Cyber Guardians Get Some Friendly Competition While Training to Defend NRO

Cyber Guardians Get Some Friendly Competition While Training to Defend NRO

Nov. 19, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

When Delta 26, the Space Force unit that defends the National Reconnaissance Office from cyberattacks and online espionage, wanted to stage competitive training exercises this year, they used a private sector cyber range for part of the contests and run them at an unclassified level, its commander said this week. 

Space Training and Readiness Command is “still working to build out their cyber range, so we had to go commercial,” Col. Erica Mitchell told Air and Space Forces Magazine on Nov. 18 on the sidelines of CyberSat, the cybersecurity conference for the space and satellite sector. 

At the unclassified level, “It had to be a more generic exercise” in defending an enterprise network, as opposed to one that specifically gamed out a cyber attack on the NRO, the secretive spy satellite agency, Mitchell said. Five teams, each drawn from one of the five squadrons in Delta 26, competed over the course of four days. 

The exercises, dubbed Cyber Spartan 24-1 and 24-2, were staged in January and August and represented the “crawl” phase in a crawl/walk/run progression, she said. STARCOM issued a release with a few details of the first one in March, but the second has not been previously reported. 

The exercises were “a great success,” she said, despite “a few technical difficulties with the range,” which she declined to elaborate on. Her big takeaway as commander was that “we really have to move towards getting ready for multiple attack vectors in multiple places, not all looking for the same attack in the same place.” 

Both exercises included a so-called Capture-the-Flag, or CTF, component, staged by a private sector provider Hack The Box. CTFs are a long-standing cyber tradition in the private sector—hacking contests where teams compete to use knowledge of IT networks and their vulnerabilities to locate and gather pieces of computer code known as flags. In a CTF like the one in Cyber Spartan, the teams compete to collect the most flags but don’t directly attack each others’ systems.  

Despite the gamelike elements, CTFs are a proven method of assessing cyber skills, said exercise director Maj. Ryan Galaz. “A capture-the-flag event, to me, is a really fun way to determine the knowledge and proficiency levels of our operators,” he said. 

Both exercises also included a “blue team” element, Galaz said, in which each team was responsible for a network under attack, competing to see which could most quickly understand and report on the attack they were facing. 

Each team went through six attacks in which they were given just 30 minutes to figure out what had happened. 

“What we wanted to do,” explained Galaz, “was not only test the ability of an operator to assess correctly what’s going on, but really test their timeliness, because, in the midst of a contested, integrated environment … we need to know how quickly you can identify, detect and report in an accurate manner.” 

Again, the teams didn’t compete directly, Galaz said: “They were just up against the clock and against themselves, really.” 

“It was what I call parallel play,” said Mitchell, “where you have your toddlers playing side by side” rather than directly engaging with each other.  

Cyber Spartan 24-2 also included a third element, another simulated attack, said Galaz, where “we put all the teams together so they could practice working as a team, because we’re all geographically separated, to then respond to an adversary.” 

Rather than the one-off attacks of the blue team exercise, he added, this third element tested the teams’ ability to work together effectively to fight off a concerted campaign by a determined attacker. 

“The aim was to really force them into a corner where they’re going to have to talk [to each other]. We started disabling machines, leaving some traces [of what we’d done] on one of the team’s assets, and then leaving others on another team’s. So they would have to then communicate,” he said. 

Galaz said the objective was to create a more realistic analogue of the chaotic and confusing conditions that would transpire in a real conflict. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy. So their mission plan went out the window 15 minutes into the action,” he said, “They have to continue to evolve, to stay ahead of the curve.” 

The eventual objective would be to fuse the various elements of the exercise together into a more realistic war simulation, said Mitchell, “where the squadrons may start each with their own individual fights, but then it’s all going to be aggregated up, and then we’re going to direct [things] the way we would in an actual war scenario,” she said.  

Both competitions were won by the Delta’s 661st Cyber Operations Squadron.

“They did a fantastic job,” Mitchell said.  

In 24-1, the blue team contest was close but 661 came out ahead. In the CTF, “they destroyed the competition,” said Galaz. The second time around, though, things were much tighter. “It was razor close on both” the CTF and the blue team simulated attack events, he said. 

Planners are currently working on the next iteration of Cyber Spartan, to be staged next year, Galaz said: “Now we’re looking at what type of craziness can we do for 25-1 that still keeps the operators enjoying themselves, because that’s the best way [to get them] to pay the most attention or learn the most—and get all the training value we want from it. So we’re excited about that.” 

Space Delta 26 emblem. Creative Commons
SDA Will Be 6 Months Late Launching Next Satellites, But May Up the Pace After That

SDA Will Be 6 Months Late Launching Next Satellites, But May Up the Pace After That

Nov. 19, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Development Agency will start launching its next batch of satellites in March or April 2025, six months later than originally planned, but agency director Derek Tournear suggested he may try to increase the pace of launches after that to get back on schedule. 

Tournear offered the new timeline along with a host of updates on his organization’s low-Earth orbit constellation during an event with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies on Nov. 19, including plans for future missile defense and position, navigation, and timing capabilities. 

SDA first started launching what it called its “Tranche 0” satellites in April 2023 and finished in February 2024—a process that also included several months of delays. All told, Tranche 0 includes 29 data transport and missile warning/tracking spacecraft in orbit to demonstrate their concept for a large LEO constellation. 

