Space Forces Aims for Bigger Exercises, More Realistic Training

Dec. 15, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

ORLANDO, Fla.—Guardians launched the the biggest exercise in Space Force history last week in Colorado even as Space Force leaders gathered here for the second annual Spacepower Conference.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna, said he was “blown away” by the start of Space Flag 25-1: “56 squadrons, 11 Deltas, 85 operational planners, 31 tactical planners, 111 ops crew members, 373 participants, all focused on the domain and the fight and integration and lessons learned,” Bentivegna said. “That’s exactly the environment our Guardians deserve.”

Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Sejba, commander of Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) has invested considerable time and money to develop that kind of high-level training environment.

“[It’s] certainly much differently than what we’ve been able to do in the past,” Sejba told reporters. “The environment that we’ve created, a digital environment where we’re able to bring units of action together—that level of training and exercising in the past would not have been to that scale,” he said.
“We’re bringing together a much larger presence from the service.”

The 370 or so participants represent about around 2.6 percent of the Space Force’s personnel, both military and civilian. A proportionate share of the Air Force would draw some 12,800 participants—or more than six times as many as took part in the latest Red Flag in July.

Large-scale exercises are part of a broader Department of the Air Force-wide emphasis on bigger exercises. Both the DAF and USSF want to challenge troops with more realistic, high-end training against challenging threats working as part of a bigger team, Sejba said.

“The CSO has also been very clear that training, and specifically training for [the Space Force Force Generation Model] SPAFORGEN. And readiness is really a top priority for him,” Sejba told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an exclusive interview.

Actually preparing the venues and opportunities for that training, however, is no small task. Saltzman has repeated over and over that he wants to improve the Space Force’s test and training infrastructure.

Sejba said improvements are needed because the risks in space have changed. “We’ve typically used what we call the standard space trainer,” Sejba said. “The SST … gave Guardians the ability to be able to practice their positions and do their day-to-day functions, but it didn’t necessarily bring a representative red threat into that environment.”

STARCOM officials have worked on developing Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) to provide digital, cyber, and live training ranges that enable Guardians to be connected no matter where they are and to train together seamlessly. But OTTI has been more challenging to execute than first imagined, Sejba said.

“When we look at … the training infrastructure that we use today within the Air Force, a lot of that took decades to build,” he said. “We don’t have decades” now to develop the needed Space ranges. “We’re really trying to focus on what we think are the most important capabilities that are coming online,” he said, “and then making sure that we have range capabilities or training environments to be able to exercise and train to those most important things.”

Digital Ranges

To go fast and make good use of money already spent, STARCOM once more turned to Space Flag.

“We realized we’ve already invested an awful lot in a digital environment that we use for Space Flag,” Sejba said. “So if we could take that environment and now start to expand it, not only will it support Space Flag like it does today, it’s going to routinely be able to provide advanced training, both for each crew, but also as we do similar type exercises where we bring crews together in order to practice and execute some of these key mission threats.”

STARCOM has also begun adding simulated threats to existing SSTs and plugging those trainers into the Space Flag environment. More short-term improvements are coming, Sejba said. These include moving the Space Flag environment into the cloud, which will support distributed training at many locations.

Next up will be High-End Advanced Training, Tactics, and Testing (HEAT3), which will include a high-fidelity simulated environment to realistically replicate operations and threats. Sejba said no decisions have been made, but STARCOM is looking at the the joint simulation environment, a Navy-Air Force project that is gaining adherents in the Air Force. “We haven’t made a decision,” he said, citing JSE. “High-end testing leads to high end-training,” he said. “That could be an example of where we go in the future for some of that high-end test and training.”

Live Ranges

While simulators and digital ranges are important, STARCOM is still interested in establishing a live range on orbit where Guardians can practice flying actual satellites. That’s a more difficult proposition given the nature of the domain; airspace and land bases can be cordoned off, but orbital dynamics take place in the open. Still, Sejba said it’s possible.

“We’re really taking a look at what types of things that we’re going to want to be able to test on orbit,” he said. “And we’re making the right investments, especially from, how do we control that space, make sure things are safe, just like you would at any test range.”

Commercial space companies could help on that front, he added, by providing sensors for space domain awareness of the live range or satellites and personnel to act as “aggressors” just like the Air Force hires contractors to provide “Red Air” during exercises.

New Jersey F-16 Gets ‘Jersey Jerk’ Tail Flash Honoring WWII Ace

Dec. 13, 2024 | By David Roza

An F-16 assigned to the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Squadron returned to its home base in Atlantic City on Dec. 5 with a splash of color dedicated to a World War II fighter ace.

Thanks to the 576th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s paint shop at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, tail number 86-309 now has an orange vertical stabilizer with the words “Jersey Jerk” scrawled across the bottom.

The name honors Maj. Gen. Donald Strait, an East Orange, N.J., native who flew P-47 and P-51 fighters, which were frequently painted with nicknames such as “Big Ass Bird” or “The Hun Hunter.”

