Space Force Readies Long-Delayed Cybersecurity Standards for Commercial Satcom Providers

Sept. 9, 2021 | By Shaun Waterman

Within 30 days, the Space Force office that buys commercial satellite services for the Department of Defense will publish a timeline for the implementation of new cybersecurity standards that private-sector satellite communication providers must meet if they want to compete for contracts to supply the Air Force and other military services, according to officials and industry executives.

“By the end of September, we want to put that [timeline] out to industry so that they can start planning internally to be able to accommodate for any cost impacts it might have for them,” Jared Reece, a program analyst with the Space Force Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO) told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the Satellite 2021 conference.

First publicly mooted in 2019, the much-delayed Infrastructure Asset Pre-Assessment (IA-Pre) program will require satcom providers to get on-site, third-party assessors to validate their compliance with cybersecurity standards before they can bid on CSCO contracts to sell their services to the U.S. military, Reece said.

The Space Force already maintains a list of certified third-party assessors—known as Agents of the Security Control Assessor (ASCA)—who help validate contractor compliance with existing security standards under the DOD’s Risk Management Framework. “The preference is to use those,” said Reece, “because they’re validated providers of those assessment capabilities.”

The move to finally implement IA-Pre comes amid growing concerns that near-peer adversaries could use cyberattacks to blind or cripple commercial satellites on which the U.S. military increasingly relies for its communications.

The IA-Pre standards have yet to be published, but industry sources said they will be based on those set by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in its Special Publication 800-53, with an overlay of additional measures specific to the space sector. Reece said the standards would cover spacecraft, ground stations, teleports, and vendors’ business IT networks.

Industry representatives have been involved in drawing up the plans for IA-Pre and welcomed the news. “We’re very encouraged that from the national level down, we’re actually seeing this emphasis on ensuring that we’ve got a [satcom] network, which is provided in the most secure posture, and is evaluated accordingly,” said Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, senior vice president of U.S. government strategy and policy for U.K.-based satcom provider Inmarsat. IA-Pre would provide CSCO the capability to “actually discriminate between those [providers] that have made the investments versus those that are just providing bare minimum [security] capability.”

Indeed, Reece said, the aim of IA-Pre was to “level the [cybersecurity] playing field between MilSatCom [the military’s own satellite communications] and ComSatCom [the commercial capabilities it buys in from the private sector], as they start to be integrated more and more in the warfighter’s toolbag.”

By creating a kind of “approved products list” of space assets that are pre-certified as cyber secure, CSCO also hopes to speed the acquisition process and reduce the administrative burden on both the contractors and the Space Force, Reece said.

“We need to have a good understanding of [the security posture of] what we’re going to be buying,” he said. “And we need to do it beforehand. So that we have it and, when we need [to buy services], we can do it quickly.”

Currently, he said, the self-assessment required as part of the acquisition process is slow and repetitive. Because CSCO often issues contracts for an individual customer—a particular combatant command, for instance—that are bid on by the same group of suppliers, “We end up doing assessments of the same solution over and over again in the acquisition cycle, which slows us down.”

Earlier this year, Space Force Vice Chief of Space Operations Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson told the 2021 C4ISR Conference that the role of CSCO could be expanded to cover the purchase of remote sensing, data analysis, and ISR services, as well as communications.

Reece noted that, as it prepares for that change, CSCO is weighing whether it needs to create specific new IA-Pre standards for Earth observation imagery and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellite services. But he said the aim would be to maintain a common framework for all satellite services, with new requirements only where additional services diverged from satcom in the technologies they used.

“They’re still spacecraft. There’s still data. There are a number of things that apply [to both satcom and ISR services], so the only thing you really have to look at in depth is the deltas,” he said.

Pratt Pushes Alternative to New Adaptive Engine for F-35

Sept. 9, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Modifications Pratt & Whitney is proposing to its F135 engine can improve thrust and efficiency and would be far less costly than giving the F-35 fighter a new powerplant developed through the Adaptive Engine Transition Program, the engine maker said.

