Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Dies at 90

April 28, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Collins, an astronaut who flew on the Apollo 11 first lunar landing mission, flew a Gemini mission, and was an aircraft test pilot, the first director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, an aerospace corporate officer, and an author, died April 28 at age 90.

Collins orbited above in the Columbia command module in July 1969 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in the Eagle lunar module. He was responsible for maneuvering the mothership to the moon, flying it alone to recover his crewmates when they ascended, and piloting it back to Earth.

In his autobiography, Carrying the Fire, Collins wrote that he felt “powerfully” how truly alone he was while orbiting around the far side of the moon, the first person to do this solo.

“I am it,” Collins wrote. “If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side.” But he did not feel loneliness; rather, “awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation. I like the feeling.” His one “secret terror” of the mission was that somehow his crewmates would not return with him and he would be a “marked man” for failing them.

Collins was born in Rome, Italy, on Halloween, 1930, the son of Army officer James L. Collins, who was assigned there as a military attache, and who would later become a major general. After an “Army brat” life, young Collins attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and upon graduation in 1952, chose the Air Force. He did so both because of the lure of flight and to avoid accusations of nepotism, as his father, uncle, and older brother were already senior Army officials.

Collins won his wings in 1953 and was selected to fly the then-new F-86 fighter, performing squadron duties in California and France. After an aircraft maintenance course, Collins was part of a flying training roadshow that allowed him to accumulate more than 1,500 hours of fighter time, the minimum needed to apply to the test pilot school, to which he was accepted in 1960. During his test flying time, he flew the F-104, T-33, B-52, and B-57.

John Glenn’s 1962 orbital flight inspired Collins to apply for astronaut training, but he was not selected for the second group. Instead, he attended a new test pilot course in spaceflight, which gave him an opportunity to fly up to 90,000 feet in an F-104. He returned to fighter duties in 1963 but after a second application was accepted to astronaut duty late that year in the third group, which numbered 14 pilots.

Collins was appointed to develop a specialty in pressure suits and extravehicular activities. He was assigned to the two-man Gemini 10 mission and was the first person to perform two spacewalks on the same flight. The three-day mission was commanded by astronaut John Young and also involved multiple dockings with the Agena target vehicle.

After Gemini 10, Collins was picked for the backup crew for Apollo 8, then the prime crew, then the Apollo 9 crew, but a herniated cervical disc took him out of crew rotation for these flights. After recovery from surgery, he was chosen for Apollo 11.

Collins designed the patch for the mission, depicting an Eagle descending to the moon bearing an olive branch. It was the only American space mission patch not to feature the names of the astronauts, as Collins felt the crew was representing the nation and the world.

Even before Apollo 11, Collins was slated to command Apollo 17 and walk on the moon, but he declined because of the strain astronaut duties imposed on his family. If Apollo 11 was a success, Collins decided it would be his last space flight.

With the moon landing achieved, Collins, Armstrong, and Aldrin made a 38-day, 22-nation goodwill tour. Afterward, Collins served in the State Department as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. The job did not suit him, and he was appointed by President Richard Nixon to head the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which was an excellent fit. Collins lobbied Congress for funds to build the downtown museum to replace a series of shacks and parking lots that held America’s growing collection of space artifacts.

Collins oversaw construction of the museum and hiring of museum staff and presided over the creation of its exhibits while at the same time completing a Harvard Business School program in management. He beat the July 4, 1976, deadline for the NASM’s opening—the U.S. bicentennial—by three days, and the facility quickly became, and remains, the most-visited museum in the world. The Columbia was placed in the museum’s “Milestones of Flight Gallery.”

Collins stayed with the museum until 1978, when he ascended to be undersecretary of the larger Smithsonian. He left the Smithsonian in 1980 to accept a position as vice president of LTV Aerospace.

During his post-NASA years, he remained in the Air Force Reserve, attaining the rank of major general. He retired from the service in 1982.

Collins wrote Carrying the Fire: an Astronaut’s Journeys, which was published in 1974; Liftoff: The Story of America’s Adventure in Space, a history of the U.S. space program published in 1988; and Mission to Mars, a nonfiction book about future human spaceflight, published in 1990.

He wrote a children’s book, Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places in 1988, republished as Flying to the Moon: an Astronaut’s Story, released in 1994.

Collins was also a watercolor artist who initially did not sign his paintings, fearing they would be valued for his signature.

Among Collins’ numerous awards and honors, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Nixon; the Collier Trophy, along with Armstrong and Aldrin; the Harmon Trophy; and the Gen. Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy.

