Air Force Reserve Helping DOD Assess Space Force Reserve Component Options

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The outlook for a Space Force reserve component is still hazy, but Air Force Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Richard W. Scobee said leaders from his command are among a group of Defense Department decision-makers who are contemplating different possibilities for integrating Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard space functions into the military’s newest service.

“What they’re looking at is how do they create a 21st century model … that will really work for who America is now, and so, what they want to do is create a model for the personnel that includes both … full- and part-time people as we go forward,” he told reporters during a media roundtable held as part of AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

The team is examining multiple options, Scobee said, including one that he characterized as a sort of “Total Force solution.”

This team is scoping out what advancement, education, and leadership opportunities each option would make available to part-time and full-time Reservists, respectively, in order to chart the best possible path, he said.

“It runs the gamut from the way we do things now in the Air Force to a fully integrated place for the reserve and the space component, along with a space Guard, as well, so I think there’s a lot of … good work that’s being done,” he said.

The team will present options to the Department of the Air Force and DOD, he said, though Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper is in charge of making the call that will ultimately get sent to Congress for approval, Scobee said.

“This holistic approach allows leadership and Congress to make the right decisions in creating the most efficient landscape for how the Reserve components will support the Space Force,” Air Force Reserve Command spokesperson Col. Beth Kelley Horine told Air Force Magazine in a Sept. 16 email. “In the meantime, the Air Force Reserve will continue to provide critical expertise and capabilities to space missions via the 11 active-associate Reserve units as well as Individual Mobilization Augmentees embedded within the active component organizations.”

Scobee said his priority is ensuring that whatever plan is finally picked carves out a place for part-time Reservists. He also expressed excitement at the unique opportunities the Space Force could theoretically offer these personnel.

“What’s interesting is that … Space Force, for the most part, when they deploy, they deploy in garrison, and most of the equipment is really hard to touch because it’s in space, so it’s a great model for a part-time force that has high-end jobs across the nation getting after things like SpaceX and all the automation that we have at different companies across the board, whether it’s Apple, you know, Waymo, or Tesla,” he said.

Those organizations currently employ Air Force Reservists, who, as a result, can bring those specialized skillsets to the warfighting table, Scobee noted.

“I’m really excited to see how the Space Force is going to integrate that into the things that they’re doing,” he said.

Until Congress decides what it wants a Space Force reserve component to look like, the Air Force Reserve space personnel will find themselves in a bit of organizational limbo, Horine explained.

“Until a legislative determination is made on the Reserve construct for the Space Force, IMAs will remain assigned to USSF organizations as USAF Airmen,” she wrote. “Our Traditional Reservists will remain aligned under 10th Air Force and will continue to support their classically associated units, regardless of that unit’s Service affiliation.”

However, until legislators make a decision, these service members’ Reserve statuses won’t change, she said.

WATCH: Virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference Day Three Highlights

Sept. 16, 2020

Video: Air Force Association on Vimeo

Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen W. “Seve” Wilson says teleworking may be here to stay for a large portion of the Air Force population even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass said the service is looking at new ways to track experience when it comes to promotion … and more. Air Force Magazine Editor-in-Chief Tobias Naegele and News Editor Amy McCullough highlight the key takeaways from AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

New AEF Focuses on Small Groups, Multitasking, Burden Sharing

Sept. 16, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

The new Air and Space Expeditionary Force model, which goes into effect in the next few weeks, will focus on small groups deploying together, and will likely see Airmen doing more than one job each and deploying to more bare-base locations, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said Sept. 16. He suggested that USAF will seek some relief from the deployment burden from the other services.

The old model of the AEF was essentially “crowdsourcing,” Brown said during a press conference at AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, to the point of dispatching individual airmen, one at a time, to fill vacancies in forward-deployed areas.

Now, “the key aspect to this is how … we build teams that work together, and then how do we deploy them together,” Brown said. “You’ve got to build a model that’s somewhat disciplined to do that” in order to preserve readiness across the force.

“Flexibility is the key to airpower, but sometimes we get a little too flexible, we have to build a little structure into this, going forward.”

The goal will continue to be predictability for airmen and their families, Brown said, but with the addition of a more rational way to present forces to combatant commanders.

Asked how the changes will be apparent to rank-and-file airmen, Brown said “instead of just going out and meet your team when you get to your deployed location … the goal is to have you deploy with the same folks” each time.

Also, to carry out dynamic force employment missions, “You may not be going to” the bases that USAF has rotated in and out of for 25 years in the Middle East. Instead, “We’re going to have to be ready to go places and deploy places where you don’t have an existing structure” of support.

Finally, the push toward “multi-capable airmen” means people will go to a location “where you’re doing several different things.” He gave as an example a female Airman in Guam who briefed him on communications, and not long after, “she’s in battle rattle and now she’s doing security. Our Airmen have to have the capability to do that. So that’s the aspect that will be different: where we can trust them to do not only their job,” but others as well. The force will have to be “light, lean and agile,” Brown said.