When Strait arrived at his base in the U.K. in 1943, he wanted to name his P-47 “Jersey Bounce,” in honor of his home state. But his crew chief, Doc Watson, who Strait described in a 2008 interview as “a real tough kid, a leather worker from Boston … he always had a beard,” pushed back on that idea.

“Jersey Bounce,” was already taken by an aircraft in another squadron, Watson said—it was the name of a hit swing song, and by the end of the war the nickname was bestowed to at least four B-17 bombers, a B-24, three P-51s, and a C-47 cargo plane. One pilot named a P-51 “Jersey Bounce III” after the first two were destroyed or retired.

“So I said, ‘well, let’s give it some thought,’” Strait recalled. After five missions with an unnamed plane, Watson and the rest of the maintainers came up with something unique: Jersey Jerk.

“I said, ‘For Christ’s sakes, Watson, I’m not a jerk,’” Strait recalled. “He said, ‘Sir, let me tell you why we want to name it that. Any guy that would take off in a single engine airplane, cross the North Sea in the wintertime, and take a chance of getting his ass shot off by the Luftwaffe or by anti-aircraft fire has got to be a jerk.’”

While today a “jerk” means a cruel or obnoxious person, back then a “jerk” was more of a fool or a pathetic person, as The Ringer noted in 2023.

Either way, Strait liked it, and “Jersey Jerk” carried him through 122 combat sorties, where he shot down 13.5 enemy aircraft (half-credits are awarded when more than one pilot shares a shoot-down), though some of those victories took place while he flew a P-51 of the same name.

Major Donald Strait with P-51D “Jersey Jerk” in Europe, 1945.

Strait was the highest-scoring pilot in the 356th Fighter Group, rose from second lieutenant to major in a little over a year and a half, and commanded the 361st Fighter Squadron. But his career was just getting started. After the war, Strait joined the New Jersey Air National Guard, a homecoming since he had started his military service as an enlisted man in 1940, back when the unit flew O-46 and O-47 observation planes.

Strait commanded the 119th Fighter Squadron, then its parent unit at the time, the 108th Tactical Fighter Wing, and eventually the entire New Jersey Air National Guard, where he had tremendous influence. According to the 2008 interview, Strait led the construction of the current base at Atlantic City, kept the 119th flying fighters rather than switch to tankers as many other Air National Guard units did, and at one point held down a Pentagon job while also commanding the 108th.

“Now let me tell you that was a lot of responsibility,” he said. “Here I am serving in the Pentagon, Friday night I’m hopping in an [F]-86 and flying to McGuire and sleeping there over the weekend. My family didn’t have me. We had three children then. So that was a big chore.”

Strait’s long list of awards and decorations include the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, and the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters. The Air Force changed a great deal by the time he retired in 1978 as a major general, Chief Master Sgt. David Anderson wrote in the introduction of his 2008 interview of the fighter ace.

“His first unit flew an airplane with fixed landing gear, one whose enclosed cockpit was something of an innovation; his last command flew a supersonic fighter heavier than the bombers he had escorted as a fighter pilot twenty years before,” Anderson wrote. “His career would be impossible to replicate now, on educational, technological, operational, and even legal grounds.”

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael “Miles” Long, 119th Fighter Squadron commander, 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard, poses for a photograph in front of an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet with a ‘Jersey Jerk’ tail decal, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, June 6, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Connor Taggart)

Lt. Col. Michael Long, who commands the 119th Fighter Squadron today, described Strait in a Dec. 8 press release as “a legend of the Jersey Guard. I would even say the Air Force as well.”

Strait passed away in 2015, but his legacy continues: commanders of the 119th fly with the callsign “Jerk 01.” A photo dated June 6, 2024, shows Long with the same F-16 and “Jersey Jerk” written in blue across the bottom of the tail. The new tail flash is a step up, and its orange color and radial pattern refer to the rising sun on the squadron’s emblem.

“I really believe that much of our unit’s greatness is built on Strait’s back and the work he did before us,” Long said in the release. “To have our new 119th Fighter Squadron flagship carry the name ‘Jersey Jerk’ is an absolute honor and will serve as a constant reminder of just how great this fighter squadron is.”

f-16 jersey jerk — Service members assigned to the 119th Fighter Squadron of the New Jersey Air National Guard pose for a photo in front of an F-16C Fighting Falcon fighter jet at the 177th Fighter Wing, Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, Dec. 5, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Darion Boyd)

DOD Officials See Progress in Tackling Weapons Cybersecurity but a Long Way to Go

Dec. 13, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

The Pentagon’s cyber and IT professionals have made progress raising awareness among senior military leaders about cyber threats to weapons systems and other critical technology, but there are still some who don’t take it seriously enough, DOD Chief Information Security Officer David McKeown told an audience of Air Force contractors Dec. 13.

“There have been two occasions over the last several [budget and planning] cycles where my boss, the [Chief Information Officer], has sent a warning to a service secretary that he may not certify your budget because you are not adequately addressing this [cybersecurity] requirement that we’ve asked,” he said.

