Lockheed Get $122 Million for Gear to Accelerate JASSM and LRASM Production

Lockheed Get $122 Million for Gear to Accelerate JASSM and LRASM Production

March 17, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control received a $122.6 million modification to a previous Air Force contract on March 14 to ramp up production of stealthy, long-range AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile/Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles.

In a contract award, the Pentagon said the deal is for “tooling and test equipment needed to increase production quantities” of the JASSM and LRASM. The work is to be done in Orlando, Fla., and completed by July 2028. The contract does not specify how many missiles Lockheed is gearing up to build at rate.

Lockheed and the Pentagon agreed on the original contract aimed at helping increase production in 2018, and this is the third time it has been modified. Collectively, the four awards are valued at $401.7 million.

For its own stockpiles, the Air Force requested 550 JASSMs in its fiscal 2025 budget request; the same number as it did in fiscal 2024. The missile costs about $1.5 million per round. The Air Force also contracts with Lockheed for the Navy’s purchases of LRASM.

The company referred queries about the contract to the Air Force.  

Last year, Lockheed described an August 2024 contract modification as “part of the Large Lot Procurement pilot program with the U.S. government [that] enables the ability to increase annual production quantities by providing additional resources for long-lead procurements and facilitating production line efficiencies.” It said that multiyear procurements of weapons like JASSM and LRASM “are a key anti-fragility measure to increase industry resilience and ensure operations can be ramped more quickly.”

The company said it invested in “in the continued development [and] expansion” of JASSM and LRASM production in 2022, and in that year added a new 225,000-square-foot factory to existing production facilities to increase production quantities. The new facility includes “factory model forecasting, a fully-robotic paint line, and more automated processes,” the firm stated.

The JASSM and LRASM are externally nearly identical, but the latter is optimized for striking sea targets. The JASSM-ER (extended range) reportedly has a range of about 600 miles, but Lockheed last fall unveiled an unsolicited proposal for the JASSM-XR, a longer variant of the munition with a range company officials suggested will near 1,000 miles. Lockheed builds JASSM and LRASM in Troy, Ala.

Lockheed MFC’s Michael Rothstein, vice president for strategy and requirements, air weapons, and sensors, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in a recent interview that the company sees the JASSM/LRASM as the “high end” of a high-low munitions mix, complementing the relatively inexpensive munitions the Air Force is seeking under the Enterprise Test Vehicle program and other initiatives. Lockheed is offering its own version, called the Common Multi-Mission Truck, which Rothstein said in its basic form could cost as little as $150,000 per round.

F-22 Pilot Swaps in for Guardian at International Space Station

F-22 Pilot Swaps in for Guardian at International Space Station

March 17, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

An F-22 pilot with more than 200 combat hours in the Middle East is trading places on the International Space Station with the first Space Force Guardian to ever launch into orbit.

Air Force Maj. Nichole Ayers, along with her crewmates, launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carried by a Falcon 9 rocket on March 14 and safely arrived at the ISS early March 16.

Space Force Col. Nick Hague, who arrived at the station last September, started return preparations with his crewmates March 17 and is scheduled splash down March 18.

Ayers is part of Crew-10, the latest in the Commercial Crew Program, alongside fellow NASA astronaut Anne McClain, mission specialist Takuya Onishi of Japan, and cosmonaut Kirill Peskov of Russia. Together, they will take part in Expedition 73 aborad the ISS, conducting more than 200 experiments over the next six months, including new research and technology demonstrations aimed at advancing space exploration and life on Earth.

“I can’t wait to get to work up here,” Ayers said in brief remarks after she entered the station for the first time.

Hague was part of Crew-9, which included only him and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on the way up, but will add astronauts Barry E. Wilmore and Sunita Williams for the return. As part of Expedition 72 program, they conducted more than 150 experiments over more than 900 hours.

“Crew-10 is made up of some of the most intelligent, efficient, and caring people I’ve ever worked with,” Ayers said in a release. “We make an amazing team because we take care of each other and back each other up on everything, both operationally and personally.”

U.S. Air Force Maj. Nichole Ayers (second from left) poses with her SpaceX Crew-10 mission team before their scheduled launch on March 14, 2025. Ayers was previously stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson where she was assistant director of operations and an F-22 pilot for the 90th Fighter squadron in 2021. NASA/Bill Stafford/Helen Arase Vargas

The former combat pilot says she has long dreamed of becoming an astronaut, inspired by the Space Shuttle program that played a key role in constructing and servicing the ISS, the largest man-made space structure on orbit.

“As a child, I always loved flying and space and grew up during the Shuttle era,” recalled Ayers. “When I learned you could fly the Space Shuttle, I knew I wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force and pursue my dreams of becoming a NASA astronaut through that path.”

