Lawmakers Want Briefing on Fund That Could Take Sentinel Off the Air Force Books

Lawmakers Want Briefing on Fund That Could Take Sentinel Off the Air Force Books

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee are eyeing major changes to the U.S. nuclear deterrence enterprise in their version of the 2025 defense policy bill, calling for exploration of a special fund—potentially separate from the Air Force’s budget—to pay for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.

Lawmakers also want to establish a new Pentagon overseer for all deterrence matters and information on increasing the size of the deployed Sentinel inventory.  

The committee completed its markup of the 2025 National Defense Authorization bill with more than a dozen significant and specific steps to bolster the strategic deterrent, affecting all aspects of the nuclear triad. The bill’s text has yet to be released, but a summary was made available.

One provision would require a briefing on “the establishment of a National Land-Based Deterrence Fund, including the cost elements of the Sentinel ICBM weapon system.” The Navy already has a National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund separate from its other shipbuilding accounts, meant to finance nuclear modernization from “across DOD’s budget rather than solely from the Navy’s budget,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Such a fund might move some of the Sentinel program outside the Air Force budget. Taking even some of that burden off the Air Force’s plate could help the service significantly, as it struggles to recapitalize its aging and shrinking aircraft fleet. Cost overruns alone on the Sentinel—mainly due to the massive scope of the civil engineering required to rehabilitate the nation’s ICBM silos—are expected to add up to nearly $50 billion; the equivalent of more than 600 F-35s.

Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said last week that the fiscal 2026 budget crunch—driven by Sentinel, budget caps, inflation, and more–is compelling the Air Force to rethink its Next-Generation Air Dominance program, the foundation of its future air superiority capability.

It remains to be seen whether any briefing on a Sentinel-focused fund will take place. The bill must make it through the Senate, then be reconciled with the House version and signed into law by the president.

Possibly connected with the discussion on funding Sentinel, Senate lawmakers also want to mandate a report on how the Air Force and the Army Corps of Engineers will cooperate to “recapitalize the existing Minuteman II ICBM infrastructure.”

The committee also seem interested in increasing the size of the Sentinel fleet. It mandates “no fewer” than 400 “responsive, on-alert, U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles to be deployed, except for activities related to maintenance, sustainment, and replacement, or activities to ensure safety, security, or reliability.” A deployed force of 400 ICBMs is the Sentinel plan, but the proposed bill would also require “a plan for acquiring and deploying up to 450 Sentinel ICBMs,” an increase of 50 missiles standing alert.

The Sentinel program calls for 400 of the missiles to be based in silos, but production of 659 is planned, to accommodate thrice-annual surety/demonstration tests through 2075.   

Boeing did not ultimately bid on the Sentinel program because it claimed Northrop Grumman—which got the award as sole bidder—had an unfair advantage as the only maker of large solid rocket motors. A provision in the bill would authorize increased funding “to support design and manufacturing of an advanced modular solid rocket motor.”  

Beyond Sentinel, Senators indicated concern for the Defense Department’s entire nuclear enterprise. They want to create a “new senior Pentagon position” that would coordinate and oversee all nuclear deterrence policies and programs, a role now consolidated under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense programs, who also serves as executive secretary of the Nuclear Weapons Council. Brandi C. Vann is the acting incumbent in the role. Presumably, the SASC sees a higher-level position to perform this function, potentially at the undersecretary level.

The committee also wants a firm plan from the Pentagon on how it plans to deter two peer nuclear powers. Nuclear deterrence has always been calculated against a single opponent—Russia—but the accelerating deployment of nuclear weapons in China’s military requires a new calculus. Lawmakers want “a DOD plan for deterring and defeating simultaneous aggression by two near-peer nuclear competitors, including requirements for nuclear force sizing.”

The panel also directed the Pentagon and Department of Energy (DOE) to provide an assessment “of  the recommendations on the final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.” No further detail was provided, but last November the commission urged the national nuclear enterprise to update its processes, increase its output of nuclear materials, and broadly recognize and prepare for a world with three major nuclear powers.

Lawmakers also want the Pentagon to review “implementation of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, including overall risk management, and progress on meeting requirements to address long-term threats.”

The U.S. has sized its nuclear forces based on the START treaty. But Russia’s exit from nearly all arms control treaties, coupled with China’s increasing nuclear arsenal, throws open the question about how many nuclear weapons are needed to deter both countries and lesser-armed members of the nuclear “club.”

In a move to end debate on whether to pursue a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, Senators also would move to establish a program office for the weapon. The Navy has said a SLCM would not be provocative and would enhance deterrence by introducing a low-yield nuclear deterrent in the Indo-Pacific. The committee also wants to authorize “modification or development of the B61-13 gravity bomb and a variation of the W80 weapon for the nuclear-armed” SLCM.

Without explanation, the SASC also voted to direct “the restoration of nuclear capabilities across the entire B-52 strategic bomber fleet.” The B-52 fleet is getting a massive upgrade to extend its service into the 2050s. The 76 aircraft are getting new engines, radars, navigation aids and weapons, including the new nuclear-armed Long Range Stand-Off missile. Collectively, the upgrades warrant the redesignation of the bomber from B-52H to B-52J.

Lawmakers proposed an annual review of the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) program—which replaces the E-4 National Airborne Operations Center. The committee wants the report to update its “cost, schedule, and technical readiness levels for on-board mission systems.”

