Air Force Wants New Engine for F-35—If It’s Affordable

Air Force Wants New Engine for F-35—If It’s Affordable

Sept. 21, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force would prefer to put new engines from its Adaptive Engine Transition Program into the F-35A, but whether that can be done affordably may depend on Navy participation, said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall during AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 20.

“We’d very much like to continue the program that advances engine technology,” Kendall said. “We’ve had some pretty good success there.” But the Navy, a participant in the effort, is still on the fence. “It’s not clear that they will be going forward,” Kendall said, adding that he’s “already having discussions with the Secretary of the Navy about that.”

The head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric T. Fick, told reporters last week that if the service wants the AETP engine, it will have to bear the full cost of its development and integration because the engine won’t fit in the F-35B and may not fit in the Navy’s F-35C carrier-landing model, either. The F-35 partners—the Marine Corps, Navy, allied countries, and foreign military sales customers—have all agreed that “you have to pay to be different” on the program, which aims for high commonality as a cost-saving measure, Fick said.

If the Air Force goes for a new engine, that would sharply increase operating costs, Fick said, because the fleet sustainment enterprise would have to support at least two engines, with different parts and associated equipment.

The House Armed Services Committee, in its National Defense Authorization Act language for fiscal year 2022, mandated that the JPO develop a plan for integrating AETP engines on the F-35 starting in 2027.

The AETP technology has great appeal, Kendall said, because of the “fuel savings and thrust increase we can get” from it. Contractors have said the engines could yield as much as a 30 percent savings in fuel.

GE Aviation is developing the XA100 engine, and Pratt & Whitney is developing the XA101, each of which has a third airstream that allows for greater thrust and better efficiency in cruise, as well as greater cooling capability, and, potentially, better infrared stealth.

“I’m hoping we’ll be able to go forward together,” Kendall said of the Navy’s participation. “If we have to, we’ll look hard at the affordability of going forward” as a single service, “just as we have on the rest of the program. But those advantages are substantial. And I’d like to be able to pursue them if it’s affordable.”

Kendall also said he’s skeptical the F-35’s sustainment costs can get down to “the kinds of numbers we’ve been talking about,” which the Air Force has pegged at $25,000 per flying hour by 2025. He said he plans to do a “deep dive” on the program in the coming months to see what kinds of operating costs are really achievable.

The F-35 JPO awarded Lockheed Martin sustainment contract last week that could set the stage for a performance-based logistics arrangement in the mid-2020s if the company shows significant progress in containing F-35 sustainment costs.

Kendall: China Has Potential to Strike Earth From Space

Kendall: China Has Potential to Strike Earth From Space

Sept. 20, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall likes to say he came of age at West Point in midst of the Cold War. Spending half his life involved in that frozen conflict informs his sensibilities about the threat posed by China in the future.

Kendall devoted much of his keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 20 to China’s emergence as a peer competitor with “the potential for global strikes from space.”

“​​There is a potential for weapons to be launched into space, then go through this old concept from the Cold War called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System,” said Kendall, “which is a system that basically goes into orbit and then de-orbits to a target.”

During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union considered putting nuclear weapons in space. The Soviets advanced the concept with FOBS, a system that combined a low-flying missile and nuclear warhead that reached low-Earth orbit.

“If you use that kind of approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory,” he said. “It’s a way to avoid defense systems and missile warning systems.” Kendall also made a vague reference to other offensive capabilities, saying there is “a potential to actually put weapons in space.”

Kendall said “there’s no question about the technical feasibility or technology to do these types of things,” noting that China already has a satellite with a robotic arm in orbit, which Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond warned in February could be used to hook and disable satellites belonging to others.

Offensive capabilities in space are an increasingly common talking point among Space Force leaders. At the same time, Space Force leaders are working hard to declassify facts that make it hard to tell their story. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits placing nuclear weapons in orbit, but the importance of defending assets in space remains vital, Raymond said.

“If you look at the capabilities that they’re developing, it is clear that they are developing capabilities to deny us our access to space,” Raymond said. “We can’t let that happen. If we let them happen, we lose.”

The nature of the domain means that assets face certain challenges, added Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, head of Space Operations Command.

