JSE: How Air Force Aims to Get More Pilots into ‘World’s Best F-35 Simulator’

Dec. 9, 2024 | By Tobias Naegele

ORLANDO, Fla.—The same virtual test environment used to complete operational testing for the F-35 is now driving the “best F-35 trainer in the world” and is about to be replicated from a single site in southern Maryland to five “super sites” around the nation.

The Air Force and Navy are pouring billions into the Joint Simulation Environment to expand the system from its starting point at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent Naval Air Station, Md., to far larger installations at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.; Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.; and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

Longer term, the Air Force plans to have JSE sites at all its F-35 bases, including Hill, Luke, Eglin, Eielson, Davis-Monthan, and other National Guard sites, and overseas bases like RAF Lakenheath in the U.K., said Derek Greer, integrated battlespace simulation and test department head at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). “We are working with the Air Force and the Navy to get at least an eight-ship of F-35 and manned Red Air at all of these sites,” he said.

Stripped down versions are now at sea on aircraft carriers. Lacking the full-scale simulators at Patuxent River, they still have features that have helped deployed fighter squadrons maintain certain skills in environments where they would not otherwise be able to practice them. All that is possible because of the precise way the simulators mimic the actual flight software.

“JSE was born out of the need to get F-35 through operational test,” said Greer, who led off a panel discussion on JSE at the Interservice/Industry Training and Simulation Conference on Dec. 3. “We did not have the threat density, nor the threat complexity at our open-air ranges to fully stress and evaluate the F-35, so the decision was made long ago that we needed to do a chunk of the F-35 operational test program in a simulator. … In partnership with the Air Force, we built the facility at Pax River to do exactly that.”

In fiscal 2024, 820 F-35 pilots used the JSE trainers at Patuxent River, including Pacific Air Forces squadrons stationed at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska; RAF Lakenheath; and the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis, Greer said.

Now the Air Force and Navy are working together to scale the system far beyond its original purpose, an ambitious effort that will draw on both military and industry expertise. Col. Matt Ryan, simulators division chief and senior materiel leader for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, said scaling the program to become the joint-force training asset envisioned will take years and extensive effort.

Yet the payoff for the effort will be huge: as the number of locations increases, so will the number of pilots that can leverage this training.

“We’re trying to take something that was meant for a single purpose at a single place, almost for a single point in time, and scale that out to be used at many places, for all time, for almost all people,” he said, speaking at the same I/ITSEC briefing. “That’s a pretty significant scaling challenge. It certainly means that the original design as we knew it, even just two or three years ago is probably not going to be sufficient moving ahead. So we spent the last year doing some work to do some re-architecting … so that we can turn it into a scalable solution that deploys well to multiple sites.”

The Nellis site will be a major site for the Air Force, as will the Edwards site, with a lot of validation and developmental test activities. But the primary focus will be mission rehearsal, large force exercises, unit-level training, and continued operational test. “We see other use cases as far as experimentation and potentially developmental tests in the future, but all centered around real-time mission-level operations,” Ryan said.

The F-35 is the only fighter supported in JSE today, but F-22 is in the works he said. Other functions and features could be developed to add space data and, potentially, to make JSE useful to Space Force users, Ryan said.

Funded by the F-35 Joint Program Office, JSE starts with a series of “F-35-in-a-Box” simulators built by F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin. The simulators are a full re-hosting of the underlying operational flight program software used in the actual jet, so precise it can be used for operational test and evaluation—and therefore ideal for training, because it is such a precise representation.

The fighter simulator links to a government-owned software integration stack, which incorporates digital models mimicking the performance of U.S. weapons and, even more important, leveraging the latest classified intelligence data to precisely imitate the performance parameters of adversary aircraft and weapons.

That means pilots can using JSE trainers to face the exact threats they would face in combat—including not just kinetic threats, but precisely modeled electromagnetic spectrum effects that take into account clouds, terrain, wind, and other factors.

The level of control, speed, and repetition possible makes JSE not only effective, Greer said, but also highly cost-effective, especially for training in complex multiaircraft operations.

“When we start talking eight-ship training, the Red Air picture, the ground picture—simply getting eight airplanes off the ground for training—you’re talking a very challenging logistical,” Greer said. “Then if we think about what the right air picture would be against that eight ship, it could be eight vs. eight, eight vs. 12, eight vs. 16, 20, whatever. It is very expensive proposition to fly, and fly repeatedly, to get our pilots the reps and sets needed to really become excellent with a tactic. But in JSE, we’re able to do eight, 10, even 12 missions per day. That’s eight vs. 20, 12 times in a day. It is really more than any one squadron can handle.”

JSE is a mission trainer; it does not replicate live-flight performance training and is not a substitute for time spent physically flying the airplane. But the F-35’s capabilities are such that some tactics and procedures and some functionality cannot be leveraged on training ranges because doing so could givie away secrets to potential adversaries. This is where JSE is valuable: providing the ability to run through scenarios repeatedly until pilots are highly skilled in those procedures, Greer said.