Ayers completed pilot training in 2014 and began flying the T-38A at Langley Air Force Base, Va. As an instructor pilot, she led combat training missions for F-22 Raptor pilots. She logged over 200 combat hours with the Raptor during Operation Inherent Resolve—the campaign against the Islamic State group across Syria and Iraq—and accumulated more than 1,400 flight hours in the T-38 and F-22.

“My time in the Air Force prepared me well for this mission,” she said. “Taking care of your teammates in adverse or austere environments is something every Airman learns throughout their career.”

Her latest role in the service before officially joining NASA in 2021 was serving as the assistant director of operations for the 90th Fighter Squadron, which oversees the Raptor fleet at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska.

“Most of my training has been in the operational realm; learning to make split-second decisions under intense pressure is a skill we learn throughout our time as Air Force pilots,” said Ayers. “We train for the worst and hope for the best—training to go to the International Space Station is no different.”

A Falcon 9 rocket launches the Crew Dragon’s 10th operational human spaceflight mission to the International Space Station from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, March 14, 2025. This mission also enables the return of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov and U.S. Space Force Col. Nick Hague, the first Space Force Guardian to launch into space. U.S. Space Force photo by Airman 1st Class Collin Wesson

Many NASA astronauts come from military backgrounds, including dozens from the Air Force, but it has been several years since an Airman was in orbit.

Basic requirements for becoming an astronaut include peak physical condition, proven leadership, a master’s degree in a STEM field, and at least three years of professional experience—or, for pilots, 1,000 hours in the cockpit, with 850 of those in high-performance jets. Ayers holds a master’s in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University, following her bachelor’s from the Air Force Academy.

After that, candidates undergo intense reviews before being selected. Hague, for example, said it took him 10 years and two rejections before he became a NASA astronaut.

Once selected, astronauts then take on two years of training to master spacewalking, robotic arm control, and flying T-38 jets—something Ayers already has down. Since the 1960s, NASA has maintained a fleet of T-38 Talon twin-engine jet trainers to refine candidates’ precision maneuvers and emergency procedures.

“I absolutely loved every minute of my time at the Air Force Academy and throughout my entire flying career in the T-38A and F-22,” said Ayers. “Representing those communities and the Air Force as a whole as we embark on our mission to the International Space Station is truly special and one of my greatest honors.”

Hague, meanwhile, will return to Earth after achieving a historic milestone for the young Space Force. Col. Mike Hopkins became the first Guardian in space when he transferred into the service aboard the ISS in 2020, but no Space Force member had ever launched into orbit before Hague.

Military Gains Latitude in Latest Strikes on Houthis

Military Gains Latitude in Latest Strikes on Houthis

March 17, 2025 | By Greg Hadley and Chris Gordon

The U.S. struck a wide range of Houthi targets in Yemen over the past two days and is hitting more today, the Pentagon said March 17. 

Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, director of operations for the Joint Staff, said U.S. forces struck more than 30 targets in the first wave March 15, resulting in “dozens” of military casualties. More strikes followed March 16, Grynkewich said at a Pentagon briefing, but he did not say how many. 

“Today, the operation continues, and it will continue in the coming days until we achieve the President’s objectives,” Grynkewich said. 

U.S. Central Command released videos of the March 17 actions against the Houthis on social media. The footage shows F/A-18 Super Hornets and EA-18 Growler electronic warfare attack aircraft launching from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the region.

President Donald Trump announced a renewed campaign March 15, saying the U.S. would attack the Iranian-backed Houthis in response to their attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait for over the past year. 

U.S. forces launched several large-scale strikes on Houthi facilities over the past year, including under the Biden administration, but had not conducted any in recent months. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the latest campaign will continue until the Houthis stop attacking shipping vessels and American personnel.

Grynkewich said the Pentagon was striking a “much broader range” of targets this time around, and that operational commanders now have greater targeting authorities than before. Included are “terrorist training sites, unmanned aerial vehicle infrastructure, weapons manufacturing capabilities, and weapon storage facilities,” Grynkewich said. “It also included a number of command and control centers, including a terrorist compound where we know several senior Houthi unmanned aerial vehicle experts were located.” He later added that U.S. forces also hit “detection capabilities that have been used to threaten maritime shipping in the past.” 

A U.S. official previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the strikes were conducted by fighters launched from the Truman and Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles fired from U.S. Navy vessels.

In response, the Houthis launched a counter-attack, an hours-long drone and missile attack against the Truman battle group and its accompanying warships in response. U.S. Air Force fighter jets shot down multiple drones over the Red Sea. 

Grynkewich and Parnell confirmed the retaliation but downplayed the threat. 