“Space brings us untold advantages, such as being able to overfly other countries legally. You can’t fly in an airspace above other countries because that’s sovereign territory, but that also means that you are regularly and predictably over other people’s countries in what we call their weapon engagement zone,” Whiting said. “So we have to build an architecture that is resilient to potential attacks. And we have a certain space architecture that we’ve developed over the last several years—we have to be able to to defend that architecture, even as we pivot to new architectures.”

SpOC Commander Seeks More Intelligence Capability in Response to China

SpOC Commander Seeks More Intelligence Capability in Response to China

Sept. 20, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting was at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in September 2007 when China destroyed a dead satellite in an anti-satellite weapon test. The target burst into 3,000 pieces, which still swirl around the globe today.

Fourteen years later, Whiting now heads Space Operations Command at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., and argues that the Space Force must up its game in intelligence gathering.

“Certainly, we had intelligence professionals then, but not very many, and they were not leading our operations,” he said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 20.

The Space Force needs more robust intelligence today to confront Chinese aggression in space, he said.

“The pace at which China has developed the threat capabilities we’ve seen has just truly been breathtaking,” he said. From 2007 to today, “they have developed an electronic warfare capability to jam our assets; we’ve seen lasers; we’ve seen on-orbit threats and grappling arms,” he added. “They’re continuing to develop those threats. So, everything we do in Space Operations Command must be intelligence-led.”

Space Delta 7, which stood up July 24, 2020, is the Space Force’s operational intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance element. Two of its three squadrons are located at Peterson-Schriever Garrison; a third is at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

When Space Delta 7 stood up, Whiting said, it absorbed every Air Force intelligence unit related to space. Whiting said changes already completed are delivering intelligence data directly to the SpOC operations floor.

“I’m excited about some of the improvements we’ve made,” he said. Now he’s turning to training. “Space is a domain in which we should be able to train in a high-fidelity manner in a simulated environment,” he said. Operators need holistic space domain awareness to best track and find threats.

Space Delta 7 has detachments in each of the other SpOC Space Deltas to provide mission-specific intelligence. The unit has about 350 people but is slated to grow to more than double by fiscal 2025.

“We do have a vision to grow additional units in Space Delta 7—a targeting unit and analysis unit,” he said. “But just because you have manpower slots to do that doesn’t mean you have the people yet. We have got to grow the people over time.”

Talent doesn’t mature overnight, he added. “You can’t get a 10-year-experienced intel operator without spending 10 years to build that person. So, it’ll take time to build up those new capacities. But that will be a growth area for us.”

C-17 Crews, Aircraft Getting a Break After Torrid Pace of Afghanistan Withdrawal

C-17 Crews, Aircraft Getting a Break After Torrid Pace of Afghanistan Withdrawal

Sept. 20, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

In the wake of the massive Afghanistan airlift operation, Air Mobility Command is surging its use of C-5s in order to give its C-17 aircraft and crews a break, officials said Sept. 20 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, head of Air Mobility Command, detailed the shift in a roundtable with reporters discussing Operation Allies Refuge, which transported more than 124,000 people out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul from Aug. 14 to 30.

“It was one of the largest surges we’ve had. But we’ve surged before, and after you surge, there is a natural period where we want to make sure we tidy up the airplanes, to get them the services that they need, and get the crews the rest and the recovery, and frankly, the additional training on other missions that they weren’t focused on while they were solely focused on the NEOs and our top priority for the command,” Van Ovost said.

The Kabul airlift, which Van Ovost called the largest non-combatant evacuation operation airlift in U.S. history, pushed the Air Force’s fleet of C-17 Globemasters to levels far beyond their normal operational pace—roughly half of 222 C-17s in the entire Air Force were committed to the operation.

“On a given day, we have about 60 C-17s in the system operating globally,” said Brig. Gen. Daniel A. DeVoe, commander of the 618th Air Operations Center. “During this NEO, we would have 60 just in the [Central Command and European Command area of responsibility]. And at the height, we had an average of 113 per day.”