“From an affordability perspective, getting those reps and sets in in the simulator, where we don’t need to pay for a lot of gas, we’re not putting all those hours on the engines, it is a huge dividend,” Greer said. And just as importantly, he added, “we’re able to replicate the threat very, very actively—probably more accurately than we can in the open-air range.”

That includes intelligence-derived models for red air, ground, and surface-to-air missile threats. JSE includes the Air Force-developed Virtual Airborne Threat System, which enables red force operators to simulate adversary pilots flying against blue-force operators.

“That has really changed the fidelity, really the ball game in terms of presenting a complicated air picture to our blue fighters,” Greer said. “Having fifth-gen blue fighters actually man red-air cockpits, and bring that maneuverability, has brought our realism to an all-time high.”

One key to the realism is new software called GRID, a high-speed engine that crunches the math to mimic the propagation and performance of radio frequency, infrared, and other signals, accounting for external factors—clouds, mountains, other aircraft—as well as tactical choices, such as angle of attack, angle of depression, and so on, all in real-time.

What’s in the New NDAA: Pay Raises, No F-22 Divestments, and … Beards?

Dec. 9, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Junior Airmen and Guardians are poised for a massive pay increase, Congress wants a study on letting troops grow beards, but lawmakers are saying no to retiring any F-15E or F-22 fighters.

Those are among the decisions unveiled Dec. 7 when Senate and House lawmakers released their compromise 2025 National Defense Authorization bill, an 1,800-page legislative behemoth setting policy for the Pentagon.

The House passed its version of the NDAA and the Senate Armed Services Committee cleared its markup in June, each with unique provisions and implications for the Air Force and Space Force. But while those bills faced a long road to becoming law, the new compromise NDAA is almost certain to be approved in the coming weeks with few or no modifications.

Here are some of the biggest likely impacts on the Department of the Air Force.

Pay Day and Personnel Matters

The most notable effect of the 2025 NDAA for most Airmen and Guardians will be on their paychecks. The measure authorizes a 4.5 percent across-the-board pay raise for all service members starting Jan. 1—plus an extra 10 percent on top of that for junior enlisted paygrades up to E-4, starting April 1.

Overall, it’s the third straight annual raise over 4 percent and the first raise targeted to specific grades in decades. As big as that 14.5 percent increase is, however, it’s less than what House lawmakers wanted. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.)—both Air Force veterans—chaired the House Armed Services quality of life panel and recommended a 19.5 percent raise. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that would cost more than $24 billion over the next five years; the lesser raise would still cost in the realm of $18 billion over five years.

The White House opposed the targeted increase, arguing major changes should be made in light of recommendations from the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Review on Military Compensation. But broad bipartisan support for the proposal overcame that objection.

Funding for the raise, which will cost $1.6 billion in fiscal 2025, is still subject to approval in the defense appropriations bill, which has not yet been completed.

air force beards — U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Caleb Mills, a boom operator assigned to the 91st Air Refueling Squadron operates boom controls during an air refueling flight to commemorate Black History Month at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, Feb. 1, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Alexander Cook.

A House proposal directing the Secretary of the Air Force to create a three-year pilot program allowing Airmen and Guardians to grow beards failed to survive in the final bill. However, the compromise measure directs the Secretary to brief lawmakers on “the feasibility and advisability” of establishing such a pilot program. By April 1, the report wants the secretary to answer whether:

Beards would affect airtight seals on gas masks and other equipment

Allowing beards would affect discipline, morale, or unity

Beards could promote more inclusivity for those who suffer from razor burn or want to grow facial hair for religious reasons

there are solutions to mitigate bias or negative perceptions about Airmen and Guardians who chose to grow beards, if authorized

Less than a year after the Air Force announced it was bringing back warrant officers, Congress took a step to allow the service to open the door for civilians to go directly to Warrant Officer Training School. The bill eliminates of a requirement that warrant officer candidates must serve at least one year of Active-Duty service.

Aircraft Numbers

Overall spending authorized in the measure rises just 1 percent, consistent with caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, negotiated by the White House and Republicans in the summer of 2023.

But lawmakers differ from the President in details. The measure, if approved, would authorize six more F-15EX fighter jets than the 18 proposed by the president’s budget. The Senate Armed Services Committee had supported that increase in response to those extra planes showing up on the National Guard’s unfunded priorities list.

Other aircraft added in the measure include two C-130J cargo planes, one LC-130 “ski plane” for transporting cargo to remote, snowy locations, and two additional C-40s used primarily for transporting VIPs and leaders. These 11 aircraft add $1.2 billion in expense, which lawmakers would fund in part by cutting $500 million in F-35 fighter and KC-46 funding. They justified the cuts by citing “excess cost growth.” The measure would limit some F-35 deliveries until the Pentagon submits “corrective action plans and acquisition strategies” to improve the F-35 test enterprise.

The proposed bill allows the Air Force to divest 56 A-10 close air support aircraft, consistent with its plans. But it blocks or slows down other fighter jet divestments.

A-10Cs from the 23rd Fighter Wing, Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, taxi in on Columbus Air Force Base SAC ramp in preparation for Hurricane Helene on 25 September 2024. The 23rd FW evacuated the aircraft due to the potential for high-speed winds, localized flooding and heavy rain. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jessica Blocher

The NDAA allows the retirement of:

36 F-15Cs

3 F-16s

No F-22s

No F-15Es, and it extends that hold through fiscal 2027.