CMSAF Flosi: What ‘Mission-Ready Airmen’ Means for You

CMSAF Flosi: What ‘Mission-Ready Airmen’ Means for You

It’s been a busy first 100 days for Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David A. Flosi, who earlier this year visited bases around the world with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin and Secretary Frank Kendall heralding a massive reorganization of the service in preparation for potential conflict with China or Russia.

Among other things, the reorg involves shifting to deployable combat wings, reorienting major commands, and replacing the ‘multi-capable Airmen’ concept with ‘mission-ready Airmen,’ a move meant to push Airmen to help accomplish a unit’s mission, rather than just pick up an unrelated series of tasks.

“I assess that all of our Airmen are multi-capable: in fact, I’ve yet to meet somebody that’s singularly capable,” Flosi told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Mission-ready is very specific: it means you are assigned to a specific organization that is going to employ a certain airpower methodology in a contested environment and we need you to be ready to execute that mission.”

For example, if the mission is to deliver a certain weapon at a place and time using a certain platform such as a B-52, Airmen can work backwards to figure out what is needed to generate that mission.

“I can drill into that enough to tell you ‘here’s what I need to be ready to execute that mission,’ as opposed to ‘here’s the functions that must exist,’” Flosi explained.

Of course, B-52s have delivered weapons on targets for decades, so what makes the day-to-day work of a mission-ready Airman any different from that of earlier generations?

The exact answer varies based on the unit and mission, but Flosi pointed to the example of the past 20 years of the Global War on Terror, where individuals or small groups of Airmen from as many as 93 different bases filled up a deployment to the Middle East, where they usually enjoyed uncontested communications, logistics, and air defense. With such protection and efficiencies in place, Airmen could afford to stay in their “functional stovepipes,” Flosi said.

For example, a B-52 maintainer deployed to Qatar could wake up, brief, receive a work order, grab breakfast, wait until his part of turning the jet came up, complete his or her task, then step back off as the other specialists in electrical, avionics, hydraulics, or other systems completed their tasks on the jet.

That arrangement may not be possible in a conflict with China or Russia, where enemy disruptions could leave small groups of Airmen to accomplish missions on their own. That means tomorrow’s B-52 maintainer might have to guide a jet down the taxiway, make food, purify water, fix a light cart, defend the airfield, or a wide range of other tasks needed to get the mission done.

“We cannot put any more Airmen at risk than we absolutely must,” Flosi said, “which means we must pull all the capability out of every single Airmen that we put into harm’s way, and we have to un-constrain them from the functional stovepipes that we grow them in today.”

U.S. Airmen assigned to the 20th Fighter Wing perform casualty carry techniques during an expeditionary skills training course at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., March 20, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Steven Cardo)

Also unlike past deployments, where Airmen spent a few weeks getting spun-up in-theater, tomorrow’s Airmen will have to hit the ground ready to perform missions in small groups, which means training for those missions together in-garrison.

“That’s the whole idea of this new unit of action training together and exercising together,” the CMSAF said. “It expands beyond just the maintenance functions to ‘what conditions must exist for us to execute this mission.’”

Feedback on the changes has so far been positive, because Airmen “very well understand the need to change our force presentation model,” Flosi said. But finding the resources to practice these concepts is a challenge. While wing commanders in the Indo-Pacific understand the need for change and are doing what they can to implement it, they are limited to their wing-level authorities and resources.

“The feedback we’re getting from the force is ‘go faster,’” he said. “But they require some resources in order to fully exercise this new model, this new unit of action, so we’re working very hard on that.”

There may be more news in the next few months as the Air Force starts to unveil a multi-service exercise called Return of Forces to the Pacific (REFORPAC) due to take place in the Indo-Pacific next year. 

“Our Airmen are just thirsting for that type of capability,” Flosi said.

Becoming mission-ready may also require a cultural shift, one that makes Airmen feel the “sense of purpose that comes with being a valued member of a team,” he explained. “Honestly, that motivates performance far more than most other things that we will spend time on here at the Pentagon.”

Other leaders are also striving for a culture of purpose and empowerment through efforts such as Forging Warrior Hearts and Project Mercury. Some aspects of a ready force stem from quality-of-life issues such as housing, pay, and health care, Flosi said, while other parts come from the institution of the Air Force.

“My role as a senior enlisted leader is ensuring that our processes: the machine behind the human that promotes people, that incentivizes performance, and that assesses performance, is aligned with this idea of mission-ready Airmen and empowered, capable, mission command, that’s built off of trusted teams,” he said.

Space Force Cancels 3 Satellites Planned for MEO

Space Force Cancels 3 Satellites Planned for MEO

The Space Force dropped RTX, the company formerly called Raytheon, from “Epoch 1” of its planned missile warning/missile tracking satellites in medium-Earth orbit June 17. Space Systems Command in Los Angeles cited rising costs and schedule delays for the move.

Two more contractors are still on pace to support Epoch 1: Millenium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary, which is on contract to build six satellites; and L3Harris, which contracted to design and build payloads, but not satellites. Millenium passed a critical design review in November and began production, and L3Harris’ payload passed its preliminary design review in April.

An SSC spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that Epoch 1 is on track “to provide an initial missile tracking capability, prototype several key technologies, and refine operational concepts in MEO.”  

Space Systems Command notified RTX of its decision at the end of May. “The RTX Epoch 1 development effort was facing significant cost growth from the original agreement baseline, projecting slips to the launch schedule, and had unresolved design challenges,” the spokesperson said. 