As for those Airmen in high-demand/low-density career fields, Brown said only, “That’s something we have to manage closely.” However, he added, “We also have to talk to the Joint Force and say, we have a finite set of resources to do this. We can’t wear them out so they’re not ready for the future.”

Senior USAF leaders have said the AEF technically goes into effect October 1, to align with the Pentagon’s Global Force Management system, but the full array of changes may take a few months to be approved and be implemented. The new system is meant to do a better job of presenting forces to combatant commanders and standardize the numbers of forces available to them.

AFSOC’s Review of Valor Awards ‘Winding Down’

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Air Force Special Operations Command’s review of valor awards for possible upgrades, including potentially to the Medal of Honor and Air Force Cross, is still ongoing, though it is “winding down,” with a handful of cases still under review.

A Defense Department-wide review of valor awards began in 2016, and notably resulted in the Air Force’s only Medal of Honor for the Global War on Terrorism with the upgrade of Master Sgt. John Chapman’s Air Force Cross in 2018. Air Force Special Operations Command, the major command with most of the service’s overall valor awards, has been reviewing the cases and presenting them to Air Force Secretary Barbara M. Barrett.

“We have worked our way through the bulk of that review, and there are just a handful of awards that we’re still reviewing as perhaps being eligible for upgrades based on either new evidence or the criteria being re-evaluated,” AFSOC boss Lt. Gen. James C. Slife said Sept. 15. “Yes, it is still underway, but I would say it’s probably winding down.”

USAF officials have said the service was taking its time and putting in extensive effort on each case, measuring them against the standards that other services use for the Medal of Honor. Some cases have resulted in upgrades long after the initial award, such as the November 2019 awarding of a Silver Star to Chief Master Sgt. Chris Grove for actions in a 2007 battle in Afghanistan, and most recently the August upgrade of a Bronze Star to a Silver Star to Master Sgt. John Grimesey for actions in a 2013 firefight in Afghanistan.

In total, Airmen have received one Medal of Honor, ten Air Force Crosses, and 85 Silver Stars for actions since 2001, according to a Pentagon tally.

Ligado May Jeopardize Future of Experimental Space Force Navigation Satellite

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Officials overseeing a promising new satellite venture warned this week that Ligado Networks could jeopardize the future of next-generation positioning, navigation, and timing alongside the current GPS enterprise.

“As we interface with our [Air Force headquarters] staff counterparts, the message we communicate is basically, ‘Well, we are going to be collateral damage if this moves forward,’” Arlen Biersgreen, Navigation Technology Satellite-3 program manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory, told Air Force Magazine on Sept. 16. “GPS is going to be harmed, and certainly the work that we’re doing will be harmed as well.”

The Space Force’s NTS-3 program is an experimental effort to offer more reliable, accurate location data via satellites that complement GPS. It is one of three “vanguard” research projects into which the Department of the Air Force is throwing extra focus and resources because of the value it could provide to the U.S. as a full-fledged program. The first satellite will launch in late fiscal 2022 for a yearlong trial run.

“It’s not clear Ligado will get clearance to proceed until after the NTS-3 mission,” L3Harris spokesperson Kristin Jones said. “The capabilities we demonstrate would certainly be impacted down the road when they are part of the operational constellation, but whether the NTS-3 experiment itself is impacted is anyone’s guess at this point.”

NTS-3 would transmit its signal using the L-band of the electromagnetic spectrum, near a part of the spectrum where Ligado recently won approval for a network of 5G wireless and Internet-of-Things services.

The Pentagon strongly objects to the Federal Communications Commission’s decision in favor of Ligado, saying the company’s neighboring technology will drown out GPS signals. That would hurt ATMs, car navigation systems, Garmin watches, and anything else that relies on GPS data to pinpoint location and time on Earth, DOD argues.

GPS satellites also host sensors that detect, locate, and report nuclear explosions as part of the Nuclear Detonation Detection System.

Ligado’s work would overpower NTS-3 in the same way as it may GPS satellites, Biersgreen said.

Joe Rolli, head of PNT business development at satellite builder L3Harris, said the company is still figuring out how a future NTS-3 constellation might avoid the potential signal interference that has sparked arguments on Capitol Hill and across federal agencies.

“They’re all looking at that to make sure,” Rolli said. “How they’re mitigating, I can’t answer that right now. But I know we have all the experts from both the government and our technical teams collaborating to make sure that that risk is understood.”

Ligado argues its transmissions will not be powerful or close enough to hurt navigation signals. DOD is fighting to get the company’s plans revoked.

