CENTCOM Boss Presses Lawmakers for Counter-Drone Funds That ‘Will Save Lives’

CENTCOM Boss Presses Lawmakers for Counter-Drone Funds That ‘Will Save Lives’

March 7, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Army Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, urged lawmakers to approve more than half a billion dollars in funding to combat unmanned aerial systems in the Middle East after months of attacks by Iran-backed militia groups.

The $95 billion national security supplemental package that passed the Senate in February contained $531 million for counter-UAS efforts in CENTCOM, and Kurilla told the Senate Armed Service Committee on March 7 that those funds will allow him to procure “technology I need to get forward into the theater that will save lives.”

Much of the focus surrounding the supplemental has been on the aid designated for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. But Kurilla told committee chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) that the package is “absolutely critical” for his command as well—it designates $2.4 billion specifically for CENTCOM “and to replace combat expenditures for weapons in the Red Sea,” according to a Senate Appropriations Committee summary.

The Houthi rebel group, backed by Iran, has been conducting a monthslong campaign against commercial shipping and naval vessels in the region using drones, cruise missiles, and anti-ship ballistic missiles. On March 6, CENTCOM reported that three sailors on a merchant vessel died in a Houthi missile strike in the Gulf of Aden.

Other Iran-backed militia groups launched more than 150 attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, from October through January, culminating in the deaths of three U.S. soldiers and injuries to more than 40 other service members in a drone attack near the Syrian border on Jan. 28, marking the first time American troops were killed by enemy fire since the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began in October.

The $531 million for CENTCOM “is for counter-unmanned aerial system defense, the various systems that are shooting down a lot of these systems, it’s for our command and control systems,” Kurilla said. “It’s for a lot of the modernization efforts that we need.”

Kurilla also said an integrated air and missile defense system to counter the increased attacks on U.S. service members is “one of the top things” the CENTCOM is working on.

“Through our regional partners, one of the first things that we’re trying to do is come up with a common air picture,” Kurilla said. “You have to be able to see the threat before you can defeat it, where there’s many elements that we are doing in terms of radar sharing agreements with a lot of our regional partners.”

Troops in CENTCOM are also experimenting with affordable new technology to improve operational security, Kurilla said.

“There is the technology, there are things out there, we have to continue to experiment,” Kurilla said. “We’re experimenting right now with a system that actually can go after both UAVs and land attack cruise missiles because it can go 300 knots, but if you go out there and you decide not to engage, you can bring it back and have it land. What we have to get better at, is the cost curve on that, to get those systems to be less expensive, less expensive.”

The CENTCOM boss cautioned against the proliferation of small, nimble, and inexpensive Iranian drones.

“That is one of the top threats because it is it is inexpensive, it’s a precision-guided weapon,” Kurilla noted. “Iran produces some that can go over 2,000 kilometers with those weapon systems. The bigger concern is if you start talking about swarm. So we need to continue to invest in things like high-powered microwave to be able to counter a drone swarm that is coming at you.”

Kurilla acknowledged the effectiveness of systems like the Coyote air defense weapon, but stressed that “nothing is 100 percent” and argued the need for a layered defense strategy.

The ongoing attacks by the Houthi group on shipping routes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait demonstrate the difficulty in effectively countering them. Despite strikes and counterstrikes from the U.S. military, the Iranian-backed group has shot down two USAF MQ-9 Reapers, each costing $30 million, within three months since November.

CENTCOM needs broader government support in denying Tehran the ability to resupply the Houthis, Kurilla said.

“Anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, and the myriad of other systems that they are using all provided by Iran, but to degrade that capability means nothing if Iran is able to resupply them,” Kurilla said. “So we have an effort to deny Iran the ability to resupply them, and that’s where we need more of an international, and a whole-of-government approach to be able to stop Iran from resupplying the Houthis.”

Allvin: CCA Will Redefine How USAF Counts Its Fighters

Allvin: CCA Will Redefine How USAF Counts Its Fighters

March 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s ambitious plans to start producing and fielding autonomous, unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft are prompting big picture questions about the fighter fleet, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said March 7.  

The number of each aircraft type is less important than how effective CCA prove to be as force multipliers, Allvin told defense leaders at the McAleese Defense Conference in Washington. 