SSC could seek to acquire additional Epoch 1 satellites from Millenium or another vendor, but time is short: Epoch 1 launches are to begin in late 2026/early 2027. Alternatively, SSC could also expand its plans for Epoch 2 when it releases its request for proposals, probably in July, the official said. 

Epoch 1 contracts were first awarded to RTX and Millenium in 2021. Originally, the plan was for only six total satellites in Epoch 1, but in the 2023 defense spending bill, lawmakers added $130 million to the program to procure more satellites. House of Representatives, aware of the cancellation, are now planning to cut $75.2 million from the program, to account for the canceled contract. 

The spokesperson SSC was able to “execute this action without compromising our ability to meet the requirement to provide a resilient missile warning and tracking capability for the nation.”

The Space Force’s missile warning and tracking plans include dozens of small satellites in low-Earth orbit supplemented by some in MEO and a few in geosynchronous and highly elliptical orbits. The Space Development Agency, the Missile Defense Agenc, and SSC are all collaborating, with a combined $4.7 billion investment included in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2025 budget request. Budget documents project spending will increase over the next five years. 

RTX remains involved in the Space Development Agency’s low-Earth orbit “Tracking Layer” and the GEO-based Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) program.

For medium-Earth orbit, SSC is following the Space Development Agency’s spiral development approach—contracting for batches of satellites launches every few years, enabling each batch, or Epoch, to incorporate new technologies as they become available. Similarly, the objectives increase with each new Epoch. For example, Epoch 1 would provide regional missile warning and tracking, while later Epochs will aim to provide more persistent global coverage. 

Senators Want to Block F-22 and F-15E Retirements, Require Study on Air Superiority

Senators Want to Block F-22 and F-15E Retirements, Require Study on Air Superiority

The Senate Armed Services Committee finished its markup of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization bill on June 14, with mandates on more than a dozen aircraft or related programs and a keen interest in the future of the Air Force fighter fleet.

Among the moves, lawmakers would support the Air Force’s plan to buy 42 F-35As and allow the Air Force to divest some of the aircraft it wants to retire—56 A-10s, 65 F-15C/Ds, and 11 F-16C/Ds. Air Force officials say they need to retire the aircraft to help fund modernization efforts.

However, the committee wants to deny USAF’s request to retire 26 F-15Es and 32 F-22s. And the bill would direct the Air Force to provide “an annual report on the Air Force tactical fighter force structure” and work with the Navy to develop a plan for air superiority in the 2030s and ‘40s.

The committee issued only a summary of its version of the bill, without the underlying text, and did not offer a rationale, but in budget hearings this spring, members voiced concern about the shrinkage of the Air Force in order to pay for modernization.

The defense bill provisions come just a day after Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin raised doubts as to the future of the service’s Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, which is meant to take over the air dominance mission from the F-22. Allvin said June 13 that NGAD is merely one of many “choices” the Air Force faces in confronting oncoming financial challenges such as budget caps, inflation, and a $40-$50 billion overrun on the Sentinel missile program. Previously, leaders has referred to the program as a must-have.  

The SASC’s proposed bill would have the Air Force and Navy jointly provide an analysis “of how the air superiority mission will be secured for the Joint force in the 2030s and 2040s,” a mandate potentially driven by the Navy’s indefinite deferral of its future fighter, the F/A-XX, and Allvin’s lukewarm remarks about NGAD.

In addition to the report on the fighter force structure and the air dominance study, Senate lawmakers want the Air Force to provide a plan and cost estimate “for modernizing all 25 fighter aircraft squadrons in the Air National Guard.” They did not specify whether the new aircraft would be F-35s, F-15EXs, Block 70 F-16s, or Collaborative Combat Aircraft, all of which have been discussed in recent hearings as new missions for Guard units that are giving up old fighters.

The bill would not add any F-35s to the Pentagon’s request for 68 fighters across the services, 42 for the Air Force. That leaves the fate of the F-35 in 2025 well up in the air—the House Armed Services Committee cut between 10 and 20 fighters from the request in their version of the defense policy bill, shifting the funds to software and test capacity items, while the House Appropriations Committee added eight F-35s to the Pentagon’s request.

Beyond Fighters

While the Air Force has said it is willing to accept a small gap in its airborne warning and control capability as it retires the E-3 AWACS and waits for the E-7 Wedgetail, lawmakers were less enthusiastic and want to mandate that the service keep 16 AWACS on duty until the arrival of the Wedgetail “or until the retirement of the E-3 would create no lapse in Air Force capabilities.”

The Air Force has said it is unaffordable and unmanageable to keep the E-3s because of their poor condition and the Herculean effort to put them into action. The service has said the 26 E-7s it plans are a stopgap until the air- and ground-moving target indication mission migrates to space.

The committee also disagreed with the Air Force in authorizing an additional five HH-60W combat rescue helicopters; aircraft the Air Force didn’t ask for and which it says it can’t use, because it’s trying to figure out how to do combat search and rescue in a broad regional area like the Pacific.

The SASC reduced funding for three Air Force fleets:

  • The C-40 VIP transport, being built by Boeing
  • The VC-25B “Air Force One” presidential transport, being built by Boeing, because of contract delays
  • The Survivable Air Operations Center (SAOC), being built by Sierra Nevada Corp., also because of contract delays.

    Another provision would take Air Force UH-1N helicopters now serving as VIP transports and missile field support aircraft and planned for retirement and instead transfer them to the Army for use in the Kwajalein Atoll missile test region of the Pacific.

