USSF’s Space Systems Command Stands Up

Aug. 13, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The U.S. Space Force now has two of its three planned field commands in place. The Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., was officially redesignated Space Systems Command on Aug. 13.

At the ceremony, newly promoted Lt. Gen. Michael A. Guetlein also took over as the first commander of SSC, with Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond in attendance.

The redesignation has been in the works for months, as the Space Force revealed the structure of Space Systems Command in April. As part of the changeover, several Air Force units will also eventually redesignate under SSC, as will Space Launch Deltas 30 and 45 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., and Patrick Space Force Base, Fla., respectively.

Headquarters for the new command will remain in Los Angeles where the Space and Missile Systems Center has worked, under different names and changing missions, since 1954. And many former SMC officials were on hand Aug. 13 for the redesignation ceremony. But this newest change won’t be just surface level, Guetlein said.

“Space Systems Command is about continuing the culture shift from being service providers to being warfighters,” Guetlein said during the ceremony. “We cannot let this be a nameplate change from SMC to SSC. We must be bold, and we must get after the threat. To do this, we must move at the speed of relevance, by streamlining bureaucratic decision-making processes even further.”

Space Systems Command will be responsible for the research, development, and acquisition of military rockets, satellites, radars, and other space-related assets from creation to retirement. It will work alongside Space Operations Command, the first command launched by the still-young service, and Space Training and Readiness Command, which is expected to stand up in 2021 as well.

In developing and acquiring new capabilities, Raymond said the newly-formed command will have to work fast. The Space and Missile Systems Center restructured and rebranded itself as SMC 2.0 in 2019 with the goal of acquiring systems faster, and Raymond said SSC will have to continue that progress and make it even quicker.

“Every capability, every technology, every program has an expiration date. That expiration date isn’t set by us, but it’s set by our competitors,” Raymond said. “After that date, I don’t care what we’ve built. It is late to need. That capability is no longer cutting edge. That system is no longer resilient and no longer provides us the advantage that we needed to provide.

“In other words, to sustain and build our relative advantage, we must outpace our competitors. This is the challenge for the new Space Systems Command. You can’t let our capabilities reach their expiration date. The clock is ticking, and you must deliver on time.”

Guetlein, who worked at the Space and Missile Systems Center in several capacities over the course of his career, echoed that sentiment, pointing to the latest threats posed to Space Force assets in orbit as a pressing concern that needs to be addressed.

“In my last job as a deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, I had a front-row seat, observing the unprofessional behavior and challenges being imposed on us by our adversaries,” Guetlein said. “Gen. Raymond has been sounding the alarm and talking about direct ascent weapons, directed energy weapons, nesting dolls in space, cyber hacks, and even robots in space. These may all sound like a fantasy for the layperson, but this isn’t science fiction. It is happening, and it is happening today.”

USAF: New Engine Technologies May Not Retrofit to Existing Fighters

Aug. 12, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comments from the F-35 Joint Program Office and to clarify some of the original comments.

New engine technologies emerging from the Adaptive Engine Transition Program are “vastly different” from those now flying on Air Force fighters, so retrofitting the current force with the new power plants may not be possible, the service’s program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft said Aug. 12.

The AETP technologies “really are future looking,” Brig. Gen. Dale R. White told reporters in a press conference associated with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s recent Life Cycle Industry Days symposium. The AETP, based on previous advanced engine programs, got underway in 2016, and full-scale engine tests have been conducted this year. General Electric’s version is the XA-100, while Pratt & Whitney’s is the XA-101.

White is responsible for engines for most fighter programs but not for the F-35. A spokesman said White’s comments “were not a reflection of, nor indication to the F-35 propulsion strategy.”

The F-35 Joint Program Office said the AETP “is not currently an F-35 requirement,” but added that it is working with the AETP program “and our industry partners to evaluate this new engine technology for possible use in the F-35.”

The AETP is developing power plants using third-stream airflow to combine fuel-efficiency during cruise with quick-reaction high thrust in fighter engagements.

“The focus for now is how do we get the most out of what we already have fielded, versus where do we go in the future capabilities,” White said. There’s “only so much [more performance] we’re going to be able to get out of the … propulsion systems we have, and so we’re working very hard to figure out … what we can get out of that, what are some of those trades.”

The technologies in AETP are “very different than what we use on the fielded systems that we have,” he said. Where there are opportunities to make them “backward compatible,” he said, the Air Force will consider its options.