On Aug. 15, one of those C-17s ferried out 823 people, setting a new record for the most passengers transported in a single flight on a Globemaster III and making international headlines. On at least three other C-17 flights, babies were delivered.

There were also moments of tragedy, however. In one instance, desperate Afghans breached the airfield and attempted to climb onto a C-17 as it took off. The Air Force later announced it had discovered human remains in the wheel well of the aircraft and was launching an investigation.

On Sept. 20, Van Ovost said she could not comment on that specific incident as the investigation is still ongoing, but stressed the support provided to the crew on that flight.

“The most important thing for us was to take care of the crew and ensure that they had the support services necessary at Al Udeid (Air Base) to be able to process what happened, to get interviewed, and the most important thing for them was to get back into the fight,” Van Ovost said. “So after a period of time, we were able to place them back into the fight and continue to do NEO, and sort of process for them what has happened.”

Other crews were also eager to contribute as much as possible, DeVoe added.

“The aircraft commanders always have the opportunity to say, ‘Hey, the crew needs to rest. We need to be safe and step back from that.’ What we found was that they were motivated, dedicated, and would frankly come back to us with waivers and ask to go longer and to do more, and we would have to actually reel them back in,” DeVoe said.

In the aftermath, though, the Airmen who participated in the evacuation have needed to slow down and receive support, said Col. Colin McClaskey, 821st Contingency Response Group deputy commander.

“These are significant, traumatic events for those folks that are there. Lives are truly impacted, [and] unfortunately, in some cases, destroyed. Our Airmen, and all of our partners and allies that were there, they see that. It’s very personal for them,” McClaskey said. 

McClaskey added that commanders at the 621st Contingency Response Wing have offered chaplains and mental health professionals as resources for Airmen when they arrived home.

While crews recover, planes will also need time. The evacuation itself had relatively few maintenance issues—“Frankly, I expected more aircraft to break than did,” DeVoe said—but longer-term work is still needed, hence the need for more C-5s.

“At the height, at any one given moment, we would have 23 C-17 teams in the air, somewhere around the globe in support of this effort, flowing through that system,” DeVoe said. “And so those crews, we are giving them a little bit of a break on the scheduling. We’re using some other airframes, so we’ve increased utilization of the C-5. We’ve surged its capacity so that we can now take the C-17 down just a little bit from normal averages and numbers, to give the maintainers at home station the chance to continue a little bit deeper maintenance on those aircraft.”

Kendall Says ‘BRAC’-Like Package Deal May Help Congress Let Air Force Retire Old Gear

Kendall Says ‘BRAC’-Like Package Deal May Help Congress Let Air Force Retire Old Gear

Sept. 20, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall is hopeful that a congressional all-or-nothing “package” of legacy aircraft cuts, akin to what has been done with base closures, could finally let the Air Force retire the airplanes that it needs to divest in order to pay for new capabilities.

At a press conference during AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference, Kendall said he’s spoken with Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) about making a package of retirements that members of Congress could approve while giving them some cover for shedding aircraft programs in their states that translate to jobs and economic activity. The model would be similar to the Base Realignment and Closure process, wherein members must vote on the whole slate of closures instead of individual, state-by-state reductions. Under BRAC, members were not allowed to amend or alter the package of closures.

Kendall said his first approach in winning over members resistant to legacy divestitures is to help them “understand the importance of doing those retirements” and why the Air Force needs not only the operating savings for new systems but also the manpower to operate and maintain them. “That’s pretty fundamental,” he said, as is the fact that “the threat is increasing.”

But he said he’s hopeful that a “BRAC for force structure and legacy systems” could work, although he admitted that BRAC “is sort of a dirty word” among members who fear hard economic impacts from a downsized Air Force mission in their districts. He called it a “creative” approach.

“So, I’m not sure exactly what form that would take at this point, but I think some people would be really interested in doing things as a package in a way which provides people with a little less political exposure,” he said.

In his keynote remarks earlier in the day, Kendall said that during his confirmation process, senators tended to agree with him when he raised the issue of retiring old iron to pay for new, but “in the same breath,” he said, they would “tell me that under no circumstances could the—take your pick—C-130s, A-10s, KC-10s, or MQ-9s in that senator’s state be retired, nor could any base in his or her state ever be closed or suffer losses that would reduce local revenues.”