He was a fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots—from which he received the Iven C. Kincheloe award—a trustee and trustee emeritus of the National Geographic Society; and was elected to the International Space Hall of Fame, Aviation Hall of Fame, U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and the Aerospace Walk of Honor in Lancaster, Calif. A lunar crater is named for him as is Asteroid 6471 Collins, and he is honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions to the television industry.

Among his Air Force decorations, Collins received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts on the Gemini project and the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal.

Collins has been depicted in numerous fictional and nonfiction films about Apollo and was the subject of a Jethro Tull song, “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me.”

Aldrin, now the sole living member of the Apollo 11 crew, issued a statement reading, “Dear Mike, wherever you have been or will be, you always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future. We will miss you. May you rest in peace.”

Neil Armstrong died in August 2012.

The Collins family released a statement saying, in part, “We … know how lucky Mike felt to have lived the life he did … Please join us in fondly and joyfully remembering his sharp wit, his quiet sense of purpose, and his wise perspective; gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage point of space and gazing across the calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat.”

Brand-New F-15EX to Participate in Northern Edge Exercise, JADC2 Experiments

April 28, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Both of the Air Force’s new F-15EX Eagle II fighters will fly in the Northern Edge exercise in Alaska next week to participate in broader joint all-domain command and control experiments, 11^th Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm said April 28. The jets will also employ their new electronic warfare suites in the wargame.

“We’re bringing up F-15EX … with its capabilities, including the EPAWSS,” or Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System electronic warfare suite, to participate in Northern Edge 2021, Krumm said from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, during an AFA “Air and Space Warfighters in Action” streaming event. The first of the two aircraft departed April 28 from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where they are in both developmental and operational testing. Both aircraft were delivered earlier this month from Boeing Co. They will operate out of JBER for the wargame.

The exercise will include “every aspect of JADC2,” Krumm said. Experimental systems include SpaceX Starlink satellites, new remote satellite terminals from the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office—which manages the Advanced Battle Management System—as well as “different technologies in the electromagnetic spectrum, jamming with radars, … [and] a whole array” of new experiments. The Navy’s USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier is in Alaskan waters for the exercise, he noted.

Krumm said he couldn’t be too specific about what will be tested because “a lot of what we want to do, we’re still working on.” He said Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, head of Pacific Air Forces, will be “uber-focused on ‘how do I connect all these sensors and shooters together?’” The wargame should “advance JADC2,” Krumm said.

Asked what will happen to experimental systems that prove useful in the wargame, Krumm acknowledged, “There’s no doubt, we’ve seen these in the past, where we’ve said how great [an experimental system] was and then it disappeared. Our objective in this is to say, ‘What really contributes? What is really worth pursuing and getting into?’”

The participants are “coming up here with a lot of ideas. We’re going to see which ones work, which ones contribute to the battle space and help our Airmen and Guardians, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines get more lethal. And we’re going to push that,” Krumm said.

While he expects that “there will be leave-behind” ideas, “what I don’t want is a series of one-off experiments that are [their] own little island in the middle of our capabilities,” he said. Coming from a recent acquisition job, Krumm said he understands “we have to prioritize” which systems to pursue and that “we will work closely” with the acquisition directorates “in determining what things we need to go after” and whether they can be afforded within operations and maintenance budgets. “The possibilities are endless, … but we do need to be picky,” he said.

Krumm said there has been a “significant increase” in Russian aircraft entering the Alaska air defense identification zones, with more than 60 aircraft intercepted in the past year, noting even more than that were “monitored” by 11^th Air Force.

Many of the intercepts are run by F-22s out of Elmendorf, and the jet is “employed masterfully by our Airmen,” he said, but its special stealth and agility attributes aren’t essential to the mission. Krumm acknowledged that the F-22 is the “frontline fighter” of the Air Force and that “there is a strain” on Raptor units—as well as on KC-135s and E-3 AWACS—imposed by the intercept mission.

“We use the F-22s because we have them located here,” but “I can see in the future that there would be some other opportunities” for performing the mission with a different aircraft.

“Can we do that differently? We can, but I don’t know all the options we’re going to pursue, yet. I know that any Air Force unit I bring up here would be able to do those intercepts with the same professionalism and proficiency as we have.”

Krumm also said the F-35s that have been bedded down at Eielson Air Force Base, also in Alaska, are performing well. The first unit has 25 airplanes, and a second unit has its first aircraft, and they have been achieving excellent mission capable rates, he reported.

