Commercial Satcom Providers Must Meet Federal Cyber Standards for Military

Nov. 5, 2021 | By Shaun Waterman

Commercial satellite communication providers who want to sell their services to the U.S. military will have to meet the same voluminous cybersecurity standards imposed on federal agencies themselves—plus additional ones specific to space and national security, according to a Space Force official.

The long-delayed standards will be phased in starting next year and will be fully in place by 2025, said Jared B. Reece, the manager of the Infrastructure Asset Pre-Assessment Program, or IA-Pre, within the Space Force office that buys commercial satellite communication services for DOD.

“We wanted to implement a level playing field between the security standards for both our own [DOD] systems and our contract systems,” Reece said. So IA-Pre will require contractors to implement the IT security controls in the NIST 800-53 Risk Management Framework, just like DOD and other federal agencies must—and to use the “high impact baseline,” the most rigorous version of the standard.

NIST Special Publication 800-53 is a comprehensive catalog of over 900 security controls, broken down into 18 “families” that govern every aspect of how an IT system is operated, from ”access control” to “configuration management” and “incident response.” Additional baseline publications define the controls appropriate for the sensitivity of different systems. There will also be ”overlays”—additional or more specific control standards—designed for national security systems and space systems, Reece said in his first major interview about the program.

The move comes amid growing concern about cyberattacks on U.S. satellites that could cripple the U.S. military’s global communications network. Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, who heads Space Operations Command, predicted last year that a “cyberattack is where we are most likely to face the enemy in space.” Experts consider cyberattacks the most likely kind of military strike against satellites because they are much lower cost and typically reversible in their effects, compared to kinetic weapons.

IA-Pre, Reece explained, qualifies assets—satellites and their associated ground systems—rather than enterprises or organizations. This is important in a commercial satellite marketplace where “there are owners, operators, resellers, distribution partners, any number of assorted teaming agreements … within the industry.”

This complex marketplace meant multiple bidders might submit proposals for a single contract using the same satellite, Reece said. “We might get two companies proposing each other‘s satellites to the same [contract].”

Under the existing system, in which cybersecurity compliance is assessed during the procurement process for each bidder, acquisition officials might find themselves making multiple assessments of the cybersecurity of the same commercial satellite asset, Reece said, because it figured in contract bids from multiple vendors.

IA-Pre is designed to speed procurement by creating a kind of “approved product list” of satellite assets that have been pre-assessed as meeting the required standards, Reece said.

“Right now we’re doing a lot of duplicative work,” he explained. “Having a list of cleared assets, pre-evaluated assets, reduces all those evaluations to one: Once they’re on the asset list, they’re good to go.” Multiple vendors might bid using a single pre-evaluated asset, and the Commercial Satellite Communications Office, or CSCO, can “just pull that information from the asset list, versus every vendor submitting it every time.”

By pre-qualifying the assets, IA-Pre will also mean an end to the lengthy cybersecurity assessments currently required during the procurement process itself, Reece said.

Critically, IA-Pre will also, for the first time, require third-party assessments. Currently, contractors self-attest that they meet required cybersecurity standards.

Under IA-Pre, asset owners will be required to hire qualified third-party assessors, who will review documentation that lays out the asset’s compliance with required control standards and baselines. “The third-party auditor is going to come in, review the system documentation against the baseline, and then submit their findings back to the government,” Reece said.

The assessors will be drawn from a pool of certified third-party assessors the Space Force maintains—known as Agents of the Security Control Assessor (ASCA)—who work to validate contractor compliance with existing security standards.

Such third-party assessments—involving time on site for hourly-paid consultants and their hotel and travel bills—can quickly get expensive, Reece acknowledged, adding CSCO was working with contractors to help them minimize such costs. “The strategy is to maximize the background off-site work and minimize the on-site work,” he said.

CSCO anticipated that the expense of compliance to IA-Pre would show up in increased pricing for the services it buys, Reece said. “We see that coming into the costs of the procurements that we’re doing,” he said.

The third-party process may come as a shock to some contractors, said Andrew D’Uva, president of Providence Access Company, a satellite technology consultancy.

“I won’t call anybody out,” D’Uva told CyberSatGov on Oct. 7. “But I’ll just say that the satellite community has, across the spectrum, taken varying approaches to self-attestation. One person’s version of ‘We met the requirement’ might not be the same as another person’s,” but they all counted for the same under self-attestation, he said.

IA-Pre would for the first time bring “transparency, and hopefully an objective set of criteria and practices that are being applied by … the IA-Pre assessors,” D’Uva said.

Reece said he expected some contractors to fail to meet the new standards. “I don’t anticipate 100 percent compliance upfront,” he said. But the 800-53 standard included a process for contractors to stay on the approved list while they work to achieve compliance. “If you don’t pass, you’re not going to get kicked off, you have chances to review and update that [evaluation],” he said.

