Wilsbach: Army Must ‘Step Up’ to Protect Guam, Pacific Air Bases Against New Threats

June 21, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

JOINT REGION MARIANAS HEADQUARTERS, Guam—New missile threats from China coupled with the strategic importance of Guam are heightening the urgency for new defensive systems to protect the island, said Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces.

Guam is just a speck in the vast Pacific Ocean, 30 miles long by 12 miles at its widest point, but its location in Micronesia in the South Pacific makes Andersen Air Force Base a crucial hub for fighter and bomber aircraft. The Army’s base defense mission is, therefore, paramount to protecting it as a forward position for re-arming and repairing strike aircraft.

Joint Region Marianas commander Navy Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson said “the potential for a Guam defense system” is now the big news on the island. Such a defense would answer the call by commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. John C. Aquilino for 360-degree radar and missile defenses to protect the island from ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missile threats.

Today, the base depends on the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, which has been in Guam since 2014, when it was deployed in response to North Korean threats.

The THAAD battery “gives us protection from ballistic missiles, and some of the other missiles as well, but it is somewhat limited in scope,” Nicholson said. “The new system will provide a more comprehensive ability to defend the island from all threat axes and a larger group of missiles. That’s in the works. There’s still a lot of work to be done on where those parts and pieces will go.”

360-Degree Defense

Guam is shaped like a tilted hourglass with high plateaus in the north and a mountain range in the south. The Department of Defense controls 27 percent of the island, but most of that property is in the flatter northern plateau, including Andersen and Marine Corps Camp Blaz. It has very little land in the mountainous south or east of Naval Base Guam.

U.S. national defense competes as a priority with tourism and environmental concerns. That means missile systems will most likely “have to be in multiple different locations throughout the island to provide the proper radar coverage, the proper interceptor coverage,” Nicholson said.

U.S. Army Maj. Kyle J. Hermanson, Task Force Talon commander here, said “THAAD is the most capable surface-to-air missile system the Army has ever fielded” against theater ballistic missile threats. “Unlike Patriot … THAAD defends a large area and not just a specific asset, such as an airfield. THAAD is the cornerstone for the defense of Guam mission.”

In 2021, the Army tested the Iron Dome missile defense system on Guam, but its high humidity proved a challenge. Now the Missile Defense Agency is proposing a multi-layer defense system, seeking $539 million in fiscal 2023 to begin building a multi-layer defense system for Guam that could be fielded by 2026. For now, Nicholson said the Army is modifying how THAAD is used to provide better defense.

“The Army … is always incorporating and fielding new capabilities in order to create additional problems for our adversaries,” Hermanson said.

In March, a THAAD unit deployed to Rota, a nearby island, to test remote launch capability. Hermanson said the test proved the Army could use the system to better protect Air Force units during agile combat employment events, in which small numbers of aircraft operate from dispersed and often austere locations, such as small Pacific islands, rather than large concentrated bases.

Guam defense — Signal Soldiers from 307th Expeditionary Signal Battalion-Enhanced set up a satellite terminal to enable communications between the remote launcher and Tactical Fire Control Center. Army photo.

New Defenses Not Coming ‘Soon Enough’

Still, PACAF commander Wilsbach said the Army needs to “step up” development of missile defenses. “When you start getting out to some of these island locations … nations, they obviously don’t have defenses,” he said in an interview at PACAF’s headquarters at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Defending U.S. bases “is a U.S. Army mission set.”

Wilsbach said allies play an important role in base defense in Japan and Korea, along with the Army’s THAAD and Patriot missile systems. Similarly, the Navy shares in the defense of Guam with Aegis-equipped ships. The Air Force is responsible for defending against air threats, including cruise missiles.

“I’m really counting on the Army to step up and advance their capabilities to get after some of the newer threats we’re seeing,” such as hypersonic and maneuvering reentry vehicles and new stealthy cruise missiles, Wilsbach said. “These are all tough targets to hit.”

“They are working on it,” he said. “I can’t get it soon enough. So, I need them to push it up—hurry up and field those capabilities for them and for us.”