Those requirements are laid out in a five-year plan produced and annually updated by the CIO’s office known as Capability Planning Guidance, McKeown explained during a panel discussion at the AFCEA Northern Virginia Air Force IT Day.

“That’s where we outline what services and agencies are supposed to do [in terms of cybersecurity], and that means: Put your money where your mouth is. You have to fund things that are going to solve the problem we’re telling you about,” he said.

The CIO—currently Leslie A. Beavers on an acting basis—has to sign off on service budgets to certify that they are dealing with the issues identified in the guidance.

McKeown said the CIO’s warnings about noncertification are “a pretty big deal, and it gets [service leaders’] attention, and they quickly rectify that.”

But often, he said, that rectification might mean other, less critical cyber measures will not get funding.

DOD Senior Information Security Officer David McKeown holds an off-camera, on-the-record virtual press briefing at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Nov. 22, 2022. DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders

“We know that even inside the services, we’re often robbing Peter to pay Paul, so when we tell them to do something like that, something else is probably going to fall off the plate,” he said.

At the program level, McKeown said, there are still officials who didn’t see cyber requirements as critical.

“I think there’s an increased awareness. A lot of the top leadership is getting it,” he said. “In certain programs, it still gets ignored. I’ve heard acquisition professionals tell me that ‘We know about these cyber vulnerabilities, and they’re critical. They can take down the weapon system, but there are a lot of other operational requirements that we have to pay for this year in this particular weapon system. So therefore the cybersecurity stuff didn’t meet the cut line.’”

Panel moderator and AFCEA committee member Greg Garcia, a former senior official who held civilian cyber and IT leadership positions in the Army and the Air Force, recalled that, during the years before he retired in 2021, many commanders would basically ignore online threats. “Every time there would be a cyber threat [warning], I remember operational mission impact statements that would override every single cyber threat [measure], because the operational commander would say, ‘I accept the risk’ without any clue of what they’re actually accepting,” he said.

These days, added Air Force Brig. Gen. Heather Blackwell, deputy commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, or JFHQ-DODIN, more commanders understand the need to think of their networks like a battlespace: terrain they need to control to fight.

JFHQ-DODIN is responsible for maintaining and protecting the Pentagon’s global IT networks, but it is the operational commanders who have to do that protection on the ground, she said.

“I can’t do command and control for 3.2 million endpoints” from her 450-strong team, she said. Commanders have to be accountable.

“Do I have a single commander that I can go to, to say ‘You have not done your cyber [measures] tasked to you. You might have a compromise. You might be compromising this mission … Making sure that somebody owns that terrain is one of the biggest pieces,” she said.

In general, although there is much greater understanding now of the threats, much work remains to turn that knowledge into operational measures, added panelist Nick Freije, the assistant chief engineer for mission architecture at the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command.

Currently many threat analyses are conducted without a real appreciation of the risks that enemy hackers could present, Freije said. “A lot of times, we’ll do a threat analysis and it’s like ‘Yes [given a] perfect, sunny day uncontested, sure, I can do everything. I can do my mission in this perfect world.’ No, we have to start bringing in reality to this. … And then also start hearing, ‘Wow, that’s not going to quite work. Maybe we won’t be able to get that information or that material solution to where you’re going to need them.’”

Tabletop exercises and cyber red-teaming or penetration testing are also key ways to raise awareness, said McKeown.

“The tabletops are a good start,” he said, “The red-teaming is a much better start. I wish that weapon system platforms and critical infrastructure platforms constantly were red-teaming their own things and then fixing those things.”

So-called “purple-teaming,” where red teams identify vulnerabilities and then blue teams fix them, is the ideal way to proceed, McKeown said. “We need more of that as we go forward.”

The bottom line, he said, is that in a shooting war, the military could find itself suddenly bereft of crucial capabilities if it hadn’t cyber-secured them in advance.

“Our weapon systems, our critical infrastructure, are definitely at risk, and they may not be there at the critical time that we need them if we don’t address these cyber vulnerabilities,” he said.

From Europe to Pacific, Space Commanders Want More Commercial Data

Dec. 12, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

ORLANDO, Fla.—Commanders have an insatiable appetite for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Space Force commanders are no different: They’re hungry for more commercial space products, leaders said at the Spacepower Conference this week.

From Africa to Europe to the Indo-Pacific, USSF leaders are ramping up consumption commercial satellites data feeds.

“Every combatant command has underserved users when it comes to commercial imagery—or any imagery for that matter,” said Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, commander of U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific.

Most ISR from space comes from the Intelligence Community, especially the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. But the IC’s primary customer is the President and intelligence, not tactical military applications, and military commanders have complained about not getting the data they need fast enough. IC assets are also limited; there are only so many government satellites on orbit that can be tasked at a given time.

In recent years, however, the expansion of commercial alternatives has attracted the NRO, NGA, and the Space Force to the additional sensor capabilities now on orbit. All three are looking to use more commercial imagery, and the Space Force’s commercial space strategy lists tactical surveillance and reconnaissance among its top needs from industry.