Changing the propulsion system on a fielded aircraft is “extremely complex, and there’s a lot that goes with that,” White said. “So you have to think about what the return on investment might be.”

He called out the F-22 as one platform where the directorate is looking at its Pratt & Whitney F119 engines for improvements “and whether or not we’re getting the most out of that system and [whether] we can do more for it.”

“Everything’s on the table” to improve the engine with regard to “climate, to efficiency, to thrust,” he said.

White said the AETP technologies would most likely apply to the Next Generation Air Dominance vehicle and other future designs, such as a clean-sheet fighter needed to replace the F-16.

Air Force and Pentagon leaders have hinted that future versions of the F-35 fighter could use new engines developed under AETP to save on fuel and gain performance. Even newly minted Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall suggested as much in his first interview with Air Force Magazine.

Senior Air Force leaders said in testimony this spring that wholesale replacement of engines already in service is not affordable within anticipated budgets.

Pratt & Whitney, maker of the F135, proposed a package of improvements for the engine to the Joint Program Office in March. The JPO is evaluating the proposal.

Air Force Leadership Needs to ‘Walk the Walk’ in Baking Security into Cyber, Software Boss Says

Aug. 12, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s chief software officer is pushing hard for the service to adopt security into its cyber development and operations from the start. He’s also calling for a more unified approach to reduce redundancies.

Speaking at an Air Force Association Gabriel Chapter luncheon Aug. 11, Nicolas M. Chaillan offered a blunt assessment of where the Air Force’s cyber capabilities stood when he first went to work for the service in 2018 and even until today.

“I realized pretty quickly, we’re very behind in cyber, to a point that it was very scary when it comes to critical infrastructure and the lack of security,” Chaillan said. “And we see it every day, more and more, and I still don’t believe we have any kind of handle on what’s going on.”

One of Chaillan’s main concerns is incorporating security into software development, a practice known among IT professionals as DevSecOps. With a lack of basic IT infrastructure, implementing DevSecOps has proven difficult, he said. What’s more, there has been some resistance among those used to the more traditional approach of considering security after development and operations.

Failing to include security concerns early, however, would be “almost criminal” for certain programs, Chaillan said. And across the board, everyone should be using the approach, “period, full stop,” he added.

There are teams within USAF who have been using DevSecOps with impressive results, he said. In particular, he mentioned the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, the Long-Range Standoff weapon, the B-21, and the F-35 as examples of programs in which the approach has been adopted and used with success.

The GBSD program has saved “at least 18 months” by incorporating DevSecOps from the very start, he said. Without that, the nuclear program’s schedule might have already slipped.

Moving forward, Air Force and Space Force leadership needs to continue promoting DevSecOps across the service, Chaillan said. So far, he’s heard all the right things. More than that, though, he wants to see actions to back those words up.

“I have to be a little cautious there, because quite honestly, the leadership in the department always says the right things,” Chaillan said. “I’ve yet to hear them not say the right things. The Space Force, [Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay”] Raymond says, ‘We’re a digital service.’ Are you? Are you sure you’re a digital service? I’m not so sure. It’s just easy to say—it’s a little bit harder to walk the walk. And so we need to start doing that and stop talking.”

The Space Force and Air Force need to stick together with their approach to IT and cyber infrastructure or risk exacerbating another challenge Chaillan has identified—a splintering of approaches leading to cyber “silos” in which different agencies work on the same tasks and don’t share information.

“I’m actually very concerned with the Space Force starting to potentially drift away from the Air Force. It would really be a big mistake, compounding on the existing silos between the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and fourth estate,” Chaillan said.

Even beyond the service level, Chaillan said, he’s noticed a tendency for wings and other units to develop workarounds and solutions for their own specific software problems. While this is useful on a small scale, it creates larger issues.

“We do have to be careful because if you let everybody code in vacuums … who is going to maintain it—who’s going to sustain it once that person moves on?” Chaillan said.

What’s more, such an approach doesn’t fix the fundamental software issues that plague many Airmen on a day-to-day basis. The problems persist, but those in a position to solve them for everyone aren’t as affected.

“For me, it has always been important to use the [Government Furnished Equipment] device, use the normal network, feel the pain that the Airmen feel when they use those tools, because if you’re not feeling the pain, you’re not going to fix it,” Chaillan said.

On top of all that, in too many instances, people replicate each other’s work.