The Air Force wants to retire its Block 20 F-22 jets, which are no longer combat-coded and which it says cost too much to upgrade; officials say its older configuration is inconsistent with combat-coded versions and pilots have to “unlearn” some things when they arrive at operational units. Similarly, USAF wants to cut about half its F-15E fleet with older engines so it can focus on modernizing the rest.

But critics worry that cutting the fighter fleet at all when the Air Force is already its smallest ever is risky. Congress appears to agree.

Air Force officials have argued that keeping “legacy” aircraft longer diverts funding from other more worthy programs, and Congress responded in this measure by authorizing $126 million to “prevent retirement of F-15Es” and easing that burden. It did not fund, however, a Senate proposal to fund depot maintenance, contractor support, and flying hours for the Block 20 F-22s. Those funds will have to come from elsewhere.

B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s Conduct Massive Anti-ISIS Airstrikes in Syria After Fall of Assad

Dec. 8, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military conducted a punishing series of airstrikes against the Islamic State group on Dec. 8, following the sudden demise of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers, F-15E Strike Eagles, and A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft conducted dozens of airstrikes against Islamic State leaders, fighters, and camps in central Syria, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced. The aircraft dropped about 140 munitions on more than 75 targets belonging to the militant group, a senior administration official told reporters.

The strikes came as the U.S. is trying to prevent ISIS militants from exploiting the chaotic situation in Syria after Assad fled the country and rebels led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took over Damascus 13 years into the Syrian civil war.

“At the president’s authorization, we targeted a significant gathering of ISIS fighters and leaders,” the official said.

The Pentagon said the attacks were precision airstrikes and it does not believe there were any civilian casualties. The U.S. military is still conducting a battle damage assessment, according to U.S. Central Command.

A U.S.-led coalition and their local allies dismantled the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2019 as part of the ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve. But the U.S. still has about 900 troops in eastern Syria who have been working with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that are battling the remnants of the Islamic State as it has sought to make a comeback.

“CENTCOM, together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS operational capabilities even during this dynamic period in Syria,” the command stated.

CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla issued a pointed warning to Syrian groups that they should avoid helping ISIS as the country struggles to form a new government after Assad’s departure.

“There should be no doubt—we will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria,” Kurilla said in a statement. “All organizations in Syria should know that we will hold them accountable if they partner with or support ISIS in any way.”

Two U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles conduct a combat air patrol in support of Operation Inherent Resolve over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility Nov. 23, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo

The fall of the Assad regime less than two weeks after the start of a rebel offensive came as a shock to American and many Middle Eastern officials. It followed the battering that Lebanese militia Hezbollah, an Assad ally, took at the hands of the Israeli military.

Assad’s support from the Russian air force also waned as Moscow became increasingly preoccupied with its invasion of Ukraine. Iran, another backer of Assad, was also weakened by Israeli airstrikes in Syria and inside Iran.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. But it broke with Al Qaeda in 2016 and has targeted ISIS elements in the territory it has controlled, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Today, the group casts itself as a nationalist organization that was committed to unseating Assad and building a new Syria.

With the collapse of the Assad regime, Washington is also trying to head off fresh conflicts between Turkish-backed militias and the Syrian Democratic Forces that could hamper operations to fight the Islamic State. In a call with his Turkish counterpart on Dec. 8, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III “reaffirmed the importance of avoiding actions that could present a risk to U.S. forces and partners, and the defeat-ISIS mission,” the Pentagon said.

‘The Baton Will Soon Be Passed’: Austin Touts B-21 Bomber as Part of Legacy

Dec. 8, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

SIMI VALLEY, Calif.—Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III touted the Air Force’s B-21 Raider bomber and the military’s new command and control technologies in a major address here on the Biden administration’s legacy in national security.

Austin’s address, which he made at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Dec. 6, comes as the defense secretary is nearing the end of four years in the seat.

During that tumultuous period, the Pentagon:

Planned and executed the 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent noncombatant evacuation of U.S. citizens, allied personnel, vulnerable Afghans and others.

Provided arms and training to the Ukrainian military after Russia’s 2022 invasion

Sent combat aircraft and air defense interceptors to the Middle East to protect Israel from an Iranian missile attack in 2024.

Engaged in a continuing clash with the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been attacking international shipping in the Red Sea.

Austin announced in his speech that the U.S. would provide nearly $1 billion in additional long-term security assistance to Kyiv, though he did not say how much of that might be delivered before the Biden administration hands over the reins to President-elect Trump and his aides, some of whom have been critical of the U.S. strategy on Ukraine.

An important part of Austin’s address, which was made to top military leaders, defense industry executives, and think tank experts at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, focused on the Pentagon’s efforts to develop U.S. military capabilities to counter China’s growing military and other threats.

Austin pointed in part to the USAF’s B-21 Raider bomber, which he unveiled two years ago at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Palmdale, Calif. The bomber is now in flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base.