“Right now, the Airmen—the ‘Icemen’—of Eielson are absolutely kicking butt and taking names,” Krumm asserted. The F-35s are “working really, really well,” he reported, noting than in a recent generation exercise, the unit “generated every single F-35 that they had. Every one, all 25 … on the flight line, ready to go. Just an amazing effort.”

While “we certainly have been impacted in some ways by some of the [F-35’s] sustainment issues,” the Airmen at Eielson have adapted the aircraft to operating in extreme cold, sometimes 50 degrees below zero, Krumm said. “No one has put the F-35 in that environment” and operated routinely before, he said. Crews have also modified the aircraft’s survival kit to creatively pack and add more gear to help downed Airmen if they bail out in such conditions.

Northern Edge runs May 3-14.

Lt Gen Slife to Senate: AFSOC at an ‘Inflection Point’ Requiring Transformation in Personnel, Acquisition

April 28, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Air Force Special Operations Command has gone through two major changes throughout its history brought on by real-world incidents, and the command’s boss told lawmakers on April 28 that it is now undergoing its third.

The first came in 1980 following the failed Operation Eagle Claw hostage rescue in Iran, a “national embarrassment” that prompted the command to overhaul how it approaches crisis response operations, AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. The second was Sept. 11, 2001, after which the command adopted for sustained counterterrorism operations.

Now, with the nation withdrawing from Afghanistan and less of a sustained focus on constant counter-violent extremism operations, AFSOC needs to go through another overhaul to be relevant in a potential conflict with a near-peer adversary, Slife said.

“The rise of belligerent peers and near-peers who threaten America’s interests at home and abroad and the reemergence of great power competition around the globe mean AFSOC must evolve once again,” Slife said in testimony. “We must transform ourselves from the AFSOC our nation has needed for the last 20 years into the AFSOC our nation will need in the future operating environment.”

To do this, AFSOC is focusing on developing its Airmen and training them for “full-spectrum operations.” The command wants to focus on diversity in its ranks to ensure it can recruit and retain a force that is representative of the nation.

AFSOC is “undergoing the most significant organization optimization in our 30-year history,” Slife said. This includes fielding four operational squadrons each for the air and ground missions, with the goal of a sustainable force generation and deployment process.

The command is also looking to modernize and sustain its fleet, through programs such as the proposed “armed overwatch” to replace its U-28 fleet. AFSOC and industry have improved the readiness of the CV-22 fleet through fixes to its structure and wiring, while also installing the Block 20 mission computer modification to improve the Osprey’s situational awareness. The command is updating its C-130 family of aircraft with new airborne mission networking on MC-130s and precision strike package upgrades on AC-130s.

Slife said the command’s relationship with allies and ongoing engagements with countries around the world is an asset the U.S. can rely on in possible future competition.

In 2020, AFSOC Airmen deployed to 62 nations for “engagements” with host militaries, while also flying through and/or landing in more than a dozen more. These agreements with “80-100” nations that U.S. special operations forces have can be “tremendous leverage” against the influence of countries such as Russia and China, Slife said.

“What I have found is that our Airmen aren’t motivated necessarily by killing and capturing terrorists. They’re motivated by relevance,” he said. “And so if the thing that makes them relevant to the nation is pursuing great power competition, you better believe they are all in on moving in that direction.”

Milley: Afghanistan’s Future After U.S. Withdrawal Difficult to Predict

April 28, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The military’s top uniformed officer said April 28 it’s difficult to predict what will play out in Afghanistan as Afghan forces prepare to take sole responsibility for the country’s security following the U.S. withdrawal.

“It’s not a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an automatic fall of Kabul, so to speak,” said Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a virtual McCain Institute event. “I think that we, the United States, are going to continue to support diplomatic efforts to come to a negotiated outcome between the insurgents and the regime, and that would be best for the people of Afghanistan and best for our region.

“So, there’s a wide range of possible outcomes, and at this point, I [would] hesitate to guess to which one it will be because we have to wait and see as the situation develops in the months ahead.”

President Joe Biden announced April 14 that the full withdrawal of U.S. forces will begin May 1 and be completed by Sept. 11. Milley said Pentagon leaders have presented a “variety of options,” including leaving a larger force in the country. However, he noted, Biden is “the decision maker, so we present advice, we present cost, and risk, and benefits, and potential outcomes, and options. We give recommendations, of course, and then the President decides. And that’s what we’ve done. The President’s made a decision, and we’re going to execute that decision in good order.”

Milley said some of the potential outcomes are either “quite bad” or “not quite as bad.”