“In general, I would say if we do not embrace that a key part of future warfighting is going to be mastering human-machine teaming, human-machine integration—if we don’t get that right—I think we have an uphill fight,” Allvin said. “So what that means for the fighter force structure—it starts to blur the lines. What’s a fighter?”

The Air Force will have to ” … We have to “rethink our definition” of what a fighter is and does, he explained, and instead focus on “how we’re able to bring effects to bear against the adversary.” 

Indeed, this evolution is similar to what has happened with long-range strike and tactical and strategic airpower, Allvin said, building on other recent remarks about drones and manned-unmanned teaming as driving a “reinvention” of airpower. 

Gen. David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, sees the future of air power evolving, and increasingly leveraging unmanned systems. Photo by Jud McCrehin/Staff

What Allvin outlined marks a fundamental shift in how Air Force leaders see their future fighter force. At the McAleese conference in 2021, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. laid out his vision for a “4+1” fighter mix of F-35s, F-16, F-15E/F-15EX, with the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter replacing the F-22, and the A-10 remaining as a plus-one until it no longer proved relevant. Two years later, after Congress had finally relented on allowing USAF to divest A-10s, Brown said the plan had shifted to just “4.”  

How the Air Force counts fighters is important because Congress made it law that the Air Force maintains at least 1,800 fighters in its inventory, with at least 1,145 combat ready. For now, there is a temporary exception allowing that number to fall to 1,112. Exactly how CCA will fit into that equation is still an open question.

“I think the floor and the terms that we’ve become comfortable with … keeps a strong stakeholder class really attached to the numbers of aircraft, and sometimes they’re associated with the numbers of crews, the numbers of maintenance, the numbers of jobs,” Allvin said. “But we really need to look at the future and think more about what it takes to mass the right effects at the right time.” 

“Once we embrace that, I think that question [of fighter force mix] becomes less relevant,” Allvin added. “There will be harder questions to ask, but that particular question of a fighter floor will be less relevant.” 

As the Air Force builds combat capacity with CCA, it must ponder tough questions about CCA including: 

  • Whether they are organized in distinct units or integrated into manned aircraft squadrons 
  • Whether they will be co-located with manned aircraft or rendezvous with them only after they’re airborne  
  • Whether they can operate with existing aerial refueling  
  • Whether fighter pilots will learn to trust their autonomous robotic teammates 
  • How manned-unmanned teaming will actual work in practice 

Congress is eager for answers. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act passed late last year requires the service to deliver a 12-year fighter force structure plan to Congress by April 1.

One big question on those numbers are the 32 older-model F-22 fighters. Allvin suggested that the Air Force has not yet given up on its push to retire the Block 20 Raptors, even after Congress forbade any reductions in the fleet. 

Allvin said not all F-22s are equal. “There’s a block of F-22s which really lags the rest of the F-22 force, that we would not put up in a fight with the adversary necessarily, because it doesn’t have all the capabilities we need,” he said. “But the F-22 plays a pivotal role, so we’re looking to be able to take those that are most combat capable, keep them in the fight, and then leverage some of the resources for those [lesser models] that are going to be cost-prohibitive and time-prohibitive to upgrade” and use those resources elsewhere.

Maryland Guard to Trade A-10s for Cyber, and Hope for Future Flying Mission

Maryland Guard to Trade A-10s for Cyber, and Hope for Future Flying Mission

March 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Warfield Air National Guard Base in Maryland will transition from A-10s to a cyber mission, the Air Force announced March 7, leaving Maryland as the only state “that doesn’t fly,” officials said.  

The 175th Wing of the Maryland Air National Guard will become a cyberspace wing, pending an environmental impact analysis expected to be completed by the fall of 2025, following in the footsteps of the Ohio Air National Guard’s 179th Airlift Wing, which was redubbed the 179th Cyberspace Wing last September.  

The 175th has had a Cyberspace Operations Group at Warfield since 2016, but giving up its jets is a major change: The 175th has flown A-10 “Warthogs” since 1979. The Air Force is gradually divesting its entire A-10 fleet, and the Maryland A-10s will start their phase out later this year.  

Warfield will not be “precluded from being considered for other potential missions in the future,” the Air Force said. The number of personnel assigned to the 175th is not expected to change.  