    Elsewhere, along with the Air Force’s fiscal 2026 budget submission, the committee wants a detailed plan for how the Air Force will modernize its strategic tanker fleet. The current plan calls for concluding the initial KC-46 buy around 2029, followed by a “bridge buy” of up to 75 tankers, competitively sourced. After that, the Air Force wants a smaller, stealthy tanker that can operate at the edge of contested airspace in the mid-2030s.

    Other briefings and plans the committee wants include:

    • A briefing from the Air Force on “the requirements for, and implications of” putting five to 10 long-range bombers on alert status “in the event that such an action should become necessary to meet operational requirements.” The service’s B-1 and B-2 fleet have been shrinking in recent years, and the B-52 fleet will shrink operationally as portions of it are retrofitted with new radars and engines, while others are needed for testing of those upgrades and the Long Range Standoff missile.
    • A report detailing the status of the Agile Combat Employment (ACE) program “in each one of the geographic combatant command areas of responsibility.” While the Air Force has touted ACE as applicable to all theaters, it has chiefly focused on the Indo-Pacific for exercises and implementation.
    • A briefing on “stratospheric balloon programs at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), including plans for integrating stratospheric balloon systems into normal military exercises.” The committee didn’t say if it wants the balloons used as an intelligence-collecting resource for U.S. “blue” forces or as a “red” adversary system to mimic those balloons used by China to conduct surveillance of the U.S. and other countries.

    The SASC bill is not yet law and must first be harmonized with those of Senate appropriators, the full Senate, and the House before being forwarded to President Biden for his signature.

    No More Ops Groups, Allvin Says, Promising First ‘Combat Wings’ in ’26

    No More Ops Groups, Allvin Says, Promising First ‘Combat Wings’ in ’26

    The Air Force is eliminating group-level Operations and Maintenance commands, streamlining the makeup of squadrons and wings, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said June 14, revealing the latest twist in the drive to more effectively project combat power.

    Dozens of such commands, usually led by colonels, exist today across the Air Force. But as Allvin oversees the “re-optimization” of Air Force combat power for great power competition, leaders group-level commands don’t have a place in a structure where wings could deploy as a unit, then disperse squadrons or smaller units in a “hub-and-spoke” agile combat employment scheme.  

    “We’re talking about having a doctrine of mission command that means empowering at the lowest competent level, giving left and right limits—commander’s intent—and letting them leverage their initiative,” Allvin said. “Those squadrons need to be able to exercise that. And sometimes, if there’s another level of command between the squadron commander and the wing command, the group command maybe might be helping them out too much.

    “If you’re a group commander, what do you want to be when you grow up? A wing commander. How do you do that? Well, you make sure your squadrons are all the best. So maybe you might be helping them out and succeeding and not letting them fail forward in training.”  

    The colonels that previously commanded groups will instead move to wing staffs, where they will focus on “the operational warfighting and joint warfighting functions,” Allvin said. The aim is to help them become better joint leaders, something Allvin believes is necessary for the Air Force to take a leading role in the future of warfare. 

    “I think it’s our responsibility not only to be good participants in the joint force, but I also think the Air Force should start having maybe perhaps a greater leadership role,” he said. 

    The change is not a small one, Allvin acknowledged, and will require the service to revamp some of its processes. Officers’ career paths may have to change, and professional military education will have to shift to emphasize the operational level for wing commanders and their staff. 

    Doing so, though, will help align the Air Force better with the other services Allvin predicted. It will also make sense for the service’s new combat wings, the “unit of action” leaders first unveiled in February as part of their “Re-Optimization for Great Power Competition.” 

    At the AFA Warfare Symposium, officials said they will break down all of the Air Force’s operational wings into three categories: 

    • Deployable Combat Wings: Complete units that can deploy together, with their own native command-and-control, mission, and support elements 
    • In-Place Combat Wings (ICW): Complete units with command, mission, and support elements that fight from their home station. 
    • Combat Generation Wings (CGW): Units that provide force elements to Deployable Combat Wings, whether those elements entail command and control, mission, or service support elements. 

    The goal, leaders explained at the time, is to move away from the current system where Airmen are pulled from dozens of different units to fill out one expeditionary wing, only meeting and working together once they arrive in theater. Eventually, entire wings will train and deploy as one singular unit. The service is taking a phased approach to get there, first introducing Expeditionary Air Base teams pulled from a smaller group of bases, and now planning to move to Air Task Forces, who will pull forces from only two or three bases. 

    The locations of the first six Air Task Forces were announced in May and are scheduled to start deploying in late 2025 and early 2026. The timeline for implementing combat wings is “pretty dynamic right now,” Allvin told reporters, but the goal is to have enough in place ready to go when the Air Task Forces start to wrap up—sometime around the fall of 2026. 

    Like the Air Task Forces, some of the first combat wings will deploy to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. But make no mistake, Allvin said, they are not designed for the typical CENTCOM structure of large central bases from which all airpower is generated. 

    “We’re optimizing for the pacing challenge. So this construct is best suited for going over and doing deterrence exercises or actually having to go over and employ Agile Combat Employment against the pacing challenge of China,” Allvin said June 13 at an AFA Warfighters in Action event.

    A central tenet of Agile Combat Employment is dispersing smaller teams to operate from remote or austere airfields—and Allvin told reporters that it makes sense for the combat wing’s staff to act as the hub while squadrons go to the spokes. 

    “If we’re going to actually expect these wings to go and be able to do these maneuver functions in the hub and spoke locations, then we need them to have a different set of specialties,” Allvin said. That drove the decision to fold group commanders into the wing staffs. 