USSF’s Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking program, or TacSRT, functions as a sort of marketplace for military users to acquire information and imagery from commercial providers.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman has referred to it as “surveillance as a service,” and it provides critical information to commanders who otherwise might not be able to get their ISR requests filled.

“Even though INDOPACOM, you could argue, gets the lion’s share of imagery from national assets—that doesn’t mean that at the lower echelons, there are some requirements that don’t even make it up to the J2 for actual collection,” Mastalir said. “And engaging with those components, and at that level, we’re able to identify potential applications for commercial [sensing]. I’m really, really excited about the future of not just the TacSRT program, but about how we can better use commercial imagery in military planning.”

Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, commander of U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific, speaks during the Space Force Association’s 2024 Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla., Dec. 11, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich

Brig. Gen. Jacob Middleton, head of U.S. Space Forces Europe-Africa, declined to say how he uses TacSRT for military operations, but he did note that the program’s ability to deliver intelligence “at scale and at the speed of relevance is significant.” Demand from his users is enormous: “Anything where you need information at speed and relevance about what’s going on around you is what I’m being asked to provide,” Middleton said.

One of the few operational examples leaders cite was this summer, when U.S. troops were leaving Air Base 201 in Niger amid civic upheaval; TacSRT helped security forces keep an eye out for potential threats. Mastalir and Middleton also said TacSRT has helped with humanitarian and disaster responses, which can be valuable in demonstrating the value of U.S. partnership.

Brig. Gen. Jacob Middleton, commander of U.S. Space Forces Europe and Space Forces Africa, speaks during the Space Force Association’s 2024 Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla., Dec. 11, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich)

Space Domain Awareness

While commanders like Mastalir and Middleton seek more commercial imagery from space, other Space Force leaders want to leverage commercial satellites for increased understanding of what is going on in space.

Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, commander of Space Forces Space (S4S), is eager for increased space domain awareness. Just like his colleagues, who focus on terrestrial intel, Schiess wants as much information as possible in his area of operations.

“If there’s a capability out there that somebody has that can give me more space domain awareness, more characterization, more information on an adversary’s platform or payload or whatever, and they’re selling it, then I want to buy it,” he said.

While commercial capabilities do not supplant the need for Space Force-owned space domain awareness systems, Schiess said, “I want as much data as I can get.”

Indeed, space domain awareness is also among the assets USSF cited in its Commercial Space Strategy.

Across the board, operators and planners will need commercial industry to provide them with as much information as possible, said Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Miller Jr., head of Space Operations Command.

“The simple fact is the commercial vendors are in this game and providing capability that we can either leverage or not,” he said. “We’re going to leverage it to the max we can, whether … it’s some type of imagery or surveillance and reconnaissance capability that we can leverage for planning, all the way to space domain awareness.”

Replicator ‘on Track’ to Field Thousands of Cheap Drones Within Months

Dec. 12, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The first iteration of the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative should achieve its goals of providing thousands of cheap, autonomous platforms in all combat domains by July 2025, the deputy director of the Defense Innovation Unit said Dec. 12.

Aditi Kumar, speaking at the Hudson Institute, said Replicator—the signature initiative of Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks—was planned as a two-year campaign and, after starting in September 2023, should meet its objectives on time.

“We’re in good shape” to provide “multiple thousands of attritable, autonomous systems in multiple domains” within eight months, Kumar said. “Our acquisition enterprise is sprinting, and our commercial vendors are sprinting, to pull these off of the production lines and get them into the hands of the warfighter.”

Replicator was also meant to improve and speed up the Pentagon’s acquisition processes, Kumar added, and the fact that the it will meet its deadline is a positive sign on that front.

A second iteration of Replicator, dubbed Replicator 2 and announced by Hicks in September, is “going to be focused on doing exactly the same thing,” but this time focused on a counter-drone capability.

“So now we’re executing both in parallel,” Kumar said.

Lessons from the first Replicator push are already starting to inform the second. Kumar cited one lesson as the need for transparency and consistent communications with industry about “what exactly we’re going after,” and when.

For example, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced the Pentagon’s new counter-unmanned system strategy last week, and DIU officials have already held subsequent roundtables with industry and investors to clarify “our demand signal and the types of systems and capabilities that we will be pursuing” with Replicator 2, Kumar said.

“I think that will get us off on the right foot and accelerating quickly with the commercial sector as our partners,” she said.

A second lesson learned is to “start early on the hardest problems, which in many cases are the software problems.” For Replicator 1, “we’re doing a whole host of things related to collaborative autonomy and command and control,” and for Replicator 2, command and control is once again a key challenge.

A third lesson is “early and frequent communications with Congress,” Kumar said. DIU leadership has been on Capitol Hill explaining “what Replicator 2 looks like, what types of capabilities we’re looking to field and in what locations, so that there are early supporters as we think about funding this enormous challenge.”

Asked what the DIU has learned from the Ukraine war, Kumar said combat experience is driving Ukraine to update the software of its systems on increasingly short timelines.