Former Test Pilot, Astronaut Candidate Selected to Sculpt Chappie James Memorial

June 21, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

This story was originally published Sept. 17, 2021.

One trailblazer will commemorate another as former Air Force test pilot, astronaut candidate, and sculptor Ed Dwight has been selected to create a statue of the Air Force’s first Black four-star general, Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr.

The statue will be installed at the landing of the new bridge in Pensacola, Fla., that was named in James’ honor in July 2020, the General Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. Memorial Foundation announced Sept. 17. It will form part of a memorial plaza that will include an F-4 Phantom in flight and an 80-foot flag pole, with a scheduled dedication of Sept. 18, 2022, the 75th birthday of the Air Force.

The city of Pensacola has already agreed to contribute $250,000 in funds for the project, and further fundraising efforts will begin in October, the memorial foundation said in a press release. Pensacola, less than 50 miles from Eglin Air Force Base, is James’ hometown—his childhood home is being transformed into a museum and is currently under construction.

James, a Tuskegee Airman, served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, seeing combat in the latter two conflicts. He was promoted to the rank of four-star general in 1975, becoming the first African American to reach the grade of O-10 across the entire U.S. military. He was placed in charge of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, becoming the eighth-ever commander of NORAD, and held that position for more than two years.

Dwight, for his part, is a trailblazer as well. As a captain and a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in the 1960s, he trained in the Aerospace Research Pilot School run by the legendary Chuck Yeager, with the hope of being selected as a NASA astronaut, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Dwight was part of a select group to make it through to the second phase of training and was recommended by the Air Force when he applied to become an astronaut, but he was controversially not selected.

After leaving the Air Force, Dwight embarked on a second career as an artist and has sculpted dozens of memorials and statues on display throughout the country. In particular, he has sculpted Black trailblazers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Jesse Owens, and George Washington Carver, among others.

House Moves to Upgrade, Not Retire, Oldest F-22s

June 20, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s plans to divest its oldest 33 F-22 Raptor fighters met with a sharp rebuke from the House Armed Services Committee, which moved instead to mandate the Air Force maintain the full Raptor fleet and upgrade the older planes to the newest configuration in its version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization bill.

USAF sought to retire the early F-22s, currently rated for training use only because they are expensive to maintain and are increasingly mismatched to the combat-coded versions, reducing their value as training platforms. The roughly $1 billion cost to upgrade those jets was not affordable, Air Force officials said.

But the HASC chairman’s mark, released June 20, would not only block plans to retire the aircraft, but would also direct the service to upgrade all its F-22s to at least “Block 30/35 mission systems, sensors, and weapon employment capabilities.”

The House committee draft goes further than what the Senate Armed Services Committee included in its version of the NDAA, calling in that bill for no F-22 retirements without “a detailed written plan for training F-22 aircrew while avoiding any degradation in readiness or reduction in combat capability.”

In a background briefing, a HASC staff member told reporters last week that ensuring every F-22 in the inventory is combat capable is the bipartisan, consensus view of the committee. A second staff member called preserving the jets “risk mitigation.”

“When we let the Air Force curtail the program back in 2010 at 187 airplanes at the time, they told us that the training capacity would always be available to meet contingency requirements, if and when needed, along with the 234 F-15Cs,” the staff member said. “Now that the Air Force is retiring all their F-15Cs, they’ve cut the buy in half for F-15EX, [the Next Generation Air Dominance program] has slid further to the right than what they originally told us, and now they want to reduce their F-22 capacity. We think there’s significant risk in meeting future air superiority requirements. And so we’re holding the Air Force accountable to their commitment to have the training-coded jets combat capable.”

The bill includes exceptions allowing the Secretary of the Air Force to retire F-22s and go below the minimum of 186 fighters if any given aircraft is deemed “no longer mission capable and uneconomical to repair,” such as after an accident.

The Air & Space Forces Association praised the move in a statement, noting that building fighter capacity is a priority for building up effective combat air power. “AFA is gratified that lawmakers see the need to protect these world’s greatest fighter jets from being retired prematurely,” the statement said. “The Air & Space Forces Association could not agree more that modernizing them to the most advanced configurations is one of the most cost-effective means of rapidly adding to USAF combat capability.”