Jennifer Latka, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president for the F135 engine program, said the AETP technology is not compatible with the Marine Corps’ F-35B. That would necessitate two different alternative engines for F-35. The whole effort could add up to $40 billion over the 50-year life of the program, she said in an interview with Air Force Magazine..

The House version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would require the F-35 Joint Program Office to pursue a strategy to incorporate an AETP engine into the F-35 fleet beginning in 2027. Congressional sources said one of the goals is to drive down the cost of F-35 engines by creating a competitor to Pratt & Whitney. GE, which is high on the AETP technology, is eager to offer its XA100 as an alternative. Pratt, owned by Raytheon Technologies, has also developed an AETP engine, the XA101.

The Air Force invested in AETP to try to get more range and thrust from an engine about the size of the F135. The idea is to have both the fuel economy advantages of the turbofans used by large airliners with the high-pressure compression needed to maximize speed for a fighter. By enabling the engine to adapt on the fly, the program sought to gain the best of both worlds.

Latka said the F-35B’s unique short take-off and vertical landing lift system can’t accommodate the AETP engines. To create competition with GE, she said, two variants of each company’s engine would be needed, with parallel repair and supply chains. That contributed to Pratt & Whitney’s $40 billion cost figure, she said.

The Air Force’s Program Executive Officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, Brig Gen. Dale R. White, was similarly skeptical in an August press conference. Although he has no role in the F-35, he said, “trying to change a powerplant in … a fielded system is extremely complex. … You have to think about what the return on investment might be.”

Pratt & Whitney submitted a pair of proposals for modernizing the F135 engine to the JPO in March. The plans would improve thrust and range by more than 10 percent each and give the F-35B a 5 percent boost in vertical lift and a 50 percent improvement in thermal management, the company said. Heat damage has been a concern with these engines, and less heat could also potentially improve stealth performance.

The JPO asked for the study “at the end of 2020,” Latka said. The proposals can be “tuned” based on JPO requirements, she said, and the changes can be “cut in” to production in 2028. Once installed, there will also be “some margin” for growth.

There would be little industrial impact, as the Enhanced Engine Package, or EEP, could “drop into production as a retrofit … So it relies on the exact same infrastructure, and the same sustainment network, that we currently … rely on.”

“It is very well understood, now, across the board” that the F-35 needs an engine upgrade, Latka said. “We will need to modernize the engine, hopefully, one time over the life of the JSF program,” she said. Engine capabilities “have to be commensurate with the capabilities of the aircraft.”

While she could not discuss the Block 4 improvements that are contributing to the need for greater performance, it is understood that the F-35 needs to carry heavier payloads and weapons and that powerful sensors and electronics need additional cooling. Without a better-performing engine, “they can’t use the jet the way it was intended,” she said, quickly adding that “there are no deficiencies” in the F135’s performance as it stands today. “If anything, the engine is already overperforming on the original spec … This is all about growth.”

One advantage of the AETP engine, according to GE, is its third airstream, which its officials say can be used to help cool the F-35’s electronics.

Pratt & Whitney is investing millions, meanwhile, to try to drive down sustainment costs for its engine, a major contributor to the F-35’s high operating costs. “We get it,” she said. “Affordability is the existential threat to this program.”

She continued: “We’ve taken 50 percent out of the unit cost” of the F135, she said. Improvements would reduce costs further, taking 36 percent out of the cost for the initial shop visit, she added. “That’s where the big bills come,” she added, because parts of the hot section hardware have reached end of their service lives.

“We know how to take cost out … Our whole commercial profile is ‘power by the hour,’” Latka noted.

Absent such improvements, the services will need to run the engines hotter to make use of Block 4 capabilities, and while they can handle it, “that means … the engines come in for maintenance” more frequently, increasing sustainment costs.