Ukraine’s experience has “been very helpful to us,” demonstrating that “software upgrades need to happen on a three- to four-week timeline, which is incredibly fast and has a cost,” she said. Historically, she said, the Pentagon has not funded software aggressively or pushed updates quickly. That has to change with “significantly different types and magnitude of investment.”

This approach will also help with “some of the paralysis” services sometimes have in committing to a new system because they fear that once they buy it, it will be quickly overtaken by technology or the threat, she said.

Kumar said the big challenges with Replicator and other future systems is ensuring “collaborative” interaction between autonomous systems, and the command-and-control apparatus that links joint systems, so they can cue other services’ platforms and provide situational awareness for the joint enterprise.

Air Force Replicator

While the Air Force did not have systems included in the first round of Replicator systems, Hicks announced a “Replicator 1.2,” or “second tranche” of the Replicator program on Nov. 13. These new systems are meant to “add to the first tranche of selected systems announced earlier in 2024” and are also geared toward an August 2025 fielding target.

The Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle was included in the second tranche, and the service will partner with the DIU and “multiple vendors to develop and demonstrate design variants.” The four companies involved are Anduril Industries; Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc.; Leidos Dynetics; and Zone 5 Technologies. Selected ETV prototypes will be “accelerated to scaled production,” the Pentagon said in a release accompanying Hicks’ announcement.

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife said the ETV’s modular design and open system architecture “make it an ideal platform for program offices to test out new capabilities at the subsystem level, reducing risk and demonstrating various options for weapon system employment.”

Hicks said Replicator is “demonstrably reducing barriers to innovation, and delivering capabilities to warfighters at a rapid pace.” She also said that of the more than 500 companies that were considered Replicator contracts, more than 30 received them, and of those, some 75 percent are “nontraditional defense contractors.”

Counter-Drone

It remains to be seen whether an Air Force program will be included in Replicator 2, but the service is likely to have some interest in the project. Officials say the Air Force needs to take on the counter-UAS and air defense missions because its Agile Combat Employment model—which will spread out small Air Force units across a wide number of small and austere airfields—will require more air defense assets than the Army seems able to provide. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently said he’s “comfortable” taking over air defense “as an organic mission” from the Army.

Ravi Chaudhury, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations, and the environment, hinted at future developments on that front at an AFA Warfighters in Action event on Dec. 11

“We’re busy putting together what that’s going to look like going forward,” he said. ” … More to follow” but “we’re talking about it very, very intently and deliberately at the Pentagon to decide what we’re going to do about our installations and this particular challenge,” and that there may be something to announce “in the not too distant future.”

KC-135 Crews Get Distinguished Flying Cross for Helping Fend Off Iranian Drones

Dec. 12, 2024 | By David Roza

Two dozen KC-135 crew members have received the Distinguished Flying Cross for helping refuel the fighters that shot down 80 drones and missiles Iran fired at Israel on April 13.

Most recently, 11 Airmen from the Tennessee Air National Guard’s 134th Air Refueling Wing received the awards Dec. 7. Seven Airmen from McConnell Air Force Base, Kans., got theirs in August; and six from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., were decorated in July.

The DFC recognizes acts of heroism or extraordinary achievement in the air and is the military’s fourth-highest award for heroism, separate from distinguished service medals.

Eight months ago, Iran launched some 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones at Israel. U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle crews deployed to the Middle East at the time scrambled to intercept the weapons, but it was a chaotic environment, Maj. Clayton Wicks, an F-15E operations supervisor that night, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in November.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Command and control can’t keep up with the amount of missiles that are being shot and things that are happening,’” he said.

The tanker crews had to fly into that hectic airspace aboard aging KC-135s that lack the onboard defensive systems and advanced situational awareness tools of their fighter colleagues. They were not targeted by air-to-air or surface-to-air weapons, but there was always a chance they could be, said one of the Tennessee pilots, Maj. Cody Gaby.

“When it comes to a dynamic environment like that night, you can never rule it out,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We didn’t expect it, but with the lack of those systems we truly didn’t know where those missiles were being directed towards. It’s an uneasy feeling but that is the job.”

Airmen from the 134th Air Refueling Wing prepare a KC-135 Stratotanker to take off from Larissa Air Base in Larissa, Greece on June 18th, 2023, (U.S. National Guard photo by Senior Airman Ben Cash)

The tanker crews relied on each other and their partners across the airspace to “paint the battlefield picture” and deconflict, Gaby explained.

“Luckily, we train for this and there being other Tennessee crews in the area, we worked together seamlessly,” he said.

The 11 Tennessee Airmen flew three KC-135s with a crew of three each, while the other two flew with crews from other units. Each of the Tennessee crews flew a single sortie lasting six to nine hours, during which they refueled multiple aircraft, often multiple times, Gaby said. When the base from which the F-15Es launched came under attack, the KC-135s kept the fighters airborne, where they were relatively safer.

“It was a constant dialogue between the tankers, fighters and [command and control] to make sure they got what they needed and we were there to support them,” he said.