The worst case would be a collapse of the Afghan government and of the military, leading to a civil war and all the “humanitarian catastrophe that goes with it,” he said. On the other hand, the Afghan Army and police forces number about 350,000, and there is a government in place and “they have been engaged in counterinsurgency operations for some time against the Taliban.”

There also is a possibility al-Qaida will reconstitute in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. military will monitor them “from positions where we can gain access,” Milley said. “I’m not going to go into the details of how we’re going to do that, … but we have a lot of capabilities, the United States does, in order to track and then target enemies of our country.”

Boeing Defense Revenue Up Despite Charge on New Air Force One Program

April 28, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Boeing Co. reported its sixth straight loss in its first-quarter earnings report April 28, including a new charge on the Air Force One replacement program.

Overall, Boeing reported $15.217 billion in revenue, down from $16.908 billion in the first quarter of 2020. Company CEO David L. Calhoun said COVID-19 impacts are lingering but that now is “a key inflection point for our industry as vaccine distribution accelerates and we work together across government and industry to help enable a robust recovery.”

Boeing Defense, however, reported $7.185 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2021, up from $6.042 in the same period last year. The increased revenue in its military and space sector was spurred largely by KC-46 contract awards, including Lots 6 and 7 contracts for 27 KC-46s, along with P-8 and V-22 contracts, the company said. However, the company reported a $318 million pre-tax charge for the Air Force One VC-25B program “largely due to COVID-19 impacts and performance issues at a key supplier.”

The supplier, GDC Technics LLC, recently filed for bankruptcy after Boeing canceled its contracts because of schedule delays, causing missed deadlines, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Unlike several recent earnings reports, Boeing did not disclose another charge on the KC-46 program. The company, in its fourth quarter of 2020 earnings report, surpassed more than $5 billion in overruns on that program.

Biden Picks Shyu for Top Pentagon Research and Engineering Job

April 27, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

President Biden nominated Heidi Shyu, formerly the Army’s acquisition executive in the Obama administration, as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. In that role, if confirmed, she would oversee and manage the Pentagon’s technology development enterprise.

Shyu, 67, worked at Raytheon for many years, managing the company’s electromagnetic systems lab, and was director for integrated radar/electronic warfare sensors on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. She also oversaw the company’s unmanned aircraft efforts and served as corporate vice president for technology and research and vice president of technology strategy for Raytheon’s space and airborne systems unit.

Previously, she served on the Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Board, serving as co-chair from 2003 to 2005 and chair from 2005 to 2008.

Since 2016, she has served on the board of trustees at The Aerospace Corp.

Mark J. Lewis, who was the acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and served as director of defense research and engineering in the Trump administration until February, called Shyu “a marvelous choice” for the job.

“She is an extraordinary engineer, one of our nation’s leading experts in electronic warfare and radar systems. Heidi knows the Air Force extremely well, having served eight years on the Scientific Advisory Board, including three as the board chair,” said Lewis, now the director of the National Defense Industrial Association’s nonpartisan Emerging Technologies Institute.

She will be “a champion for science and engineering” and leverage her “extensive leadership experience from her many years in industry” as well as from her Army acquisition position, Lewis said.

Shyu holds master’s degrees in mathematics and system science/electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and University of California, Los Angeles, respectively. She has a bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of New Brunswick, Canada. She also graduated from UCLA’s executive management course and a University of Chicago business leadership program.

Shyu was born in Taipei, Taiwan.

Diplomatic Departure Begins in Afghanistan as Military Withdrawal Planning Continues

April 27, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The State Department on April 27 ordered some of its diplomatic staff to leave the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as the drawdown in Afghanistan begins and the U.S. continues planning for what future force protection in the country will look like.

In a new travel advisory, the State Department said it ordered staff “whose functions can be performed elsewhere” to leave the embassy in Kabul. The order comes as more military personnel and equipment are headed to Afghanistan to enable the withdrawal from the country, set to begin May 1 and wrap up before Sept. 11.

“We’re in constant iteration inside the department and with the interagency about how everybody’s going to fit into this plan, but we’ve actually got a very good backbone of a plan that will go into operation formally on the first of May,” U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said April 27 during a virtual American Enterprise Institute event. He would not go into specifics but added, “I think we have a plan that will allow for us to get out in a protected manner, that will bring our partners out, … [and] will also bring out elements of the Department of State.”

That plan calls for maintaining the Embassy in Kabul, with a “very minimal” military presence for protection. It is the job of the host nation to protect the embassy, “so we would expect the governor of Afghanistan would live up to that responsibility as we go forward,” McKenzie said.