The Air Force “will not succeed against a well-resourced and strategic competitor if we insist on keeping every legacy system we have,” he warned. “I do understand the political constraints here, and I’m happy to work with Congress to find a better mechanism to make the changes we need, but we must move forward.”

United CEO Says Veterans Have ‘Leg Up on Everyone’ for Management Spots

United CEO Says Veterans Have ‘Leg Up on Everyone’ for Management Spots

Sept. 20, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

As an Air Force Academy cadet in the late 1980s, future United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby became aware he would never fly for the Air Force when he was asked by an instructor to close his eyes and fly straight and level in an F-4 over the Gulf of Mexico.

“When I closed my eyes and flew straight and level, I was at a 30-degree left bank,” Kirby recalled in his keynote address at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md.

“And then he said, ‘Now open your eyes and turn it back to flat, and so I felt like it was a 30-degree right bank,” he said. “He laughed at me and said, ‘Well, you’re never gonna be a fighter pilot.’ I’m like, ‘I’m sure he’s right.’”

Kirby went on to work at the Pentagon instead and then entered the aviation industry, reaching the positions of president of US Airways, American Airlines, and United before ascending to United CEO job in May 2020.

Now, he is highlighting the advantage veterans bring to United management, as long as they can make the transition from military hierarchy to private sector independence.

“You’ve got to make the transition successfully,” he said. “With that history and that background, if you can do it, it gives you a leg up on everyone.”

Kirby pointed to United’s Hawaii general manager Ernie Young, who served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and was named to oversee the United Airlines flights that helped carry Afghan refugees to the U.S. from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

“That military background, what he has, what Ernie has, is something that no one in the civilian world could ever have,” Kirby said. “He’s a rock star who has the ability to do more than anyone who doesn’t have that experience.”

Kirby said veterans must be able to leverage their leadership and management skills culled from a career in the military, but also to be creative in a private, meritocracy-type environment.

“There’s a transition from the military, which is very hierarchical and by-the-book, to something that is not hierarchical, that encourages a little bit more individuality and willingness to kind of break the rules,” he said.

It’s the kind of innovation he is now brining to United, which aims to be the first commercial airline to re-introduce transcontinental supersonic passenger flights by 2029, ordering 15 aircraft.

During COVID-19, Kirby also encouraged United to be the first airline to impose a mask mandate and the first to require vaccines, and he partnered with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on a study to prove that airline filtration systems prevent the spread of the virus.

Kirby said his airline keeps auxiliary power units running so that airflow is continuous before passengers board and after they de-plane to assure the cleanest air.

“If you stand for something, people will run through walls for you,” he said about the controversial steps.

Kirby’s football analogies did not end with air filtration. With a hunch that a global pandemic would hamper the industry into 2022, the United team prepared for the worst and did not ground or retire aircraft when Delta and American retired hundreds of aircraft.

“We’ve got this opportunity now,” he recalled thinking. “They’re all shrinking. They’ve created an opening on the field that we’re going to run through, and so we ordered 500 airplanes in the next few years.”

The bet, Kirby said, is that international and business travel will rebound.

That innovation does not go as far as unmanned aircraft, nuclear-powered aviation, or suborbital rockets, such as the recent Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin efforts offering space forays for the super-rich.

Kirby said unmanned aircraft still face a cyber threat and that rocket propulsion is far too costly with a huge environmental impact. The executive prefers to invest in development of electric airplanes.

Asked by AFA executive vice president, retired Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Raaberg, what he learned at the Air Force Academy that has colored his thinking and leadership style, Kirby reflected for a moment.

“I loved my time there—well, especially the further away from it I was,” he said to laughs from an auditorium filled with uniformed Airmen and Guardians. “I realized that I learned a lot. I learned discipline. I learned do the right thing. I learned, ‘No excuses, sir.’”

Air Force Leaders: ‘We Are Out of Time,’ China Has Caught Up

Air Force Leaders: ‘We Are Out of Time,’ China Has Caught Up

Sept. 20, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

The Air Force’s futurist has an alarming message for Congress: “We are out of time.”

Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, told reporters at the start of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 20 that the Department needs to modernize its forces now, divesting equipment that won’t stand up in a high-end fight, or face the reality that defeat is inevitable.  

“As somebody who is cognizant of the evidence at all classification levels, cognizant of what’s going on in our exercises … our training, I believe the light is blinking red,” Hinote said. “Why? Because it used to be that when we did future war games, we were having trouble when we set the war game five, 10, 15 years out into the future. … It used to be a future problem. But what has changed since the last time we sat in this building two years ago, is that it’s not a future problem. … It is a current problem.”

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. in his keynote address said China’s People’s Liberation Army has the largest aviation forces in the Indo-Pacific and the largest conventional missile capability in the world, and is actively fielding hypersonic missiles. China also is establishing bases around the globe, often in places where the U.S. already has a presence.

China has said its armed forces will be fully modernized by 2035 and “world class by 2050,” said Brown, who noted that “China continues to move its modernization timelines left at a rate of change that is outpacing the United States.”

“The day after the last C-17 left Kabul, I was in the Indo-Pacific where a graver threat is manifesting, where the risk and stakes are high,” Brown said. “We must move with a sense of urgency today in order to rise to the challenges of tomorrow, because the return to strategic competition is one of our nation’s greatest challenges. Strategic competition may not be as stark or obvious as a 9/11-like event, but it can be just as catastrophic. We cannot wait for a catastrophic crisis, whether it be sudden or insidious, to drive change for the Air Force and the Joint Force. If we do, it will be too late.”

Hinote said the Air Force is not having success in war games fought with today’s technology.

“The people we would use tonight, the platforms we would use tonight, are not going well,” Hinote said. “What we’re finding is that in key areas of the competition between China and the United States, … we’re pairing. In a few important areas, we’re behind—tonight. This is not a tomorrow problem. This is a today.”

Hinote didn’t elaborate on the areas where the U.S. is losing to China, but he did highlight what the Department plans to do about it. It must:

  • Modernize its two legs of the nuclear triad. For the Air Force, this includes the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent to replace the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile and bringing on the new B-21 bomber.
  • Divest equipment that won’t stand up against a peer competitor such as China. Hinote says the service can no longer afford to maintain seven fighter fleets and must reduce the force to just four fleets. USAF wants to modernize the F-22 Raptor until the Next Generation Air Dominance platform comes online; the F-35 strike fighter will serve as the backbone of the fighter fleet; the F-15E and F-15EX (which he called a 4.5 or 4.6-generation aircraft) will replace legacy C- and D-variants; and a modernized F-16 is needed for the homeland defense mission.
  • Expand aerial refueling capability. Hinote views tankers as a three-step process. The KC-46 Pegasus, once dubbed KC-X, will fill a void in the short term, while the KC-Y will take advantage of existing technology to relieve some of the pressure on the service’s KC-135 fleet in the near term. KC-Z will be the developmental tanker and will consider things such as stealth, speed, and whether it is a manned or unmanned platform, Hinote added.
  • Invest in artificial intelligence. “We are going to need development pathways to field large amounts of autonomous—not just unmanned but fully autonomous—systems,” Hinote said. “That is part of our future.”

But Hinote acknowledged the Department of the Air Force can’t make these changes on its own. It not only needs buy in from important stakeholders such as Congress, the administration, and internal parties within the Department of Defense, but they also all need to be on the same page about the need for change and the pace of that change.  

“We haven’t had that yet. That’s just the honest truth,” Hinote acknowledged.

That’s why he repeatedly called the Air, Space & Cyber Conference the “most consequential conference that I have been part of,” saying the Department doesn’t plan to waste this opportunity to raise its voice and get its message out.

“I am very concerned about the direction of our force,” Hinote said. “I lead the part of the Air Force that’s called Air Force futures. We call ourselves the voice of tomorrow’s Airmen. I am concerned that tomorrow’s Airmen will not have what they need to defend the nation in their time, if we don’t change now. We are out of time.”

In addition to changing Air Force culture, Brown said the service must also change its relationship to the defense industry, echoing the need to make a compelling case to external stakeholders to accelerate change, using “defensible analysis and evidence” to back up its case.