The Plan of Action and Milestones (POAM) process produces a roadmap to repair any failings the IA-Pre evaluations identify, Reece said. “If they’ve got 30 controls where they’re non-compliant, they have to put a POAM out for each of those controls.”

The POAM process also allows contractors to explain why they can’t implement a particular control—and to offer alternative security measures and mitigations, Reece said, “The POAM can also say, ‘OK, because of the system, there are certain controls we can’t [implement] … we can’t do X, Y, or Z, here are our mitigations to this control.’”

The evaluations—POAMs and all—will be weighed by officials at CSCO and Space Systems Command, said Reece, but the objective was not to play ‘Gotcha,’ he said. “We don’t want industry to fail out and not be able to participate. We want to incentivize them, give them standards to achieve and push them to ensure that they’re selling us a secure solution,” he said.

IA-Pre aims to provide contractors a return on investment for their spending on security, said Reece. “We give them a chance to showcase their investment through these evaluations.” Compliance could be used as a factor in awarding contracts under a relatively recent procurement innovation known as Best Value Trade Off. BVTO replaced the old Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable standard that basically compelled acquisition officials to always buy the cheapest product.

Google Is ‘Excited’ to Compete for DOD’s New Cloud, DIU Director Says

Nov. 4, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The head of the Defense Department’s Silicon Valley innovation hub addressed news of Google’s interest in competing for a pending DOD cloud contract.

Defense Innovation Unit Director Michael Brown said Google’s managers are “excited” to be back in the hunt for DOD contracts. Speaking during the 2021 Aspen Security Forum on Nov. 4, he attributed to the Pentagon, in part, past protests by the software maker’s employees that ended its participation.

The New York Times first reported Nov. 3 that Google is “aggressively pursuing” the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, the DOD’s replacement for its now canceled Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program. JEDI was canceled after getting bogged down in a legal challenge.

“We strongly believe a multi-cloud strategy offers the department the best solution today and in the future,” a Google spokesperson told Air Force Magazine in response to a query about Brown’s comments or to confirm that Google is competing for the new cloud contract. “We are firmly committed to serving our public sector customers, including the DOD, Department of Energy, NIH, and many other government agencies, and we will evaluate any future bid opportunities accordingly.”

The DOD announced in July that it was creating the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, “which will be based initially on direct awards to fill our urgent, unmet requirement for a multi-vendor enterprise cloud spanning the entire department in all three security levels with availability from CONUS to the tactical edge, at scale,” said a Pentagon spokesperson at the time. It’s intended to facilitate the DOD’s joint all-domain command and control concept and initiatives to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Brown, who withdrew his nomination to lead DOD acquisition in July because of an investigation into a complaint that he circumvented federal hiring regulations, replied to an audience member’s question about what’s changed—why he believes Google is “excited” now when in the past, the company dropped out of the Project Maven artificial intelligence initiative over the employee protests.

“Well, fortunately, I think it’s two things,” Brown said. “One is, I think they were caught flat-footed by the fact that a well organized group of vocal protestors—who are a fewer number of employees than their own [military] veteran population and families of veteran members at Google, a very large company, obviously—started to dictate an agenda of activism, which I don’t think the management was a hundred percent behind, but they were flat-footed,” Brown said.

“And I’ll lay some of the blame at the Defense Department’s feet,” he continued. “I think we could have been more outspoken at the time about how important it is for missions to provide our intelligence analysts and military folks with capabilities so they’re analyzing what they’re seeing and not spending time looking at individual pixels. And anytime we can minimize any collateral damage, we should be excited about that mission as well.

“So I think that’s changed, but I think they also see a tremendous business opportunity. Why should the Google management sit there and say no while Microsoft and Amazon are very excited about bringing unlimited compute power.”

Meanwhile, he said Google has gone through DOD certifications for its platforms, “and they’ve said, ‘We didn’t do that just for show. … And let’s face it, from a taxpayer standpoint, to maximize competition—that’s going to be the way we get value and stretch the defense dollar.”

China Military Power Report Highlights Concern over ‘Taiwan Contingency’

Nov. 4, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Pentagon’s new report on Chinese military power released Nov. 3 highlights a 2027 military modernization milestone that positions China for “credible military operations” against Taiwan.

“They’re preparing every contingency to unify by force,” noted a senior defense official briefing journalists on condition of anonymity ahead of the report’s release. The official said the defense analysis of China’s military strength in 2020 found a range of ways the country is preparing for a “Taiwan contingency,” including a newly defined 2027 military development milestone.

The first appendix of the nearly 200-page unclassified report to Congress breaks down the disparity between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan’s military forces.

Of China’s total 1 million-person ground force, 416,000 are in the Taiwan Strait area compared to Taiwan’s 88,000 personnel. From an air standpoint, China maintains 800 fighters and fighter trainers in the eastern and southern theaters compared to Taiwan’s 500. China maintains a total force strength, including trainers, of 2,800 fighters.