Eleven Airmen from the 134th Air Refueling Wing receive the Distinguished Flying Cross on December 7, 2024 at a ceremony on McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, Knoxville, Tenn. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Ben Cash)

Tanker crews rarely face the unique challenges that merit such a high-level award. The criteria for the DFC states that “both heroism and achievement must be entirely distinctive, involving operations that are not routine. This award is not awarded for sustained operational activities and flights.”

For example, four KC-135 crew members were awarded DFCs for a 1999 mission over Kosovo during Operation Allied Force. The crew flew into harm’s way to refuel A-10s running on fumes in the middle of a search-and-rescue operation after an F-117 was shot down. The tankers operated well below the minimum altitude for their refueling tracks, exposing them to surface-to-air missiles.

The DFC citation for the tankers in the Iran operation said “the crews found themselves in the direct line of fire after two regional adversaries launched a coordinated offensive attack on a critical ally of the United States.”

The citation goes on to describe how the crews maintained their composure, relayed vital command and control information, and offloaded tens of thousands of pounds of gas while evading airborne threats without defensive systems or situational awareness.

“The aircrew knew the risks,” one of the tanker pilots, Lt. Col. Willis Parker, said in a press release. “But as tanker crews, we’re the lifeline for the fighters. If we don’t do our job, they can’t do theirs.”

Airmen from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing stand for the national anthem during a medal ceremony Aug. 16, 2024, at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas. Airmen from the 350th Air Refueling Squadron were presented with the Distinguished Flying Cross for their combat missions in the U.S. Air Forces Central area of responsibility. U.S Air Force photo by Senior Airman William Lunn

Space Force Is Testing AI to Automate Ops—and Eyeing More

Dec. 12, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

ORLANDO, Fla.—The Space Force is flying new command and control software on experimental satellites that automates some functions for ops crews, the head of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office said this week.

Dubbed R2C2 for Rapid and Resilient Command and Control, the software is among a wave of new applications that employ artificial intelligence to automate space operations, leaders said here at the Spacepower Conference.

Automation is the No. 1 technology the U.S. needs to gain and maintain space superiority, said Kelly D. Hammett, head of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office

“My answer is going to be automation, and automation of the front end of kill chains,” he said in response to a question. “Having early knowledge of local and further-away threats that are tracking, targeting, getting ready to attack you, I think, is one of the key technology areas where we have some significant gaps.”

Hammet said automation is key for speed, and it will require a level of trust that may surprise some people. “We can’t have men in the loop responding to those things, because of the speed and scale at which we’ll have to respond,” he explained. “So we have to be able to automate some of those things and trust that they can respond on their own when they see that they’re going to be destroyed, attacked, threatened, and not have to have Guardians in the loop on that.”

In a subsequent roundtable with reporters, Hammett said his office is investing in R2C2, a program that started in earnest when 20 companies were picked earlier this year to work on it. He said it is already producing capability.

“This fall, we have already established live contacts with flying satellites down at Kirtland through the experimental systems that are flying through the [Innovation and Prototyping Acquisition Delta],” Hammett said. “We have migrated R2C2 onto the ops floor there, and the intent is to fly some of the further experimental satellites … and eventually all the flying systems for Delta 9, the orbital warfare delta.” “

R2C2 is designed for dynamic space operations, in which satellites must move frequently to dodge threats, gather data, rendezvous to refuel, and more.

Yet as the number of satellites in orbit grows, the risk of of collisions also rises—as do potential threats from adversaries. Hammett noted that SpaceX has had to perform thousands of automated maneuvers to protect its Starlink satellites.

R2C2 can help with that, especially as the ratio of satellites to operators keeps rising, challenging Guardians to maintain control.

“The core services of our R2C2 include automated mission planning. You can schedule out a contact or a conjunction maneuver, if you would like to,” Hammett said. “You can plan all that out in an automated sequence. You can run a variety of cases and situations, decide the one you want, and then press the button and it’ll upload a mission profile that says, ‘Go, conduct a series of maneuvers to go conduct a mission’ versus ‘I’m going to talk to you. Turn this on. Turn left, turn right. Go five inches, report back to me.’ We’ll automate maneuvers and events.”

The National Reconnaissance Office is also looking at automation. In a separate panel discussion, T.J. Lincoln of the NRO’s Mission Operations Directorate said he has been pushing automation for years.

“Anything I can [automate] in a day of the life of operations, it absolutely is essential,” Lincoln said. “We’ve done that and already gone from, let’s say, 17 folks on a crew to three operating an entire constellation,” Lincoln said. “That’s pretty amazing. So automation is absolutely incredibly important today.”

It will only grow more so as the NRO launches dozens of new satellites in a proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation, Lincoln said.

The Space Development Agency is also building a proliferated set of constellations. SDA director Derek M. Tournear said in a speech that autonomous operations will be a key feature in “Tranche 4” of SDA’s Proliferated Space Architecture, scheduled to start launching in 2030.

Other Uses

While Hammett and Tournear look to develop and acquire autonomous ops technology, Space Force commanders today also see the need for artificial intelligence and automation in their work—and some early glimpses of the benefits.