“The Houthis claim to have tried to attack the Harry S. Truman,” Grynkewich said. “Quite frankly, it’s hard to tell, because while we’re executing precision strikes, they missed by over 100 miles. … I would question anything that they claim to the press that they’re doing or not doing. It’s very hard to tell what they are [doing] just based on the level of incompetence that they’ve demonstrated. There’s also been a number of other attempts to interdict vessels in the Red Sea, using UAVs and some cruise missiles as well. All of those have been easily defeated by our fighter aircraft.” 

The U.S. military is expected to send additional aircraft to the region, officials previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The Pentagon has periodically surged Air Force assets in the Middle East during periods at moments of high tension. 

Also on March 17, U.S. Africa Command announced it had conducted a “collective self-defense airstrike” against the terrorist group al Shabaab in Somalia. AFRICOM said it assessed that military adversaries were killed in the strike, while no civilians were harmed.

Experts: ‘Kudos’ to Air Force Progress on Kill Webs, but Some Problems Persist

Experts: ‘Kudos’ to Air Force Progress on Kill Webs, but Some Problems Persist

March 17, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

AURORA, Colo.—The Air Force has made progress integrating its own kill webs and figuring out how to break the enemy’s, but its partnership with industry on the issue has been hampered by programmatic silos and classification issues, executives from three of the biggest U.S. defense contractors said this month. 

During a panel discussion at the AFA Warfare Symposium on March 4, executives also noted that the resiliency of American “blue” kill webs, and the U.S.’s ability to disrupt enemy kill webs rely on domination of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), but the Air Force also faces challenges integrating cutting edge communications and electromagnetic warfare technologies into its platforms.

Silos

Silos across programs can force contractors to produce a series of bespoke solutions to requirements that are 95 percent identical; while high classification levels complicate training, testing, and operational analysis, the executives said.

“We still have lots of silos that keep us from having a full and open dialog,” said Dave Harrold, vice president and general manager of countermeasure and electromagnetic attack solutions for BAE Systems. As an electronics supplier, he said, “what we see coming down is every different platform wants something almost similar, but bespoke. And so that that costs money, that takes time, that that often has engineering implications.”

The solution, he suggested, is better communication and coordination so that acquisition officials can integrate their architectures and requirements.

“Sometimes if we could just have that conversation where [we say], ’this other program office is asking for, like, 95 percent of the same thing you’re asking for, but this one little thing makes it a little bit harder,’” said Harrold. 

“There’s always going to be something that’s a little bit different for a particular platform, and we understand that,” he added, “But the more leverage we can gain, the faster we can create solutions.” 

Harrold said the Air Force has made progress breaking down some of those silos, but high classification levels for electronic warfare threats are another kind of silo. Many U.S. war games can’t use real threat data—a problem for contractors because they rely on the war games to do operational analysis on the effectiveness of their system.

“Sometimes we do the war games at a classification level that doesn’t include all the Gucci stuff, right?” Harrold said. “And that changes the entire narrative of what’s in the art of the possible there, from an operational analysis perspective, which is critically important.”

The defense industrial base is “investing heavily in operational analysis,” Harrold added, “So, the more real threat data that we can have, the more accurate of an answer that we can give,” about how the system will work under fire. 

“If all we have to go on is some fuzz ball that doesn’t actually represent a real threat, you’re not going to get the sort of fidelity in the answer that we would like to give to you,” he concluded. 

“That was really good feedback. I’m taking notes here,” said panel moderator Maj. Gen. William Betts, director of plans, programs, and requirements for Air Combat Command. 

Chain vs. Web 

A classic kill chain—like a forward observer calling in an air strike—is linear and singular. The observer connects to the Air Operations Center, the AOC to the pilot.  

The F-35 “is its own kill chain,” said Ed Zoiss, president of space and airborne systems for L3Harris. “All by itself, it can find and locate the target, it can decipher if it’s friendly or foe, and it can launch a weapon on it.” 

By contrast, kill webs are dynamic and overlapping: The observer should be able to call on a variety of fires through different command chains and use a variety of sensors to provide feedback on the accuracy of the strikes.  

The Air Force had made great progress on kill webs but there was still a long way to go, said Zoiss, a panelist who spoke later with Air & Space Forces Magazine.  

“Imagine the F-35 being able to launch a weapon from a ship offshore,” he suggested. That would require “connecting the Navy’s command and control, and fire control architecture, in with the Air Force.” 

The theoretical poster child for kill webs, Zoiss said, is President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome initiative to create a missile defense system that would use satellites and space sensors for target acquisition and tracking and fire control to cue, at least initially, land- and sea-based interceptors.

The key to making it all happen, though, is resilient communications, said retired Gen. Jeffrey “Cobra” Harrigian, now vice president of strategic campaigns for aeronautics, strategy, and business development at Lockheed Martin. 

