USAF, Space Force Commanders May Approve Emergency Leave

Sept. 8, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The Department of the Air Force has empowered unit commanders and civilian directors to greenlight emergency leaves of absence for members of the Air and Space Forces under certain circumstances, according to a Sept. 8 release. Prior to this policy change, the Air Force Secretary had to sign off on such requests.

According to the release, this emergency time off comes with a few ground rules:

It may only be used for eligible emergencies, which include “the death or serious medical condition of an immediate family member, or any other hardship the commander or director determines appropriate.”
It may only last up to two straight weeks.
Each service member may only take one such leave of absence during their entire career.
Emergency leave of absence time can’t be charged to service members’ leave balances, since it’s only intended to keep “them from entering advanced or excess leave status.”

“This delegation gives commanders and civilian directors the flexibility to assist their Airmen and Space Professionals directly and eliminates steps to get this type of leave approved,” USAF’s Deputy Director of Military Force Management Policy Lisa M. Truesdale said in the release. “Additionally, our leaders can now aid their members faster and help prevent them from going into an unfavorable leave status in such a difficult time.”

Last summer, then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright told Air Force Magazine he was trying to secure time off that Airmen could use specifically for bereavement. At the time, Wright said USAF was looking to give troops up to two weeks of leave earmarked explicitly for this purpose, but noted that figure wasn’t finalized.

Service members can refer to AFI 36-3003 Military Leave Policy for more information, according to the release.

California National Guard Using Satellites to Fight Wildfires

Sept. 8, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The California National Guard is employing National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency satellites in its fight against wildfires impacting the state, California Adjutant General Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin told reporters Sept. 7.

The state’s National Guard has “pioneered the use of space-based systems” that help it detect and map fires, as well as assess the damage they cause, he said during a media roundtable about the Guard’s ongoing efforts to battle the blazes. Baldwin said the California Air National Guard worked with NGA “to be able to use the systems in an unclassified mode to be able to share information … primarily on fire starts.”

“We’ve been doing this since 2018, and are becoming pretty good at it,” he said, noting that the CANG has nicknamed the system “FireGuard.”

Airmen and Soldiers use these satellites to do 24/7 monitoring for fires, Baldwin said. When they spot a blaze, he explained, they send a heads-up to one of two California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection-U.S. Forest Service regional operations centers in the state.

“That will alert them to fire starts,” he said. “Then, our analysts are able to use the information that they get through this system to be able to very rapidly determine whether or not the fires are campfires or car fires or a fire that could indeed become a very dangerous wildfire.”

The California National Guard is also collaborating with the Defense Innovation Unit in hopes of leveraging Silicon Valley artificial intelligence capabilities to speed the process of determining a fire’s threat potential, he added.

Baldwin said the CANG’s daily employment of space-based systems—not only for wildfire response, but also for its personnel’s wartime missions—demonstrates the need for a Space National Guard.

“We’re proving that we can also use these in a domestic role, so anybody that says that there is no reason that a state needs a space force, they don’t know what they’re talking about because [we] do it every single day here in California,” he said.

Northrop Wins $13.3B Contract to Design New ICBMs

Sept. 8, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Northrop Grumman will officially move ahead as the sole company in the Air Force’s competition to design a new intercontinental ballistic missile, under a $13.3 billion contract, the service said Sept. 8.

Northrop’s design for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent will replace the 400 Minuteman III missiles that are scattered in silos around Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming, as well as 200 or so additional missiles used as replacements, for testing, and for other development.

The engineering and manufacturing development contract formally unseats Boeing as the Air Force’s future ICBM provider after more than 60 years as the primary contractor.

“With more than 65 years of technical leadership on every ICBM system, our nationwide team is honored and committed to continuing our partnership with the U.S. Air Force to deliver a safe, secure, and effective system that will contribute to global stability for years to come,” said Kathy Warden, Northrop’s chairman, chief executive officer, and president.

The contract covers weapon system design, qualification, test and evaluation, and nuclear certification, Northrop said in a Sept. 8 release. Missiles are supposed to be ready for initial deployment by 2029.