“Another key legacy is the B-21 Raider,” Austin said. “The Raider is America’s first new strategic bomber in three decades. And it delivers an unmatched combination of range, stealth, and durability.”

The B-21 Raider continues its flight test campaign at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman

Austin also highlighted the growth of America’s military space infrastructure and the Combined All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort, which is heavily dependent on Space Force and Air Force capabilities.

“We’ve made major investments in cutting-edge capabilities, “ Austin said. “Over the past four years, the department has pulled the future forward. And one especially lasting legacy is our work on the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control. CJADC2 will connect U.S. forces across all operational domains. It used to be a pipe dream. And so many had said this cannot be done. No longer. In less than two years, we’ve fielded capability for CJADC2 that is in active use at [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command]. And we’ve established a minimum viable capability for CJADC2 across other combatant commands.”

Other important steps, Austin said, include a new push by the Defense Innovation Unit to develop a strategy to counter unmanned systems, which the Pentagon projects will be increasingly used by adversaries on the battlefield.

Austin acknowledged that considerable follow-through will be required, including in strengthening the defense industrial base.

“There is far more work to be done. But as this year and this administration draws to a close, America is positioned to stand strong,” Austin said. “So the baton will soon be passed. And others will decide the course ahead. And I hope that they will build on the strength that we have forged over the past four years.”

PACAF Boss: As China Expands Reach of Missiles and Warplanes, US Needs ‘Inside Force’

Dec. 8, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

As China extends the reach of its missiles and aircraft farther and farther beyond its shores, the Air Force must ensure two keys to effectively counter that threat: first, to build out the underlying capability to make USAF’s agile combat employment strategy, and second, to ensure the Air Force has the “inside force” to penetrate China’s defenses, a top Air Force leader said Dec. 6.

PACAF commander Gen. Kevin B. Schneider, speaking at an event with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the People’s Republic of China is continuing to build out its anti-access/area denial strategy with its growing ballistic missile force. “And every day, that missile capability from the PLA grows in number, capability, and range,” Schneider said.

The PLA Navy and Air Force are growing bolder, more routinely operating far from China’s shores, he said. “In the air domain, we typically see them first and second island chain only. But as they continue to build out air refueling capability, I expect that we’ll see air operations farther and farther through the first and second island chain, and perhaps even farther.”

As recently as 2021, USAF academics derided China’s aerial refueling fleet as “another limitation in the quest for power projection.” Not anymore. The PLAAF has a new refueler, the YY-20, analysts say, and it is also flexing its muscles in new parts of the world, leveraging access to Russian bases to operate in the Arctic and Western Pacific. Earlier this year, the two conducted their first-ever joint bomber patrol near Alaska, and in late November, they conducted a joint patrol over the Sea of Japan.

That last mission was notable, Schneider said, because it “involved an H-6N,” explaining that the “N” designator means the aircraft is a “nuclear-capable bomber.”

“China is continuing to do more and more with [the H-6N] and using that to project power,” he added. By flying near both Japan and South Korea, the H-6N operation was “clearly an effort to get after the fabric of the alliances and partnerships that give us strength,” Schneider said.

Asked by dean of the Mitchell Institute retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula about the need for penetrating strike and air dominance aircraft, Schneider argued that the U.S. Air Force must “always be in a position where we can get into the hardest targets, that we can turn the vertical flank, and that we can deliver mass fires on a center of gravity.” This, he said, requires a so-called “inside force.”

Debate about whether the Air Force must field both “inside” and “outside” forces has increased in recent months as the service has wavered in its commitment to the Penetrating Combat Aircraft, the manned portion of the Next-Generation Air Dominance family of systems. USAF was scheduled to select a winning design for that program by September, but paused the program for an additional review. Now, with a coming change of presidential administration, the Air Force has delayed the determination so that the next Pentagon leadership can make the decision.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin wants to cast aside the inside-outside force arguments as he works to press his case for a new “force design” intended to help reset future warfighting requirements. “The design is … more conceptual, but we’re designing the force to be able to account for the environment,” he said in a recent interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “That environment is one that has varying levels of and varying densities of threat.”

Schneider, for his part, said “we the Air Force have, I’ll call it a moral obligation, one to the joint force, because wherever they are, we are going to be with them. And it is our job to be an integral part of the joint force to deliver fires, and the other is a moral obligation to our allies and partners that Gen. Allvin alluded to.” To achieve that, he said, the Air Force must have air superiority and global precision strike capabilities.

Deptula has argued that delaying NGAD or diminishing the Air Force’s ability to fight inside enemy territory cedes U.S. combat advantages, and are driven not by strategic insight, but by a lack of will to fight for more funds to buy the combat forces necessary to deter China.

ACE and Logistics

In the face of China’s growing reach, PACAF is building out its agile combat employment strategy, in which forces would scatter from large “hubs” to remote bases as a means to counter China’s A2/AD strategy. ACE was developed in PACAF when Schneider was the command’s chief of staff, and he credited lower-level units and Airmen for their hard work fleshing out the concept.

“We have really advanced, and we have really evolved, and I am really pleased,” he said.