“We have silos within silos,” Chaillan said. “We have people reinventing the wheel, whether for good reasons or bad reasons, whether it’s ego-driven or for little kingdom-building exercises, and so it’s been a challenge to start bringing everybody together, to realize that if we want to get to the all-domain vision that we keep preaching for many years, that’s not even really new, we need to start having a cohesive cybersecurity and IT capability stack.”

Joint All-Domain Command and Control is another part of Chaillan’s portfolio—he’s responsible for helping to incorporate security into the JADC2 architecture. Right now, though, he sounded a pessimistic note on the program’s future.

“Maybe I’m too blunt sometimes, but I tell people, you know, right now JADC2 has probably zero chance of success, period, full stop,” Chaillan said. “Because it’s effectively not a thing. It’s a bunch of services doing their own things … with different names and different concepts, often reinventing the same wheel.”

Chaillan is not the only one expressing concerns about the lack of coordination. Defense analyst Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently told Air Force Magazine that the Defense Department needs to start a joint office to oversee each service’s efforts or risk a “recipe for disaster.”

The solution, Chaillan said, is for leadership to start managing the expansive program on a joint basis to ensure coordination and to issue mandates that can be “living” and updated as new technologies come along.

Uzbekistan a Candidate for U.S. ‘Over-the-Horizon’ Support to Afghanistan

Aug. 12, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

With Afghan provincial capitals falling like dominoes in recent days, the Pentagon is still resisting pressure to promise air support to Afghanistan after the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline. Countries in the region, however, may be key to providing the over-the-horizon support needed to turn the tide for the Afghan government.

Uzbekistan, where former Soviet bases were used for the initial U.S. invasion in 2001 and thereafter, is one of the countries where basing negotiations are ongoing, an Uzbek government official told Air Force Magazine on Aug. 12.

The Central Asian country of 33 million has benefited in recent years from U.S. professional military education and joint training exercises, DOD and Uzbek officials told Air Force Magazine. Uzbek officials said this was discussed at a July 1 Pentagon meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.

“Uzbekistan has been partnered with the Mississippi National Guard through the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program since 2012,” Defense Department spokesperson Eric Pahon told Air Force Magazine.

In April 2021, the Mississippi National Guard hosted the annual international joint training exercise Southern Strike with the participation of Uzbek airmen.

“Several Uzbekistani soldiers also participated in the Mississippi National Guard’s ‘Best Warrior’ competition, which occurred during Southern Strike, and won top honors,” Pahon said.

An Uzbek government official told Air Force Magazine the country is interested in more professional military education and training opportunities to strengthen its military but is restrained by a constitutional prohibition on foreign military bases.

The official could not say whether that prohibition extended to prevent the U.S. Air Force from using landing strips on Uzbek bases for over-the-horizon support to Afghanistan.

An Uzbek military official who spoke to Air Force Magazine on Aug. 12 on the condition of anonymity said his government had responded to some of the questions from the American government and that negotiation was ongoing.

The official declined to comment on the possibility of a basing agreement in the wake of a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

U.S. special operations forces operated out of Uzbekistan’s Karshi-Khanabad, or K2, Air Base in the southeast of the country from 2001 to 2005. The base is now the home of the Uzbek Air Force’s 60th Separate Mixed Aviation Brigade.

An Afghan war veteran who served with the U.S. Air Force at the base told Air Force Magazine recently that he heard K2 was again a possibility, but he wondered whether “Russia would allow that.”

DOD said it supports the Russian-speaking country’s independence and partners on security cooperation-related issues bilaterally and through multilateral forum, including NATO.

“United States and Uzbekistan have a robust military-to-military relationship that includes cooperation on the modernization and professionalization of Uzbekistan’s military,” Pahon said, while declining to confirm “possible bilateral discussions.”

U.S. Sending 3,000 Troops to Protect American Diplomats in Kabul

Aug. 12, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine and Abraham Mahshie

The Pentagon on Aug. 12 detailed a massive plan to protect American diplomats and Afghan special immigrant visa applicants in Kabul, ordering 3,000 Marines and Soldiers to Kabul within days, with an additional 1,000 Soldiers and Airmen deploying to Qatar to facilitate visa processing and an Army Brigade Combat Team of up to 4,000 Soldiers on standby in Kuwait should security in Afghanistan further deteriorate.

An airlift surge will take the troops to Kabul, and the Pentagon expects gray-tail mobility aircraft will be needed to ferry out U.S. diplomats and a large increase in translators and other Afghans seeking visas to leave the country.