“Boeing supports the U.S. Air Force and its efforts to modernize the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missile force,” company spokesman Jerry Drelling said. “We will continue working alongside Airmen to keep the Minuteman ICBM mission-ready while delivering innovative solutions in support of strategic deterrence today and tomorrow.”

The Air Force will start construction to accommodate the new weapons at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., as soon as 2023, followed by Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., in 2026, and Minot Air Force Base, N.D., in 2029. Northrop will begin delivering missiles in fiscal 2029 if the program remains on track.

Research and development is slated to cost nearly $22 billion overall, not including the cost of purchasing the missiles. An independent Pentagon cost estimate pegged the price tag around at least $85 billion, though it could eventually total much more.

The Air Force touts GBSD as a forward-looking program that is paving the way for new military techniques in three-dimensional printing and rapid software upgrades. Those features could make it possible to add a more maneuverable, hypersonic warhead in the future.

The missiles are expected to last until 2075 as the United States enters a new era in nuclear deterrence with Russia, China, North Korea, and other nuclear states.

“The increased accuracy, extended range, and improved reliability will provide the United States a broader array of options to address unforeseen contingencies, giving us the edge necessary to compete and win against any adversary,” Gen. Timothy M. Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, said in a release.

GBSD is one piece of the Air Force’s broad effort to overhaul its nuclear arsenal. It is also buying a new nuclear bomber, Northrop’s B-21; buying new air-launched cruise missiles known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon from Lockheed Martin or Raytheon; creating a new variant of the B61 gravity bomb; outfitting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to carry nuclear weapons; and designing a modern network to control and communicate with nuclear forces.

Minuteman III manufacturer Boeing announced last year it would pull out of the competition, ending its ICBM legacy, because it felt the odds were stacked in Northrop’s favor.

The Air Force “must address the unfair advantage that Northrop holds as a result of its control of solid rocket motors, the essential part of the GBSD missile system,” Boeing Defense CEO Leanne Caret wrote to the Air Force in July 2019. Northrop bought solid rocket motor builder Orbital ATK in 2017, around the time Boeing and Northrop won contracts to begin developing GBSD designs and prototypes.

Boeing and Northrop both worked with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the only other U.S.-based solid rocket motor supplier, and Orbital ATK before Orbital became Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems.

Despite wanting to keep two companies in the running to pick from a range of nuclear missile concepts, and ideally drive cost down, the Air Force opted to continue on without Boeing. That drew criticism from those who believed it would make the program less flexible and stifle the market.

“This contract provides the best overall value to the warfighter and taxpayers,” said Brig. Gen. Anthony W. Genatempo, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. “The GBSD program is leveraging technologies to reduce the program’s technical risk and ensure time-certain delivery to meet the warfighter’s needs.”

CMSAF: Airmen, USAF Civilians Can’t Opt-Out of Payroll Tax Deferral

Sept. 7, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Airmen and Air Force civilians aren’t allowed to opt-out of a Social Security payroll tax deferral the government instituted as a form of COVID-19 relief, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass confirmed in a Sept. 7 Facebook post.

Bottom line, Bass wrote, “The extra money we will get over the next few months, will be paid back next year.”

https://www.facebook.com/CMSAFOfficial/posts/1450484665140447

An Aug. 8 presidential memo and Aug. 28 Internal Revenue Service guidance worked to temporarily stop Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance tax withholdings from being taken out of Americans’ paychecks “through the end of calendar year 2020,” DFAS explained on a web page about the measure.

But while some Americans may decline the temporary tax deferral so they won’t have to repay that money later, U.S. troops and DOD civilians don’t have that luxury, Bass explained.

As a result, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service “will temporarily defer the 6.2 percent Social Security Tax withholding” for service members whose monthly basic pay is below $8,666.66, DFAS wrote. This temporary deferral is “effective for the September mid-month pay,” it added.