    Deployable Combat Wings will be the principal “units of action” presented to combatant commands, not every wing will be designated as such. Some will be Combat-Generation Wings, which might lack the command-and-control functions of a combat wing, but provide plug-and-play combat capability to those wings that can deploy as a unit. Allvin said USAF leaders are still determining how much combat airpower each Deployable Combat Wing will need.

    Still other wings will deploy in place. These could include any wing that can operate globally from its home station, including bomber and cyber units, among others. 

    “We don’t want to have a Deployable Combat Wing that’s got two airplanes in it just because we’ve got to spread them around,” Allvin said. “So finding the right number of platforms around which you can do the command element and then the sustainment element is going to be key, but it starts off with, what are the requirements? And then what are we resourced to do?” 

    Service leaders plan to make a decision on how many Deployable Combat Wings they’ll start with by this fall, Allvin told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

    Space Force Adds New Company to Compete with SpaceX, ULA for NSSL Launches

    Space Force Adds New Company to Compete with SpaceX, ULA for NSSL Launches

    The Space Force is moving to up competition for its most important launches, selecting Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) to take part in the next phase of its National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program.

    Under a contract award made June 13, the three companies will compete from 2025-2029 for up to $5.6 billion in task orders from NSSL, which handles the U.S. government’s top national security launches and has already conducted 70 launches covering various missions such as GPS, surveillance, and classified missions for the Air Force, Navy and National Reconnaissance Office.

    For this latest stage of NSSL, Phase 3, covering 2025 to 2034, the Space Force decided to take a “dual-lane” approach—Lane 1 will prioritize commercial-like missions, allowing for a higher tolerance for risk. Lane 2 will ensure traditional, full mission assurance for the “most stressing heavy-lift launches,” suited for risk-averse missions.

    The June 13 contract award is for Lane 1, which will include at least 30 missions for these three companies by June 2029.

    ULA and SpaceX were already part of NSSL in Phase 2, while Blue Origin is the lone newcomer for now.

    “As we anticipated, the pool of awardees is small this year because many companies are still maturing their launch capabilities,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for assured access to space, said in a statement.

    However, other small launch companies will get the chance to join Lane 1 through annual “on-ramps,” and “we expect increasing competition and diversity as new providers and systems complete development,” Panzenhagen said.

    The National Security Space Launch program successfully launches the Falcon Heavy USSF-52 mission on December 28, 2023, from the Eastern Range. The NSSL program, a critical component of the Department of Defense’s efforts to ensure national security in space, is at the forefront of providing essential space support for the warfighter, national security, and various government spacelift missions.

    For years, ULA held a virtual monopoly over space launch. More recently, SpaceX has emerged as the dominant force in the market, accounting for 90 percent of U.S. launches in 2023.

    Blue Origin, by comparison, is relatively unproven. The company is gearing up to unveil its New Glenn rocket, an upgraded, a larger version of its New Shepard rockets by September, carrying a NASA mission. But it has never launched a military satellite before.

    “In this era of Great Power Competition, we designed Lane 1 to leverage commercial innovation and give the Space Force increased resiliency through diversity of launch providers, systems, and sites,” said Panzenhagen. “Launching more risk-tolerant satellites on potentially less mature launch systems using tailored independent government mission assurance could yield substantial operational responsiveness, innovation, and savings.”

    The firm received $5 million to conduct a capabilities assessment that will help the Space Force grasp the launch provider’s approach to mission assurance. SpaceX and ULA are each getting $1.5 million, as the service “already understands their launch systems and approaches to mission assurance.” During Phase 2, ULA was assigned 26 missions, while SpaceX received 22 launch assignments.

    Providers will have another chance to join the competition for Lane 1 in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, as the Department of Defense puts in more launch service requests following that.

    “As the Space Force continues to streamline processes and increase resiliency, the NSSL Phase 3 Launch Service Procurement contracts provide the opportunity to include the most current domestic commercial innovation into our launch program as soon it becomes available,” said Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration.

    Lane 2 of Phase 3, which will require higher-performance launch systems and more more advanced security and integration needs, is slated to be awarded to as many as three contractors this fall.

    China Expert Says There’s ‘No Evidence’ PRC On a High-End War Footing

    China Expert Says There’s ‘No Evidence’ PRC On a High-End War Footing

    While China’s military is modernizing and growing its capabilities, a leading expert said he sees no evidence that the country is on a high-end war footing or heading towards one, though the situation is much different in the low-intensity space of cyber operations and economic and political interference.

    “There is ample evidence that China’s military is enhancing its preparedness, but little evidence that the national leadership intends to fight a war anytime soon,” Timothy R. Heath, senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, wrote in testimony for a June 13 hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

    Heath made a distinction between military preparedness and national war preparation. The former involves buying and developing new weapons and equipment, recruiting and training troops, and other activities to make sure a military can carry out its missions. 

    “Military preparedness is a normal activity undertaken regardless of whether a country’s leadership believes a war is likely or not,” he explained, pointing out that the U.S. has prepared to fight a war against a great power for decades but has not actually fought one since World War II.

    Heath believes a more reliable signal that a country expects conflict is whether the entire society is preparing for war. That could take the form of national defense mobilization, which involves conscription and other larger transfers of civilian resources to military use. A less intense form is what Heath calls national war preparation: policy and procedure changes in non-military domains meant to pave the way for combat operations.

