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.

At a Historic Low, Air Force Fleet Size Will Keep Shrinking, Top Planner Says

April 9, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force fleet will keep shrinking, the service’s senior planner said April 9. In its fiscal 2025 budget, the Air Force plans to reduce its fleet below 5,000 aircraft for the first time in its history as an independent service, divesting 250 aircraft and buying just 91. But that will not be the end of the decline, said Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.

“I see that continuing,” Moore said at an AFA Warfighters in Action event.

Moore said the service had to make tough choices due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which capped spending at a one percent rise in fiscal 2025 before inflation.

“This is the result of a reduced top line and also reduced buying power, and so we have to buy fewer” aircraft, Moore said. “We had to balance. Balance is something that’s a requirement.”

Moore said the Air Force hoped the fleet would not face such a steep cut over the life of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), which is the Department of Defense’s projection of funding, manning, and force structure over the next five years. But Moore did not dispute the prospect the service could end up with a fleet size closer to 4,000 aircraft.

“What’s happening is, in order to maintain legacy force structure and try and modernize, we’re hollowing out the force,” Moore said.

Moore argued that the Air Force should divest its legacy platforms that it no longer believes are financially viable—such as 32 older F-22s—and put that money towards new iron, such as more F-35s. But Congress has balked at that plan so far. Moore admitted the service would rather not have to propose such a tradeoff in the first place.

“In the choice of what we absolutely need to maintain and what hard choice could we make that might not be as hard as others, this is the one,” Moore said of retiring the older F-22s. The Air Force said they are not combat-ready and that upgrading them would be cost-prohibitive.

“We remind ourselves regularly that when times get tough, we have to make hard choices. This was one that was hard,” he said.

Moore said if the service is “being restricted from divesting legacy” aircraft, it is “having to slow down modernization,” including the purchase of new fighters—a key reason the Air Force says it can only afford 60 new fighters—42 F-35s and 18 F-15EXs—in 2025 instead of its long-term goal of 72 new fighters per year.

Moore said that in the near term, the bulk of aircraft retirements are A-10 close air support aircraft that the Air Force does not consider survivable against modern anti-air threats. Also due to exit the fleet in the coming years are aging F-15C/D Eagles, some of which are barely airworthy.

“Not that they don’t matter, but it’s absolutely time for them to retire,” Moore said.

But Moore was clear: if the service had a bigger budget, it would have more airplanes.

“There’s certainly a case to be made that that capacity is necessary,” Moore said.

But he noted the service is fighting the immense fiscal “bow wave” of modernizing two legs of the nation’s nuclear triad at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars—and the reality that the service must compete with other services inside the Department of Defense for funds.

That may mean some tough decisions on which aircraft to keep in the future.

“I don’t know if we’re as troubled by the retirement of A-10s as we would be by other retirements that would have to happen later in the FYDP,” Moore said. “I don’t know that that magnitude will continue. But I do see—hopefully, at a slower rate—I do see divestitures outpacing procurements for the rest of this budget horizon.”

Kendall Will Fly on Autonomously-Piloted F-16 for a Sneak Peek on CCA Technology

April 9, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

An autonomously-piloted F-16 will fly this year with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on board, giving the service’s top civilian an up-close look at a critical effort for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.

The Air Force is set to modify six F-16s to test autonomous tech and software at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., as part of the VENOM (Viper Experimentation and Next-gen Operations Model – Autonomy Flying Testbed) project. The first three fighters arrived earlier April 1. Once transformed, the jets will still have pilots in the cockpit to engage in real-time autonomy, retaining control over specific algorithms during test flights.

One F-16 will also have a distinguished visitor.

“I’m going to take a ride in an autonomously flown F-16 later this year,” Kendall told members of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee during an April 9 budget hearing. “There will be a pilot with me who will just be watching, as I will be, as the autonomous technology works, and hopefully, neither he nor I will be needed to fly the airplane.”

Kendall added that the project has been “moving forward very well” but did not offer any more details on when the flight will take place. An Eglin spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that project managers “don’t want to speculate” on when the F-16s will be modified and ready to fly.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall addresses lawmakers at the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request review hearing on April 9. Screenshot.

VENOM first came to light last year when the Air Force requested nearly $50 million in the fiscal 2024 budget and officials detailed their hopes for it. In the 2025 budget, the service is seeking just under $17 million for the effort, which will feed into Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the program to pair unmanned, autonomous drones with manned fighters like the planned Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD).

Kendall and other Air Force leaders have projected a fleet of 1,000 to 2,000 CCA drones. In the next five years alone, the Air Force wants to spend $8.9 billion on CCAs, starting by selecting two or three contractors to move forward on the program.

In contrast with its budget request last year, officials now say the first mission for CCAs will not be spectral warfare.

“The initial role for the aircraft was going to be counter-air, but it will have the potential to do other things,” said Kendall.

Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, echoed Kendall, stating that the current focus is on “increasing the number of weapons in a formation.”

“The one that we’re going to focus on first is the ability to augment the shooters and to add additional rails to the formations that we send forward,” Moore said during an April 9 AFA Warfighters in Action event. “There are other things like electronic warfare or ISR or even tanking, there are a lot of things that you could go to, but that’s not our focus.”

Experts have described CCA as central for the service’s plan to deter conflict and impose costs on a high-level adversary like China. These uncrewed systems could act as force multipliers, enhancing sensor and weapon deployment in contested regions and bolstering the effectiveness and survivability of crewed stealth aircraft.

“The first increment, which we’re trying to get out quickly, is sort of a minimum viable product,” said Kendall. “Then, the second follow-on increments will add additional capabilities.”

Kendall added that CCA production will be managed carefully to control costs. The service intends to keep the price to “a third, or a quarter of the cost of F-35,” which would be less than $28 million per aircraft.

Air Force Expects to Pin First Warrant Officers in January 2025

April 9, 2024 | By David Roza

Within the next nine months, the Air Force expects to have warrant officers in its ranks for the first time since the 1980s.

“We’re focused on making it work and making it work quickly, because we don’t have time to waste,” Alex Wagner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said April 9 at the Association of Defense Communities’ National Summit.

“The first warrant officers are going to be pinning on by January of next year, and we’re starting our training course some time this fall,” he added.

Wagner’s comments come about two months after Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin announced the service will bring back warrant officers in the information technology and cyber career fields in a bid to retain highly-skilled technical specialists. The Air Force and Space Force are the only military services not to include warrant officers, who fill technical rather than leadership functions in the other military branches.

The move to resurrect warrant officers in the Air Force came amid a greater push to prepare for a possible conflict with China, Wagner said.

“One element of that was making sure we had the right type of talent,” he said. “We saw a challenge both on the retention side and on the attraction side, specifically with regard to cyber and to software and [IT].”

The issue was leadership development: the Air Force develops its officer and enlisted corps as if each of them might serve as the next service chief of senior enlisted leader, Wagner said. That requires attending leadership courses and serving in leadership roles, which can take time away from their fast-moving fields.

“With perishable skills, like cyber, like IT, where the technology is moving so rapidly, folks who are experts in that can’t afford to be sent off to a leadership course for eight or nine months,” he said.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall addressed a similar concern at the AFA Warfare Symposium in February.

“Now I don’t know about you, but if I had a doctor who had not been doing medicine for three years and who was about to do surgery on me, I would be a little nervous,” he said.

Meanwhile, civilian industry offers better pay, cutting-edge technology, and no time spent away in leadership training, Wagner said.

“We needed to offer a pathway to not only leverage that talent, but, more importantly, retain it in a job where you’re not going to be diverted to this enterprise leadership track,” he said. “You can stay and be that subject matter expert, maintaining those skills.”

In early March, then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass said the selection process for the service’s first batch of warrant officers will begin this summer, though details on the application process and the requirements for the program are still unavailable. The initial cohort, according to planning documents posted on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page and obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine in February, would consist of 30 prior-service personnel, though the pipeline could scale up to 200 junior warrant officers and 50 senior warrant officers per year.

The Space Force will not be introducing warrant officers, but other career fields in the Air Force are watching with keen interest, Wagner said.

“It’s been so well-received that other career fields have been saying ‘well, what about me?’” he said. In fact, Kendall said in March that he expects the program will eventually expand to other career fields, pending how successful it is in cyber and IT.

For now, the warrant officer experiment “is specifically designed to fill that gap of focusing on our pacing challenge, focusing on great power competition, and leveraging the talent of the American people and the talent resident in our force,” Wagner said.

Breaking Byzantine

Outside of warrant officers, Wagner said change is also coming to the Defense Department’s civilian hiring practices. The department uses online systems such as USAJobs and a hiring pathway through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, but they are often difficult to navigate.

“Boy, you think it’s hard to recruit someone in the military? Imagine going through OPM and USAJobs,” Wagner said.

Those systems are designed to prevent improper hiring processes such as nepotism, “but it prevents you from hiring the best person as well,” he said. “Ironically, the people who are able to navigate that byzantine system usually know someone on the inside, so it’s almost inimical to its values of preventing you from nepotism.”

Last April, the Defense Department hired its first-ever chief talent officer, Brynt Parmeter, in part to address the difficulties with OPM, Wagner said. He expects special authorities that will help “transform OPM for a 21st century job market for the year 2024, so we can attract talent, especially at the younger grades,” he said.

Agnes Gereben Schaefer, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower & reserve affairs, echoed Wagner’s call for civilian hiring reform.

“This really puts as at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the private sector, because they can hire folks in a couple of weeks or days versus us,” she said at the ADC summit. “Some of these broader byzantine policies are really challenging.”