Watch Matthew Cornick, director of advanced concepts at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.; Mark Rasnake, Multi-Domain ABMS program lead at Boeing; Richard S. Stapp, corporate vice president and chief technology officer at Northrop Grumman; and moderator and Space and Missile Systems Centers Commander Lt. Gen. John F. “JT” Thompson, take part in the “Mission Domain Live Engagement—JADC2/ABMS (Friday)” session from AFA’s 2021 virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
Watch panelists Chris Flynn, vice president of Military Development and GATORWORKS at Pratt & Whitney; John J. Kusnierek, senior vice president of LibertyWorks research and technology at Rolls-Royce North America; Darin L. DiTommaso, vice president of military engineering at GE Aviation; and moderator Michael R. Gregg, director of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Aerospace Systems Directorate, take part in the “Mission Domain Live Engagement—Propulsion” session from AFA’s 2021 virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
Watch panelists James Dorrell, vice president of the Advanced Battle Management System at Lockheed Martin; Dave Johnson, vice president of strategy for integrated mission systems segment at L3Harris Technologies; Thomas “Jay” Lennon Jr., senior vice president and Air Force account executive at Parsons; and moderator Brig. Gen. D. Jason Cothern, vice commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center take part in the “Mission Domain Live Engagement – JADC2/ABMS (Thursday)” session from AFA’s 2021 virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
A successful wargame last week left the 11 combatant commanders wondering why the network and artificial intelligence technology it featured can’t be put to work right away, said U.S. Northern Command and NORAD commander Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck.
“All 11 commands endorsed every capability that we looked at, and many asked, ‘Why are we waiting? Why don’t we field these right now?’” Van Herck reported in a March 31 outbrief to reporters following the March 22-23 “Global Information Dominance 2” wargame.
VanHerck has no acquisition authority in his role, but said he wanted to “bring all the Combatant Commanders together to place a demand signal on the Department, to move quicker down the path of domain awareness, information dominance, and decision superiority.”
The exercise showed off the capabilities of software, sensors, and artificial intelligence.
“All … my objectives were achieved,” he said. His goal was to “show the incredible value of information … and how it can be used today.” The exercise demonstrated real-time value of data from the tactical to strategic levels, he said.
“If you put a bow around this, [it] would be referred to as Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” he said. The problem is that “legacy [acquisition] processes take years” while “these capabilities exist today.”
VanHerck used the exercise to demonstrate his four-pronged vision for STRATCOM: “domain awareness, information dominance … decision superiority … and global integration.” To be effective, all combatant commands must be able to cooperate in near-real time, he said.
“I need … capabilities that can help me with anything from small [unmanned aerial systems] to ballistic missiles and everything in between, from bombers to cruise missiles.”
Combatant commanders don’t want to wait for JADC2, they want to “build … and use” new JADC2 systems and make them available to allies and partners now.
Ironically, the media session was delayed by 14 minutes because the audio wasn’t working on the video conferencing system.
The experiment also sought to better connect the combatant commands with each other, especially where their areas of responsibility come together. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. John Hyten has called fixing this a top priority.
Today, COCOMs overcome these gaps by means of their relationships with fellow COCOMs or among themselves, and the “operations and intel folks that work for us,” VanHerck said.
Recent exercises “exposed the absolute requirement” to overcome this problem. The U.S. command authority needs “options to respond in competition,” and not necessarily in the same domain where a competitor may have already taken action. That means a rival’s move on land could be met with a response “in sea, or space,” VanHerck said, or even in a different AOR.
VanHerck acknowledged a strong uptick in Russian military activity, requiring NORAD to fly intercept missions in the air, at sea, and undersea. The episodes are “strategic messaging,” he said, asserting that Russia wants to be seen as a player in the Arctic region, where some 25 percent of its gross domestic product is earned.
