Space Force to Celebrate 1st Birthday with Personnel Picks, Promotion Plans

Sept. 11, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

With its first birthday a few months away, the Space Force is preparing to unveil a slew of personnel, policy, and culture decisions that will set it apart from the other armed forces.

The service plans to announce by its one-year anniversary on Dec. 20 which Airmen in fields like cyber, intelligence, and acquisition are accepted into the Space Force. Those names will be published ahead of when personnel from those common careers begin joining the new service in February 2021.

Officers and enlisted members in the space operations field started transferring in from the Air Force on Sept. 1.

By early October, the Space Force will reveal which enlisted personnel at the E-8 and E-9 ranks—those who are Air Force senior master sergeants, first sergeants, chief master sergeants, and command chief master sergeants—in the common career fields were picked to transfer.

“I want the names released so that people can plan their lives, and they’re not wondering over the holidays, when they’ve got enough to wonder about, ‘Hey, am I going to be in the Space Force on the other side of the New Year or not?’” Chief Master Sgt. Roger A. Towberman, the Space Force’s Senior Enlisted Adviser, told Air Force Magazine on Sept. 11. “We want to give them all that information.”

Sometime in the next few months, the Space Force will roll out its vision for how members should rise through the ranks. Service officials want to get rid of promotion tests for enlisted Airmen and instead use boards that focus on the best career assignments for people to help them advance, rather than simply raising their ranks or holding them back.

At first, though, it will put short-term promotion practices in place until the new panels are ready to consider eligible Airmen.

“We want to do away with testing, but what does that mean for the person that’s supposed to test for staff sergeant in March?” Towberman said. “We want to make sure that we know that, and that we’ve told everyone, and that those decisions are definitely done.”

The service is finalizing its Basic Military Training ideas, complete with a Space Force coin and blue name tapes, for the first seven Space Force students who go through boot camp at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, next month. A space-focused Noncommissioned Officer Academy will open for professional military education Oct. 1.

Towberman is planning a conference to discuss Space Force values, and a capstone paper to explain them, by Dec. 20 as well.

“We’re going to bring folks together, multifunctional teams, and we’re going to sit down and talk through our core values, what they should be, what they could be,” he said. “Then, what’s our strategy for making sure that they don’t become platitudes or empty bumper stickers? … We’ve got to put a little rigor into, how do we help each other live up to those values every day?”

And, yes—dress uniforms are coming.

Towberman said the Space Force wants to start testing out service dress uniforms, possibly featuring the service’s unique new insignia, by the end of the year.

The service announced last month it will use the same camouflage pattern as the Air Force and Army for its official duty uniform, but has not released details on how its more formal pants, skirts, and jackets could differ from Air Force blues.

Officials appear to be holding off on releasing the insignia designs for each rank until Congress passes the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill, which may require the Space Force to adopt naval ranks. The legislation doesn’t tell the Space Force to use the Navy’s insignia as well, but Towberman said it may make more sense to debut everything together once they know what to call each rank.

Air Force bases that host space missions, like the Eastern launch range at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., or missile warning systems at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colo., are still awaiting renaming as well.

“It’s a little easier to put stuff off when … everyday, you can work on something important, but I think a lot of those things, we’re just going to wait and we’re going to see what happens, and then we’re going to be excited to move forward,” he said.

Lockheed: New Demand for F-16s Could Push Type Past 5,000 Mark

Sept. 11, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

After nearly shutting down production several times, Lockheed Martin is getting a surge of orders for the F-16. With a current backlog of 130 jets, and several countries on the cusp of making orders, the company sees a possibility of surpassing the 5,000th airplane of the type, Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President of Aeronautic Michele A. Evans said Sept. 9.

“We’re seeing a … resurgence of the F-16 business,” Evans said in an interview with Air Force Magazine. The company is producing Block 70 Falcons for Bahrain, Bulgaria, and Slovakia at its Greenville, S.C., plant, where it moved the F-16 line last year, freeing up space at its Fort Worth, Texas, plant for the F-35 production line.