But Schneider also said some of that evolution has caused PACAF leaders to reconsider the underlying assumptions behind ACE.

“The one thing that … we’ve recognized we need to get after—and I give [Gen. Mike Minahan], the former AMC commander, tremendous credit—was there’s a large-scale logistics and sustainment piece of this that wasn’t necessarily connected,” Schneider said. “That’s because a lot of our agile combat employment evolutions have been done within wing training budgets, within wing training cycles.”

When Minihan staged AMC’s massive Mobility Guardian exercise in the Pacific in 2023, those issues came to light, and now the Air Force is planning an even larger exercise for 2025, dubbed “Resolute Force Pacific” with the specific objective of better understanding the implications of peer war on the full logistics chain.

REFORPAC, as the exercise has been nicknamed, will include some 300 aircraft spread across 25 locations, PACAF deputy Lt. Gen. Laura Lenderman previously said. But with Congress having punted so far in approving a 2025 budget, Schneider said the Air Force may have to scale back that plan.

“Through the course of our planning, we have options,” he said. “So we take a look at what we would like to do at the high end, if we get all the funding that we are asking for, through to a lower end of the funding, where we’ll still be able to make this happen at a pretty large size and scale.”

For ACE to work, Schneider said, USAF has to accept that it can’t depend on just-in-time delivery in the midst of combat. More gear must be prepositioned forward to limit the distances it must travel to the end user, Schneider said. Because “there’s never enough lift to go around” when it’s needed most, he said, the Air Force must look “at our ability to pre-position as much forward across the spectrum” as possible in order to “take some of that burden off of [U.S. Transportation Command] in time of crisis.”

As Space Gets More Crowded, Space Force Needs New AI Tools to Keep Up: Experts

Dec. 6, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

Think tanks typically just write reports, but when it came to studying the use of artificial intelligence to help the Space Force track objects in orbit and warn about possible collisions, the RAND Corp. went one step beyond that.

A team of information scientists at RAND actually built AI tools which Space Force analysts could use to “fight tonight,” team leader Li Ang Zhang told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“Having this kind of AI solution can really benefit the mission today,” he said, alleviating technology bottlenecks and providing a bridge capability until a delayed modernization program for space domain awareness (SDA) kicks in. Space Force officials seem to agree.

Machine learning AI (AI/ML) is quite different from the generative AI large language models that have captured headlines and public imagination in the last two years, but it is vital to help human analysts sift through and make sense of the huge amount of data coming off of and about the rapidly proliferating number of satellites, especially in low-earth orbit, or LEO, said Rudolph “Reb” Butler, a senior advisor to the Space Force’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer.

The Space Force is working with its partners to ease the cognitive burden on humans dealing with SDA data through automation, he said at a recent CyberSat event: “There’s a lot of work to be done.”

To help with that work, the RAND team went deep on a single use-case for AI/ML called conjunction assessment: the process of identifying and tracking objects in orbit to predict possible collisions.

Conjunction assessment, or CA, is a good way to demonstrate the value of AI/ML right now, because it’s become so much harder in the years since the Space Force was stood up in 2019, Zhang said. More satellites had been launched in the last five years than in the previous 60, he noted.

“We’re having almost weekly launches around the globe, but the number of people doing this mission and the number of computers are relatively static,” he said.

Space Force analysts in Space Defense Squadrons 18 and 19, charged with the CA mission, were in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the growing scale and complexity of their task, Zhang warned.

The Space Force tracks nearly 45,000 objects in orbit, he said. “If you think about the number of possible pairwise comparisons it quickly gets quite staggering,” he said. Add in complexities like atmospheric conditions and solar weather, variations in the Earth’s gravitational field, and the calculations required to predict orbits and warn about possible collisions quickly outpace the available computational power.

That’s especially true, he added, because of the aging legacy technology upon which the Space Force relies. The computers that carry out the orbital calculations are “very old and at capacity, and have been for at least 10 years now,” he said, calling it “a well-known problem, and … one of the main bottlenecks that we have today” in SDA capabilities.

Almost three years ago, Space Systems Command, the part of Space Force responsible for most of its acquisition programs, announced a $49.7 million modernization effort dubbed the Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System (ATLAS.) But in a report earlier this year, the Pentagon’s top weapons tester said the effort is two years behind schedule.

Until the modernization effort is complete, Zhang said, the AI tools his team developed could provide a bridging function—allowing the legacy computers to keep handling the growing volume of data and calculations needed to keep up with the expanding and increasingly dynamic orbital environment.

“We want AI to try to bridge that gap in resources for now,” he said. While the legacy computers could keep doing the demanding orbital calculations “in the background,” AI tools which provide a “much, much faster, but a little less accurate” predictions could be used for a “first cut,” to triage analysts’ work, and let them focus their attention and computing power on the most urgent tasks, Zhang said.

Although the legacy computers operate within the classified domain and the RAND team was not able to test their AI/ML tools on them, Zhang said they had been designed and tested on “relatively old machines,” and he was confident they would work on the legacy technology being used for SDA.