Even as a four-star general, Harrigian said he found it difficult to get Pentagon leadership’s attention on critical communications resiliency problems.  

“I’m gonna throw stones a little bit,” announced Harrigian, who retired as commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa in 2022. “There were problems in the field relative to this exact issue that we were challenged to get into the building. I’ll put it that way, and to get the building to react to what the warfighter needed,” he said.

Harrigian recalled his work in the early years of the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) program, the Air Force component of joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) initiative.

“We struggled trying to figure out what we wanted to do,” he said, “It took a while.” 

The solution was “a conversation that occurred between those in the field [and], those working at the headquarters level” that “broke down the stovepipes to get the right people in the room.” 

He encouraged current Air Force leadership to “get industry out front at PACAF [and] USAFE, understanding the problems.” Only by being involved hands on could contractors ensure that when making big investments in future capabilities they were “actually getting after the right problem and fixing those things at the edge for today’s fight, which we can then spiral into the future fight.” 

Next Steps

The Air Force’s response to the need for coordinated solutions across the service and the joint force was to establish an Integrated Capabilities Command—an effort that is currently paused as the department awaits new leadership.

Harrigian said he saw the value in the new organization, but he pointed out the command would take five years to establish.  

Zoiss said that, in the meantime, the service was making great progress on communications resilience.  

“I’m not going to go through a lot of the programmatic details, but I will tell you that many of the platforms right now that are currently in service are being outfitted with additional ways to communicate, methods that were outside the original scope of the platform when it was conceived, allowing for a much more resilient architecture, allowing for it to pass communications and targeting data up to a much broader set of platforms,” he said. 

“Kudos to the Air Force,” Zoiss continued, “We still see the kill chains and kill webs becoming much harder and much more resilient.” 

From Iran to Golden Dome: Lessons for US Missile Defense

From Iran to Golden Dome: Lessons for US Missile Defense

March 17, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

AURORA, Colo.—As the Pentagon prepares to move out on President Donald Trump’s ambitious “Golden Dome” missile defense project, leaders said at the AFA Warfare Symposium this month they are looking to the recent examples of Iran’s attacks on Israel last year to understand the challenges ahead. 

In April and October 2024, Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones at Israel. The U.S. played a key role in defeating those strikes, as the Space Force provided missile warning, and the Air Force and Navy both shot down threats. 

Now, as the U.S. ponders how to build a “Golden Dome” defense shield for North America, Iran’s attacks loom large, especially given the even greater missile volumes that could be volleyed at the U.S. from more capable adversaries like China or Russia. 

“What we are seeing is more proliferation,” said Col. Ernest “Bobby” Schmitt, commander of Mission Delta 4. “More countries have access to this, what I would call legacy technology, but they also are looking at getting more of it. It’s becoming cheaper to develop and build those capabilities. And so, for example, what we saw with Iran last year, they have a lot of missiles, right? But they’re mostly the legacy systems. And so what the adversaries are doing is using those legacy systems and implementing different TTPs, so using more mass and trying to time it differently.” 

Essentially, Iran tried to overwhelm the system. Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, now commander of Space Forces-Space, remembered when he was head of space forces for Air Forces Central in 2014-2015 that the system was meant to handle “tens” of missiles at a time. In April, Iran launched around 120 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles, in addition to attack drones. 

“Quite frankly, the system did as well as it could,” Schiess said. “It provided the missile warning that we needed to our joint members and our allies. But it wasn’t good enough. There was latency in it. There was mistyping. But we did our job, we were able to give missile warning.” 

That in and of itself was a major accomplishment, said Lt. Gen. Heath A. Collins, director of the Missile Defense Agency. The complexity of putting “a bullet on a bullet,” as experts have described missile defense, is such that some have questioned whether it could be done effectively in real-world scenarios. 

“The long dialogue that missile defense would never work, well, we have certainly shown in the last year that missile defense will work,” Collins said. “The system we put in place saved lives and it kept Israel safe and in the fight.” 

Located in the Mission Control Station at Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado, the Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) Battlespace Awareness Center (OBAC) provides near-real-time OPIR data exploitation products that deliver situational awareness to Space Delta 4 operators and other users. Courtesy Photo

Still, leaders wanted more, said Lt. Gen. David N. Miller Jr., head of Space Operations Command.

“The key thing I think people need to realize is the demand that the Joint Force has on the Space Force is not just ‘duck-and-cover’ missile warning,” he said. “The demand signal is actually missile warning, tracking, and targeting.” 

One of the biggest hurdles to that is speed—processing, confirming, and disseminating data fast enough. Some of that came down to training, using the April attack as the new benchmark for Guardians. 

Schiess and Miller said they also learned when to reinforce their crews with extra personnel when intelligence indicates an attack is likely. And Collins said his team learned it needed to speed up the normally laborious software updates the Pentagon is notorious for. 