Ten Afghan provincial capitals have fallen to the Taliban in recent days, and American airpower aimed at protecting large cities such as Kandahar and Herat is not enough for Afghan forces to prevent their likely fall.

Defense Department spokesman John F. Kirby said three infantry battalions will go to Kabul, two from the Marine Corps and one from the Army, joining some 650 American troops already on the ground. Kirby did not identify the units that will deploy, just that they are already in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility and able to quickly head to Afghanistan.

The units will be based at the Hamid Karzai International Airport to provide additional security and help bring out diplomats from the embassy, which is located a couple miles from the airport. The airport already hosts a small U.S. rotorcraft aviation presence, typically for transporting American and coalition personnel between locations.

The new deployments will raise the number of U.S. military personnel on the ground in Afghanistan to at least 3,650, more than the number deployed at the time President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal in April. Kirby said the mission will be short and “narrow in focus.”

Separately, the joint Army/Air Force group of 1,000 will go to Qatar to help the processing of Afghan special immigrant visas for interpreters and others who worked with coalition forces and would likely be targets of the Taliban. This team includes personnel such as medical specialists, engineers, security forces, and others.

Lastly, an 82nd Airborne brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C., will deploy to Kuwait and remain on standby. Kirby did not outline the exact process for this deployment. USAF C-17s work directly with the 82nd to facilitate quick deployment when needed, such as the early-2020 deployment to Kuwait amid rising tensions with Iran.

The number of backlogged visa applicants has been previously reported as in the tens of thousands.

“This is a temporary mission with a narrow focus,” Kirby said. “We certainly anticipate being postured to support airlift as well, for not only the reduction of civilian personnel from the embassy, but also in the forward movement of special immigrant visa applicants.”

Kirby said authorities for use of self-defense airpower remain in effect until the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline for U.S. troops. The spokesperson did not indicate that the U.S. Air Force would be used to bolster Afghan forces as it has in recent days, and he would not speculate about force presence or mission after the imminent deadline. He did say he does not expect the airport in Kabul to host U.S. close air support assets and that the over-the-horizon operations would continue.

Kirby said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III spoke to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani earlier in the day to discuss the decisions. Austin also consulted with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Transportation Command in preparation for providing additional airlift to aid with the evacuation of civilian personnel.

Questioned about the manpower deploying for the unnamed mission, Kirby said the movement of military personnel was deemed “the prudent thing to do given the rapidly deteriorating security situation in and around Kabul.”

It is unclear how many American diplomats will be evacuated from the country and how many will remain at work from the Kabul airport.

“There is still a diplomatic presence in Kabul, and the intention is to maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul,” Kirby said.

State Department spokesman Ned Price, during an Aug. 12 press conference, said the security situation has deteriorated to the point where Biden approved the downsizing of the embassy to protect Americans. The U.S. is “gravely concerned by the developments” across Afghanistan, and “given the situation on the ground,” the drawdown is a “prudent step.”

“This is not a full evacuation,” Price said, but he did not specify how many American diplomats would remain in Kabul.

Future Support for Afghan Government Unclear

The Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., referred Air Force Magazine to the Pentagon regarding the question of air support after the Aug. 31 deadline.

“We don’t have [a] good picture,” an Afghan government official in Washington, D.C., told Air Force Magazine on Aug. 12, when asked the nature of the Taliban advance and the role of American air support.

Thus far, the Taliban has ignored international commitments to negotiate a peace settlement with the government of Afghanistan, choosing instead to make battlefield advances and commit human rights atrocities against soldiers and civilians, according to the United Nations.

In recent weeks, Afghanistan has received Blackhawk helicopters to provide close air support for its soldiers on the ground, part of a promise to give the Afghan air force 37 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters and three additional A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft, and also to help refurbish its fleet of Mi-17 Soviet-era helicopters.

The U.S. Air Force has also bolstered the Afghan military fight against the Taliban with airstrikes, including from B-52s launched from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Kirby said earlier in the week that no airstrikes have originated from Kabul, the last remaining American military presence in the country.

Kirby said Aug. 12 it is evident that the Taliban is not interested in peace negotiations.

“The Taliban continues to act as if they believe the only path to governance is through violence and brutality and oppression and force, contrary to what they have said previously at the negotiating table,” he said. “We would provide support to the Afghan national security defense forces where and when feasible, with the expectation and the knowledge that is not always going to be feasible.”