The 2027 benchmark has been described by Chinese premier Xi Jinping as “intelligentized warfare.”

“It’s one where they say that the PLA’ s capabilities should be networked into a system of systems,” the official said, reflecting language often used to describe the U.S. military’s joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) effort.

“If they realize those goals for 2027, that would provide them with more credible military operations and the Taiwan contingency,” the official added.

Citing People’s Republic of China military literature, the official said options can begin with a “joint blockade campaign” and escalate to a full-scale amphibious invasion. Likewise, air missile strikes, cyber attacks, or a seizure of offshore islands near Taiwan are options China appears to be preparing for.

The official described China’s dual-pronged approach toward Taiwan as both preparation for invasion and to deter allies and partners such as the United States from intervening on Taiwan’s behalf.

“They often talk about to deter, or to compel Taiwan, to abandon moves toward independence,” he said. “But presently it appears to be that they’re preparing every contingency to unify by force and wanting to be able to deter, to delay, or otherwise to counter third-party intervention.”

‘Immediate Concerns’

The Pentagon classified as “immediate concerns” the so-called Taiwan contingency but notes that the PRC has developed a pressure campaign against the breakaway island since 2016. Aside from building a military force capable of invasion and quick victory, the campaign has included diplomatic isolation, military intimidation, and information and influence operations.

China has also put “pretty heavy pressure” on countries that maintain unofficial relationships with Taiwan to seize their engagement, and China disseminates misinformation about Taiwan on social media.

The defense official, however, deferred to the Intelligence Community as to whether China intends to mount an invasion of Taiwan in the near term. However, he did say U.S. efforts to strengthen deterrence and defend itself will continue.

“Any threat to undermine peace and security in the western Pacific would be of a grave concern to the United States,” he said, referencing the Taiwan Relations Act, the scope of which covers threatening activities beyond military action, to include economic blockades and embargoes against the island.

“The United States will continue to make available to Taiwan the defense articles and services necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability,” a State Department spokesperson told Air Force Magazine on Nov. 4.

Since 2017, the U.S. has sold more than $19 billion in arms to Taiwan.

“The United States also supports Taiwan with training and encourages an innovative and asymmetric security posture,” the official added.

Air Incursions Raise Risk of Miscalculation

While the report covered only activities in 2020, the defense official said the massive air incursions by the Chinese air forces in October were a worrying development.

“Certainly, you can see that those were much higher than what we’ve seen before,” he said.

China flew nearly 150 aircraft over Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone over a four-day period, the largest such incursion ever.

“We are concerned about activities that might look like they’re aimed at intimidating Taiwan, that could be destabilizing or kind of increase the risk of some kind of miscalculation or incident,” he explained.

The official went on to describe the possible intent of the event.

“It presumably serves multiple purposes for them,” he said. “Sometimes I think what they’re aiming at is to try to intimidate Taiwan militarily. Sometimes, I think they may be trying to send a message to the United States, or to other allies and partners. They are also certainly trying to improve their training under sort of realistic conditions— that’s something that they write about a lot in their literature.”

The official said bomber flights in the region and other activities around Taiwan have demonstrated similar objectives.

“The PRC activity and the pressure they’re putting on Taiwan is only increasing,” he said—”therefore, as you know, potentially destabilizing and, I think, of growing concern to everyone.”

Report: New Stealth Aircraft and Capabilities in China’s Air Arms Eroding U.S. Advantages

Nov. 4, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Chinese air force is developing new stealth aircraft and expanding the weapons-carrying capacity of its J-20 stealth fighter, the Pentagon said in its annual report on Chinese military power, issued Nov. 3. The Pentagon said U.S. advantages in the air domain are “eroding” as China’s air and naval air forces shift from a defensive mode to power projection and long-range attack.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Navy (the PLAAF and PLAN) together operate the largest air forces in the Indo-Pacific region and “the third-largest in the world,” with 2,800 aircraft—not including trainers or unmanned aerial systems—of which 2,250 are combat-coded bombers, fighters, and multi-role airplanes, according to “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021.”

Quoting China’s own internal defense white paper from 2019, the Pentagon said the air forces are transitioning from strictly air defense to “offensive and defensive operations,” toward building a “strategic” air force capable of projecting power at long range.

“The PLAAF is rapidly catching up to Western air forces,” the report said. “This trend is gradually eroding longstanding and significant U.S. military technical advantages” relative to the PRC “in the air domain.”

The Pentagon revealed that in addition to China’s J-20 Mighty Dragon and FC-31 stealth fighters, as well as a “strategic” stealth bomber, China is developing “new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets.”