Latka said Pratt & Whitney’s proposed improvements have nothing to do with achieving the Air Force’s goal of cutting operating costs to $25,000 per hour by 2025. The upgrades are also not specifically intended to create more electrical power for onboard systems, she said.

The JPO holds a meeting of F-35 partners, operators, and other stakeholders twice a year to discuss future plans, and propulsion is likely to be on the agenda for the next meeting.

“We need to crystallize on what the requirement is,” Latka said. “And then we figure out what the most cost-effective solution is once we understand that requirement.”

Latka did not comment on the suitability of Pratt & Whitney’s XA101 for the F-35, except that the engine was “always intended … to be a sixth-generation” powerplant for sixth-generation fighters. The F-35 is a fifth-generation fighter. A Pratt & Whitney official said it began testing the XA101 this spring; GE said it began testing its XA100 in December 2020.

“There’s a significant amount of risk that comes with brand-new technology, and that would require a … tremendous amount of validation to be done,” Latka said. “We’re saying, the AETP is not the right fit for the F-35.”

Austin Warns Al-Qaida May Reemerge in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

Sept. 9, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Capping his Gulf state tour in Kuwait, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III visited Marines present during the Aug. 26 Kabul airport attack and warned that Al-Qaida may emerge in the chaos now enveloping Afghanistan.

On the final day of his visits to Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, Austin thanked the crucial partners responsible for helping to transit 124,000 evacuees from Afghanistan in 17 days. The feat, Austin said, required those partners to surge their capabilities and make quick adjustments so the Defense Department and interagency partners could respond to the humanitarian needs, including providing food, water, shelter, and medical attention to the Americans, endangered Afghans, and third-country nationals flowing through American air bases.

Austin stressed the successful operation while downplaying the havoc witnessed on the tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where the Taliban provided perimeter protection. But the Defense Secretary also acknowledged the danger of a reconstituted terrorist group under a permissive governance by the Taliban.

“The whole community is kind of watching to see what happens and whether or not Al-Qaida has the ability to regenerate in Afghanistan,” Austin said. “The nature of Al-Qaida and ISIS-K is they will always attempt to find space to grow and regenerate.”

Austin told traveling journalists in Kuwait City that the Taliban had been put “on notice” and that the international community was watching to see how they will act under the scrutiny.

“One of the ways the Taliban can demonstrate that they are serious about being a bona fide government and respected in an international community is to not allow that to happen,” he said.

Austin said the United States would retain an “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism capability in the region, understood to be the ability to fly intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions as well as conduct armed strikes from the very Gulf bases he visited this week.

He did not describe any new capabilities closer to Afghanistan. Currently, drones must commute four hours each way from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to reach Afghanistan, giving them little time to hover over the country.

Austin declined to describe the nature of over-the-horizon basing relationships with the Gulf countries, saying it was not part of his discussions.

“We’ve maintained capability in the region,” he assured. “We maintain capability from other places. We have the ability to do a heck of a lot more now from greater distances than we could 20 years ago.”

With the Taliban announcing a new interim government of hardline loyalists in recent days, Austin was questioned on his assessment of Afghanistan.

“The landscape has changed a bit with the Taliban taking over,” he said. “We’ll continue to watch and make sure that we remain vigilant on any type of capability that’s being developed in the region that can export terror to the homeland.”

Austin said Al-Qaida and ISIS-K will seek ungoverned spaces where they can grow but that the Taliban will be cut off from international recognition and the resources it needs to govern if it harbors terrorist groups.

“If they demonstrate that they’re going to harbor terrorism in Afghanistan, all of that will be very, very difficult for them to achieve,” Austin said.

“It’s the Taliban’s government. We don’t get a vote in that,” the Secretary said when asked about the government composition of Haqqani network fighters who have targeted American Soldiers in the past. “These are people that I don’t look favorably upon personally. But again, it’s the Taliban’s government.”