Maryland National Guard officials first shared plans with local media in January. “The Air Force, in 2025, will divest the aircraft, take them away from us and turn [the 175th] into a cyber wing,” Brig. Gen. Drew Dougherty, assistant adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard, told WBAL at the time. “We would be the only state in the nation that doesn’t fly.” 

“We are not trying to fight the fact that the A-10 is an aging piece of equipment and there may be other options out there. We want to look at options to keep a fighter or flying mission in Maryland,” Maj. Gen. Janeen Birckhead, adjutant general of Maryland, added.

In a statement after the Air Force’s announcement, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) praised the expansion of the Maryland ANG’s cyber mission but bemoaned the loss of a flying mission. 

“In partnership with our congressional delegation, we are advocating vigorously to maintain Maryland’s flying mission, both in the interest of national security and the hundreds of jobs and families that will be affected by this transition,” Moore said. “We are disappointed to learn of the Air Force’s decision to hurriedly retire the A-10 mission across the nation, including the mission at [Warfield], without a plan to retain experienced pilots and maintainers or to replace older systems with advanced aircraft. We are committed to working with our federal partners at the White House and the Pentagon to acquire another flying mission in Maryland this year.” 

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Congress in May 2023 that his approach in retiring the A-10 is to try and replace it with a flying mission when possible.

“If we can’t do that, there are a number of other missions that are very important to the Department,” he said. “We talked about electronic warfare here; cyber is another one; ISR; intelligence; all of those things matter. So, in every case where we’re taking aircraft out, we’re trying to make sure that a viable long-term mission replaces that mission.” 

In its release, the department noted that the new cyber wing “will create a natural synergy” with Fort Meade, Md., which is located around 35 miles away and hosts the headquarters for U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, and the Air Force’s 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing. 

Acquisition Boss: Spending Caps Forced USAF to Trim 2025 Budget Request

Acquisition Boss: Spending Caps Forced USAF to Trim 2025 Budget Request

March 7, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Spending caps set under the Fiscal Responsibility Act shaved around two percent from the topline of the Air Force’s planned fiscal 2025 budget, and that reduction will have an outsized impact given constraints on what accounts can bear the cuts, Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter said March 7.

Speaking to reporters at the annual McAleese defense conference in Washington, D.C., Hunter said the Air Force’s budget will take a cut “on the order of a couple of percent” from its previously anticipated topline due to the FRA. The law, passed last summer, came into force when the services had already largely figured out their budget submissions for fiscal 2025, he noted.

Although two percent “sounds small … there’s only a handful of places” from which the funding can be reduced, Hunter said. Personnel accounts are largely protected, so “your readiness accounts and modernization accounts” were hit disproportionately. Those accounts were the “easiest to get to” given the short time available to adapt to the FRA, he said.

Hunter was unable to offer more details, because the budget will not be unveiled until March 11. He did, however, offer a rundown on some of the Air Force’s highest-profile programs and discussed the issue of lowball bids from industry and fixed-price contracts.

Collaborative Combat Aircraft

The Air Force recently selected five companies to complete on the first increment of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which will produce autonomous drones to team with manned platforms. Those companies, Hunter said, all had to do substantive work on autonomous vehicles to be picked. He noted that General Atomics had done work on the OBSS (Off-Board Sensing Station) platform which brought “maturity” to its CCA efforts, and Anduril acquired Blue Force Technologies, which had the pre-existing Fury program.

The others—Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman—“had things they developed under IRAD,” or independent research and development, he added. “Quite honestly, if they didn’t have that … they weren’t really in a position to compete for Increment 1,” Hunter said.

Aerial Tankers

The Air Force wants to get the Next-Generation Air-Refueling System (NGAS) “in the quickest, most reasonable timeframe,” Hunter said, because in a Pacific campaign, tankers deployed near and inside contested areas will be crucial. That’s “not something we typically do today.”

In the meantime, the service is working on a KC-135 Re-Capitalization program, previously called the “bridge tanker.” Boeing and Airbus have both responded to requests for information for the program, which will keep tankers in production while the NGAS is in development, Hunter said.

That program will begin production “in five-ish years” and USAF is starting now because it needs a “pretty mature” solution at that point to avoid a break in manufacturing, he said. “And we have been talking to industry about how do we cut down on that period.”

Both companies provided responses, and now the Air Force is working with them to “clarify what those offerings look like and to evaluate them against our need dates and our requirements,” Hunter said.