Tranche 1, consisting of more than 150 operational satellites, was supposed to start going up in September, followed by a launch every month for 10 months. But at the Defense News Conference on Sept. 5, Tournear revealed that the first launch would be pushed back to “around the end of this calendar year,” citing problems producing necessary parts at scale. 

Two months later, Tournear pushed the timeline back once again to March or April, saying suppliers had been overly optimistic in how fast they could scale production and solve supply chain delays, particularly for key components like optical communications terminals and encryption devices. 

“Tranche 0 was just getting the parts in hand. Tranche 1 is building up your manufacturing capability, which always goes slower than people anticipate,” Tournear said. 

Moving forward, though, Tournear said vendors have started hitting their production goals, and “we have high confidence that the schedule we have now is going to hold.” 

With satellites now being assembled “daily,” Tournear also suggested SDA may look for other ways to get back on schedule—and live up to its motto of “Semper Citius,” or “Always Faster.” 

“We know SpaceX can launch faster than once a month, so we can bring this in,” Tournear said of the launch schedule. “The space vehicles will be ready faster than that once we start the initial launching, but it’s just a matter of how fast will it take us to get through launch and early operations and pull that in.” 

To that end, Tournear said he would be willing to accept and store completed satellites from contractors if they are ready before a launch vehicle is. 

SpaceX has already been awarded all the launches for Tranche 1, receiving orders in 2022 and 2023, and the company has come to dominate the market with its rapid cadence—it has launched 10 times in November already, including three launches in two days. 

Regardless, Tournear said all of Tranche 1 will launch over 10 months at a “maximum.” That timeline would have launches extending into 2026—the same year Tranche 2 satellites are supposed to start going up. 

Tranche 3 

While Tranche 1 satellite production is ramping up and design reviews for Tranche 2 have finished, SDA is already moving forward on Tranche 3, with plans to officially ask industry for proposals starting in January 2025. 

Each tranche is meant to include new easily available technologies and capabilities, a process officials call “spiral development.” For Tranche 3, that will mean a few things. 

Among the 150 or so data transport satellites, a “fraction” will include a new “lightweight” position, navigation, and timing signal, Tournear said. 

The Pentagon has been investing more and more in backups and alternatives for the Global Position System satellites, and Tournear said the new signal coming from SDA’s satellites will help in that regard. 

“The details of that are still being worked out. We’re working very closely with the Army, because the Army is the one that would be fielding the receivers for these things,” he said. “And so I can’t go into more details, primarily because it hasn’t firmed up until we get more alignment with what the Army actually wants us to demonstrate and fly on Tranche 3. But it’ll be a very small signal in an L- or S-band that we’ll demonstrate.” 

Meanwhile, Tournear also wants up to nine satellites in Tranche 3 that can do both missile warning and missile defense. 

“Missile warning is launch detection: the old school, ‘now we can affect mutually assured destruction. Let the President know where we’re under attack.’ Tracking is not only can we tell you that the missiles have been launched, but as they maneuver, we can tell the impact point, so we can tell the people downrange to prepare theater air defenses, or in worst case scenario, at least tell them to prepare for duck and cover,” Tournear said. “Defense takes that one step further and says, not only can we detect the maneuvering missiles, we can detect them to such accuracy that I could send that data down to an interceptor with no other sensors needed.” 

Tranches 1 and 2 will include a few satellites each that can do missile defense, and Tranche 3 will look to build on that by combining missile launch and missile defense on the same satellite. 

“We’re really interested in hearing from industry on what those capabilities are,” Tournear said. 

‘Blueprints’ for China’s New Fighter Similar to F-35, Air Force Chief Says

‘Blueprints’ for China’s New Fighter Similar to F-35, Air Force Chief Says

Nov. 19, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force’s top officer said China’s new stealth fighter has one distinctive feature: It appears to draw its inspiration from the U.S.’s F-35.

“It’s still fairly new,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in a Nov. 19 interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “But, yes, it’s pretty clear; you could put it side-by-side and see, at least, where we believe they got their blueprints from, if you will.” 

China’s J-35A was recently unveiled at the Zhuhai Air Show by China’s People’s Liberation Army. As Allvin noted, the plane looks remarkably similar to an F-35, though, unlike the American warplane, it is equipped with two engines instead of one. 

U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Ridge Shan
Photo courtesy PLA.

Allvin declined to discuss details of what the U.S. knows about the J-35, citing a need to protect classified information. But much of Allvin’s program to bring about the “re-optimization” of the U.S. Air Force is driven by the need to deter China’s growing military.

“Overall I think we should just be very aware of the scope and the scale—if nothing else, the scope,” Allvin said, referring to China’s growing air forces.

China also operates another stealth fighter, the J-20 air superiority aircraft, and is working on the H-20 flying wing stealth bomber, according to a 2023 Pentagon report on China’s military forces. 

In March, then-commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. John C. Acquilino said that China’s People’s Liberation Army had “the world’s largest Navy, soon to be the world’s largest Air Force.”

China has over 3,100 aircraft in the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy of which about 2,400 are combat aircraft, the Pentagon report noted.

The U.S. Air Force has around 4,000 crewed, non-trainer aircraft. The U.S. Navy and Marines have thousands of aircraft of their own.

China has a long history of copying U.S. aircraft designs, though that doesn’t mean their combat aircraft are as capable as their American counterparts in other respects. 