While in the Gulf, Austin visited American interagency personnel at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, Crisis Response in Kuwait who helped with the evacuation in Kabul and were present during the ISIS-K terrorist attack.

Those units were more concerned with how their comrades were doing back at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Austin said.

“The first question from them is, ‘How is so and so doing?’ and they’re talking to them on a daily basis, cell phone, and that sort of stuff,” Austin said.

“When I visited the Marines in the hospital, half of them were starting to do push-ups even though they were injured. They were still trying to do P.T. in the hospital. But that’s to be expected with these young warriors,” Austin added. “They always go above and beyond the call.”

Second Inspector General Review Identifies Disparities Facing More Minorities, Women

Sept. 9, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Less than 10 months after the Air Force Inspector General released an Independent Racial Disparity Review detailing numerous disparities facing Black Airmen, a second review recorded still more disparities facing other racial and ethnic minorities, as well as women, in the Air and Space Forces.

Released Sept. 9, the 208-page report details disparities in recruitment, retention, and promotions among women, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and Pacific Islanders when compared to white men. On top of that, one in every three female service members said they had experienced sexual harassment during their careers.

The report “basically points out very clearly, and I think very convincingly, that there are a lot of disparities within the Air Force, in a number of facets of the Air Force experience,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters in a briefing.

While not every racial and ethnic minority faces the same disparities across all areas, a common theme in the report was a lack of minorities and women in leadership roles. In particular, those groups are especially underrepresented in the operations field.

“Our operations people reflect on an enormous amount of disparity,” Kendall said. “And being part of that segment of the Air Force has a lot to do with all the other aspects of how your career works out. And we definitely need to address that.”

Just as the initial Independent Racial Disparity Review found that Black Airmen and Guardians were underrepresented in promotions to the ranks of E-5 through E-7 and O-4 through O-6, the second study found that:

Latinos are underrepresented in promotion to E-5, E-6, E-9, and O-4 through O-6
Asian Americans are underrepresented from E-7 through E-9 and O-4 through O-6
Native Americans are underrepresented from E-5 through E-8 and O-4 through O-6
Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in E-5, E-8, and E-9.

The operations field is the least diverse specialty code in terms of race, ethnicity, gender. And within that career field, the pilot speciality is the least diverse of them all. Just 14 percent of Air Force pilots are racial or ethnic minorities, with no one racial or ethnic minority overrepresented in the field. Women make up just 7.7 percent of pilots, despite making up more than 20 percent of officers and of the overall force.

That specific disparity carries an added impact, said Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, the Air Force’s Inspector General.

“If you’re a pilot, you have a much better chance of reaching higher ranks, getting command opportunities,” Said said. “There’s a lot of our organizations [that] are by nature operational, so you have more opportunities to compete for them, so it makes you more competitive to get promoted. So it builds on itself.”

Indeed, the report found that all racial and ethnic minorities besides those who identify as multi-racial were underrepresented as wing commanders and as general officers—more than 90 percent of Active-duty Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard general officers are white.

Besides promotion, there were other disparities noted. Latino service members were 33 percent more likely to have been subjects of Air Force criminal investigations. Native Americans, based off Rates Per Thousand analysis, were more likely to face court martial, be administratively discharged, or to separate prior to 10 years of service, though Said did caution that because Native Americans make up the smallest minority in the service, sample sizes were especially small and it can be hard to draw any “convincing conclusions” from the data.

However, the report did note there appeared to be less of a disparity among all minority groups when it came to disciplinary action.

Asian Americans, meanwhile, were significantly underrepresented in both enlisted and officer accessions, highlighting a larger issue, Said said.

“The answer is absolutely yes,” said Said when asked if the department has an issue recruiting a diverse force. “The problem starts with accessions. And that’s where the ball starts rolling, where we start building disparity. Because if you’re not gaining a percentage of the population that’s reflective of the broader population, you start with the problem.”