“We’re up to about 4,600 aircraft delivered and can see possibly getting up to 5,000,” Evans said.

Production is ramping up to four aircraft a month at Greenville, which has increased its workforce to 400 employees, she noted. It is also operating under an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity Air Force contract to supply F-16s to Morocco and Taiwan and potential future or repeat customers. The IDIQ vehicle will streamline and speed up contracting so there is a “base configuration” of aircraft to be built, “and then we propose only the unique capabilities for each country,” in the form of specific sensors or capabilities, she said. “We then just negotiate that contract with those countries.”

The backlog does not include India, where Lockheed is seeking a contract for an advanced version of the F-16 to be called the F-21. Along with partner Tata, Lockheed would build 114 airplanes in India, under license, if it wins the competition.

The F-16 sales could also create future F-35 customers, Evans said. “For a lot of these countries, … as we get them capable with the F-16, we believe the next step for many … is future procurement of the F-35.”

Evans said the U.S. Air Force is seeking more operational flight program and software updates for its own F-16s, and may be interested in other improvements as well. The Air Force is “looking to advance the capability” of its Falcons, she said.

The current backlog will keep the F-16 in production through 2025, Evans noted, but Lockheed would consider increasing the rate of production if demand increases. Hitting 5,000 Falcons delivered would likely take more than seven years of sustained work, she said. However, “We don’t see any issues in terms of being able to meet customer demand,” she added.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 9:41 a.m. Sept. 12 to include the correct number in the F-16 backlog.

Three Nations, More than 50 Planes Train Together in ‘Point Blank’

Sept. 11, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

More than 50 aircraft, including four different fighter types from three countries and two U.S. services, trained together in a large force exercise over the North Sea on Sept. 10.

Exercise Point Blank 20-04 included U.S. Air Force F-16s from the 510th and 555th Fighter Squadrons from Aviano Air Base, Italy, along with F-15s from the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, U.K.; KC-135s from RAF Mildenhall, U.K.; and B-52s deployed to RAF Fairford, U.K. The USAF contingent linked up with U.S. Marine Corps, United Kingdom Royal Air Force, and Royal Netherlands Air Force F-35s plus RAF Eurofighter Typhoons, RNAF F-16s, and a RAF Voyager refueling aircraft.

The exercise centered on fourth- and fifth-generation defensive counter air integration missions, according to a 48th Fighter Wing release.

“Flying alongside fellow NATO nations over and around the UK in a complex war fighting scenario involving over 50 aircraft is exactly the sort of training that keeps our Royal Air Force sharp and ready to operate alongside our Allies whenever and wherever the call comes,” United Kingdom Minister for Armed Forces James Heappey said in the release.

For the Aviano units, the exercise was a chance to fly in a large force event within U.S. Air Forces in Europe and with the high-end capabilities of NATO nations, 555th Fighter Squadron Maj. John Hamilton said in the release.

The Typhoons flew as the aggressors, and simulated “the tactics and threats of our adversaries whilst challenging their colleagues in a series of complex air-to-air battles,” RAF Lossiemouth Station Commander Group Capt. Chris Layden said.

Point Blank is a regularly scheduled set of exercises involving NATO allies, which was initially postponed because of COVID-19 before starting again in May. Earlier in the year, U.S. Air Forces in Europe conducted large force exercises with just USAF units because of COVID-19-related restrictions.

Space Force Looks at Readiness Through Fresh Eyes

Sept. 11, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

What makes satellites ready for war? Is it their health while on orbit? Is it how their operators prepare? Is it the ability to recover if something goes wrong?

The Space Force is thinking through these questions and more as it figures out how to measure military space readiness, an analysis that will affect how the service trains its members and upgrades its technology.

“A lot of times, readiness is described as preparing to deploy or preparing to accomplish your mission at some point in the future,” Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief operations officer, told Air Force Magazine on Sept. 11. “You do training, you perform maintenance activities, … so that, if called upon, you can do your mission at a high level. But if you think about it, our space assets are largely doing their wartime mission on a day-to-day basis, and so we have to perpetually be ready.”