“We were able to cut that down into less than a week from beginning to end, getting software out to the field,” Collins said. “And in the last year and a half, we’ve provided hundreds of updates to the field to answer the problems that we’ve seen.” 

Leaders also made the calculated decision to automate some of the system in certain circumstances. 

“One of the things that we worked on JTAGS, the system that we took over from the Army when the Space Force stood up, it was already in the process of [gaining] the ability to do what we call auto-release,” Schiess said. “And so we have men and women on the loop, tracking missiles, typing them, and sending the tracks out once they’ve done all that confirmation. We knew that we had to be so much faster that we had to get into auto-release. And so … we worked out, ‘Hey, we think we’re confident enough with the system to be able to do that in a specific situation without putting ourselves in a dangerous situation where we might mistype that there’s an attack against North America.’” 

By the time the October attack occurred, “we were much faster,” Schiess said. “We were able to work through some latency issues.” 

Yet as successful as the U.S. contributions were, officials see an even taller task ahead with Golden Dome, envisioned as a massive integrated air and missile defense architecture to protect the homeland from all kinds of threats coming from adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. 

“We can’t wait another 30-some years to get after it because the threat is changing each and every day, and more threats are coming,” Schiess said. 

Today, the Space Force is pursuing new missile warning and tracking satellites in low-Earth, medium-Earth, geosynchronous, and highly elliptical orbits. Putting all of that together so that missile warning personnel can respond as quickly as they did against Iran will not be easy, said Army Col. Alexander Rasmussen of the Space Development Agency. 

“We’ll have more data than we’ve ever known what to do with … and the question is going to be, are we going to be able to take advantage of it?” Rasmussen said. “We’re going to need the systems that will be able to process it, but how is it going to make sense to the Guardian or the warfighter, with so much coming at them? As we’ve seen in real-world events, systems need to be pretty robust to be able to make sense of things so people can make decisions in real-time.” 

The operators also have to have enough interceptors to counter increasingly big missile swarms, especially if attacks are mounted repeatedly. 

“Magazine depth is going to be crucial in the future,” Collins said. “The large volleys that we saw were just small percentages of the actual overall inventory that Iran can bring to bear. We need to raise our game when it comes to magazine depth.” 

US Strikes Houthis as USAF Fighters Help Defend Navy Warships from Retaliation

US Strikes Houthis as USAF Fighters Help Defend Navy Warships from Retaliation

March 16, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military conducted strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen for the second day in a row March 16, hours after U.S. Air Force fighters helped fend off a drone attack by the Houthis in retaliation for an earlier round of U.S. strikes.

President Donald Trump and top administration officials have promised a renewed campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have waged war against shipping in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait for over a year, launching hundreds of attacks on shipping. U.S. forces have launched several large-scale attacks on Houthi facilities during that time, including under the Biden administration.

The strikes launched by the U.S. military on both March 16 and March 15 included airstrikes launched from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier using F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters and Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles fired from U.S. Navy vessels, a U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The strikes are the largest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office.

The U.S. military is expected to send additional aircraft to the region, U.S. officials said.

“The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Fox News on March 16, before the second wave of strikes.

The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, said in a statement the U.S. conducted 47 strikes on March 15 targeting Sanaa, Saada, Al-Bayda, Hajjah, Dhamar, Marib, and Al-Jawf. The group said dozens of people were killed.

“This is not a message. This is not a one-off. This is an effort to deny them the ability to continue to constrict and control shipping,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an appearance on CBS.

In retaliation for the March 15 strikes, the Houthis launched an hourslong drone and missile attack against the USS Harry S. Truman and its accompanying warships on March 16. U.S. Air Force fighter jets defended the Navy ships, shooting down multiple drones over the Red Sea, U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Houthis said in a statement they “will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red and Arabian Seas in response to their aggression against our country.”


Trump administration officials have suggested it plans to use the U.S. military to keep striking the Houthis until they end their attacks on commercial shipping and U.S. Navy vessels in the region.

“We basically have a band of pirates with guided precision anti-ship weaponry, and exacting a toll system in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world,” Rubio said. “That’s just not sustainable. We are not going to have these people controlling which ships can go through and which ones cannot. … It will go on until they no longer have the capability to do that.”

A U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the U.S. military campaign could consist of a nearly daily series of strikes lasting weeks.

The Houthis have promised to continue to retaliate against the U.S. for its attacks and to continue to attack shipping. The group, which was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department earlier this month, has said its actions are motivated by Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas. The Houthis have launched drones and missiles at Israel, though most of the commercial ships targeted have no affiliation with Israel. The Houthis resumed their attacks on shipping earlier this month after a pause as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is in peril.