“The Chinese development of their capabilities is something we need to we need to respect and be able to account for,” Allvin said. “One thing that they’ll never catch up on us is the quality of our force, the quality of our entire total force, the quality of our [noncommissioned officer corps], the quality of our aviators, the maintainers, all of that. But I don’t want to make it a close fight.”

The Air Force has recently unveiled major structural reforms and a new force design designed to better counter China.

“We have to have an Air Force that can still survive and can execute effectively in many different threat environments,” Allvin said.

‘Did We Do Enough?’ Airmen Heed Lessons from Their Air Victory over Iran

‘Did We Do Enough?’ Airmen Heed Lessons from Their Air Victory over Iran

Nov. 19, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

This is the third and final installment in a multipart series based on exclusive interviews with nine Airmen who helped respond to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel. Part 1 and Part 2 are available here. 

RAF LAKENHEATH, U.K.—Below the F-15E Strike Eagles, the swirl of missiles, interceptors, and debris flying through the night lit up the night sky like the Northern Lights, one Airman recalled.  

Iran had launched more than 300 one-way attack drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles at Israel and the attack was now at it its crescendo. After following orders to “launch to survive,” fighters from the 494th Fighter Squadron were airborne and confronting their mission. 

“‘All right, take five seconds to breathe, get our wingmen up with us, because they finally were able to take off,’” Capt. Logan Cowan, an F-15E pilot, recalled thinking. “And then it’s like an ‘everything happening everywhere, all at once’ scenario.” 

In addition to F-15E and F-16 fighters, USAF tankers and command-and-control aircraft were in the air, as were aircraft from coalition partners and Israeli interceptors. 

“The totality of the situation was, ‘Oh sh–,’” Cowan mouthed. 

Ahead of Cowan’s formation, Maj. Benjamin Coffey and Capt. Lacie “Sonic” Hester were back in the thick of things, airborne for the second time that night, having left their bunker at the base in the midst of an Alert as other personnel took shelter from the attack. They launched in a new jet after returning to base with a missile that failed to fire.  

Like their first sortie, Coffey and Hester quickly expended all their missiles; again, one failed to fire. As a last resort, they fired their F-15E’s 20mm gun, but with limited effect. 

As airborne mission commanders, however, they still had work to do. 

“We need to coordinate the other fighters. We need to coordinate for our partners, so that they know where the threat is,” Coffey said. “And at that point, instead of trying to do subsequent gun attempts, we bring fighters back … we reset where the fight is going on, and we start handing off threats.” 

Three other fighters from the squadron remained in the air, including a two-ship flown by Capts. Cowan, Gabriel Diamond, Trace Sheerin, and Brian Tesch that was entering the fight for the first time. 

“We’re just all over the place, hunting down the tracks that other jets picked up and where they saw the drones and cruise missiles,” Tesch said. 

The attack seemed to have petered out. But then the crews got word from Coffey and Hester that a few “straggler” drones were 300 or so miles away. Snapping in that direction, the F-15Es raced to intercept them as they approached a city. 

“Obviously that makes the hairs on the back your neck stand up,” said Sheerin. “If you’re out in the middle of the desert, that’s fine. If something misses, something goes wrong, the worst that happens is … a random crater that could have been from an asteroid pops up somewhere in the desert. 

“But as soon as you start throwing in completely innocent people who have nothing to do with this conflict, and now you have explosives flying over them, and heavily laden supersonic fighter jets flying very low altitude over them, that complicates the equation quite a bit.” 

Cowan and Diamond were the flight leads, but Sheerin and Tesch were in a better position to take the first shot. 

“We’ve set up the intercept, and I’m waiting for him to shoot,” said Cowan. “I query him once, I query him twice, and then all of a sudden, I look up and this missile just flies off his jet and explodes in the center of my field of view.” 

Despite their exhilaration, however, they decided against trying for a second intercept—the risk too great given the chance of civilian harm. Instead, they passed custody of the target off to coalition fighters further back. 

Gen. James B. Hecker, head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, praised that decision during a Nov. 12 ceremony decorating members of the 494th. Amid the excitement and adrenaline of aerial combat, the restraint the crews showed stood out in its own way.

After that, most U.S. fighters returned to base, while Cowan, Diamond, Sheerin, and Tesch still had to fly for several hours more. In the wake of adrenaline-infused takeoffs and dramatic shootdowns, quiet now descended as the sun rose in the east. 

Looking out, the Airmen saw dozens, if not hundreds, of trails of smoke from missiles and interceptors winding through the sky. 

“Like a ball of yarn,” Sheerin said. 

“Like a bird’s nest,” Tesch said. 

“It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen,” Cowan said. “Because the sun is shining through all these missile smoke trails, it looks like a bowl of spaghetti in the sky.” 

For the next several hours, the last two F-15Es patrolled the airspace as the impact of what had just happened sank in.  

Coffey and Hester, returning to base, also took stock. 

“We can see the Iron Dome [Israeli air defense system] going off in the distance. We can see base defense fires from all the bases around us going off. And there is a long period of about 20 minutes where we just talked about, ‘Did we do enough?’” Coffey said.

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 494th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron “Mighty Black Panthers” lands in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Oct. 13, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Josephine Pepin

Aviators and maintainers turned on the news and got their answer: 99 percent of all drones and missiles had been intercepted, and the few that got through caused minimal damage and no fatalities. What some have called the biggest drone attack in history had been thoroughly thwarted. 

“After everything was down, and all the hung missiles were put up, and we had already re-armed and got ready to go for a second round, then we had time to breathe and start processing what actually happened,” said Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver. 