“If your monthly rate of basic pay is at or above this threshold, your social security tax withholding will not be affected by the temporary deferral,” the web page stated. “Military members can use their August or prior LES [Leave and Earnings Statement] as a good reference for their typical Social Security tax amount.”

For Defense Department civilians, the threshold to qualify for the temporary reprieve is a bit different, the web page explained.

“Effective pay period ending September 12, 2020, DFAS will temporarily defer your 6.2 percent OASDI tax withholding if your wages, subject to OASDI are $4,000 or less in any given pay period,” it stated. “Employees can use the ‘Taxable Wages’ on the LES as a good reference for whether they will have OASDI tax deferred.”

Bass encouraged Air Force leaders to ensure their troops and families are aware of the situation so they can avoid future financial stress. She also encouraged USAF families who require more financial help to reach out to the service’s Airman and Family Readiness Centers and Military OneSource.

COVID-19 Delays Military’s Plan to Downsize, Close Medical Facilities

Sept. 7, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

A Pentagon plan to shutter or downsize the scope of services offered at 50 military hospitals and/or clinics across the country—12 of which are located on Air Force bases—has been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Defense Health Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place told Air Force Magazine in an exclusive interview. As a result, facility closures and changes are unlikely to take place before next summer, he said.

After the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act charged the Defense Department with taking a hard look at its hospital and clinic footprint, DOD analyzed over 300 of its stateside facilities and proposed that 50 of them be restructured to boost operational- and medical-force readiness, according to a report Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Matthew P. Donovan sent to Congress in February, Air Force Magazine previously reported. Information about how that revamp would be carried out, how long it was expected to take and cost, and how much money it could save DOD were notably absent from the document.

But DHA can’t proceed with those changes until it reaches what Place called “a steady state” with respect to COVID-19—where the agency is either operating under the assumption of a prolonged pandemic or working within a post-pandemic “new normal.”

Once DHA achieves that state, he said, it must reevaluate each impacted market, brainstorm a game plan with its collaborators in each location, and then present a plan to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, which Place said likely won’t happen until early 2021 or later, “depending on how long this pandemic lasts.”

That means any changes to these facilities likely won’t happen before summer 2021.

How the Calls Were Made

Place said the rationale behind choosing which military medical facilities to close and which to downsize was shaped by the Military Health Systems threefold mission.

This mission consists of maintaining the U.S. military force’s readiness; ensuring that the U.S. military has a “ready medical force” that can care for its service members regardless of where in the world they’re operating, tend to them in-theater or medically evacuate them as needed, and “get them back in the fight;” and caring for military “family members, retirees, and retiree family members.”

When it came to addressing what’s the right infrastructure to accomplish that mission, he said DHA asked itself a few questions about each military medical facility it analyzed:

Is the facility doing what it must “to deliver the medical readiness of the force,” and if so, is the location needed? Place said that if the answer to both of these questions is yes, the facility is still necessary.
Is the location helping DOD medical personnel currently and competently? Since a crucial part of the Military Health System’s readiness is its ability to provide combat care, domestic medical centers’ ability to keep medical personnel’s training top-notch is also a significant factor in these considerations, according to Place.
If a location isn’t contributing to medical personnel readiness, Place said, DHA asks whether military families, military retirees, and retirees’ families can get the care they need “outside the installation.” If they can’t reasonably get their healthcare outside of the facility in question, it’s still needed, Place said.

Since military hospitals are “the key readiness sustainment platform for the medical staff,” if and when DOD decides to shutter any of them, those efforts will entail “a several year process that we would be very transparent about,” he added.

DHA’s “ultimate goal” is to ensure that DOD beneficiaries get the best possible healthcare—whether it comes from the military, a contract provider, or the civilian sector, Army Command Sgt. Major Michael L. Gragg, DHA’s command senior enlisted leader, told Air Force Magazine during the same interview.