New Force Generation Model Will Differ for Air and Space Forces

Aug. 11, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

A new force generation model meant to balance rest with readiness will mean different things for the Air Force and the Space Force, leaders said at an Air Force Association Air and Space Warfighters in Action event Aug. 11.

The new model, described by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. in an exclusive interview with Air Force Magazine on Aug. 4, aims at better balancing the strains put on Airmen and equipment after two decades of war and constant deployments.

“The force generation model is how any service trains and then presents forces for the Joint Staff, for the nation, to then use in war,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph T. Guastella Jr., the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for operations.

Twenty years of counterinsurgency wars have taken a toll on the Air Force, he said.

“We’ve given everything we have to the fight,” Guastella said. “What that has done is exhausted the force. It’s exhausted a lot of the Airmen. It’s exhausted a lot of weapon systems—put thousands and thousands of hours on airplanes that we didn’t predict—and it’s driven us into a situation where we have an aging fleet.”

In the model, a 24-month cycle consists of four, six-month phases: Available to Commit, Reset, Prepare, and Ready. In the Reset phase, post-deployment Airmen get downtime to reconnect with their families and refresh basic skills then to work on advanced skills and training.

The new model is not only about giving Airmen and equipment more rest, it also addresses the 2018 National Defense Strategy’s call to be ready to face a peer adversary.

As part of the model, Airmen will train for the higher threat level posed by peer competitors such as China by taking part in high-end exercises including Red Flags, other large-force employment events, and Weapons School Integration.

“It also creates some predictability to life,” said Guastella, who formerly commanded Air Forces Central Command.

The result will be a force “more capable, and more prepared, to deter and defend our nation’s interest globally than we’ve ever had in the past,” he said.

Space Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, deputy Chief of Space Operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, said that unlike the Air Force, Space Force operators deploy in place and their missions have no downtime.

“GPS doesn’t go away for us to train. We don’t redeploy GPS,” Saltzman said. “Missile warning—we don’t redeploy and reconstitute missile warning. And so, our forces are continuously asked to conduct that ‘protect and defend’ and that joint warfighting mission set 24/7/365.”

Meanwhile, those Guardians must still be ready should an adversary attempt to deny those capabilities. That requires advanced training. The new rotational model pulls some operators off the mission temporarily to receive higher-level training.

In an Aug. 6 National Press Club appearance, Brown outlined to Air Force Magazine the challenges of creating the new model.

“Whatever was needed, we would send, and what we were doing was we were running ourselves ragged,” Brown said of the constant calls for Air Force support in recent years. “What happens is that impacts our readiness and our future modernization.”

Brown said the new model will create unpredictability for the enemy and predictability for Airmen.

“It drives a bit more discipline,” he added. “Not only for us as United States Air Force but as we work with the Joint Staff and the combatant commands about how we deploy forces so we don’t burn everything up and then wish we had it ready to go if there was some type of crisis.”

Brown said the program is already beginning in some units but will fully roll out during fiscal year 2023.

During the AFA discussion, Saltzman credited the Guardian version of the new force generation model to his insistence on a Pentagon office near his Air Force counterpart.

“As you can imagine, the biggest fight the Space Force took on early on was floor space in the Pentagon,” he said to a laugh from the AFA audience.

“As the office debate started to occur, skiff battles started to occur, I said, ‘I want my office right next to [Guastella’s] A3 office,’ ” he said. “So, the S3, the Chief Operations Officer office, is right next to the A3 office. We do a lot of business between his office and the bathroom as we pass in the hallways, quite frankly. And that’s powerful. I think that keeps us synchronized, and that’s important.”

Senate Confirms New SOUTHCOM Boss, DOD Personnel Leader

Aug. 11, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Senate on Aug. 11 confirmed a new leader for U.S. Southern Command and a new undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The pace of confirmations ticked up with the approach of Congress’ August recess.

The Senate confirmed Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, commander of United States Army North, to receive her fourth star and to lead SOUTHCOM. Richardson will be the second woman to lead a combatant command, following retired Air Force Gen. Lori J. Robinson, who commanded U.S. Northern Command before retiring in 2018.

President Joe Biden nominated Richardson for the job in March while also nominating USAF Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, current Air Mobility Command boss, to lead U.S. Transportation Command. That nomination is still pending without a confirmation hearing date set.