The scope of requirements for the KC-135 Re-Capitalization program has been reduced, Hunter said, and a milestone is coming soon.

“We’re looking this summer to make a final decision, based on the information we received from industry, on our acquisition strategy,” he said.

E-7A Wedgetail

After Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall revealed last month that the service and Boeing are having a “hard time” reaching a price agreement on the first two rapid prototype/demonstration examples of the E-7 Wedgetail, Hunter offered more details.

Boeing’s proposal for the E-7, which will succeed the E-3 Sentry as the service’s airborne battle management platform, was “well in excess of what we budgeted and unaffordable.”

Negotiations thus far have “significantly narrowed the gap. We’re not there yet, but we’ve made a lot of progress,” Hunter said. He added that he sees the E-7 as “a capability that makes sense and that we need to field in the near term. So we are working very, very hard with Boeing to get to get to an affordable price” and move on into production.

Lowball Bids

The Air Force wants a healthy industrial base, Hunter said, and it is discouraging companies from offering lowball bids on programs, which have gotten some—notably Boeing, which is more than $7 billion in the red on the KC-46—in serious financial trouble.

“We sometimes say, ‘Hey, you’re not in the competitive range, right? Your price is amazing, but we don’t believe it,’” Hunter said. “So you can exclude people from the competitive range because … they just can’t actually do what they say they’re going to do.”

But sometimes the Air Force’s hands are tied when the service knows a company “can probably do it, but you’re going to lose a ton of money at the price you bid,” Hunter said.

Such concerns aren’t part of the evaluation process, Hunter said. Instead, the Air Force has addressed by the problem by becoming “very cautious about when we make cost the primary criteria,” he said. “I would say [in] most of our big competitions these days, price is not the preeminent factor in our evaluation.”

Divestiture of Older Aircraft

Hunter said there will have to be significant adjustment of the fiscal 2025 budget if Congress doesn’t approve the fiscal 2024 budget as it stands, particularly as it affects the divestiture of older aircraft. The Air Force needs the personnel associated with those aircraft for new programs, particularly the F-35, he said. Retaining older aircraft requires operation and maintenance funds, personnel, and “safety of flight” modifications the Air Force hadn’t planned for, he said, and it disrupts and delays introducing new systems.

Acquisition Reformers: Pentagon Can Achieve ‘Quick Wins’ in Multiyear Overhaul

Acquisition Reformers: Pentagon Can Achieve ‘Quick Wins’ in Multiyear Overhaul

March 6, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon’s system for planning and executing budgets needs a “fundamental” restructure if it is to keep up with the accelerating change in technology and threats, co-chairs of a congressionally-mandated, bipartisan commission said March 6 in rolling out their final report.

Two years in the making, the massive 394-page report from the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Reform outlines 28 recommendations, half of which panelists highlighted in bold-face as “critical.”  And while some will take the approval of Congress, many are immediately “actionable” by the Defense Department, said Robert Hale, co-chair of the panel and former Pentagon comptroller. Still, he said during a Defense Writers Group session in Washington, D.C., it could take up to five years to fully implement the shifts called for.

Co-chair Ellen Lord, former defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said she’s hoping the Pentagon will move fast to implement some of the proposed changes and “take some ‘quick wins.’” She said that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks has demonstrated a keen interest in the report and has already set up a task force to implement many of its findings. Lord agreed that full implementation will take some years, given the need to obtain the buy-in.

After the commission published an interim report in August 2023, Hicks said the Pentagon would put in force “all actions that can be implemented now.”

Hale acknowledged that it might be challenging to get Congress to agree with giving up some process control, but that the overall package of recommendations balances oversight against badly-needed flexibility.

Without focused internal Pentagon action to implement the changes—and matching congressional support—Lord said the massive effort, which included over 400 interviews with subject matter experts,  will be “all for naught.”

The two said they are hopeful that these recommendations will come into force, saying defense stakeholders appreciate the many pressing dangers in the world and the need for urgent reform.  

“The Department of Defense needs a new process, one that enables strategy to drive resource allocation in a more rigorous, joint, and analytically informed way,” commissioners said in the report.

The changes align with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s recently-unveiled plan to “re-optimize” the department with new requirements-creating organizations, the co-chairs said.