The strategic stealth bomber, likely called the H-20, employs “many fifth-generation technologies,” having a range of 8,500 kilometers and a payload of “at least 10 metric tons.” It will have a nuclear mission in addition to filling conventional roles, and the Pentagon estimated it will take “more than a decade to develop this advanced type of bomber.” However, the DOD has consistently underestimated China’s ability to rapidly field new aircraft over the last two decades.

The near-term goal of the PLAAF is to become a more effective and capable force “proficient at joint operations.” The Chinese air force has reorganized itself into multi-role brigades and has disbanded its fighter and fighter-bomber divisions.

The Pentagon reiterated its previous report’s assertion that, within the next several years, the PLAAF will transition from obsolescence to “a majority fourth-generation force.”

The marquee aircraft of the PLAAF is the J-20, which the Pentagon said has been fielded in “limited numbers,” without being specific, although recent open-source estimates place it around 150 airplanes. China continues to develop the FC-31 Gyrfalcon two-engined lookalike of the American F-35 either for export or as “a future naval fighter for the PLAN’s next class of aircraft carriers.” China has taken delivery of all 24 Su-35 advanced Flanker aircraft it bought from Russia and continues to develop its own J-15 version.

Upgrades of the J-20 are already underway, including “increasing the number of [air-to-air missiles] the fighter can carry in its low-observable configuration” as well as “installing thrust-vectoring engine nozzles, and adding supercruise capability” by installing indigenous WS-15 engines. Early models of the J-20 relied on Russian engines, and China watchers are divided over whether PLAAF’s engine suppliers have overcome production problems with high-performance fighter engines.

The report does not include developments in China’s military since 2020. Just in October 2021, China allowed images to circulate of a two-seat J-20 taxiing—suggesting a manned/unmanned teaming role for the backseater—and a refined version of the FC-31 in flight. The FC-31 images showed a catapult launch bar on the nose landing gear and a wing-fold mechanism on the wings, clearly indicating the jet is headed for carrier service.

China’s nascent strategic bomber capability is embodied in an upgraded H-6N, a derivative of the Russian Tu-16 “Badger,” which boasts an air refueling capability for longer range and recessed carrying space on the fuselage for an “air-launched ballistic missile.” Other variants of the H-6 are being upgraded for long-range attacks of targets in the “second island chain” perimeter of China in the Pacific.

Other new aircraft in China’s air force include the GX-11, a variant of the Y-9, used for jamming and electronic countermeasures, “designed to disrupt an adversary’s battlespace awareness at long ranges.” In addition to the Russian Il-78 Midas aerial tanker, China has modified some H-6U bombers into the tanker role. A tanker version of China’s Y-20 transport, which resembles the American C-17, is also in development. While the report says deliveries of the Y-20 are underway, it did not give numbers.

Another new aircraft is the KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, an advance over the KJ-2000 and KJ-200 variants. This AWACS-like airplane with a circular radome housing active electronically scanned array radars, is also believed to be used for networking various parts of the joint Chinese forces.

The Pentagon drew on showcased systems in the People’s Republic of China’s 70th Anniversary parade in 2019 to describe many of China’s unmanned aircraft, noting the new Gongji-11 stealthy flying-wing aircraft, believed to be capable of carrying weapons and a host of systems meant to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

In addition, the report called out the “large dual-engine TW356 transport UAV that suspends a large cargo pod between the two large engine nacelles” as a noteworthy development. The Xianglong “joined-wing high altitude” unmanned aircraft, a rough analog to the Global Hawk, is being deployed to airfields in Western China and on Hainan Island. The report also noted a “rocket-powered,” high-speed UAV called the Wuzhen-8.

Unlike previous reports, the latest version did not describe PLAAF and PLAN air-to-air missiles. China’s PL-15, analogous to the American AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), has longer range than the U.S. missile.

Airmen and Guardians are Accelerating AI From the Campus of MIT

Nov. 4, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

Airmen and Guardians working side by side with researchers in the field of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are part of a unique military unit that’s helping to steer some of the research studies while also attempting to guide the Air Force’s and Space Force’s wider adoption of AI.

Under the new research partnership, the Department of the Air Force and university jointly decided on 10 research projects to focus on, a departure from the typical top-down style in which the department advertises grant-funded topics, said Col. Tucker Hamilton, the Air Force’s director of the DAF-MIT AI Accelerator. Started in January 2020, when projects got underway, the accelerator also differs because it doesn’t focus solely on developing a military capability—it also benefits “the public good,” Hamilton said.

In fact, Hamilton doesn’t consider AI to be a capability at all but instead a “tool that enhances all other capabilities.” The work that the accelerator’s 12 Active-duty troops and four Reservists are taking part in is “meant to further the science of AI” in ways to be broadly applied—“not just in some military sense,” he said. “Everything that we decided on with them to pursue had to have a use for a military application as well as a use for a societal application.”