    The researcher grouped most reports of China’s growing military power—more ballistic missiles and more warships, for example—under military preparedness. Chinese president Xi Jinping has also pushed for combat readiness in speeches to the military. While concerning, neither of these signals should be taken as expectation of imminent conflict, cautioned Heath, who cited a 2022 Defense Post article where CIA official David Cohen said the intelligence community believed Xi’s aim is to control Taiwan “through non-military means.”

    “In sum, although Chinese military modernization developments may well pose a threat to the U.S. military, they do not signal that China is carrying out (or has already initiated) national war preparations,” Heath wrote.

    The People’s Liberation Army Navy midshipmen training ship Zheng He (Type 679, Hull 81) prepares to moor as it arrives at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Oct. 12, 2015. ((U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Laurie Dexter)

    While Xi has criticized the U.S. and pledged to unify Taiwan with China, his statements are much the same as his predecessors’, and the “overwhelming focus” of his speeches is on socioeconomic problems such as jobs, corruption, and inequality, Heath wrote. Xi’s list of national security threats begins with “ethnic separatists, religious extremists, and violent terrorists,” organized crime, and natural disasters, with the U.S. towards the bottom of the list.

    “This is not to discount the problems that China has with the United States … but there’s no evidence that I can find where he calls out for the whole nation to be prepared for war,” Heath told the commission. “Leaders that are seriously contemplating war do not shy away from naming the villain.”

    That rhetoric extends to the popular media as well. While recent Chinese blockbuster war and action films feature conflict with American antagonists, such films are still “a minority of media” at a scale “orders of magnitude” smaller than the large number of anti-American films and propaganda produced during the Korean War, Heath asserted. 

    Likewise, while public opinion polling is sparse in an authoritarian state, the few surveys available show an “extremely small level of support for armed conflict against Taiwan,” the Chinese Communist Party’s number one threat, and “virtually no support for the idea of war with the U.S.,” nor is there evidence of any elite groups within Chinese society pushing for a war against the U.S., the researcher said.

    “Without question, there is tension between the U.S. and China,” he told the commission. “But American culture and American people are not hated in China, it’s my understanding, like they were perhaps in the Cold War.”

    On the economic front, China’s defense spending is “relatively modest” at under 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), though exact numbers are unclear. China’s defense mobilization system remains flawed by understaffed, misaligned bureaucracies, lack of standardized data, and inconsistent authorities, while China’s medical infrastructure is underprepared for wartime mass casualty events, Heath wrote, citing Chinese military medical journals and academic reports.

    What Mobilization Would Look Like

    While the Chinese Communist Party may seem monolithic to democratic countries, putting the party’s bureaucracy on a war footing would require a major shift for party cadres, who prioritize “peaceful development policies,” Heath said. 

    “Their promotion criteria, rules, regulations, indoctrination material, and political work all prioritize such measures as GDP growth, governance, and management of social stability, not war preparation,” he wrote.

    “Xi may personally be more powerful than rival elites, but the Chinese state’s grip on society is far weaker than was the case in Mao Zedong’s day,” he continued. “Mao could command the populace to carry out astonishing acts of national sacrifice in such bloody campaigns as the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution. By contrast, the Chinese state under Xi grapples with persistent discontent over a slowing economy, unemployment, corruption, and inadequate social welfare services.”

    With a state bureaucracy built for peace and without widespread public support, “Chinese leaders face powerful disincentives and major hurdles to escalating any crisis to conflict,” Heath argued. Even if those hurdles were cleared, it would still take months to gather the food, ammunition, supplies, transportation networks, and other logistics to sustain a war footing, he said.

    “The most difficult part would be the political mobilization: getting people on board with this idea that the whole country should head into war,” he told the commission. “That could be quite violent and bloody, in my opinion, because I expect a lot of people would question and challenge that.”

    U.S. Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis meets with China’s Minister of Defense Gen. Wei Fenghe at the People’s Liberation Army’s Bayi Building in Beijing, China, on June 28, 2018. (DoD photo by Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)

    Devin Thorne, principal threat intelligence analyst for China geopolitics at the private intelligence company Recorded Future, agreed with Heath’s assessment that it would take months to rally Chinese infrastructure to war and that political mobilization would be a major challenge.

    A Different Kind of Conflict

    Commission members questioned Heath’s testimony, arguing that the shift from peace to a war footing is less a binary on-off switch and more a transition by degrees that China has been steadily building in recent years. Thorne and Heath agreed, with Thorne pointing out that Chinese leadership likely assesses that the risk of a high-end war is growing, and that fear “doesn’t just dissipate” even if they are not ready to launch a war.

    Heath acknowledged that national security is becoming more of an issue in Chinese politics, but the overwhelming focus is still on national development. However, there is still plenty of room for low-intensity conflict involving cyber, economic, and political tools instead of tanks, missiles, and fighter jets.

    “I worry about a different kind of conflict … and there I think the indicators are much more alarming,” he said.

    Military leaders have expressed a similar concern. In September, then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass warned Airmen of the perils of information warfare and artificial intelligence.

    “There are armies of bots, swarms of trolls, legions of sock puppets, strategically manipulating the information that we see to achieve their own objectives,” she said. “This is unrestricted warfare and it comes with minimal to no physical force.”

    Likewise, Josh Baughman, an analyst with Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute, said in an August paper that writers with China’s People’s Liberation Army have discussed using AI in the cognitive domain to “destroy the image of the government, change the standpoint of the people, divide society and overthrow the regime” through an overwhelming amount of fake news, videos, and other content targeting human fears and suspicions.