F-22s fly many of those intercept missions, but VanHerck said that’s not his call. “I can see other alternatives to an F-22 that could absolutely accomplish our mission,” he said. He needs an aircraft “able to share information, with a highly capable radar to detect low radar cross section kinds of platforms, such as cruise missiles, and with long-endurance capabilities. You can let your imagination run wild; that does not have to be an F-22.”
NORTHCOM trains with other interceptors, he said, because F-22s aren’t always available. They will “be in high demand in a crisis or conflict,” VanHerck said. They “would likely forward-deploy from the Alaska AOR.”
U.S. military officials are reaching out to Russian and Ukrainian counterparts as Moscow builds up its forces on the border between the two countries.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley on March 31 talked with his counterparts in both the countries as Russian military armor and other systems have been seen deploying to the Crimea region. U.S. outreach to Russia has “just started” and the Pentagon is pressing for no more incursions into Ukrainian territory, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on March 31.
“We’ve reached out to Russia to try to gain more clarity on what exactly is going on,” Kirby said.
Russian officials have said there is an “escalation of armed confrontation” in the region, though U.S. officials have said the increase in forces is likely a training exercise, CBS News reported.
The New York Times reported that within the past week, U.S. European Command increased its watch level in the area from a possible crisis to a potential imminent crisis, its highest level.
Kirby said EUCOM Commander USAF Gen. Tod D. Wolters expressed a concern about a potential threat and the ability to provide future warning. Increasing the watch condition would help EUCOM’s decision makers identify and track threats, “improving and increasing a leader’s visibility, noting there’s something worth watching. Watch being the operative word there,” Kirby said.
The move comes as Russia has repeatedly tested U.S. and NATO forces, including sending maritime patrol aircraft on March 29 to the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone. The same day NATO jets scrambled a total of 10 times to “shadow” Russian bombers and fighters in the North Atlantic, North Sea, Black Sea, and Baltic Sea, NATO said in a release.
The Air Force is considering a “family of systems” for strategic airlift in the future, as it looks beyond the C-17 to see the mobility needs in future high-end fights.
Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost said ongoing wargames looking at great power competition are feeding into what the group of systems could require to meet a heavy cargo capability.
“As we look into what capabilities I’m asking for, when I work with the Marine Corps and the Army, what is it they need to transport, what types of timelines? What kind of capabilities and where might they be positioned?” Van Ovost said during a March 31 Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies event.
Future airlift requirements are not just going to be about the volume an aircraft can carry, but also its ability to go into contested environments with different payloads. For example, carrying offensive capabilities such as attritable offensive counter air systems or missiles.
“I don’t just think volume, I also think of the ability to do things inside of that contested zone,” Van Ovost said. “How do you think small, as well, that can fly off … and bring a capability forward to say [Air Force Special Operations Command] or to the Army when they need it? So those would absolutely be the things, and as we go forward and we do these war games, that’s how we’re going to tweak the attributes necessary for the next, if you will, kind of a combined C-5, C-17 into the future.”
For the current fleet, AMC is looking at the potential of conditions-based maintenance to understand how long the C-17 can fly. The time frame looks to be in the 2060 range before the C-17 would end its service life, Van Ovost said.
“We’re optimistic on analysis, but this requires continuing study for what we would have to do to that airplane, so I’d say that we are, you know, cautiously optimistic about the lifespan of the airplane,” Van Ovost said.
For the time being, “it’s hard to say what’s gonna happen” in the next even 20 years. “It’s really pretty far out there to think about the full replacement of the C-17,” she said.
The Pentagon on March 31 reversed its policy on transgender troops, formally opening the door to service for those who meet military standards.
The move effectively turns the clock back to 2016 when the Pentagon first reversed its policy barring transgender individuals from openly serving in the military or from being involuntarily separated, discharged, or denied reenlistment because of their gender identity. In 2017, President Donald J. Trump announced via Twitter a new ban on transgender service, catching military leaders by surprise. The Pentagon took the matter under advisement and offered a compromise ban in March 2018, sparking multiple lawsuits. Initial lower court rulings blocked the ban, until the Supreme Court cleared the way for the ban to take effect in April 2019. Under the policy, currently serving transgender service members were permitted to stay. President Joe Biden issued an executive order in January that removed all limits less than two years later.