To the Space Force’s credit, he said, “they have the infrastructure to bring new algorithms, new cool stuff, especially from small businesses, into their processes. So a lot of the architecture [to import and use these AI/ML tools] does exist. I think it just is a matter of pulling the trigger.”

He said his team was engaging with Space Force to figure out next steps, but declined to comment further. Space Systems Command didn’t respond to requests for an interview or comment.

The situation is complicated by the bureaucratic context, said retired Space Force Col. Charles Galbreath. The part of the SDA mission concerned with CA—the orbital tracking and cataloging of space objects, which he called the “traffic management role”—is being shifted to the Department of Commerce.

The Space Force wants to pass that mission over because it is seen as more suited to a civilian agency given the growing prevalence of commercial activity in orbit. Galbreath also noted that the Space Force wants to focus on newer capabilities it will need as the space domain becomes not just more crowded, but more dynamic, with more satellites able to maneuver themselves in orbit.

To meet those new challenges and prepare to fight a shooting war in orbit if needed, USSF is leaning forward on incorporating new technologies like AI and cannot afford to be gun shy about them, Galbreath said. His last active duty assignment was as the Space Force’s deputy chief technology and innovation officer, and he is now a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“The number of objects in space has just been going off the charts,” he said, and would continue to grow as new megaconstellations like Starlink and future competitors such as Amazon’s Kuiper continue to be fielded. “So the risk of not using AI/ML is an outdated system increasingly incapable of producing conjunction warnings that are accurate in a timely fashion. And therefore the risk of an unforeseen or undetected collision increases,” he said.

Retired Maj. Gen. Kim Crider, the Space Force’s former Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, said that while the SDA mission is one of the most urgent use-cases for AI/ML in the service, it is far from the only one.

“It’s an urgent challenge because understanding the domain is foundational to everything else that we’re going to do there,” said Crider, who left the service in 2021 and last year helped found Elara Nova, a strategic consultancy focused on space. Without accurate and constantly updated information about objects in space, “we’re going to have a very hard time making decisions about what to do in the domain and where to apply our defensive effects, or where to engage if we need to engage,” she said.

But the Space Force shouldn’t stop with the SDA mission, Crider said. “There are so many opportunities for this [AI] technology to augment what we do in space and from space,” she pointed out. “We need AI/ML to help us, not only with the space domain awareness mission, but to help us with decision-making that we need to be able to do, with the optimization of services that we need to be able to provide,” she said. AI/ML tools could also help “optimize the use of imagery and sensing to get the best imagery that we need, when and where we need it. … So there’s a lot of use cases across the board.”

Meet Two of the Air Force’s Newest Warrant Officers

Dec. 6, 2024 | By David Roza

The Air Force’s first new warrant officers in 66 years graduated Dec. 6 at a ceremony at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.—the inaugural class of the new Warrant Officer Training School (WOTS).

The 30 Airmen spent the past eight weeks in an intense mix of classroom study and physical training to prepare for their new roles, which Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin hopes will help keep the Air Force ahead of rivals such as China and Russia.

“We are in a competition for talent, and we understand that technical talent is going to be so critical to our success as an Air Force in the future,” he said when he announced the return of warrant officers in February.

The Air Force’s career paths for enlisted and commissioned Airmen are geared to put them in leadership roles, but the cybersecurity and information technology career fields move so fast that they require experts who can stay hands-on throughout their careers. Warrant officers already play that role in the other branches except the Space Force.

air force warrant officer — Canidates at Warrant Officer Training School listen to U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Chad Bickley, Air Education and Training Command command chief, speak at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Nov. 20, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Billy Blankenship)

Staying hands-on sounded perfect to Chief Warrant Officer 2 Richard Barragan, previously a senior master sergeant with 19 years in the Air Force. An information technology expert, Barragan was set on retiring at 20 years, but he enjoyed his most recent role as senior enlisted advisor at Enterprise IT as a Service (EITaaS), an Air Force effort to revamp IT across the branch. Becoming a warrant officer seemed the perfect route to keep doing what he loved.

“It’s been eye-opening to see the effect you can have in that role where you’re asked ‘what do you think?’ and ‘how should we do this?’” Barragan said. “I just love being in that environment, so it makes perfect sense to go the warrant officer route.”

The possibility has Barragan thinking about serving another five or even 10 years beyond what he originally planned. His classmate, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Tajh Smith, made a similar calculation. Previously a master sergeant with 10 years of service, Smith said he had considered getting out because his career path would soon take him out of operational work.

“A lot of folks within the class feel the same way: we kind of need the chaos of the operations world,” he said. “That’s kind of our cup of coffee that keeps us going.”

Becoming a warrant officer offered a third path and a chance to pay forward the mentorship that warrant officers from other services had given Smith throughout his career.

“When I heard about it, I was like ‘you know what, I’ll throw a Hail Mary and see what happens,’” he said. “It’s definitely been a dream come true to be able to have this opportunity.”

Back to School

The two new warrant officers and their fellow graduates faced intense competition to get into the program: nearly 500 Airmen applied for just 60 slots when applications opened in April. Of those, 433 applications were deemed eligible, but the caliber of the applicants was so high that officials decided to bump the first cohort to 78 slots.