Being able to assess, describe, and report readiness levels will show the Space Force where its resources are falling short, so that it can see where operators need to improve or what new capabilities it should pursue.

Saltzman, who transferred into the Space Force on Aug. 14 after a year as deputy commander of Air Forces Central Command, said identifying the service’s operational struggles will shape the fiscal 2022 budget request.

How exactly to achieve readiness is often discussed in the Pentagon as the military takes its forces, stretched thin by two decades of counter-terrorism war in the Middle East, and tries to bolster them to outpace Russia and China.

Aerospace readiness typically relies on how well aircraft are maintained—a measure that doesn’t translate as well to satellites that are sitting out of reach in orbit.

Col. Clifford Theony, chief of the Space Force’s civil engineer division, argued in a recent piece for the online journal Over the Horizon that as a service that relies on digital networks and software, staying connected is directly tied to readiness.

That means information technology and other kinds of infrastructure must be a higher priority for the Space Force than it has been elsewhere in the Pentagon. Those systems need an uninterrupted power supply, backup generators, and routine maintenance to work as well as possible.

“Infrastructure must be able to adapt and overcome natural and human-made threats and mitigate potential interruptions—the same way the banking and cyber industry build their critical facilities,” he wrote. “For several space mission systems, a one-second disruption of power (or for intense computing environments, a brief cooling interruption) can cause extended mission outages that compromise mission-assurance demands.”

Space Force engineers have started running tests of mission-essential tasks to ensure the service’s infrastructure holds up. For the first time, they are judging the results against a set of performance standards so commanders can tell how prepared their systems are for operations.

“Achieving readiness requires investment in infrastructure that may, on the surface, appear to have no issues,” Theony wrote. “The reality is the current support infrastructure may not meet the mission assurance requirements because there was never a distinct and clear standard.”

Soldier Receives Medal of Honor for Saving Dozens of Hostages in Daring Iraq Raid

Sept. 11, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Thomas P. Payne received the Medal of Honor during a Sept. 11 ceremony at the White House for a 2015 mission during which he led a rescue that liberated 75 captives facing execution at the hands of the Islamic State group. Payne is the first service member to receive the Medal of Honor for actions during the fight against ISIS.

“Pat, you embody the righteous glory of American valor,” President Donald J. Trump said during the ceremony. “We stand in awe of your heroic, daring, and gallant deeds. You went truly above and beyond the call of duty to earn the nation’s highest military honor.”

On Oct. 22, 2015, Payne, then a sergeant first class, led the night-time mission, attempting to liberate two buildings housing Kurdish prisoners in Kirkuk Province. The team successfully cleared one building, freeing 38 of the hostages.

Then another assault team called for help in the other building as they came under attack. Payne left his secured position, exposing himself to enemy fire, to run to the other group, according to a White House release. There, he climbed onto the building’s roof as the structure caught fire—tossing grenades and shooting at enemy fighters down below. Payne then moved to the ground level, shooting at ISIS fighters through a breach hole.

The fire spread, threatening the hostages inside, so Payne ran to the main entrance of the building. He entered, running through enemy fire, smoke, and flames to find the armored door that locked prisoners inside. He ran back outside, grabbing bolt cutters, and again went inside past enemy fire to cut the locks, according to the statement.

“His courageous actions motivated the coalition assault team members to enter the breach and assist with cutting the locks,” the statement reads.

He exited a second time to catch his breath, before going back inside to make the last cuts to open the door, freeing 37 hostages. Despite being ordered to leave the building, he stayed to help the hostages exit.

His actions are credited with saving the 75 hostages. Twenty ISIS fighters were killed in the fight. One U.S. Army Delta Force operator, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, was killed in the battle.

Barrett, Brown to Kick Off AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference Sept. 14

Sept. 11, 2020 | By Amy Hudson

The Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference will kick off Sept. 14 with Air Force Secretary Barbara M. Barrett and Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. each addressing a live, virtual audience.

