invaluable to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Other companies are planning competing satellite networks, using similar distributed constellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit to provide digital services.

The Space Force strategy wants to leverage those networks to whatever extent is possible, with priority given to “capabilities that can easily integrate into a federated system of systems.”

Space domain awareness, the No. 2 priority in the strategy, is not yet as mature a market as SATCOM, but the growing number of satellites in orbit and the rising threats posed by anti-space capabilities developed by China and Russia make this a potent area for development. At the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Security Forum last month, Saltzman alluded to commercial potential when he said “we need to have access to and invest in actionable space domain awareness.”

In February, Space Operations Command’s Lt. Gen. David N. Miller made a similar comment, suggesting the Space Force could rely on commercial capabilities to process and make sense of the vast amounts of data coming from sensors in space and on the ground. Small startups like Scout Space aim to get in on this business, developing space-based sensors that could contribute to space-domain awareness.

Space Access, Mobility, and Logistics includes everything from launch—a well-established commercial capability—to in-orbit services and refueling for satellites—a nascent capability that is still being developed. The strategy also highlighted that the mission area will include tactically responsive space capabilities, the service’s effort to be able to launch and operate a satellite within a matter of days.

“USSF recognizes it may be the anchor customer, at least temporarily, in some areas of the space mobility and logistics market,” the strategy states.

To reach deeper integration in its key mission areas, the Space Force strategy lays out four lines of effort:

Collaborative Transparency: “All stakeholders must be aware of the capabilities and limitations of their partners if they are to work together to solve our operational challenges,” Saltzman said. In particular, the strategy calls for the service to “integrate Guardians into the commercial sector.”

Operational and Technical Integration: The longest section of the strategy lists and ranks the mission areas. It also calls for “developing the policies, processes, technical standards, and procedures that allow the commercial sector to integrate data and hardware with the Space Force.”

Risk Management: While the DOD’s commercial space strategy explicitly states that the U.S. may use military force to protect commercial assets “in appropriate circumstances,” the Space Force strategy merely notes that the service will “establish a process to share threat information with commercial companies that permits the timely dissemination of actionable threat data.” Concerns about commercial satellites and systems becoming targets in a conflict have been a frequent theme among industry officials.

Secure the Future: While some commercial markets are more mature, the Space Force wants to invest in promising technologies that are still developing in the commercial world. “We must continuously assess the future operating environment, what missions will be needed in what we need to perform, what threats will we face, and what technologies can we bring to bear to meet our operational challenges?” Saltzman said. “We know we will need substantial support from the space industry to answer these vital questions.”

Relying on commercial capabilities carries risk—for Starlink in particular, the controversial behavior of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has raised questions about how much sway private companies can hold. Yet such risks “pale in comparison to risks of maintaining the status quo,” the strategy concludes.

How fast the Space Force can change that status quo remains to be seen, but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said leaders are confident they don’t need any special authorities or reforms to implement the strategy.

“I don’t think we need anything new,” Kendall told reporters. “We need to work our way through with industry on how to do it as effectively as possible in a way that is equitable between industries interests and ours. So I’m not terribly concerned about the contracting side of it. We’ve got a lot of flexibility there.”

SPACECOM Boss: ‘It’s Time’ to Embrace In-Orbit Servicing, Refueling for Satellites

April 9, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon’s space assets need to be able to maneuver in orbit, be refueled and repaired, and keep going, the head of U.S. Space Command said April 9—and those capabilities need to be fielded quickly to deter conflict.

Gen. Stephen N. Whiting made the case for “dynamic space operations” during a keynote address at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., as part of his goal of readying SPACECOM for 2027—when Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready to seize Taiwan—and preparing for the future after that too.

“We must maximize combat readiness by 2027,” Whiting said. “All of us at U.S. Space Command are laser focused on improving all of our existing forces and capabilities, so that we can stitch them together seamlessly when called upon. Now we’re also working with capability providers to try to deliver as much new capability as we can within the next three years.”

“I like to say our event horizon goes out to about 2027,” he later added. “But we must be thinking beyond 2027 as well to help shape military spacepower for the future fight.”

To accomplish those goals, Whiting cited several moves SPACECOM has made in recent months: adding France, Germany, and New Zealand to Operation Olympic Defender, the formal, overarching international effort to deter hostile actions in space; adding more companies to its Commercial Integration Cell; and declaring a minimum viable product for its Capability Assessment and Validation Environment (CAVE).

“CAVE is our modeling and simulation laboratory which enables us to perform analysis on warfighting, on plans, on campaigning,” Whiting explained. “And we’ll use that to derive better ways of deterring, and planning to conduct operations for a war that’s never happened and a war we don’t want to happen.”

But there is still more to be done.

“We want to remain in enduring competition and not progress into crisis or conflict,” Whiting said, referencing Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman’s signature “competitive endurance” theory. “And to do that, there are a couple important capabilities that we need to field quickly.”

First on Whiting’s list is “dynamic space operations.” Right now, satellites minimize movement in orbit as much as possible to conserve fuel. Once they run out, their service life is over. Previous SPACECOM leaders have proposed a shift to refuellable satellites that can move to avoid threats or get closer to inspect other objects in orbit, kept going by tanker satellites.

“It’s time to bring dynamic space operations and on-orbit logistics and infrastructure to the space domain,” Whiting declared. “The days of energy-neutral positional operations in space need to end. It’s time to bring sustained space maneuver to the AOR. Now, sustained space maneuver will change how we operate, opening up new tactics, techniques, and procedures and operating concepts; and allowing operations until the mission is complete, not until the fuel we launched with runs out.”

Whiting is not alone in advocating for the idea. Kelly D. Hammett, director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, has said his organization is now only building satellites that can be refueled, and Space Systems Command has asked industry for more information on the topic.

Saltzman has said dynamic operations is only in the “good idea phase,” but Whiting called for “investment in sustained space maneuver technologies.” Should that come to pass, the Pentagon will have options: contractors Northrop Grumman and OrbitFab have both unveiled refueling interfaces and concepts for how they would service satellites in orbit.

Top image: Northrop Grumman’s GAS-T design will leverage an ESPAStar-D satellite platform to add fuel and extend the life of in-orbit assets. Credit: Northrop Grumman Bottom image: Artistic impression of the ClearSpace Servicer using an Orbit Fab payload to refuel a client satellite. Credit: ClearSpace, Orbit Fab

In its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Space Force asked for $16 million for research and demonstrations related to On-Orbit Servicing, Mobility, and Logistics.

In addition to sustained maneuver, Whiting also said the Space Force needs to “activate a commercial reserve.” Leaders have discussed the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve for months, but the process is likely to accelerate now that the Pentagon has unveiled its Commercial Space Integration Strategy and the Space Force is expected to reveal its commercial strategy imminently.

Ultimately, Whiting said, maximizing readiness by 2027 and building the future will require a “committed coalition of U.S. government stakeholders, allies and partners, commercial industry, and academic institution” to share information and good ideas.