The House committee will meet on June 22 to mark up its version of the NDAA. Once the measures clear their respective committees, they must be approved by the full chambers, and then reconciled in a conference committee.

AWACS

House lawmakers also challenged Air Force plan to retire 15 E-3 AWACS Sentries, roughly half the fleet. The committee’s bill allow just 10 E-3s to be retired until the Air Force reports back on its future airborne warning and control plans, and on developing air moving target indication, battle management, and command and control capabilities; the impact of retiring 15 AWACS planes; and a detailed comparison between the E-3s and the Air Force’s planned replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail.

A-10

The House Armed Services Committee markup accepted Air Force plans to start cutting its A-10 “Warthog” fleet, and took the additional step of reducing the minimum number of A-10s the Air Fore must maintain from 171 to 153. That move appears to support the service’s plans to replace 21 Indiana Air National Guard A-10s with F-16s. Congress has long protected the beloved close air support Warthogs from any plan to retire the jets, but this year both House and Senate committees appear poised to allow some retirements, a major victory for Air Force leaders who note that the Warthog is ill-suited to missions against sophisticated enemies.

Space ‘Underpins All Instruments of National Power,’ Raymond Says

June 17, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Calling space the “critical doorway to war” for all the other armed forces, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond addressed 300 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Guardians graduating from the Naval Postgraduate School on June 17.

“Whether you’re in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines, all of your force structure assumes that you have access to space,” Raymond said. “And if we don’t have access to space, we don’t have enough ships, airplanes, tanks, Airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines, to do what our nation is asking you to do.”

Space Force leaders have said they want to build their focus on fighting and operational impact this year, the service was established. One way USSF is doing so is forming new components to embed within geographic combatant commands, like U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

“Space underpins all instruments of our national power, and space has become vital to our national security—from global missile warning to precision navigation and timing to global communications and, increasingly, global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance,” Raymond said. “Space is a huge force multiplier for all of our services.”

Debate over whether the Space Force should provide support functions to other services or project power in space, as a distinct warfighting domain continues, but Raymond said the new National Defense Strategy clearly recognizes “the character of war has changed,” requiring a multi-faceted approach to Space.

“It’s global, it’s multi-domain, it’s conducted at great speeds and across vast distances—global distances,” Raymond said. “Autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, [and] commercial capabilities will be at the forefront.”

Space shares similarities with the maritime domain, he said, noting that both are “global, … rich in resources, and they’re both critical to our prosperity and to our security.”

While the Space Force was largely formed from the former Air Force Space Command, it has begun to identify Sailors and Marines for transfer into the Space Force. Just recently, the Naval Satellite Operations Center became the 10th Space Operations Squadron. Having a unique space identity, however, does not preclude relying on established educational programs like the Naval Postgraduate School.

“The Naval Postgraduate School educates you on how to think, how to analyze a problem, and this provides profound value to our entire Joint Force and to the Space Force in particular,” Raymond said. “It allows cutting edge advancement in research and development. It creates leaders who can think their way out of problems, like how does one stand up a lean new high-tech service?”

KC-46 Tanker Refuels a CV-22 Tiltrotor for 1st Time

June 17, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A KC-46 Pegasus passed fuel to a CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor midair over Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., in June, a further expansion of the tanker’s ability to refuel USAF aircraft, according to an Air Force release.

The KC-46, from the 349th Air Refueling Squadron, refueled a CV-22 Osprey from the 20th Special Operations Squadron, using the centerline hose and drogue system used for helicopters, Navy/Marine Corps aircraft and foreign types. Most USAF aircraft use the boom-type refueling system.

Air Mobility Command recently announced that the new tanker is certified for about 88 percent of all the aircraft types it needs to be able to refuel.

The CV-22’s tiltrotor design allows it to take off and land vertically, but pivot its engines forward for higher-speed and longer-ranged horizontal flight.

The KC-46 is uniquely suited to the CV-22’s needs, said Maj. Anthony Belviso, CV-22 aircraft commander.