As of February, the only USAF facility slated for closure was MacDill Air Force Base’s 6th Medical Group-operated Sabal Park Clinic. Of the 11 other impacted facilities, 10 outpatient ones was slated to limit the scope of their care to occupational health treatment for Active-duty Airmen. The sole USAF inpatient clinic to make the restructuring list—the 633rd Medical Group’s inpatient facility at Joint Base Langley-Eustis Air Force Base, Va.—was earmarked to become an ambulatory surgical center.

USAF Wants Airmen’s Stories to Shape Harassment, Assault Prevention

Sept. 4, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Department of the Air Force this month will survey Airmen about their experiences with interpersonal violence, seeking feedback that could shape future policies to keep service members safe.

Starting the week of Sept. 7, the department plans to survey civilian and uniformed Air Force and Space Force members about sexual assault and abuse, domestic abuse, bullying, and stalking.

“Survey data and the data gathered from reviewing past cases involving interpersonal violence will be used to identify any themes or areas for improvement,” the department said in a Sept. 3 release.

The Department of the Air Force’s interpersonal violence task force is collecting anecdotes and other information to form an action plan with recommendations for senior leaders. That task force stood up in July to look at the process, program, and leadership reforms that are needed to keep Airmen safe—particularly young ones.

Anyone who fills out the anonymous survey can also join small focus groups to discuss the issues further. Command leadership is encouraged to offer their perspectives as well. Harassment and assault claims often involve abuses of power in a chain of command, as well as complaints that leaders do not take claims seriously or handle them properly.

The Air Force’s outreach comes after the death of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, whose family said she was sexually harassed before disappearing from Fort Hood, Texas, in April. Guillén’s killing, which sparked outrage over how the military handles harassment and assault in its ranks, has prompted many women to come forward with their own stories of violence and fear.

“We know these types of violence exist in our communities and we are working hard to prevent them from happening,” Brig. Gen. April D. Vogel, the director for National Guard Bureau manpower, personnel, recruiting, and services, who leads the task force, said in a July 31 release. “Recognizing prevention is not yet foolproof, we must ensure our Airmen and space professionals feel protected and have the resources and leadership necessary to keep them safe.”

Air Force and Space Force headquarters staffers are combing through past cases of violence to find room for improvement.

“If you are being threatened, harassed, stalked, or bullied, please come forward and report it. As your leaders, we condemn any type of interpersonal violence in our force, and we will not tolerate it,” senior Department of the Air Force leaders said in a memo this summer. “If you feel uncomfortable reaching out to your commander or first sergeant, please reach out to another leader, mentor, or person you trust. … You do not have to do this alone.”

Morris Takes Command of Air Force Life Cycle Management Center

Sept. 4, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Lt. Gen. Shaun Q. Morris took over as head of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center in a Sept. 3 ceremony, the service said in a release.

He replaces Lt. Gen. Robert D. McMurry, who retired this week, as the top officer overseeing the development and sustainment of Air Force aircraft, software, missiles, and more. AFLCMC encompasses a $304 billion portfolio and employs more than 28,000 people.

Morris takes the helm at AFLCMC for what could be a significant shakeup of Air Force technologies. The service is trying to phase out certain aircraft it believes are not well-suited to future combat, like certain bombers and the RQ-4 surveillance drone, while bringing on multiple high-profile systems like the KC-46 tanker, B-21 bomber, and a new nuclear, intercontinental ballistic missile.

It is also trying to embrace faster development and acquisition and focus more on forward-looking autonomous aircraft and computer systems.

“You have continued to deliver war-winning capability to our warfighters, … the kind of capability that is necessary to keep this nation safe,” he said. “We have a new Chief of Staff now, Gen. [Charles Q.] Brown [Jr.] and he has challenged us now to accelerate that even further.”

Morris previously served as head of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. He also ran the service’s weapons development programs, managed the troubled KC-46 acquisition, and led the Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate, which handles foreign military sales worth more than $196 billion.

He will also be the top officer at the Rapid Sustainment Office as it explores new methods of aircraft upkeep like three-dimensional printing and AI-driven repairs.