The Senate also confirmed former Rep. Gil Cisneros to lead DOD personnel and readiness. Cisneros, who was a Democratic representative for California’s 39th district until early this year, is a Navy veteran who served as a supply officer for 11 years.

Earlier in the week, the Senate also made additional confirmations, including:

Mara E. Karlin to serve as assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities. Karlin formerly served as acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
USAF Maj. Gen. Ricky N. Rupp to receive his third star and to command U.S. Forces Japan and Fifth Air Force. Rupp currently commands the Air Force District of Washington.
USAF Maj. Gen. Russell L. Mack to receive his third star and to serve as deputy commander of Air Combat Command. Mack currently serves as the assistant deputy chief of staff, operations, in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations.
Carlos Del Toro to be the next Secretary of the Navy.

New Skunk Works Plant to Build Advanced Fighters, Other Projects

Aug. 11, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

PALMDALE, Calif.—Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced development division opened a new 215,000-square-foot production facility Aug. 10, allowing reporters and visitors a glimpse inside the state-of-the-art factory before it begins production of classified systems and is likely permanently closed to non-cleared personnel.

What will be built here first is a secret, but Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager Jeff Babione said he anticipates the facility—at the Air Force’s sprawling Plant 42 complex—will build fighters; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft; hypersonic missiles; and other advanced projects, with possibly more than one project in series production at a time. He declined to say specifically whether Lockheed Martin will build Next-Generation Air Dominance fighters at the plant.

“This is a one-of-a-kind facility,” Babione told reporters in a press conference. One of four new factories to be opened by Lockheed Martin nationwide this year, it is an “intelligent, flexible” facility where there are “no permanent structures…there’s nothing drilled into the floor,” he said, allowing the plant to be reconfigured at will for efficient, flexible manufacturing. This flips the concept of most factories—such that for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter in Fort Worth, Texas—designed specifically to produce a particular product.

“We have flexibility about where to put what you’re building within this massive floorplan,” he said. “Rather than the work coming to the robot, the robot will go to the work.” Robots will be able to perform one operation “on one end of the factory in the morning, and a completely different operation at the other end in the afternoon. So you’re going to see a significant increase in automation.”

The robots are commercial machines that Lockheed Martin will program. The software to make them do an operation “does not have to be resident” in the system, Babione said. This reduces cost because the same equipment is not dedicated solely to a particular function or program but has application to many projects.

One 27,000-pound robot on display in the new space can move on casters or on cushions of air for fine adjustment of positioning.

The robots “will talk to each other,” Babione added. “How are we doing with cutter speed? Cutter sharpness … do we need to change things? How is the quality of the holes [being drilled]?” Other innovations include advanced test capabilities for wire bundles and laser systems that can spot out-of-tolerance part thicknesses to the thousandths of an inch.

“This will be the first factory at the highest level of classification but has Wi-Fi inside,” to enable the speed of information and allow the “men and women working in that environment” to know the status of the equipment and processes at all times, he said.

The new plant will likely focus on final assembly, with parts produced at other areas of the campus and by vendors. Lockheed Martin is creating partnerships with a number of suppliers such as Spirit Aerosystems to digitally design and manufacture parts with very high precision.

“There will be no paper, only iPad-like devices,” Babione noted. The workers will have access to augmented reality systems to troubleshoot and determine the best ways for robots to execute the work in addition to developing better designs.

The cavernous plant is environmentally controlled to stay within 2.5 degrees of a set temperature in order to minimize changes of the materials in response to heat or humidity, so that joints line up as they were designed to do using digital thread methods.

“The components that make up the different vehicles that we are manufacturing have different coefficients of expansion,” Babione explained. “Composites are different than steel; steel is different than titanium; titanium is different from aluminum.” It’s important that they be assembled “at the same temperatures” at which they were manufactured, he said. “That’s how we eliminate the need to do drilling in that facility.”

The massive air conditioning system will be powered by a new solar farm adjacent to the plant with 52,000 solar panels. Lockheed Martin is working with the state and county to get the permits.

While Babione could not give an estimate as to how much the speed of work will increase versus traditional factories, he characterized it as “significant reductions … not only in design, but certainly development,” amounting to “almost a step function change” in time to complete work.

“That’s what our customer was asking for … how do we go from concept to capability much faster. The technology allows us to dramatically accelerate that life cycle,” he said.

Small batches of products can be made more efficiently in the plant.