There are also issues, Said said, with perception. The first review found that many Black Airmen do not trust the chain of command to handle instances of racial discrimination nor believe they will be given the same opportunities or the benefit of the doubt. The second review found similar sentiments among other ethnic and racial minorities, though to a lesser extent.

Many women, meanwhile, expressed skepticism at the idea that they receive equal treatment to their male counterparts. Nearly half of female Airmen and Guardians surveyed said they “face challenges or barriers that constrain their ability to perform their duties, which male peers do not face” and that “maintaining work/life balance and taking care of family commitments adversely impacts” their careers more than men’s. On top of that, 45 percent said they have to work harder at their job than men to prove their competence.

More than a quarter of female troops also said they have experienced sex-based discrimination, with a third saying they have witnessed or experienced sexual harassment. Female officers reported the highest rates in response to both questions.

Said and Kendall both noted that the report merely serves to record disparities, not identify or address the root causes of them. In contrast, a second report also released Sept. 9 as a follow-up to the Independent Racial Disparity Review recorded the Air Force’s progress in addressing the issues facing Black Airmen identified in the initial review.

“It essentially assembles a report on the actions that have been taken in response to that report. And the bottom line there for me is that we have made some progress, but we still have a lot of work to do,” said Kendall.

The initial review identified 16 disparities that the service is now working to address through root-cause analysis and implementing meaningful change. But the executive summary of the follow-up report notes that “it is unreasonable to expect to see substantive results in six months.”

Still, because that first review is further along in the process than the broader second one, Said said, there is an opportunity to speed up the process. Already, he said, leaders have noted similarities in the findings of the two reviews.

“A common theme … in the words of the Guardians and Airmen, is a lack of people that look like us, that can mentor us and advise us,” Said said. “There are many areas of overlap between the two, and we picked up on those … It’s going to make ongoing cause analysis applicable to this effort, rather than start from scratch.”

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Kristy Riley

Sept. 9, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Kristy Riley, 924th Maintenance Squadron Munitions Flight combat plans training supervisor.

Riley is an Air Force Reservist who served as the training supervisor for 189 Total Force munitions Airmen. At the same time, she filled the squadron unit training manager role for two squadrons with 741 personnel, scheduled 656 courses, and achieved a 99 percent current rating, the best in a 2,589-member maintenance group.

Riley’s ingenuity was instrumental in overcoming a four-month backlog due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, during which she taught nine virtual courses and trained seven non-local Air Force Reservists on 84 training tasks. She networked four field training detachment missile courses for 24 Airmen, eliminating a six-year certification shortfall, while saving $10,000 in travel costs.

She was awarded a superior performer and superior team award during the 2020 Air Combat Command unit effectiveness inspection thanks to her overhaul of the combat munitions training program, revision of the local explosive safety course, and oversight of the flight’s upgrade program.

Riley also is credited with saving two civilian lives by coordinating the recovery of a potential drowning victim and a failed rescuer to land, where she administered first aid.

“She outworks all her peers and has continuously done so since joining our team five years ago,” said Senior Master Sgt. James Pumarejo, 924th Maintenance Squadron munition flight chief, in an August Air Force release.

“She is ambitious to reach her full potential however she is not willing to do it at the expense of another,” Pumarejo said. “She wants to see her teammates succeed every bit as much as herself. She is a great team player and takes pride in the quantity and quality of work she does. She is brutally honest and will tell you exactly what she thinks, which in my opinion, brings stronger trust to the team. She is about getting stuff done and finding the most efficient way to get it done. In our TFI [Total Force Integration] environment, I’ve had Active-duty sections superintendents fighting to have her in their shop, she’s that good.”

2021 Outstanding Airmen of the Year honoree Staff Sgt. Kristy Riley, 924th Maintenance Squadron Munitions Flight combat plans training supervisor. Air Force photo.