“The FCC’s unanimous, bipartisan order in the Ligado proceeding is the culmination of a careful and thorough analysis by the federal government’s communications experts,” Ligado wrote in July. “It is thoughtful, grounded in science, and includes several strict conditions that ensure Ligado’s operations protect GPS and are squarely in the public interest.”

Two Airmen Killed in Separate Crashes at Ali Al Salem Within Days

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Two Airmen have died in two separate single-vehicle crashes within three days of each other at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, the Pentagon announced.

Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Ouellette, 23, of Merrimack, N.H., died Sept. 14 in a single all-terrain-vehicle crash on the flightline at the base, the Pentagon announced Sept. 16. The cause of the crash is under investigation. Ouellette was assigned to the 42nd Aerial Port Squadron at Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass.

The crash comes days after Senior Airman Jason Khai Phan, 26, of Anaheim, Calif., died Sept. 12 in a single-vehicle, non-combat-related crash while patrolling outside the perimeter of the base. Two other Airmen were injured in the crash, and taken to Camp Arifjan for treatment. That crash is also under investigation. Phan was assigned to the 66th Security Forces Squadron at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

“Senior Airman Jason Phan was an exceptionally noble servant to the nation and his fellow Airmen,” 66th Security Forces Squadron Commander Maj. Shane Watts said in a release. “His tireless commitment to master his craft made him a credible and reliable teammate in critical situations. But it was his genuine enthusiasm and selfless devotion to others that defined the depth of his character and inspiration to his peers and leaders. Jason lived with passion and shared compassion with purpose to everyone.”

Here’s How COVID-19 Has Changed the Air Force

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Jennifer Hlad

The first week of March, Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. attended a senior leader conference awards banquet, and he and the other attendees were “high-fiving, we’re shaking hands, we’re hugging, we’re jamming together to [take] selfies.” Two weeks later, about a dozen airmen wanted a photo to commemorate a C-130 coming off the depot line at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., and “we almost needed a wide-angle lens to be able to take a picture with everybody spaced out.”

Bunch now keeps a photo from each event, as “a stark reminder of just how much our world changed in a really short timeframe.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people around the world work, travel, and live. The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force are no different. When the threat of the virus became clear, leaders throughout the Department of the Air Force sprung into action to change how—and where—work is done, and there’s no going back now, panelists said Sept. 16 at AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

“As we started this, I looked around the office for the book on how to operate the command in a pandemic, and, surprise surprise, there wasn’t one,” Bunch said. “We just knew that we were going to have to” figure it out, making adjustments along the way, “because of what we need to do to support the nation.”

Army Maj. Gen. John E. Shaw, combined force space component commander for U.S. Space Force and commander of Space Force’s Space Operations Command, said that even before the pandemic, Space Force Chief Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond and the service’s senior enlisted adviser, Chief Master Sgt. Roger A. Towberman, had been talking about the fact that Space Force “is a digital force” and was “going to be the first branch in our military to really embrace digital technology.”

Now, he said, “I think we can all say, everybody listening here today can say, that you experienced a hyperspace jump in your digital proficiency during COVID. That’s a silver lining, perhaps, for each of us personally, and also for us as a nation.”

Still, he said, there was not a one-size-fits-all solution to keep COVID-19 from impacting operations.

The needs and concerns at Thule Air Base, Greenland, are different from those of Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, he said, and both are different than Buckley Air Force Base, Colo. Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colo., is “really a big ship under a mountain,” so as reports emerged about COVID-19 ravaging cruise ships, “it didn’t take long … for us to realize, hey, if something took hold inside the mountain, that could be really bad,” for Space Command, the Missile Warning Center, U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Strategic Command, he said.

But “in all instances,” Shaw said, “Operations never missed a beat.”

Similarly, Bunch said AFMC was able to find solutions “to keep hypersonic testing on track, we’ve been able to keep our F-35 testing on track. And one that we did in the middle of the pandemic, was we did climatic lab testing for the [HH-60W] Jolly Green [II].”

Lt. Gen. Richard W. Scobee, chief of the Air Force Reserve, said Reserve Command was “already preparing to have a force that had more flexibility to participate using more of a virtual environment,” but the pandemic hastened that work. At the same time, Reservists activated to support efforts to fight COVID-19.

Leaders quickly realized that command teams should be making decisions about when to return to work and restart training, because “they have the clearest picture of what their population is and the mission in the local area.”

Now, Scobee said, “We do not intend to revert back to the way we were doing things before … we’re going to fully embrace some of these changes. And one of those is a culture of telework. We’ve determined we can do things remotely and be successful.”

Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh, director of the Air National Guard, said he also pushed authority to make many decisions “down to the lowest level, down to the squadron commanders and below, the command teams, the first sergeants, our senior enlisted leaders. I mean, those folks were making the mission happen. It takes about five people to change an F-16 engine, and those five people are not socially distanced.”