“Nothing would really interfere, I think, with what we’re proposing and what he is proposing,” Hale said. “His are more organizational realignments and not related specifically to PPBE. We pre-briefed him and he certainly didn’t raise any concerns about our recommendations compared to his.”

“There’s no conflict,” Lord added. “We all have the same end goal in mind.”

She pointed out that organizations like the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, and Defense Innovation Unit—which she called “silos of excellence, in terms of speed of execution”—do not have unique authorities. Rather, what they have in common is “access to senior leadership and the ability to get decisions made quickly,” she said.

“What we’re trying to do with this system is have much more delegation of authority … relative to reprogramming and other things,” Lord said. “So we want to scale what’s been done and make it more accessible to more of the workforce and impact more of the budget, and have different outcomes.”

Many of the reforms deal with chronic problems associated with continuing resolutions, such as allowing new starts under a CR or allowing the Pentagon more flexibility to move money around within portfolios. But others focus on delegating more power to program managers and program executive officers (PEOs) to make needed changes on the fly. Current authorities limit their ability to make changes, and it can take years to refocus a program to new technology or threats within congressional oversight procedures.

Lord also called for taking on the “un-sexy” task of digitizing the Pentagon’s business practices, which in turn would make accurate, up-to-date data available to Pentagon planners and overseers as well as congressional staffers. That in turn would add speed to programs by helping the Pentagon answer congressional questions faster, she said.

Another area the reforms address is “color of money” problems—whether funding is related to research and development, or operations, or procurement, for example—that can cause issues with software contracts or buying commercial products to replace a military system.

Hale said one recommendation—that programs be allowed to carry over five percent of their funds into the next fiscal year to cover operations and maintenance or personnel, and maintain a level of effort—was not derived from an algorithm, but from the advice of experts. This would also ward off a tendency to make a mad dash to expend funds that will expire by the end of the fiscal year.

Overall, the commission said the new and improved PPBE system should be re-cast as the Defense Resourcing System, which would tie defense spending more tightly to the National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy.

“We spent about two years on this. And we had a lot of dynamic debate,” Hale said. “But we do have a consensus report, which is great. And we think that if the department adopts what we’ve recommended here—we’d love to see all 28 recommendations adopted—but any of them are a step in the right direction,” he said.

Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) issued a joint statement offering their appreciation for the commission’s bipartisan efforts, saying the report should help the Defense Department “develop new technologies in a streamlined, agile manner.”

“For too long, the Department’s cumbersome and outdated financial and resource management practices have acted as a drag on America’s defense acquisition system,” they added

The PPBE commission organized their recommendations into five general categories, and highlighted those it thought were the most critical (in bold).

Improve the Alignment of Budgets to Strategy

  • Replace the PPBE process with a new Defense Resourcing System
  • Strengthen the Defense Resourcing Guidance
  • Establish continuous planning and analysis
  • Transform the budget structure
  • Consolidate RDT&E budget activities

Foster Innovation and Adaptability

  • Increase the availability of operating funds
  • Modify internal DOD reprogramming requirements
  • Update values for below-threshhold reprogrammings
  • Mitigate problems caused by continuing resolutions
  • Review and consolidate budget line items
  • Address challenges with the color of money
  • Review and update PPBE-related guidance documents
  • Improve awareness of technology resourcing authorities
  • Establish special transfer authority around milestone decisions
  • Rebaseline OSD obligation and expenditure benchmarks
  • Encourage use of the Defense Modernization Account  

Strengthen Relationships between DOD and Congress

  • Encourage Improved in-person communications
  • Restructure the Justification Books (J-Books)
  • Establish classified and unclassified communication enclaves

Modernize Business Systems and Data Analytics

  • Create a common analytics platform
  • Strengthen governance for DOD business systems
  • Accelerate progress toward auditable financial statements
  • Continue rationalization of the OSD resourcing systems
  • Modernize the tracking of congressionally-directed actions

Strengthen the Capability of the Resourcing Workforce

  • Continue the focus on recruiting and retention
  • Streamline processes and improve analytic capabilities
  • Improve training for personnel involved in defense resourcing
  • Establish an implementation team for commission recommendations
Air Force Looking Outside the Box to Keep Its Bases Powered Up

Air Force Looking Outside the Box to Keep Its Bases Powered Up

March 6, 2024 | By David Roza

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to clarify Dr. Chaudhary’s comments that a microgrid kept the lights on at Kadena Air Base during a recent typhoon, not a microreactor. The article has also been updated to clarify that mobile microreactors are a separate effort from the microreactor being pursued at Eielson Air Force Base.