“Normally, an MC-130J aircraft would have to go up to a tanker to get fuel, then fly to us and give us that fuel, and would have to repeat that process several times,” Belviso said. “Because KC-46s can refuel us directly, we can go straight to them and get everything done much more quickly.”

As an AFSOC aircraft, meanwhile, the CV-22 often has to operate in contested and austere environments, places where the KC-46 is more suited to go than older tankers.

“The 22nd [Air Refueling Wing] has showcased the capability of the KC-46 to operate out of austere locations in recent exercises,” Maj. Benjamin Chase, KC-46 aircraft commander, said in a statement. “This is unique among tanker aircraft and replicates the types of environments the KC-46 to operate out of when refueling the Osprey in real-world missions.”

The CV-22 is one of the last five aircraft the KC-46 is still not operationally certified to refuel, along with the A-10 attack jet; B-2 bomber; E-4 flying command post; and MC-130H special operations tanker.

However, while the Pegasus hasn’t been cleared to refuel the Osprey for U.S. Transportation Command taskings as part of AMC’s Interim Capability Releases, the Air Force is still conducting tests like the one over Cannon Air Force Base to eventually certify it. And in the case of a national emergency, a KC-46 would be cleared to refuel a CV-22.

Still, the KC-46 continues to not be declared “operational” because of continuing deficiencies with the existing Remote Vision System used by the boom operator—a revised RVS 2.0 is still months away from being installed and certified.

ACE Is Now ‘Normal Ops’ in Pacific, but Utility in Conflict Requires More Partners

June 17, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii – Six years ago, agile combat employment was a PowerPoint presentation backed by Pacific Air Forces leadership; today, ACE is a proven operating concept and the Air Force is spreading it to share with new partners, according to PACAF commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach.

“ACE was a new thing a while back, and now it’s just normal ops,” Wilsbach said in an interview at his headquarters at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Oahu, Hawaii. “We had to convince the rest of the Air Force that we needed to go in this direction.”

Fifth-generation aircraft are now practicing ACE during exercise Valiant Shield in the island nation of Palau in the Pacific, but Wilsbach said PACAF no longer waits for a major exercise to practice the concept. “Really, all the bases in the Pacific are doing ACE as a component of their day-to-day training,” he said.

PACAF practices ACE on austere island chains like the Marianas, which include American territories Guam, Tinian, and Saipan, and extends to other Pacific partners, including Japan and Korea.

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said practicing ACE beyond the Northern Marianas island chain is critical in case of conflict.

“ACE is a means to complicate an adversary’s targeting,” he said. “It’s great that you can operate at Andersen [Air Force Base, Guam], at Tinian, in Saipan. Those are all within the same geographical area. [But] where else are you planning to exercise from that involves dispersed bases?”

At the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue with Indo-Pacific leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) June 10 to 12, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III sought to deepen ties with allies and partners amidst fierce competition with China.

Zack Cooper, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the challenges are different across the region. A new government in the Philippines, for example, leaves uncertain the state of relations there. Other security partnerships in Southeast Asia are limited, he said.

“We’re seeing the Chinese making a huge Pacific islands push right now,” he said. “One side is posture, another side is actual capability development with those allies and partners.”

Wilsbach said mainland Japan air bases Yokota, Kadena, and Misawa all practice ACE, as does the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, known as “Kōkū Jieitai” in Japanese.

“We’ve actually been doing quite a bit of ACE in Japan,” Wilsbach said. “Even the Japanese have been doing ACE, the Kōkū Jieitai have been really starting to get their ACE game on as well.”

In South Korea, where the threat from North Korea outweighs the challenge posed by China, ACE is catching on more gradually. “In Korea, our forces are practicing ACE, not in the full spectrum like you’ve seen around the Marianas Islands, but at least part task trainers,” said Wilsbach said. “Perhaps taking off out of Osan [Air Base], and landing at another base, getting a quick turn and getting airborne again.”

Multi-capable Airmen skill sets are regularly rehearsed in both Korea and Japan, he said, such as pilots refueling their own aircraft, practicing landing away from their home base, and turning the aircraft with limited support. “That’s all happening as the normal course of business,” Wilsbach said. “We’ve also had some ACE-like operations even in Australia … in the Philippines and … Palau.”