The candidates were experienced Airmen at the rank of staff sergeant and above, so some were surprised to find that WOTS spent a lot of time on marching, drill, room inspections, workouts, memorizing standard operating procedures, and other entry-level activities. But there was a plus side to working out six days a week.

“It definitely got everybody a lot more fit,” Barragan said.

On top of the physical workouts was a demanding academic schedule that included wargaming, discussing case studies from actual Air Force missions, and honing communication skills, a huge part of a warrant officer’s job. Throughout his career, Smith saw warrant officers bring clarity to chaotic situations where the stakeholders disagreed on how to solve a problem.

“When the dust settles, the commander looks back at that warrant officer and is like ‘OK so what do you think?’” he said. “Or the warrant officer will bring everybody back to a level playing field and put things in perspective.”

Besides the lessons learned, Smith said it was also helpful just working with his classmates, who he described as “top-tier individuals.” Many were strangers before WOTS, but now they have a professional network.

“That has been probably one of the most beneficial things about this course,” he said. “When you reflect on issues back at your old units, it’s like ‘man, I know somebody now within the cohort who could have helped me figure this out.’”

A U.S. Air Force warrant officer candidate discusses navigating leadership dynamics during class at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Oct. 23, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Evan Porter)

‘Ease Some of that Burden’

Barragan and Smith will return to familiar places after graduating. Barragan will work at a different office but still help with EITaaS, while Smith will return to serving as a technical director for cyber operations at U.S. Cyber Command. Now it’s up to them and their fellow graduates to prove warrant officers bring something special to the Air Force.

“I’m hoping it’s not an experiment, like enlisted pilots or other initiatives that never panned out,” Barragan said.

Feedback from commanders will play a large role in that decision, he explained, but each commander may have different expectations based on their mission, job specialty, or personal preference. To address that, officials from Air Force headquarters are visiting bases across the service to explain how warrant officers are best utilized.

The niche the 30 new warrant officers will step into is currently occupied by senior noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and company grade officers. But those leaders also have to deal with administrative details such as filling out upgrade training forms and writing enlisted performance briefs, while warrant officers do not.

“We might not be writing EPBs, but we are still there to teach, coach, and mentor those Airmen from the mission standpoint, in conjunction with the NCOs,” Smith said. “Right now, they have to find some way to give 100 percent on both the operational side and the administrative side. But you only have one 100 percent, and you still have to give some percentage back to your family. We’re there to help ease some of that burden … in order to ultimately accomplish the mission.”

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Andrea Tullos, Air University commander and president, speaks to Warrant Officer School Class 25-01 at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Oct. 23, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Evan Porter)

Smith and Barragan just hope Air Force leaders have the patience to see the initiative bear fruit.

“My concern is that at the end they just say ‘OK, this has been fun, we’re done, everybody go back to regular life,’ without actually giving the program and the warrant officers that have been produced by it a chance to really have an impact,” Smith said.

But if it works, the warrant officer project could be expanded to other career fields. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in March that he expects the program will eventually include other specialties, pending its success in cyber and IT. Smith said he’s spoken with Airmen from security forces, medical, intelligence, and other fields who also want warrant officers.

For now, the next batch of Air Force warrant officers are due to graduate in March 2025, with applications for the next cohort of warrant officer candidates opening up the same month.

Lt. Col. Justin Ellsworth, a cyber operations career field manager at Air Force headquarters who helped bring the warrant officer program to life, had a tip for future applicants: submit a strong technical letter, where an expert highlights the applicant’s technical skill and leadership.

“That’s what the board is looking for: are you that technical expert, are you that go-to person in your organization?” he said. “Those are the folks that we’re really looking for.”

Lockheed’s Skunk Works Gets New Boss

Dec. 5, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

O.J. Sanchez, a former Air Force F-22 pilot and currently the vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Integrated Fighter Group, will take over as head of the company’s Skunk Works advanced products unit in January. He succeeds John Clark, who is taking on a new position as the company’s senior vice president for technology and strategic innovation.

Skunk Works, located at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif., is Lockheed’s premier aerospace innovation organization, which over more than 70 years has provided landmark systems for the Air Force, including the U-2 and SR-71 spyplanes, the F-117 stealth attack jet, and the RQ-170 stealth spyplane. It also contributed heavily to the design and development of the F-22 and F-35, the Air Force’s two fifth-generation fighters, an undisclosed number of the Air Force’s hypersonic programs, and a large number of experimental and classified operational platforms.

As head of the Integrated Fighter Group, Sanchez oversees the development, production and, sustainment of the F-16 and F-22 programs, and presided over the launch of F-16 production at Greenville, S.C., after the company moved that enterprise from its Fort Worth, Texas, plant, where F-35s are built. In his three years in that position, he also directed the T-50 K-FX, J-FX, and other international partnerships. He previously was the vice president and general manager of the F-22 program, and worked on the F-35 program. Collectively, Sanchez has more than 10 years of experience with Lockheed.

On active duty, Sanchez was an F-15 and F-22 pilot, amassing more than 2,100 hours flight hours. His last active duty assignment was as Deputy Director of Operations for the Joint Staff.