“The simple truth is that in order to operate at the speed we need to, we’re going to need to leverage all of the … machine learning capability that we can, and then smartly integrate AI tools and applications when they are ready,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Miller Jr., head of Space Operations Command.

Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, head of Space Forces Indo-Pacific, said his team is also experimenting with artificial intelligence products and “indirectly” using them in operations.

“We are running a pilot that’s called TacSRT—tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking—and some of the vendors that are contributing to that pilot are working on AI/machine learning applications to better understand what that commercial imagery is showing,” Mastalir said.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said one job where AI and automation is critically needed is space domain awareness

“We get enough data—but we [still] get so much data that our analysts are overwhelmed anyway,” Saltzman said. “The ability for a machine to collect all the data, process the data, and tell the analyst what’s most … high priority, and structure that data in a way that they can make the decision they need— think that’s ripe for software engineering and artificial intelligence.”

The volume of data that needs to be processed and sorted automatically continues to grow—and as it does, operators run the risk of missing something and making a critical mistake, Miller warned.

“The only way to get this done is through automation and fusion,” Miller said. Failing that, “there’s so much data presented that the person who is processing picks their favorite rather than leveraging the suite.” But the Space Force doesn’t want individuals to pick and choose. “We want to leverage all of that and access and open up the enterprise to all of that data,” Miller said, then notify operators automatically when changes in orbit or other concerns arise.

Spectrum Warfare Wing Boss on the Hunt for Tools to Reprogram F-35 and Others Faster

Dec. 12, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Col. Larry Fenner Jr., the commander of the Air Force’s only Spectrum Warfare Wing, came to the Association of Old Crows electronic warfare trade show looking for tools he can use to automate key parts of his mission workload. He’s going to have to keep looking.

“I’ve seen a lot of promising tools that are coming out here, but I’m not sold yet,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine on the sidelines of the conference. “I’m going to do a little bit more engagement and see what solutions industry has available… to make me go faster and optimize my reprogramming process.”

That process—reprogramming the Mission Data Files, or MDFs, for modern warplanes—is one of the core missions of Fenner’s unit, the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, based out of Eglin Air Force in Florida. MDFs are the brains of a fifth-generation warplane like the F-35, helping its systems distinguish friend from foe by their electromagnetic signatures and programming its EW equipment with the latest data about enemy EW tactics.

Historically, Fenner said, reprogramming was run as an “industrial model … maybe annually or semi–annually.” The 350th SWW was set up in 2021 in part to speed that up and made the process relevant in a shooting war.

“Our goal is to always go faster,” he said, “It will never be fast enough for me.”

U.S. Air Force Col. Larry Fenner Jr., 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing commander, speaks on panel at the Inaugural Mitchell Institute Futures Forum in Arlington, VA., Nov. 13 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Benjamin Aronson

Although Fenner declined to give any specifics about the current reprogramming cycle, a U.S. Navy press release in October noted that the 513th Electronic Warfare Squadron, which falls under the 350th, had “cut days off our timeline” for reprogramming MDFs for U.S. Marine Corps F-35. The squadron helped “compressed the production timeline by half,” the release stated.

Force commanders set the operational tempo, Fenner said, “and what we’re trying to do with the reprogramming cycle is to be able to keep up with whatever tempo they set.” He said his job was to “revolutionize the rapid reprogramming process so that if the Air Component Commander gives us a short timeline, we need to be able to stress the system to be able to accommodate that.”

The current process relies on data from sensors carried by the F-35 and other aircraft, sent back after they land to reprogramming centers in the U.S., where they’re pored over by engineers. “They do the deep dive analysis on what information’s changed,” Fenner explained. “Is it significant enough to push into a Mission Data File [update]? And if it is, they do the re-engineering … and pushing it back out to the warfighter, so that they have the latest information to sense, identify, locate and counter” enemy EW.

Automating the first part of that process—identifying and isolating novel or anomalous data back in the reprogramming centers—is at the top of the list of immediate capabilities Fenner is looking for. ”That would be a huge win,” he said.

Beyond that, he said, he’s looking for “game-changing” capabilities that would identify such anomalies “at the forward edge” during a mission and “kick that back to reprogramming centers airborne, so by the time they land, we’ve already rolled up our sleeves and are taking a look.”

He said he hasn’t seen such capabilities available yet, but added, “I’ve only been in the chair for a short period of time.” Fenner took command of the 350th SWW in July.

If he did find such a tool, Fenner said, he wouldn’t be able to buy it. “I can advocate. If I see a capability or solution out there that is going to help us, I can advocate for it. … But that’s where we have our break, because I can advocate only, but I’m not part of the acquisition process.”

Customer Base

Because the F-35 is a joint coalition aircraft, MDFs have to be reprogrammed not just for the Air Force, but for other U.S. military services and allied air forces. Fenner has a multiservice and multinational customer base.

“Spectrum is inherently joint,” he said, “because everybody has equities in the spectrum.”

The 513th Electronic Warfare Squadron runs reprogramming for all the U.S. services. Made up of Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps military, civilian, and contractor personnel, the 513th leads operations at the United States Reprogramming Laboratory, which provides MDFs for the F-35.