“I’m excited to see his analytic nature come to the helm of the RSO,” said Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics. “You have 100 percent of my confidence. I know you will do this job exceptionally well and I look forward to working with you in this capacity and am excited to see what new ideas and new changes that you will bring.”

McMurry leaves AFLCMC after three years there and more than three decades in the Air Force. He is the only officer to command the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFLCMC, and their parent organization, Air Force Materiel Command.

“He was program manager for the F-16 and the airborne laser, where he oversaw the first mid-air track and shoot down of a beyond-line-of-sight missile from an aircraft using a laser. It was a feat many at the time thought impossible,” the Air Force said Sept. 3.

“His plan was simple, to serve four years and then get out,” the service said. “It took him 35 years.”

‘Smart’ Bullet Downs Cruise Missile in 2nd ABMS Test

Sept. 4, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md.—More than 1,600 personnel, 60 companies, over a dozen aircraft, and dozens of radars and sensors came together for a massive Air Force-led event that utilized everything from boots on the ground to satellites in space to test how the service expects to fight a war in the future. The event culminated when a cruise missile was downed by a “smart” bullet.

The Air Force’s second “Advanced Battle Management System onramp,” long delayed because of COVID-19, took place on Sept. 3, largely within four national training ranges, as well as a part operations center, part fusion cell at Joint Base Andrews, Md. The new cloud-based, artificial intelligence-fueled command center brought together new and legacy ways of fighting wars into the service’s push for joint all-domain command and control.

“The focus is showing we really are building an internet for the military that feels like the internet that we use when we go home, except the things that we’re connecting are very different than the refrigerators, televisions, smartphones. They are warfighting systems and the operational need to move data quickly in a way operators understand really came out,” said Will Roper, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition.

Advanced Battle Management System Onramp 2 — Tech. Sgt. John Rodiguez, 321st Contingency Response Squadron security team, provides security with a Ghost Robotics Vision 60 prototype at a simulated austere base during the Advanced Battle Management System exercise on Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., on Sept. 1, 2020. **Photo: Tech. Sgt. Cory D. Payne**

The exercise played out with old and new sensors tracking a BQM-167 cruise missile, fired by USAF bombers posing as enemy aircraft, over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The sensors fed into the real-time nerve center, where Airmen in the service’s new 13 Oscar Air Force Specialty Code gave the order for an Army Paladin Howitzer to fire the new Strategic Capabilities Office-developed Hyper Velocity Gun Weapon System, downing a cruise missile for the first time.

“Just for the record, tank shooting down cruise missiles. That’s just awesome,” Roper said. “That’s video games, sci-fi awesome. You’re not supposed to be able to shoot down a cruise missile with a tank. But, yes, you can, if the bullet is smart enough, and the bullet we use for that system is exceptionally smart.”

Playing War

The exercise focused on a hypothetical attack on the homeland—a culmination of “three months” of pretend increasing tensions that actually played out over the morning of Sept. 3. A “peer adversary” started a problem with the U.S.—since the scenario involved a real-world nation and is based on known capabilities, the event’s planners wouldn’t provide exact details. In response to this problem, the U.S. military begins to posture forces, causing the other nation to ratchet up its activity and firing the first shot, through a cyber attack.

The scenario then moved into space where real-world U.S. military assets used lasers to target satellites. In the Gulf of Mexico, adversary ships started an attack and drones targeted a U.S. Strategic Command convoy on the ground at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. U.S. military assets took advantage of various sensors at multiple locations. For example, the personnel at Nellis had trackers live cameras, and even a robotic dog. An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer underway in the Gulf of Mexico, and USAF aircraft such as an E-3, E-8, F-15, F-16, and MQ-9, among others, were in the air across the country, with some aircraft scrambling on alert in Florida and flying at ranges in Nellis and New Mexico. At White Sands, legacy radars, infrared imagers, and sensor towers were combined with new systems to watch for threats.