“We will succeed in this endeavor only through cooperation of both traditional and emerging industry opportunities to streamline processes and incentivize intelligent risk taking,” he said. “If we do not get our relationship with industry correct, we’ll end up with fifth-generation fighters shooting fourth-generation weapons against a sixth-generation threat,” Brown cautioned.

Kendall Promises ‘We Can Do Better’ at Fighting Race and Sex Discrimination

Kendall Promises ‘We Can Do Better’ at Fighting Race and Sex Discrimination

Sept. 20, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the lesson the Air Force and Space Force should take away from the sudden collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan is that divisions in that government and nation were responsible.

Within the Department of the Air Force, he said, surveys show conclusively that the Air and Space Forces are not providing opportunities for all their people fairly. He pledged to embrace diversity and to act to improve the department’s performance in issues related to diversity. He also expressed alarm that one third of all USAF women have reported sexual harassment, and he promised to address the issue with urgency.

“My intent is to actively address each of these issues,” Kendall said. “There are some programs already ongoing in each of these areas. The Department has not ignored them by any means, but I believe we can do better.”

With regard to sexual assault and harassment, “We will be implementing the Independent Review Commission’s recommendations and any statutory guidance regarding separate reporting and prosecution channels that comes out of the Congress this fall. I intend for the Department of the Air Force to be ready to implement that guidance immediately once it becomes law.”

Kendall praised the efforts of Airmen to evacuate both military and civilian personnel from Afghanistan, chalking it up as one of the unique capabilities of the Air Force to accomplish such a feat. However, he said the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban offers a lesson “that we, as Americans, and we as Airmen and Guardians, should not miss.”

That lesson—“painfully clear”—is that the Afghan government and military “were not ‘one team’ engaged in ‘one fight.’ Even when faced with an existential threat to their freedom, they could not overcome their internal divisions and unite against a common enemy. As a direct result, the people of Afghanistan have lost their freedom.” The Department of the Air Force, the U.S. military, and the nation need to recognize the need to act in unison to address common threats, he said.  

He also pledged a closer working relationship with industry members and to exploit the expertise resident in the academic and nontraditional industrial communities to address the threats faced by the DAF.

“There is not a moment to lose,” Kendall asserted.

Space Force Reveals Insignia for Enlisted Ranks

Space Force Reveals Insignia for Enlisted Ranks

Sept. 20, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman unveiled the insignia for the new service’s enlisted ranks Sept. 20, with nods to its Air Force roots and heavy use of deltas and hexagons.

The base design for Specialist 1s features a dark blue hexagon, with a white delta in the middle. “The six-sided border surrounding the insignia represents the USSF as the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces,” the service said in a statement. The hexagon has also appeared in the emblems for the service’s three garrisons.

For grades E-2, E-3, and E-4, the insignia adds horizontal stripes, inspired by a proposal from Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg in 1952 for the Air Force’s insignia, as the service was first developing its own identity separate from the Army. Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., is named in his honor.

“We honor his vision with our modern rendition of the classic concept,” the Space Force’s statement reads. “Space Force specialist stripes represent ‘terra firma,’ a solid foundation of skills upon which the Space Force, represented by the Delta, is built.”

For noncommissioned officers, the insignia features traditional chevrons: three for sergeants, four for technical sergeants. It also has the “Delta, Globe, and Orbit,” representing “the totality of our Space Force.”

Senior noncommissioned officers add what the Space Force calls “orbital chevrons” atop a globe. These chevrons represent low-Earth, medium-Earth, and geosynchronous orbits, the service said, with the delta placed above the globe and in orbit to signify the “higher level of responsibility” and “willingness to explore and innovate” of master sergeants, senior master sergeants, and chief master sergeants.

For Towberman’s own rank, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, the new insignia adds back the delta over the globe, as well as a pair of stars and a braid around the Delta, Globe, and Orbit.


Since its founding in December 2019, the Space Force has revealed its emblem, official flag, and service-specific ranks. However, the service is still developing its own uniforms, grooming policies, and PT standards. Officials have said the new uniforms will be revealed by the end of 2021.