The Houthis said in a statement March 16 they “will continue enforcing the naval blockade against the Israeli enemy and impose restrictions on its ships in the announced operational zones until essential aid and necessities are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”

The U.S., too, said it planned to continue its military actions.

“This is about stopping the shooting at assets … in that critical waterway, to reopen freedom of navigation, which is a core national interest of the United States, and Iran has been enabling the Houthis for far too long,” Hegseth said. “They better back off.”

Air Force U-2 Spy Planes Flying Along Southern Border

Air Force U-2 Spy Planes Flying Along Southern Border

March 14, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

U.S. Air Force U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes are flying along the southern border, Air Force and defense officials disclosed.

The high-altitude reconnaissance planes are flying missions along with RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft and drones, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in a post on the social media site X March 14.

Allvin wrote that the U-2, RC-135, and remotely piloted aircraft “crews have been tirelessly providing unrivaled ISR support for [U.S. Northern Command] at the border to restore sovereignty and protect American communities.” 

A U.S. defense official also confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine that USAF U-2 aircraft have been flying to support the Pentagon’s efforts to surveil areas around the southern border.

The Trump administration made securing the border a high-priority military mission with Air Force and Navy aircraft, Army helicopters, and other assets flying intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico as early as January.

The U-2 can collect high-resolution imagery, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) from altitudes over 70,000 feet.

The original U-2 first flew in 1955, but current models date to the 1980s, when U-2 production restarted. The aircraft has been modernized since then and can carry a range of payloads including advanced optical, multispectral electro-optical/infrared imaging, synthetic aperture radar, and signals intelligence sensors.

The Air Force’s fleet of more than two dozen U-2s is based at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., but the aircraft are also deployed to forward operating locations worldwide. In recent years, they have flown over the Middle East, among other locations.

U.S. officials said Air Force U-2 flights over the continental United States gathered some of the most vital information about the Chinese spy balloon that flew over North America and across the United States in early 2023 before being shot down by an F-22 Raptor.

The U-2s are part of an array of U.S. military aircraft collecting intelligence along the southern border and over water off the coast of Mexico.

Air Force RC-135 operations along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico began in early February, according to U.S. officials and flight tracking data. Those operations, out of their home base at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., are ongoing, with an RC-135 flying a border security mission on March 16.

Navy P-8s flights have been a common sight along the border and the Gulf Coast since January. Two Navy P-8s have been spotted near the border equipped with the highly-capable AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor radar—a long pod visible on the centerline under the aircraft. Those P-8s were based in Europe but were recently moved to Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas. The P-8 was originally designed as a maritime patrol aircraft that could be used for anti-submarine warfare, but can perform a variety of intelligence-gathering missions.

In addition to intelligence operations, Air Force C-17s and C-130s have been used to deport detainees out of the U.S under the Trump administration.

The Air Force and its Airmen have been doing “everything asked … in support of the southwest border and the president’s priority of restoring sovereignty and protecting our borders … from the rapid global mobility to be able to transport the illegal aliens to their destination, to surveillance and reconnaissance support, to anything that’s being asked of us,” Allvin said in Feb. 27 interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine.

About 40 Air Force intelligence analysts are now supporting the southern border mission, U.S. Northern Command announced on March 11. 

Those Airmen, along with approximately 590 engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Army 18th Airborne Corps, will bring the total number of troops deployed for the border mission to 9,600.

Data collected by airborne intelligence-gathering assets must then be analyzed and coordinated within the U.S. government, particularly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. NORTHCOM established the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border to oversee the effort. At least 140 U.S. military intelligence personnel from multiple services were already assigned to the southern border mission before the latest batch of Airmen.

Some of those new Airmen will serve at the headquarters of Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., a defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Other locations include the Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers, which are located in San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Jacksonville, Fla., the official said.

Watchdog: Hurricane Hunters Short On People and Planes, But Needs Data to Quantify It

Watchdog: Hurricane Hunters Short On People and Planes, But Needs Data to Quantify It

March 14, 2025 | By David Roza

Hurricane Hunters with the Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are struggling to keep up with a rising number of storms, but a government watchdog says both agencies need to refine their data-tracking efforts and improve interagency communication between its most senior leaders to develop a cohesive plan forward.

“Developing a process to track these data would help the agencies better understand the challenges their Hurricane Hunter missions face and identify actions they could take to reduce missed mission requirements and improve operations,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a report that was publicly released March 14.

Hurricane Hunters fly into storms to collect atmospheric data that help scientists at the National Hurricane Center predict the size of the storms and where they will make landfall, which in turn helps decision-makers make calls such as evacuation orders. 

Giving forecasters better data saves lives and money; it costs at least $1 million to evacuate a mile of coastline, so it helps when planners have a better sense of where to focus safety efforts.