Getting to IOC

Wilsbach helped usher in the inception of ACE as commander of the 11th Air Force at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, between 2016 and 2018. Now as PACAF commander, he will likely see ACE achieve initial operating capability in the Pacific. “ACE for the entire Air Force started [in] Alaska,” he said. “Our forces in Alaska have been doing ACE now for coming up on five years.”

In Hawaii, the island chain enables hub and spoke operations, starting in Hickam and focusing on landings, maintenance, and austere air base in the surrounding islands. “The F-22 squadron here will … take off, and then they’ll land at one of the other islands or maybe even at Kaneohe Bay [Marine Corps Air Station], they’ll get a quick turn, and then they’ll get airborne again.”

To describe the next challenge for ACE, Wilsbach offered the Hawaiian island chain as a complex command-and-control problem. “It’s pretty easy to know what’s going on with your jets if they take off from say, Hickam Air Force Base, and they launch and they do a mission, and they come back to Hickam,” Wilsbach began. “But imagine if Hickam is a hub, and you’ve got every one of the other Hawaiian Islands as a spoke. Now they go airborne, and now you’ve got somebody on the Big Island, you’ve got somebody in Maui, you got somebody at Kauai. Now it gets a little more difficult knowing what’s going on.”

Maintenance, parts delivery, munitions, fuel, and more suddenly get more complicated. “It’s a constant, constant movement,” he said. “And then maybe they don’t even land, maybe there’s a tanker and they hit the tanker, and they just keep going.”

An aircraft that needs maintenance might need to return to the hub, rapidly replaced with a ready aircraft at the spoke. Wilsbach said wings across the Pacific must test and reheard the command-and-control requirements to make ACE operational. “All the wings in PACAF are working through it, finding out what the challenges are, and tackling those challenges with new innovations and new communication kit,” he said.

Wilsbach said he is “very confident” his wings can do ACE now if the need arises. “We’re in a good spot. We’re working, we’re continuing to expand that ACE envelope every single day. We’ve been working pretty aggressively over the last few years providing every single wing some foundation of ACE capability, and every wing is a little bit different as to where they go, how they disperse, how much multi-capable Airmen capability they actually have,” he said. “Every wing … is slightly different, but everybody’s got a foundation.”

Wilsbach Chides China for ‘Nefarious’ Exercise with Russian Bombers

June 17, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii – Combined bomber exercises between China and Russia in May demonstrated a degree of interoperability and a continued Russian operational presence in the theater, but quick intercepts by U.S. allies showed just how united the U.S. is with its allies, said Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach.

More than 100 days after Russia’s grinding assault in Ukraine, four Chinese H-6 bombers and two Russian Tu-95 bombers exercised together May 24 near Japan and the Republic of Korea. The U.S., Japan, and South Korea responded promptly, scrambling jets to intercept the formation.

“While they are pretty well preoccupied with what’s happening in Ukraine, [Russia] hasn’t stopped operating in this theater,” Wilsbach said in an interview in his PACAF headquarters at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

Wilsbach chided China for its willingness to cooperate with the Russian military. “It just doesn’t play well, I don’t think, in the international community,” Wilsbach said.

The United States and China continue to compete fiercely he said, seeking to strengthen regional partnerships and secure basing and access rights. “There probably should have been a lot more outrage than there was that China’s kind of helping Russia,” he added. “Russia should not be helped by anyone given some of the atrocities and the like that have been happening in the Ukraine.”

Wilsbach suggested China furthered a false narrative prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Xi said they’re not going to attack, and of course, they did attack right after the Olympics,” Wilsbach said, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese premier Xi Jinping met during the Olympics in Beijing. A day after the Olympics ended, Russia moved its Army into the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, launching a full-scale invasion Feb. 24.

“Why did Xi say that? Was he wrong? Was he duped by Putin? Was he a part of the information warfare to deceive the world?” Wilsbach asked. “No matter how you answer that, it’s not good.”