The Air Force is looking into a range of technologies, community partnerships, and third-party financing techniques to keep bases at home and downrange powered up in the event of bad weather or an attack by an adversary, the department’s installations czar said March 6. Geothermal energy, solar panels, miniature nuclear reactors, and more are all on the table as the service works to avoid losing power due to grid failures or fuel shortages.

“How much we can sustain the fight, fuel the fight, is going to drive our ability to sustain a great power competition,” Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations, and environment, said at an AFA Air & Space Warfighters in Action discussion. 

“The cost of energy is not getting cheaper, nor is our ability to maintain reliability on our installations,” he added. “Working with industry, working with local power companies, working with local communities to establish third party methodologies, new ways of acquiring energy … is going to be critical.”

Many military installations overseas and at home rely on the electrical grids of their nearby communities, which are vulnerable to weather or enemy cyber attack.

“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in January to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Hardening installations against that threat is one of Chaudhary’s top priorities, he said. One avenue could be to build microgrids that a base would power with solar panels, wind turbines, biomass, nuclear microreactors, and/or fossil fuel-powered generators. The idea is that if one source fails, the system overall can keep chugging. The Air Force is exploring geothermal plants at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, and at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.

Historically, solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy have been viewed “as somewhat more frail,” Chaudhary said. “It’s exactly the opposite. By building redundancy into your installation in terms of power and energy … it’s like putting a power bar into your room because now you can plug in power sources that you want.”

A microgrid kept the lights on at Kadena Air Base, Japan, after a typhoon hit last year.

“That’s resiliency,” Chaudhary said. “That’s a ready base that, under any condition, can get the jets out of town and sustain the fight. That’s what we’re going to do more and more of.”

One promising source of power could be nuclear microreactors. The Pentagon is pursuing an effort called Project Pele, where microreactors small enough to fly aboard a C-17 could power forward bases. Separately, the Air Force plans to install a larger 5-megawatt microreactor at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, that will augment a 15-megawatt coal plant on base and shore up the installation’s independence from the local grid. The project has been slowed by contract issues, but Chaudhary expects it up and running in 2027.

The Air Force is going to “wait and see” how it goes at Eielson before trying the technology at other bases, the assistant secretary said. Meanwhile, other service branches and civilian stakeholders are looking to benefit from microreactors, which could present an opportunity for scientific and financial collaboration. For example, Kadena took advantage of an energy performance contract with the local community where the base used the energy savings from its LED lights to buy its microgrid.

“The best thing about this is that you can pursue a commercial license in parallel with the development and installation of the technology,” Chaudhary said. Usually the Air Force buys equipment, tests it, and then decides whether to license it to the wider market. “The business model to this is different: we’re going to pursue licensing from the get-go so that the entire state, the entire nation gets the benefit of this technology.”

A stronger microgrid could also allow a base to share energy with the local community, added Chaudhary. Later this spring, his office will release an Installation Infrastructure Action Plan that will have more details on making bases more resilient for fighting in a near-peer conflict.

While microgrids are a promising development for fixed installations, the Air Force wants mobility under a strategy called Agile Combat Employment, where small teams launch and recover aircraft from remote or austere locations and can move quickly to new airfields. Powering those locations could require a “hybrid” of energy sources, Chaudhary said. 

Developing new solutions will take buy-in from industry, academia, and local communities, the assistant secretary said, and it has to happen fast.

“We can ill-afford to move at the speed of government when technology is moving at the speed of the threat,” he said.

Link 16, Laser Comms, ‘At Least One’ More Launch: 2024 Heats Up for SDA

Link 16, Laser Comms, ‘At Least One’ More Launch: 2024 Heats Up for SDA

March 6, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Development Agency plans to finish two major demonstrations of its low-Earth orbit satellites before the end of 2024—and also get started on a rapid series of launches, its director said March 6.  

SDA boss Derek M. Tournear outlined the beginning stages of a quickening pace for the agency as it starts to operationalize its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. Tournear made his comments during a SpaceNews webinar.

First up for SDA is establishing a “mesh network” of laser communication crosslinks connecting satellites almost like a home mesh Wi-Fi network. To more rapidly move data around the globe, the satellites were built to communicate with each other, as well as to ground stations, using laser communications. Lasers enable higher data rates and are harder to intercept.