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

Veteran Suicides Decline 7 Percent in 2019, No Sign of COVID Impact Yet

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Veteran suicides dropped significantly in 2019, with a 7.2 percent year-over-year decline in the adjusted suicide mortality rate marking the largest single-year decline since 2001, newly released data from the Department of Veterans Affairs show.

All told, 399 fewer suicides were recorded among veterans in 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, than in 2018. The 6,261 total suicides recorded were the fewest in a year since 2007. The average number of veteran suicides per day also declined—from 18.2 per day in 2018 to 17.2 in 2019.

Still, the adjusted rate of suicides among veterans continues to exceed that of the general population—in 2019, there were 31.6 suicides per 100,000 veterans, compared to 16.8 per 100,000 non-veteran adults. That gap, however, did narrow in 2019.

“Taken together, much work remains to be done. As long as Veteran suicide numbers are annually in the thousands, there is no sense of mission accomplishment or satisfaction within VA, despite being heartened by unprecedented decreases in Veteran suicide,” the VA’s 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, released Sept. 8, concludes.

The report also indicated that male veterans remain far more likely to die by suicide, with a rate of suicide more than twice the rate among female veterans. The overall decline in suicide rate in 2019 included declines for both male and female veterans, though, with the rate among male veterans in particular declining for the first time in nearly a decade.

“Suicide prevention remains a top priority for VA, with the most significant amount of resources ever appropriated and apportioned to VA suicide prevention,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “Suicide is preventable, and everyone has a role to play in saving lives.”

The Department of Defense released its own report on suicide in the ranks in 2019 back in October 2020, finding that nearly 500 military personnel killed themselves that year. That number was also a decline from 2018, of about 50 service members.

It remains to be seen whether the 2019 declines continued into 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and upended millions of lives. But while the VA does not have finalized 2020 data on deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it has been monitoring suicide-related indicators for veterans receiving Veterans Health Administration care.

Analysis of that data, the report said, showed no sign of increases in suicide or other suicide-related indicators.

Those results follow other studies of the general population that showed no increases in the suicide rate during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, despite fears by some to the contrary.

The VA did find, however, an increase in “all-cause mortality”—deaths by any cause—among veterans receiving VHA care. And that increase, the study states, “exceeds the number of VA deaths that have been directly attributed to COVID-19.”

Again, those findings echo other academic studies of the general population that have observed excess death counts that are not all attributed directly to COVID-19.

“It … remains to be seen the impact of COVID-19 beyond the data and surveillance tools and means currently available to VA,” the report states. “Furthermore, the potential for a negative rebound effect in the proximal years following initial impact of wide-scale catastrophic or seismic events witnessed within modern history merits vigilance paired with aggressive prevention and intervention preparation and implementation.”

Military members and veterans experiencing a mental health emergency can contact the Veteran Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255. Veterans, troops, or their family members can also text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.

Austin, Blinken Thank Qatar for its Role in Afghanistan Evacuation

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken joined their counterparts in Qatar on Sept. 7 to acknowledge the transit and care of 58,000 evacuees from Afghanistan and to give a nod to the country’s strategic role in countering Iran as the American presence in the Mideast draws down.

In Pentagon remarks about the end of the Afghanistan War on Sept. 1, Austin said many countries helped the 124,000 evacuees, including Americans, endangered Afghans, and third-country citizens, to depart amid the danger and turmoil following the fall of Kabul, but he singled out Qatar for a visit.

Austin and Blinken both thanked the Gulf partner and described Qatar’s role in America’s desire for a continued over-the-horizon counterterrorism capability. Drone strikes in Afghanistan following the American withdrawal are believed to have originated from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“No operation is ever perfect,” Austin acknowledged, promising an after-action report about the precipitous drawdown and evacuation effort.

He confirmed a reporter’s question that ground intelligence operations had been withdrawn from Afghanistan, but that regional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, including that housed at Al Udeid, would be instrumental in America’s regional security efforts moving forward.