The research projects involve about 140 faculty members, researchers, and students from MIT and the federally funded, national security-focused MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The accelerator’s director on MIT’s side is Daniela Rus, who also directs MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab and served on the Defense Innovation Board advising defense secretaries.

From Hamilton’s perspective, “AI is ubiquitous right now,” he said. “Everything is being influenced by machine learning. So how do we, as a military, approach the technology?”

How it Works

Hamilton was an F-35 test pilot before becoming an MIT fellow with the Air War College, where he learned about the accelerator. Having the qualifications to serve as a program manager, he applied. The Airmen and Guardians assigned to the accelerator report to Hamilton, “so we work together as a military unit,” but they also embed with research projects.

Officers and enlisted members assigned to the accelerator full time come from career fields that complement the projects but also bring some prior understanding of machine learning, Hamilton said. They’re pilots, in part, but also weather, intelligence, and cyberspace operations officers as well as analysts in geospatial intelligence and operations research among others.

“We tried to, first and foremost, find the right people because right now, there are only a handful of people that truly understand this,” Hamilton said.

Three of the four Reservists taking part in the accelerator fulfill a special role. They’re “hugely important for this because,” as CEOs in their civilian lives, “they’re the ones that are actually running AI companies,” Hamilton said. “They have the ability to understand this technology more than most people in the military can understand it.”

The service members each embed with one or two of the research projects, ranging from the likes of AI-assisted autonomy for safe decision-making, optimization of training schedules, and personalized instruction in a foreign language.

“They help actually write some of the code, and they give [the researchers] perspective—like, ‘Well, this is how a pilot would use this type of technology in the field.’ Or, ‘This is what a pilot would be thinking’—or any kind of operator,” Hamilton said. “Our C-17 pilot—he’s working on our project that helps pilot training students.”

For the researchers’ part, “It gives them a vast amount of clarity on their efforts, on their research, on the direction that they’re moving—and also motivates them because they see an [eventual] outcome,” Hamilton said. “They see something that is like a practical application, which excites people.”

AI Ambassador

Space Force Capt. Jazmin Furtado works with the accelerator part-time from across the country at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., looking into how existing AI research relating to space domain awareness could benefit the DOD, “especially the Space Force,” she said.

An Air Force Academy graduate, Furtado went to MIT for her master’s and eventually was assigned to Kessel Run, the Air Force’s software development hub, as a portfolio lead during its early pursuits of AI—where she was one of a handful of people directed to “do AI.”

“It was a very vague statement, but it was a very big goal and vision,” she recalled. “A lot needed to be done in terms of, ‘How are we collecting data?’” That was also when she first connected with the accelerator.

Now on the heels of a fellowship at SpaceX, she’s applying all that experience as a program manager in space command and control architecture for the Space Force’s Space Systems Command. She’s focused on “overseeing these enterprise data stores” and envisions helping to build a digital environment that’s already optimized for AI, which all relies on quality data. “In order for it to be actionable, it has to be accessible,” Furtado said.

Wider Adoption

Alongside helping to “mold” the research projects, the accelerator is also “accelerating the empowerment and implementation of machine learning”—a branch of AI—“throughout the department,” Hamilton said.

The work includes documenting methodologies for the wider adoption of AI—“the frameworks that are going to allow our Airmen and our Guardians to create machine learning solutions for their own organizations,” Hamilton said—as well as providing education courses taught by MIT personnel.

Hamilton believes that in the long run, AI will be best at “teaming with humans.”

“Maybe it is in a situation where you have a pilot flying, and they are being fed pieces of information that the computer is seeing that the human couldn’t decipher that helps them and enhances their performance,” he said.

In hopes of guiding acquisition organizations in their use of AI, for example, a group of Air Force and Space Force acquisition program managers are assigned as fellows to the accelerator for four months—dubbed “Phantoms”—and developing the first toolkit-style document describing, “This is how you need to think about machine learning when you acquire it, when you contract for it,” Hamilton said. “How should you think about this technology when you’re diving into it—when you’re trying to hire industry partners to solve a problem you have using machine learning? What are the things you should be thinking?”

Courses have ranged from a senior leaders’ course for general officers; to leaders’ courses for the likes of squadron commanders and civilian government executives; to a coders’ course “that’s very intense … for a select few,” Hamilton said. “We’re trying to teach people organic ability to code and to create machine learning algorithms and go through data.”

Thanks to such a close partnership with “a world-class academic institution,” Hamilton said, “We’re making advancements revolutionary to the entire field—the entire world.”

DOD Invites Companies to Help It Visualize the Space Domain

Nov. 3, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Force wants to better visualize the space domain, so the Defense Innovation Unit is asking companies—both from the U.S. and internationally—to send in ideas for a shot at funding.

Having teased the Global Space Innovation Project on social media, officials with the DIU previewed the project via video conference Nov. 3. It’s a solicitation for technology that’s already in existence or in development that could take the types of data collected for space operations and turn it all into something user-friendly—like an app—to visualize the domain and the status of space systems.