Two missile tracking satellites built by SpaceX and launched last April have demonstrated those laser crosslinks work, Tournear said. SDA is working now with York Space Systems to demonstrate it can use the Link 16 waveform to transmit data directly from space. And in “the May timeframe, we’ll be able to have the mesh network [moving data] between the York satellites,” Tournear said. “And then we’ll work the crosslinks between York and SpaceX.” 

After that come the second batch of data transport satellites—built by Lockheed Martin and launched in September 2023. They are “just completing some of their initial tests and checkout and we expect them to start their Link 16 and their optical tests probably shortly after that May timeframe,” Tournear added. 

The York satellites first sent data using the Link 16 system in November, exceeding Tournear’s expectations, he said. But because of a ongoing dispute between the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration, Link 16 broadcasts are restricted in U.S. airspace, which meant SDA had to get a waiver from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to allow it to transmit a Link 16 message to a Five Eyes partner nation and over international waters. 

Tournear said he hoped to see the issue resolved soon. 

“Primarily the FAA wants to make sure that we have compatibility features that are tested on our satellites so that we can’t interfere with any radio navigation aids,” he said. “That makes sense and we’re working with the FAA to get a plan in place to do that.”

He said he expects to be cleared to conduct “national airspace testing with our Tranche Zero satellites by the end of this calendar year.” 

Proving the ability to use Link 16 is crucial because that system is so widely used and is expected to be fundamental to enabling Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, which will leverage SDA’s transport satellites to link sensors to shooters around the world. 

Meanwhile, SDA is also pushing forward on its next batch of satellites; “Tranche 1” aims to operationalize capabilities proven in Tranche 0. 

Awarded in February 2022, contracts for Tranche 1 call for satellites ready to launch by September 2024, and Tournear said he intends to stick to that schedule.

“We don’t expect to—we will launch Tranche 1 satellites in 2024,” he promised. 

It will take 11 launches to complete Tranche 1—six to deploy 128 data transport satellites, four to send up 35 missile warning/tracking satellites, and one more to put a dozen demonstration and experimentation satellites into orbit. 

“At least” one of those launches will come this calendar year, Tournear said, with the remainder going up at a rate of about one launch every two months. By summer 2025, there should be enough of the satellites in orbit to declare initial operational capability for the PWSA. 

“I check in with my program directors daily and they check in with the vendors probably hourly,” Tournear said, explaining why he feels so confident in sharing his plans and expectations. “They have constant communications,” he said. “And every day there’s a new item that’s on the critical path and that’s the only way that we can maintain this speed of delivery, is to make sure that we stay on top of that and push forward.” 

Tournear also expressed confidence he can continue to hold his cost per satellite down—just $15 million per data transport satellite, for example. Despite inflation and supply chain challenges, prices are holding steady or declining as technology gets cheaper, he said.  

“As the market grows, there’ll be more volume … to be able to continue to drive those prices down,” Tournear said. “And only when we start to add new capabilities will” prices start to move in the other direction. “we essentially lose some of that price downward trend and then bring that back up by adding capabilities, he added: “That’s why we think the price should be relatively flat.” 

LOOK: B-52 and B-1 Bombers Fly with Gripens over Stockholm

LOOK: B-52 and B-1 Bombers Fly with Gripens over Stockholm

March 6, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

With Sweden poised to officially join NATO in the next few days, the U.S. Air Force celebrated March 6 with a rare double bomber flyover of a B-52 Stratofortress and a B-1 Lancer over Stockholm, accompanied by Swedish Air Force Gripens. 

U.S. Air Forces in Europe noted in a release that the bombers flew over Avicii Arena, Sweden’s Parliament House, the Stockholm Arlanda Airport, and more during their flyover. 

A spokesperson for Air Force Global Strike Command told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the B-52 came from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., while the B-1 came from the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. 

Both bombers planned CONUS-to-CONUS mission, meaning they took off from the U.S. and intended to return without landing. The B-1 diverted, however, to RAF Fairford, U.K., the spokesman said, confirming social media sightings and reports. 

“The training was a great success and builds upon our already great relationship,” the spokesman added. 