This year’s conference, which runs through Sept. 16, will be held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but still brings together a packed lineup of Air Force, Space Force, Defense Department, and industry speakers, providing a rare opportunity to get direct insights from so many senior leaders on their plans, policies, and vision and the emerging trends across the aerospace forces.

“While we would have far preferred to hold this event in person, this virtual event will—as closely as possible—replicate our dynamic and well recognized in-person Air, Space & Cyber conferences,” said AFA Chairman and the 14th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Gerald Murray. “The Department of the Air Force and our Air Force and Space Force leadership have been tireless in their support to help us plan and bring together a truly remarkable lineup of speakers.”

With the theme “Aerospace Nation: Air, Space, & Cyber Forces in the Fight,” the conference features live speeches from Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, his Senior Enlisted Advisor Chief Master Sgt. Roger A. Towberman, and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass. Also addressing the conference audience will be Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper, and dozens of others participating in 26 panel discussions covering everything from operations to spouse issues, and from joint all-domain command and control to the impact of COVID-19 on operations and the future of air and space forces.

Attendees will be able to stop by our virtual expo floor to meet with exhibitors and learn about the latest developments in aerospace and cyber technology.

Air Force Magazine will bring you regular updates from the event via our website and social media platforms, but it’s not too late to register.

‘Future Games’ Exercise to Feature Swarming Drones, Palletized Munitions

Sept. 10, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

The next iteration of the Air Force’s “Future Games,” which explore alternative force structures and capabilities not necessarily in development, will feature swarming drones and munitions launched from cargo planes, as well as the kill chain, according to Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements.

Speaking in a Defense News virtual symposium, Hinote said the exercise, slated to run in late September, allows USAF leaders to experiment with capabilities and concepts that may not be an extant program of record or those that “adhere to … current policies.”

The experiment recognizes that while USAF is still pursuing the “ends” of the National Defense Strategy, “the ‘means’ … may be under a lot more pressure,” Hinote said, echoing comments from other service leaders who expect a no-growth fiscal 2022 budget due to COVID-imposed austerity.

“We have to think very differently about the ways, and what we do in Future Games is we talk about new concepts and new capabilities, how they mate together,” he said.

The exercise will benefit this year from “much more accurate modeling and simulations” and will look specifically at “swarming unmanned vehicles, or palletized munitions.” It will also game “kill chains and … the decision cycle of command and control.” Hinote added, “We have a much better understanding of how to distribute command and control this year than last year when we played this game.”

The adversary in the game will likely try to disrupt command and control, Hinote said, but thanks to joint all-domain command and control, the Army’s Convergence concept, and other initiatives from the services, “I think it’s going to be very difficult for them to disrupt” C2. “We’re not going to be tied to brick and mortar buildings, and we’re going to see a much more fluid” C2 system that “leverages mission command.”

Future Games grew out of Congress’ so-called 1064 report mandating that the Air Force describe the force structure it requires rather than what it thinks the nation can afford, which in turn led to “The Air Force We Need” white paper calling for a 25 percent increase in the size of the service to 386 combat squadrons.

A USAF spokeswoman said the event, expected to be an annual affair, explores the forces “needed inside and outside the highly contested environment to compete with our near-peer adversaries.” Throughout 2019, smaller exercises tested “a hybrid force solution that could fight differently,” she said. The 2020 iteration “will test the hybrid force with an eye toward a more capable and modern Joint Force and enhanced partnerships” that can achieve the ends of the NDS in “different ways, and under a constrained budget.” The exercise is intended to “accelerate change,” she said, while future iterations will help USAF “refine what a feasible force design looks like in coordination with our joint, allied and interagency partners.”

In the next few months, Air Force leadership will try to make the case to “stakeholders,” both within and outside the Air Force, on the need for major changes, as laid out in new Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown’s “Accelerate Change Or Lose” white paper.

“We might lose a fight against a peer competitor, fall behind in competition, lose some aspects of the international environment that we’ve relied upon, that our people have benefited from for a long time” without rapid evolution of the force, Hinote said.