“There’s no question that it will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region, but we’re committed to making sure that threats are not allowed to develop and create significant challenges for us in the homeland,” he said. “We already have robust capabilities in the region … We’ve come a long way in the last 20 years in terms of the development of our capabilities.”

Austin added: “There isn’t a scrap of Earth that we can’t reach out and touch when we need to. We’ve demonstrated that time and time again.”

Austin thanked Qatar for serving 10,000 meals to evacuees three times per day during their transit through the country. Some 4,000 evacuees were still in the country when the two American cabinet members spoke.

Blinken said some 100 American citizens, mostly dual nationals, are believed to still be in Afghanistan and that the State Department is working to help them depart on charter flights, should they desire to leave. Several thousand Afghan special immigrant visa applicants are also believed to be in the country, although Blinken said an accurate tally had not been made.

Hamid Karzai International Airport remains closed to commercial flights, with charters and overland routes used to evacuate those now in danger. Blinken said Qatar and Turkey have been in touch with the Taliban to provide the assistance necessary to reopen the airport to commercial flights and that the Taliban is not blocking egress or holding hostages, contrary to reports.

Austin said he discussed a range of issues with Qatari officials, including malign behavior by Iran.

“Iran’s support for terrorism and its willingness to supply increasingly lethal weapons to non-state groups undermines the regional stability that we all seek,” he said. “We’re committed to working together to enhance regional defenses against destabilizing actions, including Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

Austin also acknowledged Qatar’s role as a regional mediator, citing several other areas where the two nations can work together.

“Our relationship goes deeper than just defense concerns,” he said. “We’re working with our regional partners toward some important shared objectives: to wind down conflicts, to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in need, to de-escalate tensions, and to encourage dialogue. We think that’s the right way to ensure regional security and stability, and we know that Qatar stands with us.”

Air Force Innovation Hub Hears Pitches for ‘Flightline of the Future’

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s technology innovation hub has asked technology companies, industry partners, academia, and others to “revolutionize” flight line operations. The effort—a “sequel” to AFWERX’s 2020 base of the future initiative—is aimed at addressing three specific challenges: airfield maintenance and repair; aircraft maintenance operations; and flight line security.

Projects on all three topics were presented in late August at the AFWERX Innovation Hub in Las Vegas, Nev., according to a Sept. 7 release.

A common theme, officials said, was autonomous technology. Project teams pitched using artificial intelligence and automated tech to collect airfield surface data and determine damage, streamlining maintenance and repair.

In particular, “smart pavement” was pitched as a potential innovation for the Air Force to use in its base of the future. Smart pavement has often been pitched as a future technology for highways and roads, with sensors embedded into the pavement providing data on traffic and working with smart cars.

For airfields, however, smart pavement can be used in other ways. Hill Air Force Base, Utah, already has a “smart runway,” thanks to a project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which installed sensors on and in the base’s runway to detect pressure, temperature, moisture, and movement, along with other data, according to Airport Improvement.

All that data, experts say, can help inform decisions about operations and maintenance, as engineers can monitor the runway’s conditions more closely.

Smart pavement could also help address flight line security, according to some pitches presented to AFWERX. Sensors embedded into lights on the runway or the surface of the runway itself could use facial recognition or scannable badges to determine the identity of individuals on the flight line.

Projects presented to AFWERX also touted the use of artificial intelligence and automated processes to improve aircraft maintenance.

“The technology shown during the AFWERX Challenge will completely transform aircraft maintenance operations,” Lt. Col. Yogi Lebby, Advanced Concepts chief, said in a statement. “These new modernizing solutions will allow maintainers to be more proactive, document more effectively, and drive efficiencies back into a maintainer’s day. The future is now and I’m excited to be part of the journey.”

The Air Force has been interested in the idea of using AI to improve maintenance for years now. In 2020, the service tripled the number of aircraft using predictive maintenance algorithms, with the hope of using vast amounts of data and machine learning to anticipate issues, which would allow maintainers to more quickly identify problems and start work on solutions.