“The strong and enduring bond between the United States and Sweden, rooted in mutual interests and shared values, is poised to reach new heights,” said USAFE commander Gen. James Hecker in a statement. “As Sweden prepares to join the NATO Alliance as its 32nd member, we eagerly anticipate deepening our collaboration with our Swedish Allies. Initiatives like this joint flyover are just the beginning, as we work together to advance international stability and security.”  

Such missions are signs of support, as when B-52s flew over North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia, in August 2022. A USAFE release at the time said the mission demonstrated “U.S. commitment and assurance to NATO Allies and partners located in Southeastern Europe.” Similarly, F-16s flew over Bosnia and Herzegovina in January in a show of force aimed at deterring “secessionist activity” by Bosnian Serbs. In May 2021, B-52s flew over every NATO nation in one flight.

Pairing the B-52 and B-1, however, is unusual. The Stockholm flyover marked a quick turnaround after two B-1s returned to Ellsworth March 1, concluding a Bomber Task Force deployment to Luleå-Kallax Air Base, Sweden. The jets arrived Feb. 24 and flew surface attack, air interdiction, and close air support training missions with the Swedish Air Force. On their return, several NATO allies took turns practicing intercepts with the B-1. 

Air Force About to Test ARRW Hypersonic Missile in the Central Pacific

Air Force About to Test ARRW Hypersonic Missile in the Central Pacific

March 5, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Just a few days after the Air Force published imagery of a live hypersonic AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) mounted on a B-52H in Guam, a test of that missile is all but certainly imminent—warning bulletins about a weapons test in the central Pacific have been issued in a window running now through March 10.

The test may have already taken place, but the Air Force was not immediately able to comment on this.

The Navigation Warning, issued to apprise aircraft and vessels transiting the region of the imminent test, gives coordinates of the danger zone, culminating in a target area north and east of the Kwajalein Atoll test area. The distance of flight is stated as just over 2,100 miles, off a B-52 flying from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to a launch point about  2,500 miles away; approximately the profile of an operational ARRW mission.

Monitoring and tracking vessels and aircraft are also either in the test area or en route, suggesting the Pentagon plans to use the event not only to validate the performance of the ARRW, but to characterize the behavior of an incoming, maneuvering hypersonic missile and collect data useful for developing hypersonic missile defenses.

Missile Defense Agency specially-modified Gulfstream aircraft performing High Altitude Observatory (HALO) missions have been operating from Guam and Hawaii in recent days, according to flight tracker data.

A Pentagon official said this first flight of the ARRW outside of the usual test area off the California coast is taking advantage of missile surveillance equipment that would also be used to detect and track missiles launched from China or possibly North Korea.

Asked whether the test was being conducted in this region as a message to China that the U.S. has an operational hypersonic capability, the official said, “they can interpret this any way they want … but you would expect us to derive as much value from one of these [events] as we possibly can.”

Programmatically, the Air Force has indicated that there is just one more ARRW test planned to complete the program, which service acquisition executive Andrew Hunter said last year would end in 2024. In written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee last March, Hunter said that although the Air Force didn’t plan to put ARRW into production, there is “inherent benefit to completing All-Up Round test flights,” in order to capture “the learning and test data that will help inform future hypersonic programs and potential leave-behind capability.”

Under the ARRW contract with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, the ARRW development effort calls for designing the boost-glide type hypersonic missile, testing it, demonstrating a production capability “at scale,” and having some additional all-up rounds that could be used operationally. How many leftovers the program is to generate has never been disclosed, but the missile shown at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam was labeled as “All-Up Round No. 5.”

Along with releasing imagery of the missile, the Air Force said it was conducting “familiarization” training with air and ground crews on hypersonic systems, which included an “academics” element.

A similar familiarization program was held before an ARRW test last year, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The ARRW is a boost-glide weapon, meaning that it is accelerated to hypersonic speed by a booster and then glides at hypersonic speed to the target, making unpredictable turns along the way to avoid defenses. The booster is the same as used in the Army Tactical Missile System rocket. After reaching hypersonic speed, a clamshell shroud opens, allowing the much smaller hypersonic glide vehicle to emerge and complete its mission.   

If the test succeeds, it will demonstrate that the Air Force can generate a B-52 with ARRW from a forward location, fly a multihour mission to a launch point, launch an ARRW, and have it hit a target area after achieving hypersonic speed, with high probability of destroying the target.