The main live-fire scenario took place at White Sands, where bombers launched six BQM-167 targeting drones to simulate a cruise missile threat. Multiple systems targeted the BQM-167s, including the HVP round from the Paladin and a U.S. Navy deck gun, along with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile fired from an F-16, an MQ-9, and a ground launcher. The outcome of the other launches is not public, Roper said, but the HVP’s success is and was a success story for a relatively unknown capability started at the Strategic Capabilities Office in 2013.

“It took a lot of selling to the Pentagon and to Congress, that hypervelocity guns could take on a variety of threats at a very low price point with a very high magazine to be a disruptive defense mechanism,” Roper said. “We were able to put it at center stage today, and it was successful.”

Andrews served as the focal point, where the entire operation played was projected on a large screen as well as tablets passed to VIPs. Cloud-based software programs combined all of that sensor and tracking data into one accessible screen, reminiscent of a real-time strategy-based video game. The software combined the live information with current readiness data at U.S. Air Force bases across the country, enabled by a real 5G tower providing massive amounts of bandwidth.

For example, clicking on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, showed how many F-22s were currently on alert, how many were fully mission capable, along with fuel and weapons available. Moving the screen to the adversary country showed their bases, with space-based and other intelligence data showing the most recent number of aircraft they have available and the recent pattern of life. The data ranged from what’s going on in space, down to individual people in the convoy in Nevada.

AI-focused applications, including the Pentagon’s Project Maven, combined the data from what’s currently happening along with readiness data to suggest courses of action for a commander to take.

This event—the second in the Air Force’s series of ABMS onramps—was planned by U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Space Command to reflect a mission set they need to be ready for. The goal of ABMS is to bring together all sensor data and provide a real-time view of what’s happening, and what decisions are possible.

“[The commands] are designed to match up against a world that didn’t have a peer threat, that was able to hold the homeland at risk,” a NORTHCOM official involved in planning the event said. “And that’s really what we face today. And so we have a contested environment inside of our area of responsibility for NORAD and NORTHCOM. … Space is rapidly becoming a contested environment that needs a combatant command with the capabilities to deal with those threats.”

How It Is Today

Currently, this is all done by phone and PowerPoint slides. At the North American Aerospace Defense Command headquarters, it takes a 12-minute game of telephone to get together relevant information if a possible threat develops. Someone watching radar sees a threat approaching North America, and picks up the phone to report there’s something out there and its speed, altitude, and if whether they are squawking a code. That information goes into a chat service, and other personnel report in what they are seeing and what assets are available to respond. “None of them are looking at the same picture, none of them have a visual display of what’s going on,” the official said.

All this information is then presented to an O-6 by phone, who then has to make the decision about whether the homeland is actually at risk.

“There’s no live collaboration in any common environment,” the official said. “The data is stove piped. The sensor data doesn’t talk to the Blue Force readiness data, the number of aircraft on alert, how much fuel is at certain locations. The only time all of that data comes together is in the mind of the O-6.”

To get some of this readiness data is a long process. NORTHCOM would need to reach out to U.S. Transportation Command if a scenario is developing to ask about the amount of tankers available. During a “dry run” of the exercise on Sept. 1, NORTHCOM and TRANSCOM were working together in the same program to speed up this process.

“Isn’t this how DOD works already? No. We have PowerPoint slides,” a separate NORTHCOM official said. “That’s literally how these kinds of decisions would be made. Right now, PowerPoint slides will be generated for commanders and for operators. … This process takes days to go through. What we showed … was the first time that combatant commands were in the same data cloud architectures and made decisions about posturing forces, and we did it in seconds.”

For another real-world example of the convoluted process that is currently in place, picture the Air Force’s Combined Air Operations Center in the Middle East. There’s a massive room with dozens of screens up on a large wall, and dozens of desks full of analysts watching different domains. All of the screens have different sets of information, with no way to view everything together.

“It takes 100 people to make sense of all those different feeds. And because it takes 100 people, you have to play 100 different telephone games to be able to go: OK, I’ve got a threat,” the NORTHCOM planner said. “If you’ve ever worked in a large organization, or [with] a huge staff, decisions don’t happen quickly because it takes a long time to get that information together.”