The entire squadron, Coffey said, breathed a collective sigh of relief. And in the days and weeks to follow, they were able to appreciate just how much they had done, said Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh. 

“What we did was very important, saved many lives, and also showed that times are changing, and with unmanned aerial devices [threatening allies], we are prepared to just defend against anything,” Wertsbaugh said. 

On Nov. 12, leaders, dignitaries, and scores of fellow Airmen gathered in a hangar at Lakenheath to recognize those accomplishments. On a stage set up beside an F-15E, Hecker handed out awards ranging from the Air & Space Achievement Medal to the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bronze Star. Hester became the first woman in the Air Force to receive the Silver Star.  

And if, as Hecker said during the ceremony and Air Force leaders have often repeated as of late, the nature of warfare is changing, then members of the 494th can look back on that night in the Middle East as a key moment. 

“I’m too young, too inexperienced even now to be able to tell you where warfare will go in the future. That’s not my purview,” said Sheerin. “But with how things continue to change, I know from the lessons learned in this as a squadron … as a fighter community specifically, I think we’re moving in a good direction, and I think we will be able to continue to assess and improve specifically with the lessons learned from the 13th of April.” 

Part 1 and Part 2 are available here.

494th Fighter Squadron Decorations

Silver Star Medal

  • Maj. Benjamin Coffey
  • Capt. Lacie Hester

Bronze Star Medal

  • Maj. Clayton Wicks
  • Master Sgt. Timothy Adams

Distinguished Flying Cross

  • Lt. Col. Curtis Culver (V)
  • Lt. Col. Timothy Causey (V)
  • Capt. Logan Cowan (V)
  • Capt. Gabriel Diamond (V)
  • Capt. Trace Sheerin (V)
  • Capt. Brian Tesch (V)
  • Capt. Matthew Eddins (C)
  • Capt. Garrett Benner (C)
  • Capt. Austin Leake (C)
  • Capt. Stepan Volnychev (C)
  • Capt. Claire Eddins
  • Capt. Carla Nava
  • Capt. Kyle Abraham
  • Capt. Eric Edelman

(V) indicates a Valor device, (C) indicates a combat device

Air and Space Commendation Medal

  • Capt. Alexander Thennes
  • Master Sgt. Michael Bialaski
  • Tech. Sgt. Brandon Brown
  • Staff Sgt. Sarah Moir
  • Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh
  • Staff Sgt. Daniel White

Air and Space Achievement Medal

  • Staff Sgt. Michael Wright
  • Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver
  • Senior Airman Ardo Dia
  • Senior Airman Sanders Joseph
  • Senior Airman Rico Sanchez
  • Airman First Class Treyvon Walker
Water Can Be a Global Security Issue. This New Tool Will Help The Military Plan

Water Can Be a Global Security Issue. This New Tool Will Help The Military Plan

Nov. 18, 2024 | By David Roza

From flooding in North Carolina to droughts in East Africa, changing water cycles exacerbated by climate change are driving instability around the world. Even in peacetime, mud or rain can slow troop movements, cancel sorties, and generally make life more difficult for U.S. military leaders.

But a new tool launched late last month aims to give leaders across the government better information at a faster tempo to predict and manage water-related risks when planning military operations, disaster response, environmental monitoring, resource management, and more.

The Global Hydro-Intelligence (GHI) system takes information from a wide range of sources, including satellites, ground-based sensors, and climate models, to give planners a “comprehensive picture of global water dynamics,” Lt. Col. Mickey Kirschenbaum, a public affairs officer for weather force management at Air Force Headquarters, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

If it gets wet, it’ll likely be in the GHI system, which aims to provide accurate and timely information on soil moisture, snow cover, vegetation health, precipitation, and many things in between, both in the short term and the long run.

“GHI-based products and services will, for the first time, establish a routinely available source of global water assessments spanning near-real-time analyses to future projections,” Col. Patrick Williams, director of weather at Air Force Headquarters, said in a Nov. 15 press release. “This will arm warfighters, planners, and decision makers with assessments of surface hydrology features and their potential effects across time scales.”

U.S. Air Force and NASA officials hold a ceremony to celebrate their collaboration and the initial operational capability of Global Hydro-Intelligence at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Oct. 30, 2024. GHI is a strategic tool designed to predict and manage water-related risks for military leaders. (U.S. Air Force photo by Chad Trujillo)

Current systems combine three main approaches, Kirschenbaum explained:

  • traditional hydrological models, which analyze historical data and statistics to forecast floods and droughts but are limited by ground-based data quality
  • Satellite-based observations that provide global water cycle data but are not ideal for real-time military decisions
  • Regional forecasting systems that integrate local ground observations, and meteorological models to assess water-related risks in specific geographical areas

The problem is that none of those three approaches were designed with military operations in mind. GHI aims to bring in data from many sources, then use “real-time data processing and analytics” to produce timely information for commanders.

The system will also use machine learning and advanced modeling techniques to make more accurate predictions of future floods, droughts, and other water events. And it’s all designed to be user-friendly for non-experts.

“Unlike many regional systems, GHI offers global coverage across all time-scales, making it a valuable tool for military operations that span multiple countries and regions,” Kirschenbaum said.

It’s a team effort: representatives from the Air Force, NASA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers all took part in an Oct. 30 ceremony at the Pentagon celebrating GHI’s initial operational capability. The Navy, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory also contributed to the project. 