“Not only did we not design it for anything in particular, we can design and build multiple assets within the same footprint, something that we really can’t do very well in our current arrangement,” so, “we can now bring [the values of] capacity/quantity to multiple programs” that may not be built in large numbers. “We absolutely see a future where this facility is building multiple types of platforms.” He mentioned large-scale production of hypersonic missiles as one possibility.

The new plant will also require 450 new employees at Skunk Works in Palmdale, adding to the unit’s rapid growth. Babione said advanced development has trebled its workforce—resident in Palmdale, Fort Worth, and Marietta, Ga.—since 2017, to about 5,600 employees. Those employees are heavily oriented toward engineering and administrative support, Babione said. But “the mix is changing … growing significantly in the manufacturing and labor area because we’re expanding this facility.” He also said “we are opening up a new classified facility in Marietta, as well, so I do see a significant shift … as we transition to these core manufacturing capabilities.”

Why Marietta? “We’re running out of space,” Babione said. While this pushed the production of the new plant, which has a height of about 80 feet, there is “significant unused space in Marietta. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of that as well as add capability. We don’t have any classified manufacturing space in Marietta.”

The huge investment—Babione referred to $400 million pumped into the local economy—suggests a business case for large-scale production at the site rather than the low-rate, small-volume Skunk Works production programs of the past, such as the F-117, SR-71, and U-2.

“What has changed is that the cost of technology has come way down,” Babione said. “Think about what a robot cost 20 years ago; very few people had a robot because of the massive cost … it had to have this tremendous business case.”

At the same time, customer expectations have changed, and “we have got to compress this timeframe” from concept to production, Babione said. “And that comes with a significant drop in the cost of products and services.” The new factory is not a matter of “should we do it … but, we have to do it, to meet the objectives of our customer, both from a cost and schedule standpoint” he said, adding, “things that work for our customer ultimately work for us.”

The increased production volume will also help Lockheed Martin recruit and retain workers for future advanced projects, which is “what we live for,” he said. Designing and prototyping advanced systems is “still the hallmark of what we do at Skunk Works. … It’s X-planes, advancing the state of the art, doing things that no one’s ever done before, that is at the core of what we do here.”

Air Force Global Strike Command Successfully Test Launches ICBM

Aug. 11, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Global Strike Command launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., in the early morning hours of Aug. 11, sending the ICBM some 4,200 miles before detonating it with non-nuclear explosives near the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.

Airmen from the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.; 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; and 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.; all contributed to the successful launch, which involved a Minuteman III missile and a Hi Fidelity Joint Test Assembly re-entry vehicle that detonated conventional explosives above the surface of the water near Kwajalein Atoll.

“The U.S. nuclear enterprise is the cornerstone of the security structure of the free world,” Col. Omar Colbert, 576th Flight Test Squadron commander, said in a statement. “Today’s test launch is just one example of how our nation’s ICBM fleet demonstrates operational readiness and reliability of the weapon system. It also allows us to showcase the amazing level of competence and capability of our Airmen.”

The test launch was not in response to “global events or regional tensions,” Lt. Col. Aaron Boudreau, Task Force commander, said in a statement. Launch calendars are made five years in advance, with planning for each particular launch taking six months to a year, he said.

Still, the test in the Pacific comes at a time when Air Force and Defense Department leadership have increasingly emphasized the threat posed by competition with China, especially in the Indo-Pacific region.

Within the past few weeks, search groups studying satellite imagery of a desert in western China have spotted more than 100 new silos for ICBMs, news outlets have reported, as the Chinese seemingly bolster their nuclear arsenal.

In response, Air Force leaders have emphasized the need for the U.S. to modernize its own nuclear missiles.

“I believe modernization is a critical part of that, right? Modernization is a critical part of counter-proliferation,” 20th Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Michael J. Lutton said during a virtual Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event Aug. 10. “And modernization is a critical part of nuclear nonproliferation. It is beneficial to work with the Chinese. We’ll see if the Chinese want to work with us.”

Minuteman III missiles, like the one used in the Aug. 11 test, were first deployed in 1970 and are expected to remain in use into the 2030s, with Air Force leaders saying they are committed to ensuring the aging system remains an effective deterrent while simultaneously advocating for its replacement, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.

GBSD, however, has faced some criticism in Congress over its cost, and President Joe Biden’s administration is conducting a Nuclear Posture Review that will outline its view of the future of America’s nuclear triad.