“Our equipment is vulnerable, our people may be vulnerable, so we have a pretty stark choice in front of us,” he said, paraphrasing Brown. “He is willing to do what it takes to move forward and accelerate the change we need.”

Though Brown said USAF may see some reorganization, Hinote said it will likely take the form of “flattening, streamlining, and becoming more agile. Certainly at the staff level, that is what we are trying to do … Trying to re-imagine staff work at the Pentagon.” But reorganization “isn’t enough” and “external stakeholders” will have to be convinced that USAF will “think very differently about today’s risk versus tomorrow’s risk.”

Hinote warned that there are “hard choices ahead, things we have to give up, things that are, frankly, good, that work.” However, it’s impossible to take an approach of “bridging” from old technologies to new ones anymore.

“We’ve deferred modernization for so long that the day of reckoning is here, there will be tough decisions … That usually means getting rid of old stuff to get to new stuff.”

He also said USAF is embracing the ideas of acquisition chief Will Roper, who is pushing the service to shift away from systems that must be sustained “30-40-50 years” toward “a design-centric approach, where we use the equipment, we don’t go back and re-build it” in a depot, “but instead we replace it … with something new.”

Digital design has made “incredible strides … in the commercial sector” and has “the potential to change acquisition inside DOD. It allows for the very quick and very accurate redesign of weapon systems, to the point where it’s not always necessary to go back and re-test everything. In fact, your modeling and simulation does a lot of the testing,” Hinote said. The Air Force also seeks to “flip the script” with industry partners to make it “more profitable, a better business value, … to get into a design-centric approach.” He concluded by saying, “You’re going to hear a lot more about that.”

Roper Argues for More Artificial Intelligence Collaboration, Funding

Sept. 10, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Air Force acquisition boss Will Roper on Sept. 10 made the case for closer collaboration between military services on artificial intelligence, saying the Pentagon must get the groundwork right in order to successfully expand so-called “smart” information technology across the department.

“To really make AI real, you have to do a lot of work that is not the glitzy algorithms doing cool things at the edge,” Roper said during a Pentagon-run AI conference. “You have to lay in the infrastructure.”

First, the military needs to treat information technology systems from email to wireless networks as a “warfighting system,” he said. DOD has long seen IT as an afterthought, but is now ramping up its investments to get the same connectivity the private sector and everyday people have enjoyed at home for years. That includes pursuing cloud storage so personnel can access information from anywhere around the world, not only on siloed networks.

“I’m willing to predict that in future warfare, before a combatant commander counts the number of munitions or platforms that they would take into combat, they’re first going to look at their digital infrastructure and data, knowing that if they are outclassed in those two facets, they will lose against an adversary that’s faster,” he said.

Roper wants to pursue “AI as a service,” another iteration of the Air Force’s push in recent years to contract out business services and certain enabling technologies like 5G wireless networks to private industry, rather than providing those in-house.

But that still requires dollars to work. According to one market analysis, the Air Force plans to spend $500 million on AI-related projects in 2020. That’s about the same as in 2019, though DOD is broadly looking to boost spending on AI.

“In the world of IT, remember what we’re struggling with: getting it funded,” Roper said. “You can’t take a picture of IT. You can take a picture of airplanes, and ships, and tanks. We’ve got an uphill battle to make this seem as important, as flashy, as sexy, as the leading edge of warfighting. … It’s the invisible power that will allow those physical things to dominate.”

As AI becomes more ingrained in combat systems, the military needs to make sure the software’s abilities and effects are easily understood by those who use it.

The Air Force hasn’t yet succeeded at routinely pushing software updates directly to its fighters, bombers, and other assets conducting missions around the world. The service is pursuing software development environments it can use to test out code and make sure it will run smoothly when it gets to the Airmen who will use it.

“More and more things at the commercial edge are going to have safety-critical functions: flying drones, self-driving or partially self-driving vehicles,” Roper said. Humans will trust those systems with their lives, he added, and the Air Force can learn from the work of private companies to keep people safe. “Knowing the code is going to run there without crashing, that could not be a more important problem for commercial industry to solve.”