Each agency has something to offer: for example, NASA’s Land Information System plays a key role assimilating data to create terrestrial hydrology models. Dr. Jerry Wegiel, NASA’s principal investigator for GHI, said the new system will give the government a first-of-its-kind trusted information set about the movement of water, according to the press release.

weather
A maintenance team works on a A-10 Thunderbolt II during a snowstorm Dec. 29, 2013, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Capt. Brian Wagner)

GHI comes at a key moment as the Air Force aims to bring weather forecasting back into operations planning, a muscle group that atrophied during the Global War on Terror. 

“The way weather is used today, we’re an obstacle,” Williams told Air & Space Forces Magazine in July. “Before the pilot takes off, we’ll tell them what conditions they’ll see, which impacts how much fuel they need, how many bombs they can carry, and how to get back safely. [But] we can do so much more than that.

“We can purposely force the adversary into situations that they don’t want to be in where they have to pick between a bad choice and a worse choice,” he said.

That could mean sending U.S. bombers in behind a storm to attack an enemy airfield, or predicting when atmospheric conditions limit the radar systems used to guide enemy surface-to-air missiles. 

Like any weapon system, it pays to have a better weather knowledge system than the other guy. The textbook example is D-Day in 1944, when Allied planners took advantage of a break in the storm that German forecasters missed. But weather forecasting requires powerful computers, talented operators, and quality data, the last of which is particularly tough as only two of the military’s 60-year-old weather satellites are currently operational.

“Not having weather satellites up there is a huge, huge problem,” Williams said. 

New satellites for the Pentagon’s secure use would be the ideal solution, but GHI helps close the gap by integrating with other government agencies and making their water data available more quickly.

“We are extremely excited for the role that GHI is going to play in future operational planning and the enhanced situational awareness it’s going to bring to the fight,” Maj. Gen. John Klein Jr., Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, said in the press release.

Mr. John M. Schnittker (front), agricultural advisor, Kirkuk Provincial Reconstruction Team, U.S. Department of State, evaluates a wheat field after hearing local resident’s concerns of water shortages, Hawijah, Iraq, April 26, 2007. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Michael Alberts)

Faster data in greater quantities is important when climate change is disrupting weather patterns, which in turn disrupts human patterns. Drought is one example: in a March report, the United Nations said water deficits can be linked to 10 percent of the increase in migration worldwide. 

“This displacement can, in turn, contribute to water insecurity by placing added strain on water systems and resources in settlement locations, thereby fueling social tensions,” the UN report states. “This water scarcity can increase the risk of conflict.”

Better, faster information could help generate policies to mitigate that risk, “allowing decision-makers and diplomacy to have a greater effect before crisis turns to violence and the armed forces are called,” the press release explained.

Still, GHI is designed to address a wide range of applications beyond anticipating water-induced conflicts or humanitarian crises, Kirschenbaum said. Other areas include environmental monitoring and resource management.

“The system’s ability to integrate diverse data sources and provide real-time analytics makes it a versatile tool for various stakeholders, including government agencies, environmental organizations, and international bodies, to make informed decisions across multiple domains,” he said.

B-52 Drops Bombs in Lithuania in Rare Live-Fire Exercise

B-52 Drops Bombs in Lithuania in Rare Live-Fire Exercise

Nov. 18, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

A B-52 Stratofortress bomber dropped weapons on a range in Lithuania on Nov. 15 in an unusual live fire display, a U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

The B-52, which is assigned to the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, was participating in a NATO exercise dubbed Vanguard Merlin.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a news release that the B-52 “performed air-to-ground range training”  with an Italian Eurofighter Typhoon on Nov. 14-15  Lithuanian, Czech, Swedish, and Norwegian joint terminal attack controllers also participated in the exercise.

“This mission allowed aircrew to familiarize themselves with the operations in Lithuania and the coalition forces on the ground, creating a combat-ready force that has depth in capability and breadth in capacity,” U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a release.

The munitions were dropped at Cudgel Range in Lithuania, a Baltic nation that was formerly part of the Soviet Union but which has been a NATO member since 2004.

The bombs for the B-52 were assembled and loaded by Airmen from the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron and 420th Munitions Squadron at RAF Fairford, U.K. Photos and video released by the Air Force indicate they included GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs).

The 420th Munitions Squadron maintains war reserve materiel at RAF Welford, which is the U.S. military’s second-largest munitions storage area in Europe and is located roughly 30 miles away from RAF Fairford.

Ten B-52s are currently deployed to Europe and the Middle East, nearly 15 percent of the USAF’s entire B-52 fleet.

Four of those B-52s are forward deployed at RAF Fairford as part of a bomber task force mission and are normally based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La. Some flew with Danish F-16s, German Eurofighter Typhoons, and Italian Typhoons on a mission over the Baltic Sea on Nov. 15. It is unclear if that was the same flight as the mission that flew over Lithuania in the NATO exercises. 

The remaining six B-52s, which are from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., are at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. On Nov. 13, two B-52s flew over the Bahrain International Air Show, with a third displayed on the flight line, the first time B-52s have participated in that event.

Air Force Moving Fast to Put New Information Dominance Systems Center at Hanscom

Air Force Moving Fast to Put New Information Dominance Systems Center at Hanscom

Nov. 18, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., is the likely home for the Air Force’s new Information Dominance Systems Center, which will be responsible for procuring battle management systems, cyber and electronic weapons, and more. 