Loh said leaders asked those Airmen what they needed, and then “gave them all the authority, and not just accountability.”

At AFMC, “we weren’t where we needed to be with telework” when the pandemic started, Bunch said. “We weren’t able to keep people online, and we weren’t be able to get the mission done.” However, those issues have now been fixed, he added, and as a result, “we won’t go back.”

Shaw noted that space operations “have always been virtual, to some extent,” but said he believes “we will emerge from this a much more proficient digital society and digital Department of Defense,” with Space Force, in particular, benefitting from the lessons learned.

Still, he warned: “The next pandemic will not look like COVID. The transmission rates, the infection rates and the methodology, the morbidity and mortality rates will not be the same. So we have to ensure, and I’m hoping that we have learned enough from COVID, that we learn the right lessons for the next pandemic and that we’re ready for it.”

Air Force PT Testing Delayed Until Jan. 1, 2021

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force will not resume physical fitness testing across the service until at least Jan. 1, 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the military, top service leaders announced.

The service early in the pandemic suspended PT testing, and repeatedly delayed resumption until Oct. 1. Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass said Sept. 16 that the new target is Jan. 1, and the service is also determining what PT testing will look like in the future.

“That’s really for the safety of our Airmen and, all across our Air Force … every installation is kind of in a different COVID environment, so it just makes sense to do so,” Bass said. “However, as Airmen … I would like to see us at a place where we’re not so much focused on the PT test as we are more about fitness and readiness, so that is the continued message that we push out as leaders, which is: We need a fit force, we need a ready force, and we need Airmen who are doing that regardless of a PT test.”

The decision to push the testing timeline back is largely because October 1 is coming quickly, at a time when both Bass and Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. are just beginning in the job.

“So, not much of a chance for us to assess and kind of put our stamp on kind of the way forward,” Brown said. “The other aspect is we’re basically two weeks away from 1 October. So we want to give the force fair warning on when we’re going to start again, and then we can play in the different aspects because we have to do it in a different environment.”

For example, the Air Force cannot do the waist measurement, so “we’re basically going to give everybody full credit for waist measurement.” But Airmen can still run, do push-ups, and do sit-ups in the COVID-19 environment.

“So that gives our Airmen enough time to prepare themselves and they’re not surprised,” Brown said. “But, I’ll tell you, most of them are working out anyway. … People are still staying fit. We just want to make sure that we move into this and give them fair warning on when we’re going to start up again and not catch our Airmen by surprise.”

Esper Highlights USAF Modernization, Force Employment Changes as Near-Peer Threats Rise

Sept. 16, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The U.S. Air Force is leading the way within the military on adopting new technologies and adapting how it operates to be ready for “great power competition,” both with technological advancements such as the Advanced Battle Management System and new ways to deploy aircraft such as bomber task forces, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said.

In a Sept. 16 keynote address as part of AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Esper warned that with countries like China and Russia making advancements, “we cannot take for granted the United States’ long-held advantages,” such as air superiority and the ability to operate without threats in space. Rivals “seek to erode our long-standing dominance in airpower through long-range fires, anti-access area denial systems, and other asymmetric capabilities designed to counter our strengths,” Esper said.

That, combined with working to make space a contested environment and constant cyber threats, means there is an “increasingly gray zone of engagement that keeps us in a perpetual state of competition,” Esper said.

The Air Force in recent years is working to get ahead of the curve and modernize, especially with development of the B-21 Raider bomber, the X-37B space plane, and now the Next Generation Air Dominance platform that the service announced Sept. 15 has already taken flight. Coupled with this, the “dynamic force employment” model of sending current aircraft to operate abroad in smaller task forces lets the service show deterrence with aircraft such as the B-1, B-2, and B-52 in small numbers while working to improve readiness at home, Esper said.

“In order to realize the full potential of this and other novel concepts, we must be able to exchange and synchronize information across systems, services, and platforms,” Esper said. “And we must do so seamlessly across all domains.” The Air Force is leading this effort with ABMS, as displayed in recent “on-ramp” exercises.

These advancements require digital modernization, including better protecting cyber capabilities, improving artificial intelligence, and developing 5G. The Air Force is “on the leading edge” of AI, including with its AI Accelerator Program that has been used to speed up the F-15EX acquisition program, Esper said. The service is also conducting 5G experiments to “assess spectrum sharing, improve aircraft mission readiness, and enable air, space, and cyberspace lethality.”

To continue this momentum, the Air Force needs to keep a culture of innovation and risk-taking, Esper said.

“We must make the tough choices required to align our investments with our highest priorities, particularly by shedding legacy systems to advance new capabilities,” Esper said. “In this rapidly changing security environment, we must adapt quickly and outpace our strategic competitors at every turn. In doing so, we will maintain our decisive advantage now and into the future.”