AI is not yet advanced enough to get a machine to “think” on its own to wage war, but it can come in handy for pointing out possible courses of action and crunching equations that would take a human longer.

First- and second-wave AI are “mature enough currently to benefit pretty much any activities that we’re doing in the Air Force,” said Jean-Claude Lede, an autonomy adviser to the Air Force Research Laboratory commander. “That is really imperative that we use it to accelerate and improve our decision-making broadly.”

Researchers are trying to compress the typically multiyear, multiphase test and evaluation process into a shorter, more fluid one that lets the service continually deliver updates as technology improves.

The service is rolling out resources that let Airmen with ideas for software applications like AI algorithms start with a ready-made foundation to build on. From there, they can tailor the code to their particular purposes without starting from scratch each time.

The Air Force is cleaning and opening up its legions of data to be more accessible across the Air Force, so people can plug that information in for purposes like schedule and mission planning, targeting, and trend analysis.

“We’re building [the Air Force Cognitive Engine] to be an intuitive platform that will eventually enable anyone to leverage their data to complete their tasks faster and more accurately than ever before,” Lede added of one project underway within AFRL. The lab says that venture is a “one-stop, open-source software application with various interconnected tools that enables users to develop complex AI solutions in real time.”

DOD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and others across the department are experimenting with the Air Force’s PlatformOne software development environment, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is increasingly interested in tools like PlatformOne as well.

The armed forces need to stop being territorial about their tech projects and collaborate more often, a main reason why the JAIC was founded in 2018. There’s no such thing as too many AI partnerships inside the Pentagon, Roper said.

“If you’re an AI expert and you have a grand vision or a grand design that is simply not getting out of the starting blocks, then come see me,” he said.

US Forces Korea Aircrews Forced to Go Off Peninsula for Live-Fire Qualification

Sept. 10, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. forces in South Korea have not conducted theater-level exercises on the Korean Peninsula for about two years now, and pilots must leave the country for live-fire training, but the head of U.S. Forces Korea said Sept. 10 his readiness remains high despite the challenges.

The U.S. military suspended bilateral exercises with South Korea following the June 2018 summit between President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Since then, USFK has kept its bilateral, strategic-level training focused on table-top events, with local units flying and conducting smaller level training. This has forced commanders to get creative in these training events to try to maintain readiness and interoperability with South Korea, USFK boss Army Gen. Robert B. Abrams said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies webinar.

“Everybody wants to talk about our theater-level exercises, so they become sort of hot topics in the press,” Abrams said. “I reassure everyone, our theater-level command post training is as rigorous, if not much more rigorous, than it’s been in the history of the alliance. And that’s fundamentally because we’ve brought our training scenarios into the 21st century. It’s dynamic, it’s never the same. There’s gray zone challenges, there’s a lot of emphasis on different domains that we’ve got to be prepared to operate in.”

The extended stoppage of these exercises comes as the COVID-19 pandemic has broadly impacted military operations abroad, with many nations slowing or pausing their exercises. USFK hasn’t paused all of its training, even though the pandemic impacted the command early, Abrams said.

However, aircrews have faced the biggest challenge to readiness. There’s been a trend “for many years” of a limited access to ranges and open air space, which means pilots can’t get the live-fire training they need near their home bases, he said.

“We’ve got some challenges, and there are complaints that come from the Korean people,” regarding “noise and other things associated with ground-based training,” Adams said. “The bottom line is that forces stationed here, [in order] to maintain a high level of readiness, have to have reliable, [and there needs to be] accessible training areas, specifically for company-level live fire, which is the gold standard for warfighting readiness. With aviation, we’re not there right now, and as a result, we’re actually having to send air crews, both 7th Air Force and helicopter crews in the Second Division, off the Pen to maintain their live-fire qualifications.”

USFK is trying to address this with the Korean Ministry of National Defense, “and I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to find some solutions. But in general, our readiness levels are pretty doggone good.”