The Air Force identified Hanscom as the sole candidate location to host the new center on Nov. 15, and a final basing decision is expected before the end of the year. 

Around 136 positions are expected to come with the center, which was first announced in February as part of the Department of the Air Force’s “re-optimization” for Great Power Competition. The center will fall under Air Force Materiel Command, the service’s main acquisition arm—officials say creating a center focused on information systems will put more focus on procuring systems for a crucial capability that is often forgotten or given less emphasis.

In April, AFMC announced that the Information Dominance Systems Center would be commanded by the program executive officer (PEO) for command, control, and communications/battle management. Maj. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey is the current and, so far, only officer to hold that position. In a Nov. 15 release, the Air Force specified that command of the Information Dominance Systems Center will be a three-star position. 

Hanscom’s selection to host the new center is hardly surprising—the base already hosts Cropsey’s C3/BM program office, as well as the program offices for Cyber & Networks and Electronic Systems, both of which will transition from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center to the Information Dominance Systems Center. 

Maj. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey, Integrating Program Executive Officer for Command, Control, Communications, and Battle Management, is leading the department’s effort to modernize its Battle Network. Jud McCrehin/staff

The only program office that will fall under the new center but not be located at Hanscom is PEO Business Enterprise Systems, which is spread across Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.; Joint Base San Antonio, Texas; and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. 

Air Force leaders indicated in February that they wanted to limit the extra time and financial burdens that can come from setting up new organizations. 

“We’re going to minimize people having to move and we’re going to try to minimize costs, but we’ve got to move out pretty quickly on all those as well,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. 

Putting the Information Dominance Systems Center at Hanscom would seem to fit that goal, and officials say they hope to stand up the center by mid- to late-2025. 

When that happens, it will become Air Force Materiel Command’s seventh center, along with: 

  • Air Force Research Laboratory 
  • Air Force Test Center 
  • Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (becoming Air Dominance Systems Center) 
  • Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (becoming Nuclear Systems Center) 
  • Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center 
  • Air Force Sustainment Center 
How USAF Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos to Defend Israel

How USAF Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos to Defend Israel

Nov. 18, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

This is the second article in a multipart series based on exclusive interviews with nine Airmen who helped respond to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel. To read Part 1, ‘Silver Star Airmen,’ click here. To complete the series, read Part 3, ‘Did We Do Enough’

RAF LAKENHEATH, U.K.—On April 13, Capts. Trace Sheerin, Brian Tesch, Logan Cowan, and Gabriel Diamond were set to fly the second scheduled patrol of the night from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.  

Members of the 494th Fighter Squadron, they had already watched fellow F-15E crews take off earlier that night, heading over the desert to confront Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel.  

Intelligence and command and control feeds made clear the attack was big—jets were expending all their firepower within 30 minutes, “including air-to-ground munitions, which would be like the last thing you have on the jet to try to take out some of those drones,” Tesch said.  

Yet when the crews asked if they would be taking off earlier than planned, the answer came back “no.” Finally, they climbed into their jets. “We had just started the first engine, the canopy had just closed, and then off in the distance, I see about two dozen maintenance folk and other people sprinting and running out of buildings towards the bunkers,” Tesch said.  

Ballistic missiles were now either approaching the base, which was close to Israel, or being hit by the Iron Dome defense system.  

The base declared “Alarm Red”—meaning it was facing an imminent threat; troops were directed to underground bunkers. A Patriot air defense battery on the base started firing interceptors.  

“I look over my shoulder and it just looks like the Fourth of July,” Teach said. “I remember, usually I couldn’t see the paper on my on my knee because it’s just dark. It’s night. There’s no lighting out there. But I could see, like, clear as day. I could read everything on the paper just from the explosions lighting up the cockpit.” 

The second shift of F-15Es weren’t the only Strike Eagles on the flight line. The first two aircraft to take off that night, flown by Maj. Benjamin Coffey and Capt. Lacie Hester and Lt. Col. Curtis Culver and Lt. Col. Timothy Causey, had returned to base after expending all their firepower, and Culver and Causey’s jet got an integrated combat turn—being reloaded and refueled with the engines running—in a breakneck time of 32 minutes. 

U.S. Air Force aircrew assigned to the 494th Fighter Squadron walk to their F-15E Strike Eagle as they prepare to depart RAF Lakenheath, England, for a deployment to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, Oct. 16, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Olivia Gibson

But Coffey and Hester’s jet had a “hung ordnance,” meaning a missile that had not fired. They were planning on hopping over to a second plane when the Alarm Red sounded, and with their jet not ready to take off yet, they headed to the bunkers. 

Once there, however, Coffey and Hester came to grips with the situation. Their fellow aviators were still defending against the attack—and they had a jet still on the flight line, if they could just get it prepped for launch amid the Alarm Red. 

“I remember looking at Sonic [and saying], ‘We got to go out. We haven’t done enough yet. We can do more. We can just do one more sortie, there’s one more jet. Let’s just take it and go,’” Coffey said. “And she’s like, ‘Yeah, we got to go.’” 

To make that happen, though, they needed a crew chief and maintainers to volunteer to leave the bunker. 

“One of them stood up, Senior Airman Freer, and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a crew chief,’” Coffey recalled. “’You want to go out there right now and launch this ship?’ [He said] ‘Absolutely,’ so we three of us, left the bunker. A few other folks joined us, and Sonic and I got in, started cranking. He stayed plugged in with us. When we cleared him off, he’s like, ‘Nope, until you taxi, I’m going to be right here. My job’s to get you out.’ So he chose, over and over again, with all that stuff going on, to stay out there.’” 