Eglin is also home to the 80 Squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force and the British Royal Air Force, formerly known as the Australian, Canadian and United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory, or ACURL, which develops, verifies, and validates F-35 MDFs for the three NATO allies.

“We incorporate our allies and partners in our exercises and share the data that we have to make sure that we’re all moving forward on the same page,” said Fenner.

China’s Orbital Maneuvers Have Space Force Leaders Seeking Better Options

Dec. 11, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

ORLANDO, Fla.—Chinese satellites in geosynchronous orbit are maneuvering at high rates, practicing orbital warfare techniques, studying other spacecraft, and testing new ways to evade threats—and Space Force and industry leaders warn the U.S. must learn to maneuver in response.

Since 2010, the People’s Republic of China has launched nearly 1,000 satellites, noted Space Force Chief Master Sgt. Ronald Lerch. But it’s not just volume that’s troubling, he said. Citing “shenanigans in GEO,” he and fellow panelist Clint Clark from the space domain awareness firm Exoanalytics warned of escalating risk.

“China doesn’t sit still,” Clark said. “They’re all over the sky.”

Maneuvering in geosynchronous orbit is particularly unusual, as the entire purpose of that orbital regime is to stay relatively static and stare at one area on Earth.

But Clark said China moves around in orbit to avoid detection, dodge disruption, and get close enough to other satellites to inspect them, move them, or damage them.

“They’re practicing stuff all across the sky,” Clark said. “Their experimental satellites move around, they do a bunch of stuff. … They go up and down the belt. They hold everybody at risk. Periodically, they do crazy stuff. They’ll get on top of a satellite. And sometimes they’ll pick it up and move it away.”

China has experimented with maneuvering in GEO before. Since its 2019 launch, its SJ-17 satellite has moved all over the GEO belt, at times even crossing over into the Western Hemisphere. Over time, the kinds and numbers of Chinese satellites maneuvering in space has grown.

Even traditional GEO satellites used for things like missile warning and intelligence are practicing maneuver skills.

“When you come for them, they’re going to have a playbook to run against you to make sure they can still provide space services to their force,” Clark said.

These maneuvers have been especially noteworthy, he and Lerch added, because of the huge changes in speed, or “delta-v,” that China has been demonstrated.

“It’s not just that they’ve been practicing [tactics],” Clark said. “They’ve been doing them in very specific ways, with huge delta-v’s relative to what we’re able to produce, and they’re doing them in ways that challenge our kill chain.”

A slide from Exoanalytics at the Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla., shows how Chinese satellites are moving in geosynchronous orbit. Screenshot

U.S. Space Command boss Gen. Stephen Whiting said China has been using maneuver to put its satellites in novel” orbits outside the usual low-, medium-, geosynchronous, and highly elliptical orbits used by others—making it harder for the U.S. to track them.

“It’s vital that given the threats we now see in novel orbits that are hard for us to get to, as well as the fact that the Chinese have been testing on-orbit refueling capability, that we need some kind of sustained space maneuver,” Whiting said.

Traditionally, satellites limit their maneuvers to conserve limited fuel. But with both China and the U.S. eyeing ways to refuel satellites or come up with new propulsion systems that could change. Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, head of Space Forces Indo-Pacific, warned of a “paradigm shift … that we need to be prepared to address.”

Mastalir noted the U.S. can also benefit from maneuver, making satellites harder to target with direct ascent antisatellite weapons.

Conversely, though, as Space Force leaders become more and more comfortable talking about offensive space weapons, their own ability to track and target Chinese satellites is challenged by their mobility.

“Heretofore, we have just acknowledged something is going to maneuver or thrust, there’ll be a change in delta-v, and given enough time, we’ll get an orbit determination, and we’ll know where it is,” Mastalir said. “That is not the future, that is not the space warfighting domain that we need to prepare for.”

If both sides are able to maneuver, it inevitably raises the potential of a “dogfight in space,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, head of Space Forces-Space.

“China is all over the place. We are watching what they are doing, and we are doing things as well to make sure that we’re as safe as possible,” he added.

The difference between the two countries’ space maneuvers, Scheiss argued, is that China has not proven itself to be a “responsible operator in this domain.”

Military space leaders have been talking about dynamic space operations for years now, but it’s unclear how the Space Force will pursue the capability. One option is “gas stations in orbit,” servicing and refueling satellites in space; another is advanced propulsion technology, including nuclear power; a third is simply increasing launches to replenish capabilities and make burning fuel less of a consideration.

Whiting said he’s less interested in how USSF can maneuver more than in simply getting the capability. But he noted an interest in the Space Force’s X-37B spaceplane, which earlier this year demonstrated a novel technique called “aerobraking” to maneuver without burning too much fuel.

“If we had a highly maneuverable system like the X-37 that would allow us to reduce operational surprise,” he said. “Today, we have a hard time getting to those other novel orbits. But if we had a capability to bridge those orbital regimes, then we would be less susceptible to surprise.”