“The Secretary of Defense strongly believes that the all-volunteer force thrives when it is composed of diverse Americans who can meet the high standards for military service, an inclusive force that strengthens our national security posture,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a March 31 briefing.
Kirby said the policies are designed to prohibit discrimination, provide a means to accession into the military in one’s self-identified gender as long as the standards are met, provide a path for those in service to seek medical care, and protect the privacy of those already in service.
Stephanie Miller, the Defense Department’s director of accession policy, said during the March 31 briefing that there are about 2,200 troops in the military who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Under the new policies, the Pentagon will provide the “medically necessary care” to include either cross-sex hormone treatment or surgery.
Military officials expect the costs of those treatments to be in the “handful of millions” and will be covered by the “several billions” assigned to the military’s defense health budget.
“We don’t expect a significant impact. The cost was a main reason behind the ban, with Trump in his tweet announcing the change, saying allowing transgender individuals to serve caused “tremendous costs and disruption.”
The new policies will go into effect in 30 days, giving the military services time to adjust their policies and protocols, Kirby said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, in a March 31 memorandum commemorating International Transgender Day of Visibility, said “we will remain the best and most capable team because we avail ourselves of the best possible talent that America has to offer, regardless of gender identity.”
The RAND Corp., in a 2016 study, estimates that there are between 1,320-6,630 transgender service members in Active duty, with the figure varying because of a lack of data and current policies. RAND also estimates that Active health costs would increase by between $2.4 million and $8.4 million if the military covered transition care.
Decisions made using incomplete data can jeopardize the success of the mission and risk the lives of warfighters. Ensuring that personnel have complete, accurate, real-time data at the point and moment of need is crucial, but disconnected systems and sources limit this capability. The challenge is compounded by the growing requirement to coordinate data across domains to support joint operations—a central objective of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).
The reasons for disparity are well-known: a combination of legacy systems, on-premises apps and multi-cloud environments, coupled with geographically dispersed data sources. Intensifying the issue is the sheer volume of data being generated daily across the DoD from sensors, satellites and connected devices and platforms. The solution is found in accessing, analyzing and applying the knowledge hidden in those mountains of data.
In the first of a three-part series, Elastic spells out the challenges to data access and the opportunities to use real-time information as a mission enabler without needing to move, consolidate or duplicate resources.
Substantial progress has been made by each branch of service to enable internal users to make full use of data. Meanwhile, the DoD Data Strategy aims to ensure data can be shared easily, producing a more comprehensive knowledge base for joint operations and supporting the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) strategy — empowering everyone from command center to front lines with real-time situational awareness and decision support.
Still, the reality is some legacy systems will remain in service for the long term, as they provide specific capabilities that cannot yet be replicated by modernized systems. While legacy solutions will ultimately be phased out over time, for today, these stovepiped systems create obstacles to extracting, standardizing and consolidating data. The lack of standardization can cause issues at a basic level; if one system uses “F15” while another uses “F-15,” for example, searches and analysis can be delayed or derailed.
There’s another crucial use for shared data, one that is growing in importance: expanding the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) processes, which are dependent on both a highly-skilled workforce and the ability to feed data to systems on-demand. ML can identify issues quickly, for example identifying if a vehicle is somewhere it shouldn’t be or going in and out of a specific zone.
Systems can also be trained using AI & ML to pinpoint data anomalies, such as whether the expected amount of data was received or transmitted on a specific day. In these cases, the system can alert humans or take predefined actions to minimize risks.
ABMS is designed to capture and coordinate data spanning Air and Space Force’s connected sensors and devices, weapons and platforms — an Internet of Military Things — and reaches back to the services’ cloud infrastructure. ABMS is still evolving, but JADC2 integration is an essential goal, supporting the need to use data as a strategic asset across domains and services.