    “That is not something years in the future, it is something they can do today,” Baughman told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the time. “And the scale that they could do it at is just unreal.”

    Commissioner Michael R. Wessel questioned the distinction between high-end and low-end conflict when a cyber intrusion can have such devastating effects such as disrupting an electrical grid or disabling the cooling mechanisms at a nuclear facility. The U.S. and China are already well into a campaign of interference and provocation aimed at undermining the legitimacy of each other’s governments, Heath acknowledged.

    “Both the U.S. and China frankly are too weak to risk a large-scale war, it’s too destabilizing for both countries,” he said. “But they can sustain indirect forms of conflict for a very long time, because you don’t need the public to carry out cyber operations and information operations.”

    High-end conflict is still a risk, especially if a Chinese leader manages to establish a new political agenda and ready the state bureaucracy for war. Guarding against that kind of change will require careful monitoring of Chinese senior leader statements, documents, national war preparations in non-military domains, and the mood of the Chinese public, Heath said. But it also requires careful diplomacy on the part of the U.S.

    “It is important, in my view, for us to balance our policy towards China to both protect our own interests, and not unnecessarily drive them in a direction of hostility that can make these trends even more alarming,” he told the commission.

    Sentinel: The Non-Negotiable Defense Investment

    Sentinel: The Non-Negotiable Defense Investment

    In a world where nuclear weapons continue to proliferate, it’s easy to forget sometimes that our own nuclear readiness is a foundational element of our national security. Indeed, it is every bit as vital to national security today as it was during the Cold War.

    The reason is that nuclear security depends on deterrence. And readiness is what deters adversaries. As retired Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton recently explained, we must “cause an adversary decisionmaker to refrain from certain acts, under certain circumstances, out of fear that if they take those actions, they will fail to achieve their objectives and/or suffer unacceptable consequences.”

    For deterrence to work, our nuclear forces must be credible. That is why Airmen and Guardians last week launched not one, but two unarmed Minuteman III (MMIII) intercontinental ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Space Force Base. These periodic demonstrations put our nuclear preparedness on display. 

    Yet it’s essential to recognize that those Minuteman III missiles are decades old, well beyond their engineered lifespans. Today, the Air Force desperately needs to update those missiles and the silos they launch from with modern technology. This is what the Sentinel program is all about. In a world where threats are on the rise, this program is vitally important.

    Deterrence has given us relative stability among nuclear-capable states for decades, successfully preserving the world from nuclear conflict since the beginning of the Cold War. A strong deterrent posture is the best way to keep it that way. Peace through strength works. Tensions between the nuclear powers have waxed and waned over the past 80 years, but the fact that the nuclear genie has remained in its bottle proves strategic deterrence has worked. 

    Today, our deterrent force is under threat because of the advancing age of the nuclear triad, comprised of land-based missiles, our ballistic missile submarine force, and our strategic bombing capability. Russia and China are currently expanding both their nuclear capabilities and capacity, seeking to gain a competitive advantage over the U.S. triad. Worryingly, they have paired this modernization with increasingly aggressive behavior outside their borders—China with territorial incursions in the Pacific, and Russia through its invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear saber rattling has been a key tool employed by both nations.

    Holding this aggression in check and providing U.S. leaders with viable options should circumstances demand it requires a modern U.S. nuclear triad, and that starts with the ground-based leg: the intercontinental ballistic missile enterprise.

    ICBMs are on alert and have been, 24/7, since 1959. The Minuteman III ICBM enterprise, engineered for a 10-year life span and fielded in the 1970s, is still in place. They are sitting in launch silos built in the 1950s and 1960s. The last Minuteman IIIs were produced and fielded in 1975. Numerous life extensions have kept these missiles viable, but they will not last forever. Readiness in the future demands that they are replaced as soon as possible. A 50-year life for a system originally designed for 10 marks a tremendous return on investment, but failing to replace it will make that success moot.

    guidehouse icbm
    Missileers with the 320th Missile Squadron prepare for a Simulated Electronic Launch-Minuteman test inside a launch control center at a missile alert facility in the 90th Missile Wing missile complex, Aug. 21, 2018. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Breanna Carter

    As a former MMIII wing commander, I know that the threat we face and seek to deter is both credible and potent. I also know that the force we are operating is rapidly reaching the end of its viability. Our nation’s top leaders demand capable, competent options. American citizens deserve a modern, sustainable strategic deterrent capability. 

    The United States has not executed a full ICBM recapitalization effort in decades. A full reset, which is what we need today, is not simple or inexpensive. Indeed, once this effort got underway, it became clear that the original infrastructure is in need of even more rework than originally forecast, driving up the cost and triggering a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which means the price has increased more than 20 percent. 

    The Department of Defense underestimated the scale of the challenge. For example, the silos and launch control centers, where the operators sit to control the missiles, are connected by a discrete network of copper cabling. Program officials recently discovered that the entire network must be replaced. It has been slowly degrading since the 1950s. We are also running out of replacement cabling, making routine maintenance difficult. And it’s not a small network: Some 8,000 miles of new cabling is needed to be produced and laid underground.

    With 450 missile silos, 45 alert facilities with launch control centers, and hundreds of missiles, this is among the most challenging efforts our nation has ever undertaken. It’s also a non-negotiable undertaking. 

    Our nuclear missile force has helped secure our nation for more than 65 years. The daily headlines tell us we still live in a dangerous world. Russia invading Ukraine, China pressing its neighbors in the Pacific, Iran pursuing nuclear arms, North Korea threatening us and our neighbors. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante was right on the mark when he recently explained: “The modernization of our triad is the top priority of the Defense Department.” 