Whereas most of Sanchez’ predecessors at Skunk Works were technologists and engineers, Sanchez’s experience with the company has been in the manufacture, refinement, and sustainment of established programs, possibly indicating that more of Skunk Works’ business will be in production and sustainment of classified platforms and systems, rather than just in development of exotic new technologies. Skunk Works continues to maintain and develop the U-2 spyplane.

In a posting on X, Clark noted Sanchez’s “more than 30 years of combined military and industry expertise,” saying he has “demonstrated exceptional leadership in driving advanced program execution aligned with the Department of Defense’s deterrence vision.”

Clark is leaving Skunk Works after three years and taking on a new position as senior vice president for Technology and Strategic Innovation. He will be a direct report to CEO Jim Taiclet and will also oversee Lockheed Martin Ventures.

A successor for Sanchez at the Integrated Fighter Group has not been named.

Global Strike Boss: CCAs May Escort Bombers After Concept Matures in Fighter Force

Dec. 5, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force Global Strike Command is considering long-range, autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft as partners for its bombers but is waiting to see how they prove out with the fighter force first, the head of the command said Dec. 5.

Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere also discussed the appropriate size of the B-21 bomber program, the possibility of a mobile land-based strategic missile force, and the outlook for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile during an event hosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Bussiere said the service is “looking at” how it could use CCAs in partnership with bombers, but “we’re going to let the fighter force kind of mature that concept with [Increment] 1 … and then we’ll be prepared to integrate that into the Long Range Strike Family of Systems, probably at a later date,” if directed.

“I won’t get ahead of the Chief or the Secretary, but it’s a logical question to ask, whether long-range strike would benefit from the CCA concept,” Bussiere added. ” … Right now, we don’t actually have that in the plan.”

Bussiere’s comments come a day after 8th Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Jason R. Armagost said that “a large aircraft, like a bomber, has many apertures and many radios, and in many cases, more crew members to be able to manage things like” CCAs, adding that the service has kept its options open in how it has developed and procured the B-21.

The “obvious limitation,” Bussiere noted, would be the range of such aircraft. The Increment 1 CCAs being developed by Anduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems are optimized for an air-to-air function and not necessarily for long-haul missions that would allow them to escort bombers.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall raised the possibility of CCAs to complement the bomber fleet in 2021, and for a time, they shared mention on his Operational Imperatives list of critical new capabilities. But a year later, he backed off the concept, saying “the idea of similar-range collaborative combat aircraft is not turning out to be cost-effective.”

Analysts argued there was still a way for the drones to help the long-range strike mission, though.

B-21 Fleet

Bussiere also said it would be a good idea to “reevaluate” either the total number of B-21 bombers or the rate at which they are procured, saying that the changing security environment weighs in favor of more of the “exquisite” capabilities on the new aircraft.

“Who would not want more?” he asked.

“There are several examples in the in the last five or 10 years where we’ve evaluated what the proper fleet size should be,” he said. And while the program of record calls for “at least” 100 B-21s, Bussiere said there is analytical justification for a bomber fleet of 220 aircraft, of which 75 will be B-52Js, suggesting a fleet size of 145 B-21s.

The figure of 100 “probably needs to be reevaluated, based on the world as we see it today,” he said. “It’s a force mix discussion within the Department of the Air Force, and it’s a resource and priority [question] within the Department of Defense [and] the nation.”

The Air Force could accelerate the program to deliver more than the small handful of B-21s planned each year, Bussiere said.

“If the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or Congress directs an accelerated ramp … for the B-21 program, there’s some capability growth within the current complex,” he said.

Asked if production capacity could be expanded by adding another company to produce the jet, Bussiere said he was not convinced that would be “the most efficient way” of expanding production. More likely, he said, “it would require opening up another production complex” with the prime contractor, Northrop Grumman.

Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, in April testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, brushed aside the idea of going beyond the planned 100 B-21s, saying he thinks that by the time they are all built, technology will have advanced to offer an even better option.

“I think we’re not going to reach that number until probably the mid-2030s and beyond,” Allvin said, adding that “there are other technological advancements” likely to arise before the service commits to the B-21 as the backbone of its bomber fleet.

But Bussiere said the number and speed of delivery of the B-21 is a “valid discussion” to have “based on the age of the B-1 and B-2” and the advancing strategic capabilities of Russia and China.

If indeed B-21 deliveries will not conclude until the late 2030s, as Allvin said, that suggests a production rate of only seven or eight airframes a year. The actual rate is classified.

Land-Based Leg

When it comes to the land-based leg of the nuclear triad, Bussiere said the Air Force has “looked at” the idea of making the next land-based ICBM mobile—an idea to improve its survivability that went to prototype stage with the Peacekeeper missile in the 1980s, and which has been suggested by a number of think tanks since.

“There’s been debate and discussion over the decades on whether or not we should have a mobile aspect or component of the land leg of the triad. It’s been studied,” he said. “The nation has determined that … we’re not there yet. So that is a policy decision. If the nation decides that we are going to implement some sort” of ICBM mobility, “then we will develop concepts and go through that process. But right now, that’s been looked at.”