Connecting resources, data and people requires more than just new technologies. It starts with a data architecture that addresses version control, duplication and incomplete or out of date data. More fundamentally, it begins by determining how to share data.
Many data lake attempts fail because the data owner does not want to share everything, seeing the request as an all-or-nothing situation. While data access is a critical factor in mission success, some data simply should not be shared, and there is a concern that sharing everything may overwhelm the ability to use the data effectively. An effective strategy should allow data owners to identify what should be shared while allowing others to decide what they want to include in searches.
Data’s usefulness is completely dependent on the user’s ability to query it, analyze it and apply it at the point and time of need, all of which hinges on the speed of search.
An enterprise search solution should enable users to analyze information and answer questions—in seconds—from all sources, either in place or through consolidation. For example, Elastic allows data to be collected and stored at endpoints. Since Elastic’s technology indexes data on ingestion, it is instantly ready to search in real-time. Leaving data in place eliminates version control while reducing the network congestion that would result from moving huge databases to a central location. Instead, the user can send the question to the data, instead of bringing the data to the question.
To address differences between how data is formatted, such as the “F15/F-15” issue mentioned earlier, an open source schema can assure all data is written the same way.
A search approach that can look across systems and locations should also reconcile any differences in user interfaces and data structure. A familiar example of this comes from ride-sharing platforms Uber and Lyft. Both companies use Elastic’s 2D data to sync drivers to riders. They deliver the same query speed despite using different maps and interfaces; each system uses geospatial data to map IP addresses to known locations. These same capabilities can be applied to logistics or troop movements, giving users much greater situational awareness.
The Air Force is moving to meet the growing demand for complete, timely data through programs such as VAULT, which allows personnel at all levels to directly access data using open source and commercial, cloud-based tools. The Mission Assurance Capability Kit (MACK) provides a similar capability, specifically focused on protecting aircraft systems from cyberthreats. MACK data can feed into ABMS to provide a crucial part of domain visibility.
For data to function as a strategic asset, it’s essential to ensure everyone is searching the same authoritative data, within and across all services and domains. In doing so, redundancies are avoided, as are issues with conflicting or out-of-date information. Most importantly, real-time search—delivering real-time knowledge—can inform smarter decisions at the moment of need.
For more information please contact airforce@elastic.co or visit elastic.co/federal to learn more.
The Air Force and Navy are working together on the Next-Generation Air Dominance program, and the Navy version has a good chance of being unmanned, said Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, the Navy’s director of air warfare, during a Navy League virtual event March 30.
NGAD will be a family of systems for both the Air Force and Navy, and the centerpiece of the Navy variant will be the FA-XX, an aircraft that will succeed the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Harris said.
“We truly see NGAD as more than just a single aircraft,” Harris said. “We believe that as manned-unmanned teaming comes online, we will integrate those aspects” into the air wing, which will see “adjunct,” unmanned aircraft performing the roles of aerial tanking, electronic warfare, and possibly airborne early warning, succeeding the E-2D Hawkeye.
The Navy has just begun the “concept refinement phase” of NGAD, Harris said, and “we’re working closely with our Air Force counterparts” on their version of the system.
“The two will likely be different as far as outer mold line, just based on different services’ needs, but a lot of the internal mission systems will be similar,” and will have open mission architecture, Harris said. This will enable competition in industry and “enable us to use best of breed.” Open missions means that if a subsystem isn’t performing as the Navy needs it to, or is too costly to maintain, “you have an ability to replace it without ‘vendor lock,’” he noted, adding that’s an issue that has “created problems for us before.”
The Navy “firmly believes” that competition will “give us better reliability, better sustainment costs, lower overall costs,” Harris said. He encourages industry to look beyond its usual teaming partners, “broaden their view,” and maybe bring on smaller companies that could “work into the niche markets” of subsystems. Studies are underway about how to replace the EA-18G Growler electronic warfare platform, and that mission will likely be “half manned/ half unmanned,” Harris said.