    Deterrence and a strong defense do not come at discount prices. The cost of being unprepared, however, is always far greater. 

    Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Jennifer Reeves is a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

    Allvin Hedges on the Future of Next-Generation Air Dominance Fighter

    Allvin Hedges on the Future of Next-Generation Air Dominance Fighter

    The Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter faces an uncertain future in the fiscal 2026 budget, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin suggested June 13 during an AFA Warfighters in Action event.

    Allvin also said the Air Force doesn’t plan on keeping individual Collaborative Combat Aircraft in service very long, preferring to rapidly shift to future iterations of the autonomous drones.

    In response to a question from Air & Space Forces Magazine, Allvin said moving ahead with NGAD is merely one of many “choices” USAF will have to make in the coming years as it balances a host of modernization priorities with limited budgets. He did not describe NGAD as a must-have, as the service has done previously.

    While Congress is still debating fiscal 2025 defense funding, the Pentagon has already started work on the 2026 budget. The Air Force in particular must consider how to fund soaring costs on the new Sentinel ICBM, further work on the B-21 bomber, F-35 procurement, and more, all while dealing with congressional budget caps, inflation, and other drags on resources.

    Considering all that, Allvin was asked if NGAD is still affordable or whether the program will have to be re-cast every couple of years to keep up with the threat.

     “We’re going to have to make those choices, make those decisions across the landscape,” he said. “That’s going to probably play out in the next couple years or by this ’26 [program objective memorandum] cycle. So those are things in work.”

    Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said a year ago that the service would award the NGAD contract in 2024, with a single company chosen to develop the jet. After Northrop Grumman said it would not bid on the program, the competition is likely between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

    NGAD may be vulnerable because while the Air Force has contractors set to develop or build its other top priorities—the B-21, Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the F-35, the KC-46, etc.—there is no contractor or constituency for the new and highly expensive fighter.

    With budgets getting tightened across the board, services have had to make tough choices. The Navy already decided in its fiscal 2025 budget request to indefinitely defer its version of NGAD, which it calls the F/A-XX.

    The Air Force’s NGAD has been projected to replace the F-22 circa 2030, with the capability to achieve air superiority against worsening foreign air threats and enemy air defense systems. Kendall has said the manned fighter element of NGAD could cost “hundreds of millions” of dollars per airframe, and that the Air Force would likely buy about 200 of them.

    NGAD is usually described as a “family of systems,” including the crewed aircraft; autonomous, uncrewed escorts; and other disaggregated capabilities. Collaborative Combat Aircraft is considered part of that family of systems, and is in fact funded in the same program element as NGAD.

    CCA

    While Allvin was noncommittal about the future of NGAD, he laid out a more fulsome vision for Collaborative Combat Aircraft and made clear that the autonomous drones would not serve for long periods and require sustainment similar to crewed aircraft.

    Instead, he hinted CCAs will have a service life of about a decade or less.

    “I don’t want a set of Collaborative Combat Aircraft that’s going to last for 25-30 years,” Allvin said. “Because what comes with that? Well, if it’s going to last 25-30 years, it’s got to do everything but make the toast in the morning.”

    That in turn would make each aircraft more expensive and reduce the number that can be bought with the available funds, creating a “spiral” of reduced airframes and rising costs, Allvin warned.

    “‘Built to last’ is a tremendous 20th-century bumper sticker, and the assumption then was, whatever you had was relevant as long as it lasts,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s true anymore.”

    After 10 years of service, a CCA “won’t be as relevant,” he said, but “it might be adaptable, and that’s why we’re building in the modularity, that adaptability.”

    The Air Force is making “big bets on … human-machine teaming. I think that’s a safe bet,” Allvin added. He said artificial intelligence and autonomy will most likely help rather than replace human operators, and gave as an example that machines will be able to sense if an F-35 pilot controlling six CCAs is over-stressed or too tired to remain effective.  

    New platforms will also have to be multi-capable and adaptable as missions evolve, he said. Developing a platform that can only perform one mission means “we’re failing,” he said.

    More broadly, Air & Space Forces Magazine asked Allvin if resource constraints will compel the Air Force to change the way it fights—shifting to a standoff force, for example. Allvin said these are issues he thinks about “every night” and “we do have to ask those fundamental questions.”

    “What does an effective Air Force look like in the future? And how much of that is dependent on external resources?” he asked. “Some of that we can control. The resources [part] is very tough. We can advocate for more resources.”

    Allvin said it’s incumbent on him to ensure “we aren’t perpetuating a structure, perpetuating a set of processes” that will keep the service in an outdated structure of acquiring new capabilities. It must be endlessly flexible enough to abandon programs if they are quickly overtaken by events.

    “We cannot pursue a lot of eggs in one basket, and then find that the threat has advanced,” he said.

    It would be self-defeating if “we don’t have a way to jump, that we can’t pivot” to other capabilities, he said. “And those are the things we need to watch out for as we go forward. And I think there will be areas of risk.”

    The Air Force’s budget deliberations are seeking to balance “the risk today versus the risk of tomorrow, modernization versus the readiness of today. Those are all things we are trying to balance and yes, ’26, it’s very, very thin across the board.”

    At the end of the day, he added, all he can control is getting the service “on the path and make a legitimate case that the Air Force is optimizing…for what’s right for the environment today and into the future.”