At Andrews, the new system came together in a converted conference room. The 13Os, or multi-domain warfare officers, lined up with their terminals running the ABMS systems, and behind them were lines of desks with experts from some of the companies participating.

“This capability did not exist six weeks ago,” the official said. “And as we are putting in more and more courses of action based on what the adversaries are doing, it is starting to learn this is how the humans like to do these things. And, over time, we create kind of a collaboration between man and machine on the best courses of action that can be created to be able to ensure our ability to go out and deter them.”

As the scenario developed, and an issue arose with the software, a company’s coder could jump in to find the issue and quickly push out a patch to fix it. During the Sept. 1 practice run, a program developed latency due to the large amount of information coming in. While the first ABMS onramp was done in an unclassified environment, the second scenario was secret and had to run through SIPRNet. The large amount of data was moving slowly, causing a delay of up to five minutes on some of the feeds. After some code work, the issue was patched.

To be able to participate in the ABMS onramps, and possibly move forward with actual programs of record, companies needed to play by the Air Force’s rules and program for one common architecture. The Air Force was able to bring in data from old systems, such as Link 16 communications, with new participants such as AT&T and SpaceX developing their systems to speak the same language.

“We are building a common architecture and we want to plug in both legacy sensors, legacy C2 systems, and be able to plug in future procedures,” the official said.

Going Forward

Because of the extended COVID-19-related delay, the next ABMS onramp is scheduled for about two weeks from now in Indo-Pacific Command. The follow-on, scheduled for early 2021, will take place in Europe and officials expect “Five Eye” allies to participate.

Some of the capabilities demonstrated in the second onramp have been in development for awhile and have shown they are ready for operations. CloudOne, for example, has been in the works for two years and has already proven itself, Roper said. Such capabilities could be brought on with indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts moving forward.

“Certainly, the ability to utilize a cloud to share information is there and we need to move quickly and rapidly down that path,” NORTHCOM boss Gen. Glen D. VanHerck said. “I was very encouraged by the status, if you will, of those systems and the capability. I think they can be brought online within a year or less. It’s a matter of getting through the challenges with the department to field them.”

Some of the other components, like the artificial intelligence-focused tools, have more work to do. Data links in remote areas in the field went down. These failures are good, Roper said, because it outlines areas to improve. If nothing failed in the onramp, that means they weren’t trying hard enough.

For hardware, some of the sensors performed well and could be moved into NORTHCOM’s repertoire quickly, VanHerck said. The sensors would be fielded alongside current programs of record to supplement the capability at first to build trust and confidence in them, he said.

The onramp showed the Air Force can “project forward” its detection capabilities, with sensors currently available from commercial vendors, and combine that information in a way that enables the military to quickly decide if there is a threat and how it can be killed, VanHerck said.

Having those advanced sensors fused into a common operating picture as developed in the onramp will translate to more effective deterrence and alert missions within NORTHCOM, as some of the ideas and capabilities can come to fruition, VanHerck said.

“In the competition phase, you’re able to play checkmate because you have the information advantage and deterring the adversary is the end result. When you get into crisis, the same thing,” he said. “And so if you have an information advantage over the adversary, you’re able to quickly posture yourself and make decisions at the strategic level to the tactical and operational level. For me, as an operational commander moving forces, that would then deter any potential adversary in a more timely manner. So that was crucial.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:39 a.m. Sept. 5 to correct the name of the AIM-9X Sidewinder used in the test.

Holloman MQ-9 Damaged in Runway Accident

Sept. 3, 2020 | By Amy Hudson

An MQ-9 Reaper assigned to the 49th Wing at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., was damaged when it skidded off the runway on Sept. 2, the base announced.

The incident occurred around 8:30 a.m. local time as the Reaper was trying to take off. No other aircraft were involved, according to a USAF release. Officials did not say how badly the aircraft was damaged.

The incident remains under investigation.

Holloman is home to MQ-9 instructors who train pilots and intelligence sensor operators to use the remotely piloted aircraft.