On the Air Force side is the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, a Reserve unit that flies 10 WC-130J aircraft out of Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. Meanwhile, NOAA flies two propeller-driven WP-3D Orion aircraft and one Gulfstream IV jet for high-altitude missions above storms.

None of the aircraft are spring chickens: the WC-130Js entered service in the late 1990s, the Gulfstream in 1994, and the Orions in 1974 and 1975. Flying into storms wears out aircraft faster, and maintenance issues have cancelled critical missions. 

hurricane hunters
The Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters flew a weather reconnaissance mission into Hurricane Helene Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo/Lt. Col. Mark Withee)

It doesn’t help that the Hurricane Hunters’ workload is rising every year: 2019 to 2023 saw 36 percent more tropical cyclone missions than 2014 to 2018. During the winter months, the Airmen fly to the West Coast to gather data on atmospheric rivers. They were nearly 13 times more busy during the winters of 2020 through 2024 than they were between 2015 and 2019, but their staff and equipment resources have not kept pace.

“NOAA’s air crews are thinly staffed with limited backup options … NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter maintenance personnel told us that they have been thinly staffed for years, resulting in unsustainable heavy workloads that have contributed to greater burnout for personnel,” GAO wrote. “According to NOAA officials, the agency is often one illness or injury away from having to cancel missions.”

In August, NOAA had to delay its Gulfstream by two days during the early stage of Hurricane Ernesto because no backup staff were available when a dual-hatted flight director and in-flight meteorologist had to attend to a family emergency.

The Air Force is in a similar spot, with some crew members juggling civilian careers in addition to their military duties. The 53rd WRS missed a few mission requirements during the 2023 tropical cyclone season because its air crews were burned out, GAO noted.

Mission Requirements

Mission requirements refer to key hurricane hunting objectives such as dropping instruments called dropsondes into storms, which gather forecast data for scientists. Mission requirements might be missed due to mechanical or staffing issues, and when that happens it reduces the accuracy and confidence of forecasting decisions, which can lead to larger, more disruptive, and more expensive evacuations.

The number of missed requirements during the tropical cyclone season is on the rise, with about 6 percent missed from 2014 through 2018 on average and 9 percent from 2019 and 2023. The winter season is more difficult thanks in part to icing and limited maintenance capabilities on the West Coast, contributing to a nearly 30 percent miss rate on average since 2020.

But while it’s clear that the Hurricane Hunters are missing requirements, it’s not exactly clear why. GAO noted that neither NOAA nor the Air Force systematically tracks the reasons why they miss mission requirements. NOAA said it historically has not tracked the reasons because in the past mission requirements happened so infrequently. The Air Force did not track that data because they were not required to and did not consider it a priority, officials said.

GAO believes in evidence-based policymaking, so it recommended the two agencies start tracking that data to inform better solutions. The agencies agreed, and in September they started developing a system to synchronize rather than duplicate each other’s efforts.

“By working together to develop and implement a systematic process to track these data, NOAA and the Air Force would have the information needed to better understand the challenges facing their Hurricane Hunter operations so that they can identify and take actions to improve their ability to complete requirements,” GAO noted.

hurricane hunters
Maj. Joyce Hiraii, 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron aerial reconnaissance weather officer, flew through Hurricane Helene, Sept. 25. (U.S. Air Force photo by Jessica L. Kendziorek)

Comprehensive Communication

The same lesson applies to NOAA’s and the Air Force’s staff and workforce structure. It’s clear that both agencies’ Hurricane Hunters are over-worked, but neither agency has completed a comprehensive assessment of its workforce, GAO wrote.

For example, NOAA hired a contractor to assess its pilots and navigators in 2024, but the assessment did not include its other air crew, aircraft maintainers, and other employees. The 53rd WRS also lacked such a comprehensive study.

“Comprehensively assessing their Hurricane Hunter workforces would help inform efforts by NOAA and the Air Force to ensure that they have the appropriate staffing levels and workforce structure in place to meet the growing demand for Hurricane Hunter missions,” GAO wrote.

Besides more thoroughly assessing their operations, the two agencies also need to improve their high-level communications, GAO said. The two groups work closely together at the operational level and below, filling in for each other’s missions, holding lessons-learned meetings every year, and putting on an interagency aerial reconnaissance equipment working group to prioritize new technologies.

But decisions affecting long-term investment and strategy require senior leadership, and GAO noted a lack of communication between the most senior officials.

“Senior NOAA officials said they have tried unsuccessfully to reach out to the Air Force about its plans for its Hurricane Hunter aircraft and stated they were unsure which Air Force leaders they should communicate with on this topic,” the office wrote. “In the absence of such communications, the officials said they do not know what the Air Force’s long-term plans are for its Hurricane Hunter aircraft, which has made it more difficult for NOAA to determine the needs and requirements for its own aircraft recapitalization efforts.”