The decision on whether the Navy’s NGAD will be manned or unmanned will be informed by whether “autonomy and artificial intelligence [have] matured enough to put a system inside an unmanned platform that [can] …go execute air-to-air warfare.”
Harris’s guess is that the FA-XX will be manned. He said last year’s experiment in which an AI defeated a living pilot in an F-16 was not a pure test of skill, as the AI had full knowledge of the F-16’s energy state. Air combat maneuvering is “the most complex” mission being contemplated for an AI, he said.
“In the real world,” a pilot would be making judgments “as he watches the other aircraft maneuver; … did he go high or low, how many times did he go high or low, the rate at which the nose is turning, am I seeing differences in the nozzles … All those things … [an] AI will have to learn to sense and react to.”
Harris said it’s not hard to imagine, in the near future, “an adjunct missile carrier … with missiles, flying defensive combat spread” missions. Such an application of an unmanned system is not a “stretch” by any means, he said.
Where it becomes a policy issue is when the AI is given the authority to shoot targets on its own, he said, suggesting that limits and rules like Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics may come into play.
“In the next two to three years, we’ll have a pretty good idea if the replacement for the F/A-18 E/F will be manned or unmanned,” he predicted. “I would believe it most likely will be manned, but I’m open to the other aspects of it.” Among the trades, he said, will be whether it’s worth it to put the life support and escape systems into a jet, because that space and weight could be used for fuel, which translates to range or persistence.
Industry is also supplying the “art of the possible,” Harris said. Ideally, the Navy likes an aircraft to be able to “call the ball” or declare itself on the right flightpath from three-fourths of a mile away from the carrier, but if it can be done safely only a half a mile away, “that could change the angle of attack … and that difference … could change the outer mold line and could affect stealth capabilities, or range, or speed, or G.” The current discussion “lets you find out what trade is worth what,” he added.
The carrier airwing continues to shrink, even though the new Gerald R. Ford class is the largest yet, Harris said.
“In the ‘80s, … we typically had 90 aircraft up on the deck, now we’re more like 66,” Harris said.
“Right now, notionally, we are driving toward an air wing that has a 40-60 unmanned/manned [aircraft] split, and over time, shift that to a 60/40 unmanned/manned split,” Harris said. The aim is to “drive to an air wing that is at least 50 percent or more unmanned, over time.”
The speed with which that will happen depends on how easily the Navy absorbs the Boeing MQ-25 Stingray, Harris said. The unmanned aircraft will principally be used for aerial tanking—both on recovering aircraft coming back to the carrier, and to extend the range of jets at the edge of the carrier’s operating zone. While all tests so far have shown the Stingray to work well, much is yet to be learned about operating it in and around the carrier environment, and in getting crews used to it. Sometimes, Harris noted, it will be the humans that make mistakes, and not the unmanned aircraft. The Stingray will also do some intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and possibly some light strike, he said.
“I’m very confident in the unmanned plan,” Harris said. “The challenge for all of us will be very similar, and it will come down to the networks: the reliability, sustainability, and resiliency of those networks” to support the new systems.
The Navy doesn’t think that a larger number of smaller carriers—like the Marine Corps amphibious ships—will fit the bill in the future, despite the reduction of tails on a flattop. But it is considering the idea of a “light carrier,” and has looked at 70 iterations so far, Harris reported, with a decision due in 2022.
“Over the long run, we don’t find a compelling return on investment” for a small carrier, he said, due to the need to carry a lot of jet fuel and the ability to remain on station a long time. He touted the big ships as highly survivable and flexible.
The big carriers are seeing longer cruises, Harris said, with some at sea for 10 months at a time. Though sailors want predictability, the changes have to do with global tasking and the flexibility demanded of by great power competition.
Harris said the F-35C will make its first operational cruise this summer, with 10 aircraft embarked aboard the Carl Vinson. The F-35C’s longest time at sea so far was five weeks aboard the Vinson during the work-up phase. The jet has performed well, and “the performance of the most junior pilots … is really very encouraging,” he said.