He reiterated the plan to remove all U.S. contractors, including those who help the Afghan Air Force maintain its aircraft. The military is still working to continue support from outside the country.

“The one thing I can tell you for sure is: We’re not going to be on the ground doing it. I’m confident of that,” McKenzie said. “So, that’s just something that is not a course of action that we are exploring. When the President says zero, he means zero, so we’re going to zero.”

In the meantime, more U.S. assets are flowing into the country to help with force protection, while B-52 bombers have deployed to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. CENTCOM on April 27 posted photographs of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems moving from Kuwait to Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops as they withdraw.

Department of the Air Force to Study Barriers for LGBTQ, Native American Personnel

April 27, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Department of Air Force has created two new teams to identify and address issues impacting diversity and inclusion, one specifically looking at issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning service members and another looking at issues facing Native American service members.

The move comes amid a major push by the Department of the Air Force to address barriers to service felt by those in minority groups in the services. The Air Force also announced April 27 it was extending the deadline to respond to its survey as part of its second independent disparity review because of a significant response.

“To fully capture the voice of Airmen and Guardians, the Department of the Air Force Inspector General will keep the ongoing gender, racial, and ethnic disparity review survey open for an extra week, Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said said in a release. “Feedback so far has been very high, so we’re keeping the survey open for an extra week to give everyone a chance to contribute to this very important effort. We highly encourage all our Airmen and Guardians to share their stories, views, and concerns. To the tens of thousands that already have, thank you!”

The new teams—the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning Initiative Team and the Indigenous Nations Equality Team—are part of the Air Force’s Barrier Analysis Working Group, which aims to “identify and address the issues impacting diversity and inclusion for Airmen and Guardians,” the department said in a release.

The BAWG dates back to 2008, when it was created to look at data, trends, and barriers to service for civilians. It has since expanded to those in uniform. As of March 2021, the Air Force has created the following subgroups:

Black/African American Employment Strategy Team
Disability Action Team
Hispanic Empowerment and Action Team
Indigenous Nations Equality Team
LGBTQ Initiative Team
Pacific Islander/Asian American Community Team
Women’s Initiatives Team.

The creation of the LGBTQ team comes 10 years after the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The INET group will review and analyze barriers to employment, advancement, and retention of American Indian/Native American and Alaska native employees and troops, according to the release.

UK Planning Big Steps in Future Fighter Development, Wants to Work With USAF’s NGAD

April 27, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The United Kingdom Royal Air Force is looking to make concrete progress over the next four years on its Future Combat Air System next-generation fighter jet and is reaching out for opportunities to test and compare its progress with the U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance program.

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense in March released its “Defence in a competitive age” document outlining its strategy for modernization and future competition, including a $2.4 billion investment over the next four years on FCAS. Royal Air Force boss Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, speaking April 27 during a virtual Hudson Institute event, said this funding will go toward developing a demonstrator, with the “big decision” on design to follow.

The RAF’s goal is to have FCAS lined up in the late 2030s to be able to phase out the Eurofighter Typhoon fleet for air defense alert, with the RAF’s F-35s flying much of the rest of the mission set. FCAS will be both piloted and unpiloted, with “swarms” of drones to assist.

Because of this timeline, Wigston said he looks forward to working with USAF on comparing progress with the NGAD system, which already has a demonstrator that flew last year. Additionally, the RAF wants to work alongside and compete with the French and German next-generation fighter jet initiative.

“There’s an opportunity to feed off each other, to test each other,” Wigston said.

The Eurofighter Typhoon is the “backbone” of the United Kingdom’s air defenses, and with the fleet expected to fly through 2040, the schedule is starting to get tight. “Right now, I need to get going, working through what will replace the Typhoon in our quick reaction alert sheds,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”

The RAF is also working on its own version of USAF’s Advanced Battle Management System, which Wigston referred to as a “combat cloud” to fuse air and maritime sensors. The program has been in development in recent years, but Wigston said he has “grown tired of looking at PowerPoint slides with lightning bolt symbols joining up bits of kit” without any real-world progress.

“I want to see this fielded operationally in my time,” he said.

The RAF is planning a demonstration in 2022 in the North Atlantic using this new system in a scenario focused on tracking and targeting a submarine.

“That’s bringing to life the ability to move information, move data, and fuse information so that any operator, any platform in the battlespace, can pull on the information it needs, fuse it, … and be able to make better decisions than an adversary,” Wigston said.

For More with RAF Chief Wigston, listen to his conversation with retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, on the Aerospace Advantage podcast.