One senior NOAA leader likened it to building two halves of a house separately without discussing how the plumbing, wires, or other systems will connect with each other. 

A WC-130J Super Hercules from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, aka Hurricane Hunters, taxis to the runway Aug. 25, 2019 at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. (U.S. Air Force photo by Jessica L. Kendziorek)

Upgrades

Better communication could lead to better-coordinated recapitalization efforts. NOAA plans to replace and expand its aircraft fleet with two new Gulfstream jets and four C-130Js. The 53rd WRS has no immediate plans to replace its WC-130Js (which are also aging quickly), but it does want better communications bandwidth and Wi-Fi so that Airmen can transmit more data mid-flight rather than wait until the aircraft lands.

“Air Force officials described the process to make modifications to the Hurricane Hunter aircraft, such as installing new technologies or equipment, as cumbersome and slow,” GAO wrote. “ … It can take years, in some cases more than a decade, for the Air Force to add new capabilities to its aircraft.”

Like with the other resource problems, the need for change is clear, but GAO said the Air Force needed to identify specific system improvement barriers and develop mitigation plans. 

In his response to the GAO report, Lt. Gen. John P. Healy, the head of Air Force Reserve Command, said his troops had stood up a WC-130J Requirements Working Group to refine the aircraft upgrade process even before the GAO’s assessment.

“As this process continues to mature, Air Force Reserve Command will identify and support changes to improve processes both within the command as well as with their mission partners,” Healy wrote.

Both NOAA and the Air Force concurred with all of GAO’s recommendations. 

USAF, Japan Look to Share Maintenance on Common Aircraft Closer to the Fight

USAF, Japan Look to Share Maintenance on Common Aircraft Closer to the Fight

March 14, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The U.S. Air Force is working on a test program with Japan to establish a joint maintenance center that will perform repairs on aircraft operated by both nations—creating a “deterrent effect that will make adversaries think twice,” a top general said.

For the past few months, the Air Force Sustainment Center has been exploring ways to expand depot-level maintenance beyond the continental U.S. and get it closer to the fight, in line with the Pentagon’s Regional Sustainment Framework plan to tap into the allies’ maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities, particularly for shared weapons systems.

The Air Force’s part of the initiative, dubbed GENUS (Global Enterprise Network for Universal Sustainment), has led to talks and visits to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Guam, and Alaska, said Lt. Gen. Stacey T. Hawkins, commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center, during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on March 13.

But Japan offers a particularly intriguing partnership given past interoperability efforts and common platforms.

“We believe that Japan is a prime candidate to begin this journey,” Hawkins said. “One example of how this has been done successfully is our support center at Kadena… We feel that the ecosystem is rich to build on that success and scale it accordingly.”

The 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Asia-Pacific, is home to more than 2,300 aircraft maintainers in its 18th Maintenance Group. Located on Okinawa, just 200 miles from Taiwan, the base currently hosts a rotation of fighters, along with other aircraft

“We have actually put some ideas in motion as to how we can run a successful pilot using a basket of commodities for aircraft that we fly together,” added Hawkins.

USAF and the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force operate several of the same aircraft types—F-15 and F-35 fighters, C-130 transports, and KC-46 tankers.

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II assigned to the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron taxis after arriving at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Jan. 13, 2025. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Tylir Meyer

By leveraging Japan’s maintenance capabilities and sharing its own, the Air Force hopes to keep its aircraft more ready and able to respond quickly to crises.

“When it comes to revitalizing the defense industrial base and re-establishing deterrence … we believe GENUS is right in the middle of that,” Hawkins said. “We can resolve the tyranny of distance problem, resolve the contested logistics problem and resolve the time challenge, we can actually create a deterrent effect that will make our adversaries think twice.”

A joint MRO center could also address supply chain issues, as both countries frequently face shortages of spare parts for aircraft repairs, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Leonard J. Kosinski, former director for logistics for the Joint Staff.

“If we can combine those together into what we call in the Joint Staff ‘forward pre-positioned operating stock,’ this will, collectively, keep the things in need available to use, maintain, replenish,” he said.

For Tokyo, the agreement could help revitalize the country’s shrinking defense industry. Japan’s long-standing export controls have historically confined its defense companies to domestic needs. The country aims to expand MRO services going forward and integrate into global market, officials said during the CSIS event.

The Navy currently operates a comparable sustainment center called the U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center, in Yokosuka, a port city just south of Tokyo. The facility provides ship repair, modernization, and support services to the service’s 7th fleet and Naval vessels across the region.

The Air Force is also exploring interoperability and shared maintenance on the F-35 with European allies—Norwegian personnel serviced two F-35s without any U.S. supervision last April, a historic first.