While the alarm kept going as they prepared for takeoff, there was a small gap in the air defense by the time Coffey and Hester were ready for takeoff, giving them an opening to go. 

Meanwhile, the second patrol got the order from the squadron commander: launch to survive. With missiles and debris raining down around the base, the sky was now the safest place for the fighters to be. 

“The problem is, we can’t take off until we have an arming crew … pull the arming handles, the pins and make it so that we can effectively use our aircraft and weapon systems,” said Cowan. 

On the flight line, Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh and her team were responsible for a final inspection and arming munitions just before takeoff. They had watched the maintenance crew pull off the speedy combat turn just as the alarm red had started. Now, they were in a van, preparing to head to the bunker. 

“We had two more aircraft that were not ready to be launched, but they were at chocks, waiting to taxi to be launched. So I said, you know, we have to turn around,” Wertsbaugh said. “We have these last two aircraft, who knows how long this alarm red is going to last? So if we do this now, it’ll be done, and after that we can get inside.” 

While the aircraft taking off would be safer in the air, the ground crews would have no such luck. But Wertsbaugh was not deterred. 

“Nobody else is going to do this,” she said. “I was assigned to this part. I need to stick with it.” 

Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver had helped resolve issues on jets before the alarm sounded, then he and other maintainers directed others to go to the bunkers while they stayed on the flight line to get the final jets off. 

“We know how to do it in that moment. There’s so much going on, there’s so much process. There’s no room for emotion,” he said. 

In their cockpits, Cowan, Sheerin, Tesch, and Diamond watched as “a team of like 10 people swarm our jets,” Cowan said. 

“I don’t even know if they were the arming crews. People would run up to the jet to arm us up and then continue running to the bunker,” Tesch said. 

A dozen Airmen were decorated for their actions that night, including Master Sgt. Timothy Adams, who was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for overseeing the maintainers under fire and remaining on the flightline.

Ready to go, the jets taxied for takeoff—and then stared down a runway with active air defense going off on either side. 

“The takeoff corridor that we had was out of the way of the battery firing,” Cowan said. “We took off, and I wanted to become invisible, because we still had other base defenses, and we have the other bases in the area that have their own defense zones we needed to avoid.” 

Behind Cowan and Diamond, Sheerin and Tesch saw the jet’s afterburner go out at around 3,000 feet. In the darkness, with lights and explosions all around, they couldn’t tell if their flight lead had made it. 

“I was convinced they had been shot down from our own air defense or hit something on the way up,” Tesch said. “So that, for me, was probably the scariest moment of, ‘Hey, it’s our turn to go. They just got hit. Now we have to follow them through that cluster of debris and flaming chunks of metal.’” 

Sheerin kept the jet low over the runway, knowing debris wasn’t falling directly on it and the air defense was positioned to fire parallel to the runway, rather than across it. 

“it felt kind of like a drag race,” Sheerin said. “So you are racing the air defense basically. [Tesch] talked about the Fourth of July lights—you’re chasing these fireworks and racing them down the runway. And then once we had enough airspeed, and we were past the edge of the runway, just pitching the nose up pretty, pretty high, trying to get away from the ground as fast as possible.” 

In the air, Capt. Matthew Eddins and Capt. Garrett Benner were part of the first alert crews to launch against the attack and were returning to base after handing things over to the second alert jets. As they drew near, they saw chaos ensue. 

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from Royal Air Force Lakenheath’s 494th Fighter Squadron returns to formation after receiving fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker from the Fairchild Air Force Base’s 92nd Aerial Refueling Squadron, over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, May 2, 2024. U.S. Air Force Photo/ Staff Sgt. Devin Rumbaugh

“When you’re under night vision goggles, you can see probably the greatest firework show you’ve ever seen, and lots of stuff raining down from who knows where, but it’s hard to tell if that’s 100 miles away or or 10 miles away or if that’s directly above me,” Benner said. 

At the operations desk, Maj. Clayton Wicks and others had decided to stay at their posts as the primary focal communications point for all the jets even as the alarm went off. Now, they needed to decide whether or not they should have Eddins and Benner land with the Alarm Red still in effect. 

“We decided that having them divert and land somewhere else was not the best course of action,” Wicks said. “I mean, the base hadn’t actively been hit, so we’re like, if we determined that having them go somewhere else, that absolutely takes them out of the fight, whereas if we can get them down here, we might still be able to put them through the ICTs and get it back airborne. And in all likelihood, our base was still the safest place for them. So just stay airborne as long as you can, and land once you don’t have fuel to stay airborne anymore.” 

With hung ordnance and low fuel, Eddins and Benner decided to land. After holding off for a moment to let the jets on the ground take off, they landed on the base’s backup runway. 

“At that point, I was just focused on landing,” Eddins said. “I know that runway was not the best. About 1,000 feet down that runway is actually a little bump. So when you land and you hit that bump, it actually brings you up airborne again. You have to bring it back down with the crosswinds. It was definitely not my greatest landing.” 

But they made it. On the ground, with the Alarm Red still in effect, jets with hung ordnance had to be carefully positioned on the flight line so as to not be too close together. But the danger to the base was starting to fade. 

At the ops desk, Wicks got the word from the Combined Air Operations Center: Stop launching jets. “Save it for tomorrow, because we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” they told him. High above, some U.S. fighters remained in the air—as did a number of Iranian drones. 