“We’re looking for things that are already somewhat developed that we can take that next mile and really customize to our needs,” said Matt Tompkins, a co-founder of SpaceWERX, which stood up in August and collaborates with DIU.

In the public video conference, the officials said they have experience funding international companies following 2020’s joint U.S.-U.K. International Space Pitch Day.

They said multiple awards could be made and there is no prerequisite for a company to apply. They declined to state a dollar amount for the total project or an upper limit for individual awards but acknowledged they are modeling the program off of Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2 grants. Those are generally $750,000 for two years. International companies wouldn’t be eligible for SBIR grants, though they are still eligible to receive funding.

The Space Force’s Space Systems Command and the Space Force’s Space Rapid Capabilities Office are funding the project, while the DIU is taking care of the contracting side.

An announcement with more details, including answers to frequently asked questions, goes up on the DIU’s website Nov. 4—but the officials said it will be intentionally broad and doesn’t even specify whether a single solution or a suite of apps is preferred:

“Tell us why you think one solution is better than the other,” Tompkins said.

Submissions will be accepted Nov. 4-18. Companies may team up to apply.

‘Confirmation Bias’ Cited in Erroneous Strike That Killed 10 Civilians in Afghanistan

Nov. 3, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Three days after 13 Americans were killed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, a U.S. Central Command strike cell in Qatar made a series of assumptions over the course of eight hours based on the intelligence available at the time, leading to the death of 10 innocent civilians, including seven children, according to the final report by the Air Force inspector general.

Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said interviewed 29 individuals, including 22 directly involved in the operation, as part of a 45-day investigation directed by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and ordered by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall before briefing senior defense officials.

“Individuals involved in this strike that were interviewed during this investigation, truly believed at the time that they were targeting an imminent threat to U.S. forces on HKIA,” Said said.

He told defense reporters Nov. 3 the strike cell made a “reasonable” conclusion that the white Toyota Corolla driven by aid worker Zemari Ahmadi was a vehicle of interest, based on “intelligence available that correlated the Corolla to particular locations.”

Said attempted to paint a picture of a self-defense strike made during a vulnerable time when 13 service members had just been killed. Ground intelligence was not available and there were many known terrorist threats as the Aug. 31 evacuation deadline neared.

“You have to realize that strike cell was dealing with multiple threat streams tracking multiple vehicles at any given time,” he said.

The inspector general said confirmation bias then crept in, making analysts believe Ahmadi was acting suspiciously. A stop at a suspected ISIS location and handover of a computer bag was one example, since a computer bag was used in the Aug. 26 HKIA attack.

“So, the fact that on that day, on the 29th we’re watching this white Corolla, we saw an exchange of a computer bag. It wasn’t lost on people,” he said.

Despite the execution errors combined with confirmation bias that led to the “regrettable strike” and civilian casualties, Said said the investigation “found no violation of law.”

“What likely broke down was not the intelligence, but the correlation of that intelligence to a specific house, the inference that what the intelligence is talking about is that house and that car,” he added. “There’s an art to that, and that’s where the disconnect and correlation broke down.”

Communication breakdowns also took place between the support team operating the platforms and the strike cell. The support teams could only provide additional context to the strike cell through a secure chat function.

In all, Said described three recommendations listed in the classified report:

A procedure to mitigate confirmation bias.
Better information sharing across the strike cell and to supporting elements.
A better assessment of the presence of civilians.

Removed from the pressure of the moment, Said also said a careful study of video footage two minutes before the strike was launched reveals physical evidence that a child was at the compound. Ultimately, seven children were killed in the strike, along with three Afghan men.

The Inspector General noted that the recommendations would only apply to time-limited, defensive strikes in urban settings, like the erroneous Aug. 29 strike, rather than a “typical” over-the-horizon, counterterrorism strike, which gathers information over days.

Assignment of accountability may still come through the chain of command, which has had the report for two days. Possible repercussions may include de-credentialing, firing, or re-training individuals involved.

China’s Nuclear Development Outstrips Predictions; 1,000 Warheads by 2030

Nov. 3, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

China is building new nuclear weapons much faster than previously predicted, already has a “nascent nuclear triad,” and will field more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon’s 2021 report on China’s military power, released Nov. 3.

According to a Pentagon briefing paper highlighting changes from the 2020 edition of the report, “the accelerating pace of the [People’s Republic of China’s] nuclear expansion may enable [it] to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, … [and] at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size” that the Defense Department previously projected. China is also shifting to a “launch on warning” posture for its nuclear weapons.

In its last report, the Pentagon said China had 200 nuclear warheads and was expected to double that number by the end of the decade, indicating nearly a trebling of its deployment pace in the coming years. Moreover, the new document only captures developments up to December 2020, and its 2021 release was about two months late, the Pentagon said. The pace may have accelerated even further since.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, speaking at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, foreshadowed the report, saying that, in his view, China is “developing a first-strike capability.”