While AFWERX said it evaluated “hundreds” of participants in its Flightline of the Future challenge, the program doesn’t have the ability to award any contracts itself. Instead, it engages with individuals, startups, small businesses, large enterprises, academia, and research labs, then connects them with other Air Force agencies that can award deals. Some projects pitched to AFWERX can be selected for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards.

A Satellite Swarm May be the Next-Gen Hurricane Hunters

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

LAFAYETTE, Colo.—A mockup of a 30-centimeter-long satellite on a shelf in the lobby of Blue Canyon Technologies may not look like much, but it represents a new approach to weather reconnaissance that could one day render one of the Air Force’s earliest missions obsolete.

The three-unit, or 3u, cubesat’s real-life counterpart is already in orbit, itself a pathfinder, while in a workroom at Blue Canyon Technologies in August, technicians put together one of six that NASA plans to launch as a constellation in 2022.

For now, the Air Force Reserve Command’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron—the “Hurricane Hunters”—flies WC-130J Super Hercules aircraft outfitted with weather gear out of Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., into and around tropical cyclones such as hurricanes to collect data on the location and intensity. The mission dates back to 1943 and started, according to the command, because of a dare between two Army Air Corps pilots. The squadron went to work in support of the National Hurricane Center as recently as Hurricane Ida.

These aircrews today place themselves in the “perfect temporal and spatial” situation to collect data, being right inside the storms, said William Blackwell, lead researcher for the TROPICS mission, short for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats. But coverage from those airplanes is “very sparse,” Blackwell told Air Force Magazine in an interview. Unlike an airplane inside a storm, a satellite in space can record data about an entire hurricane all at once.

If all goes according to plan, the TROPICS mission could “substantially improve our ability to forecast tropical storms,” said Blackwell, principal investigator for the NASA-funded program and associate leader of the Applied Space Systems Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory.

Existing satellites that detect visible or infrared light from low Earth orbit can’t “see” through the tops of clouds because those wavelengths don’t penetrate, Blackwell said.

The TROPICS pathfinder, on the other hand, has shown that it can, in effect, peer inside—”below the clouds, where it really matters,” Blackwell said. TROPICS detects longer-wavelength microwave radiation, which penetrates the cover and reveals clues about the storm’s intensity, including moisture and a core temperature anomaly that indicates the maximum sustained wind speed.

Polar-orbiting satellites that gather data for other agencies do observe microwave radiation—Blackwell estimated the satellites at “school-bus-sized”—and “then you have to wait six hours before the next one flies over.” Yet even adding in observations that international partners may contribute, “there’s still a big gap.”

Assuming the pathfinder continues to check out, the six-satellite TROPICS constellation will bring that “revisit” rate down from six hours to about 50 minutes, Blackwell said. A constellation of 24 could get the revisit rate down to about 6 minutes.

The $30 million mission includes the cubesats and a year-and-a-half of operations—a three-month commissioning period to get the satellites set up and checked out followed by a year of data collection and then three months of decommissioning at the end. If it works well, Blackwell could envision stretching out the operations to as long as three years.

TROPICS’ pathfinder cubesat made three passes over Hurricane Ida just before and just after the storm made landfall in Louisiana in August. The images show the hurricane’s “very clear structure” over the Gulf of Mexico and later when “the storm kind of dissipates” over land, Blackwell said.

“Initial images” released by NASA of Hurricane Ida detected at 205 gigahertz, one of the cubesat’s 12 channels, “lend a lot of confidence that the data we receive from the imager will be useful in characterizing a hurricane’s structure,” said NASA’s Patrick Duran, TROPICS applications lead at Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., in a Sept. 3 release. “It’s really great to see how well the 205-GHz imagery represents Ida’s inner core.”

Blackwell said the rest of the channels are up and running now as well.