Now China is exercising jointly with Russia, he said. “Joint operations with Russia … is tantamount to supporting the Russian military,” Wilsbach said. “I don’t understand why they would partner up with Russia in these times. But clearly, we see that two nefarious nations are working together.”

Wilsbach told Air Force Magazine that he did not perceive the Russia-China joint exercise as a threat to U.S. interests, but rather as an indication of coordination between the two potential adversaries. “The Russians and the Chinese had to do some measure of sharing there,” he said.

On the flip side, the Russia-China exercise gave the United States and its Pacific allies an opportunity to demonstrate their own ability to respond with a coordinated, rapid reaction.

“You saw the Japanese come out and intercept their formation, and you saw the Republic of Korea intercept their formation, you saw the United States come out and intercept their formation,” Wilsbach said.

“The Japanese, the Republic of Korea, and the United States [showed a] very highly coordinated response, tons of sharing,” he said of the trilateral relationship. “The sharing that occurred there between those three countries was pretty awesome.”

Top Pentagon Aide, Former Tech Executive Nominated as No. 2 Weapons Buyer

June 16, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The White House has nominated Radha Iyengar Plumb to be deputy to William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. She has been serving as chief of staff to Kathleen H. Hicks, deputy secretary of defense, for the last 17 months.

Plumb’s experience includes leadership positions at Google and Facebook, economics work at the RAND Corp., stints at the Departments of Defense, Energy and the National Security Council, and academic research in health policy.

As director of research and insights for trust and safety at Google, Plumb “led the company’s cross-functional teams on business analytics, data science, and technical research,” the White House said in a press release.

“She previously served as the Global Head of Policy Analysis at Facebook where she focused on high risk/high harm safety and critical international security issues,” the release added. According to her Linked-in page, Plumb described her work at Facebook as leading “the teams that research content, social, and economic policy issues. This includes work on Facebook’s product policies as well as research on economic value and social impact.”

She held “senior staff positions on national security issues” at Defense, Energy and the NSC. At the Pentagon, she was chief of staff and policy advisor to the assistant secretary in the office of special operations/low-intensity conflict. For the NSC, she was director of defense personnel, readiness and partnerships.

Plumb taught at the London School of Economics and did postgraduate work at Harvard. She holds a Masters and Ph.D. in economics from Princeton and a B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

If confirmed, Plumb will join LaPlante not long after he arrived on the job—LaPlante, the former top acquisition executive for the Air Force from 2014-2017, was confirmed to his position by the Senate in April. Already, he has promised to take “deep dives” into efforts to modernize each leg of the nuclear triad.

Space Force Accepting Transfer Applications, Plans to Add 243 Guardians

June 16, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines who want to make the jump to the Space Force have their chance: USSF is accepting applications for its interservice transfer program from June 15 to 30. There won’t be very many slots available, though.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, in a message posted to social media and confirmed by a Space Force spokesman, said Space Force will be only be choosing 243 service members for transfer—29 officers and 214 enlisted.

By comparison, the service selected 720 Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines for transfer in 2021, announced in two batches. Some of those transfers were members of units that were transitioning wholesale to the Space Force.

The competition to get into the newest military service has been tough, with thousands of service members applying for transfer last year.

In order to apply, service members must meet the eligibility criteria laid out in AFMAN 36-2032, which establishes the requirements for eligibility to serve in the Department of the Air Force. Those eligible have until June 30 to put together a package including a transfer request letter, an endorsement form from their unit commander, a service career brief, their last five signed performance reports, and a candidate data form.

The Space Force will then convene an interservice transfer board in July, according to public documents shared by the service. Raymond’s message specifies that the board will meet July 20-21.

A list of those selected for transfer will be publicly released in September, with transfers taking place throughout fiscal year 2023, which begins in October.

All specialty codes can apply, the Space Force said, but transfers will have to be able to fill one of the Space Force’s specialty codes, of which there are 14 for enlisted and five for officers.

The Space Force’s end strength has risen significantly lately, from some 6,500 in fiscal 2021 to 8,400 this year. In its budget request for 2023, the Pentagon asked to increase that number to 8,600 uniformed personnel.