The Pentagon was not as alarming, saying China’s plan for now is to develop a “credible second-strike” capacity with nuclear weapons, meaning enough could survive a first strike by the U.S. to retaliate with “multiple rounds of counterstrike, deterring an adversary with the threat of unacceptable damage.”

Even at 1,000 nuclear weapons, though, China will not have achieved parity with the U.S. in terms of warheads, according to a senior defense official who briefed reporters ahead of the report’s release.

According to a State Department disclosure in early October, the U.S. has 3,750 nuclear warheads, down from 3,805 a year earlier and 3,822 in 2018. The U.S. inventory has declined due to the decay of the warheads’ plutonium cores and a replacement pace that doesn’t keep up with retirements.

The Pentagon said the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces are developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles that will “significantly improve” their overall force, and they will be equipped with multiple independently targeted warheads, necessitating an increase in warhead production.

China is expanding its “capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing faster breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities,” the report said.

The PLARF “has commenced building at least three new solid-fueled ICBM silo fields, which will cumulatively contain hundreds of new ICBM silos,” the report noted. Concurrently, China is expanding its inventory of road-mobile DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which can strike ground or maritime targets, and in 2020, fielded “its first hypersonic weapons system, the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle-capable medium-range ballistic missile.”

In August, China tested a globe-circling hypersonic weapon, which may have been the DF-17.

China has also built up its H-8 bomber force, adding a “nuclear air-launched ballistic missile,” effectively establishing China’s own version of a triad, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The PRC also plans to “increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force,” the paper said.

There “clearly has been a change” in China’s approach to nuclear weapons, the defense official said. Besides diversifying its nuclear arsenal, China is also expanding the underlying infrastructure needed to make warheads and connect its weapons with a command and control network, he said.

“The nuclear expansion the PRC is undertaking is certainly very concerning to us,” the official asserted. It “raises some questions … They haven’t really explained why they’re doing it, [and] … we’d like to have more insight into their intentions.”

Compared to China’s historic stockpiles, “they’re moving in a direction that substantially exceeds where they’ve been before in numbers and capabilities,” the official said. This “reinforces the importance of pursuing some practical measures for risk reduction.” While China has a “no first use” of nuclear weapons policy, it is “suggesting in some of their professional military writings that maybe that wouldn’t apply” in all circumstances, the official said. Given that, and the shift to a launch-on-warning posture, “That just makes it more important that responsible powers that seek those capabilities … need to have discussions with each other,” he said.

The official declined to say more because the Nuclear Posture Review is ongoing, and the issue of China’s growing nuclear force will be dealt with in the resulting document.

The U.S. has urged China in recent years to participate in joint strategic arms talks with the U.S. and Russia, but China has declined, saying it is not interested. China is signatory to no nuclear arms agreements or protocols.

The report said China fields about 100 ICBMs in different basing modes, including roll-out and road-mobile missiles. It “appears to be doubling the numbers of launchers in some ICBM units.” The PLA is developing a “DF-5C and may be developing a DF-32 ICBM.”

China’s nuclear missile submarine fleet includes six boats, each of which can carry 12 CSS-N-14 (JL-2) sea-launched ballistic missiles. The next generation of SSBN submarine likely goes into production “in the early 2020s.” The new model will likely also have upgraded missiles.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Forces have operationally fielded the H-6N bomber—a derivative of Russia’s Tu-16 Badger bomber—“providing a platform for the air component” of China’s nascent triad. The H-6N force is developing tactics and the aircraft is equipped with an air-refueling probe. It also has a recessed space in the fuselage likely meant “for external carriage of an ALBM believed to be nuclear capable.”

The H-6N can carry six land-attack cruise missiles with a range allowing it to hit targets “in the second island chain” from airfields in the mainland. The H-6K is being equipped with YJ-12 anti-ship cruise missiles to hit targets in the same range, “significantly extending” the Chinese Navy’s reach.

The PLAAF “is also developing new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets,” the report said. While this was publicly announced in 2016, “it may take more than a decade to develop this type of advanced bomber,” the Pentagon said.

800 Airmen and Guardians Refuse COVID Vaccine by Deadline; 10,000 Remain Unvaccinated

Nov. 3, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Air Force released its first snapshot of COVID-19 vaccination compliance Nov. 3, the day after the Active-duty deadline, with some 800 uniformed personnel refusing the shot and nearly 5,000 Airmen and Guardians waiting to find out if their religious exemptions will be approved. In all, 10,352 Airmen and Guardians, including 1,866 who have received medical or administrative exemptions, remain unvaccinated out of a total Active-duty force of approximately 326,000.