Read Part 1, ‘Silver Star Airmen,’ and Part 3, ‘Did We Do Enough.’

494th Fighter Squadron Decorations

Silver Star Medal

  • Maj. Benjamin Coffey
  • Capt. Lacie Hester

Bronze Star Medal

  • Maj. Clayton Wicks
  • Master Sgt. Timothy Adams

Distinguished Flying Cross

  • Lt. Col. Curtis Culver (V)
  • Lt. Col. Timothy Causey (V)
  • Capt. Logan Cowan (V)
  • Capt. Gabriel Diamond (V)
  • Capt. Trace Sheerin (V)
  • Capt. Brian Tesch (V)
  • Capt. Matthew Eddins (C)
  • Capt. Garrett Benner (C)
  • Capt. Austin Leake (C)
  • Capt. Stepan Volnychev (C)
  • Capt. Claire Eddins
  • Capt. Carla Nava
  • Capt. Kyle Abraham
  • Capt. Eric Edelman

(V) indicates a Valor device, (C) indicates a Combat device

Air and Space Commendation Medal

  • Capt. Alexander Thennes
  • Master Sgt. Michael Bialaski
  • Tech. Sgt. Brandon Brown
  • Staff Sgt. Sarah Moir
  • Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh
  • Staff Sgt. Daniel White

Air and Space Achievement Medal

  • Staff Sgt. Michael Wright
  • Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver
  • Senior Airman Ardo Dia
  • Senior Airman Sanders Joseph
  • Senior Airman Rico Sanchez
  • Airman First Class Treyvon Walker
New Report: How to Avoid a Nuclear War With China

New Report: How to Avoid a Nuclear War With China

Nov. 16, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force’s ability to carry out long-range strikes can play an important role in defending Taiwan against a Chinese attack—but must be carefully managed to avoid triggering a nuclear conflict, warns a new study by the RAND Corporation. 

“Employing long-range strike assets judiciously, hardening them against nuclear attack, and protecting them from conventional attack should reduce escalation risks,” according to the report, which is titled “Denial Without Disaster—Keeping a U.S.-China Conflict over Taiwan Under the Nuclear Threshold” and was prepared for the Air Force. The report was released on Nov. 15. 

Until the 2020s, RAND researchers write, China had only a limited nuclear capability and the risk of escalation was low. But since then, “everything changed,” they said. “China began a dramatic nuclear buildup, enhanced its survivability with the DF-41 road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and near-continuous nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) patrols, and improved its ability to penetrate U.S. missile defenses with a nuclear-capable fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS).”

Noting that a full determination of China’s secure second-strike capability requires a classified assessment, the authors argue here that “recent qualitative and quantitative advances in China’s nuclear capabilities mean that the United States must treat Beijing as if it already has a secure second-strike capability—especially by 2030.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is developing a variety of long-range strike weapons, including hypersonic missiles, conventional surface-to-surface missiles, and a new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, which will carry a mix of munitions, including stand-off weapons.

Planners have employed long-range weapons in wargames as one means to defend against a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan. But the cost of such weapons is high, and the concept can only be effective, RAND notes, if the Air Force acquires an adequate supply. 

RAND sees a greater risk of escalation into a nuclear conflict if those same long-range strike weapons were used to strike targets on the Chinese mainland. U.S. war planners would need to select targets carefully and shroud their long-range strike assets such that they don’t become an inviting target for a limited Chinese nuclear strike.

The RAND study also recommends establishing a new Escalation Management Center of Excellence within Air Force Global Strike Command to train junior and senior personnel and to help weigh the risk of escalation in peacetime and when picking targets, devising training exercises, and acquiring weapons. 

“There will likely be a trade-off between military operational utility, force survivability, and escalation management,” the report states. “The United States might also have to adopt a slower war tempo, strike less ideal targets, and operate farther from the fight than desired to manage escalation dynamics.”

The study comes as the Biden administration seeks ways to reduce the need to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Nuclear calculations are now more complicated given China’s rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and North Korea’s continued saber rattling.

The Pentagon submitted a report to Congress on Nov. 14 on the U.S. “nuclear employment strategy.” That document calls for simultaneously deterring China, Russia, and North Korea, in part by relying on “non-nuclear capabilities [to] support the nuclear deterrence mission.” 

China sits some 7,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and 1,800 miles from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Both are well beyond the range of any fighter, but U.S. bombers can strike targets from that distance. B-52s, B-2s, and, in the future, B-21s are designed to carry both nuclear and conventional weapons great distances.
 
While strikes on mainland China could trigger escalation, some risk is inevitable if the U.S. is serious about defending Taiwan—and that the U.S. should make that plain to Beijing, said Mark Gunzinger, a former bomber pilot, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and now a senior analyst at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“There are those who seem to accept that U.S. attacks on military targets in mainland China, like the PLA’s bomber and fighter bases and logistics that support their rocket forces, would be highly escalatory,” Gunzinger said. “Yet they also accept as a given that the PLA will attack our bases and other targets located on the sovereign territory of our allies, and even in Guam, which is U.S. territory. We need to think about how to deter those attacks, perhaps by communicating that strikes on our forces and bases in Japan and Guam would open the door to mainland attacks.”

There is a need to deny adversaries “operational sanctuaries,” Gunzinger added. “If we don’t factor mainland strikes into our war plans … we would be ceding mainland China as an operational sanctuary to the PLA.”