“With nearly 97 percent of Active duty Airmen and Guardians having received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the Air and Space Forces remain ready to protect the nation,” Department of the Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said in a statement.

“This is a readiness issue,” she added. “Our Airmen and Guardians must be able to respond to situations around the globe and being vaccinated is one of the ways the Department of the Air Force bolsters our readiness and safely meets the readiness requirements that our national security depends on.”

Of the 97 percent of the Active-duty force that has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 95.9 percent are fully vaccinated and 1 percent are partially vaccinated.

That puts the Air Force behind the Navy, which was 99 percent vaccinated as of Nov. 1. As of that date, 93 percent of Active-duty Marines and 90 percent of Active-duty Soldiers were vaccinated, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby.

Kirby said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was pleased with the service’s effort to fulfill the vaccine mandate.

“He’s comfortable and pleased with the leadership that the military departments are showing here,” Kirby said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine. “He’s not unmindful of the fact that in each of the military departments, there are some members who are declining and refusing to take the vaccine, some that are applying for exemptions.”

A former senior Air Force official called the Air Force’s efforts a success. “I mean, if you have 800 people who are categorized as outright refusing to take it out of 337,000 Active duty, … that’s a pretty good success rate.”

The former official said leadership messaging about the medical necessity and readiness was on point.

“I don’t think that COVID-19 rationale is any different than the rationale for any of the others,” he said of the estimated 17 other vaccinations required of Airmen and Guardians.

Breaking Down the Unvaccinated

Among those who remain unvaccinated, 1,634 have received medical exemptions; 232 have received administrative exemptions, such as separation or retirement; and 4,933 are pending a decision related to a request for religious exemption.

Another 2,753 unvaccinated individuals are categorized as “not started.” The Air Force said some of those individuals are deployed to overseas locations where vaccines are not readily available.

“It’s not a large number, if you look at the total force,” Air Force spokesperson Rose Riley told Air Force Magazine. “Not started could include several different categories. It’s those individuals who have not refused, verbally or in writing, who have not initiated a request for an exemption or religious accommodation, and in some cases, these individuals don’t have access to the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine.”

DAF Total Vaccinated

	Active Duty	AD/Guard/Reserve
% Partially Vaccinated	1 percent	3.7 percent
% Fully Vaccinated	95.9 percent	90.5 percent
Number Unvaccinated	8,486	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
—Number Not Started	2,753	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
—Number Refused	800	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
—Number Religious in Progress	4,933	Pending Dec. 2 deadline

Source: U.S. Air Force

DAF Approved Exemptions

Medical	1,634	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
Administrative	232	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
Religious Accomodation	0	Pending Dec. 2 deadline

Source: U.S. Air Force

Former Trump administration Veterans Affairs Secretary and Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Robert Wilkie was unsatisfied with the Air Force’s vaccination effort.

“It’s been incumbent upon the leadership to make this a medical and a readiness issue, and instead, they’ve allowed it to fester, and it’s become a political football,” he told Air Force Magazine, laying blame on the White House.

Wilkie said with so much information available to modern Airmen, leaders need to do a better job of explaining.

“There are more nuances in the military today than there ever have been,” he said, describing a blurred line between the civilian and military worlds. “A lot of people in uniform unfortunately seem to think that they’re one and the same, and they’re not. Two very different worlds. Two very different ethics, and two very different sets of responsibilities.”

Wilkie served more than 20 years in the military, including in the Air Force Reserve.

“I was on Active duty for the first four months of this year. I thought the messages were inchoate. I thought that there was no follow through at the lower echelons,” he said. “One-off messages on a video is not enough. This needs to be down to the squad and file level.”

For months, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Air Force leaders including Secretary Frank Kendall, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond recorded video messages and used social media to encourage Airmen and Guardians to educate themselves and get vaccinated.

The Air Force could not provide a breakdown of how many Active-duty personnel have been disciplined, their location, specialty, or career field. No breakdown was available of vaccinated Airmen and Guardians, either.

Riley said disciplinary action for disobeying a lawful order would be taken in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice at the commander level using an escalatory approach.

“I am not tracking any discharges of individuals prior to our deadline,” she said, while noting that nearly 40 basic military and technical trainees were recently kicked out for refusing to take the vaccine.

“There’s an escalation process,” she explained of the Active-duty disciplinary approach. “They don’t just jump to discharge. The commander has to work through those other disciplinary actions afforded to them.”

The former senior Air Force official said there’s been enough education and explanation to those who still refuse the vaccination.

“I think they’ve been given every opportunity and explained the consequences. So, it does come down to a matter of good order and discipline,” he said. “Eight hundred is a pretty small number. I mean, when they assess upwards of 35,000-40,000 new Airmen every year, and about that many separate or retire. That’s a pretty small number that I think could be easily mitigated.”

Members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have until Dec. 2 to become fully vaccinated, the department previously announced.