B-52s, F-35s Fly Live-Fire Arctic Exercise with Norway and UK

B-52s, F-35s Fly Live-Fire Arctic Exercise with Norway and UK

Dec. 4, 2024 | By Greg Hadley and David Roza

Air Force B-52 bombers dropped live ordnance on simulated enemy positions in Norway on Dec. 3 as part of a training exercise meant to hone data-sharing and targeting skills between NATO allies near the Arctic Circle. 

Exercise APEX Buccanneer saw U.S. B-52s, F-35 fighters, KC-135 tankers, and a U-2 spy plane work alongside Norwegian F-35s and P-8 maritime patrol jets, as well as British F-35s, Typhoon fighters, a Voyager tanker, and a RC-135 reconnaissance jet, according to a Dec. 4 press release. Norwegian army, navy, and special forces troops also took part.

The key tactic being trained on was multidomain find, fix, track, and target (F2T2). ‘Find’ means scanning the battlefield for potential targets, while ‘fix’ means locating the potential target’s exact position and identifying it as a worthy target. ‘Track’ means keeping track of the target’s exact location and identity, while ‘target’ means choosing and using the right tool to destroy or otherwise affect the target. 

b-52 norway
U.S. Air Force Capt. Michael Brady, 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron pilot, prepares his night vision equipment aboard a B-52H Stratofortress during a Norwegian-led trilateral exercise above Norway, Dec. 3 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jacob Cabanero)

At APEX Buccaneer, American, Norwegian, and British troops practiced sharing information between multiple platforms to build a shared vision of the simulated battlefield and then drop weapons on it. Specifically, Norwegian joint terminal attack controllers on the ground directed payloads onto the targets. Only B-52s dropped weapons, a U.S. Air Forces in Europe spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“The trilateral exercise allowed for the seamless integration of the F-35 data-sharing capabilities, as pilots from all three nations exchanged real-time tactical information, creating a unified air picture and demonstrated the aircraft’s ability to operate as a force multiplier,” a USAFE press release said. 

Group Capt. Hannah Bishop, head of operations plans for the Royal Air Force, said that interoperability “is vital to the defense of NATO’s northern flank.”

“This exercise has demonstrated important enduring strengths of our alliance: our ability to understand how each other operates, to share critical information quickly, and to work seamlessly with each other,” she said in the release. 

A U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II approaches a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 100th Air Refueling Wing, Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England, during a Trilateral Bomber Task Force support mission over the North Sea, Dec. 3, 2024. (Air Force photo by Senior Airman Christopher Campbell)

Multinational training is a regular part of military life in Europe. In September, two B-52s flew alongside two dozen fighters, tankers, and other assets from six NATO allies over Poland in an F2T2 exercise. B-52s also dropped live weapons on a Lithuanian range in November as part of a training exercise. 

“Together we are a credible deterrent, and if required, we are ready to defend the Arctic region,” Brig. Gen. Tron Strand, commander of Joint Air Operations Center in Norway, said in the release.

The threat looms large: on Nov. 26, Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted two B-52s near Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea coast. The bombers were there to train with Finland, a U.S. official said. Tension in the region is high after the U.S. cleared Ukraine to use American-made long-range missiles to strike targets in Russia late last month. Russian president Vladimir Putin followed up with what he described as a medium range ballistic missile launched at Ukraine a few days later.

Space Force Activates Component in Japan, with ‘Historic Opportunity’ to Deepen Ties

Space Force Activates Component in Japan, with ‘Historic Opportunity’ to Deepen Ties

Dec. 4, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Space Forces Japan activated Dec. 3 at Yokota Air Base, the latest milestone in the service’s push to establish components within combatant commands and a sign of a deepening space partnership between the two allies, U.S. military officials said. 

Col. Ryan Laughton, the first component commander, received the guidon from U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific boss Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir. The unit is the second sub-component under SPACEFOR-INDOPAC, following Space Forces Korea.  

Space Forces Japan will be a “small, dedicated” team to start, Laughton said multiple times in his first remarks as commander. Local media reports suggest the component comprises just 10 Guardians right now.

But Laughton, Mastalir, and U.S. Forces Japan commander Air Force Lt. Gen. Stephen F. Jost spoke during the ceremony of the importance of establishing a Space Force component at a pivotal moment in the U.S.-Japan alliance. 

“Our two nations have long stood as leaders in peaceful space innovation and exploration, and with today’s activation, we will further deepen both our leadership prowess and our partnership when it comes to space,” Jost said. “As we move forward, we will continue to seek out opportunities to integrate the space domain into our deterrence efforts.” 

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force has been building up its space capabilities in recent years, both with the U.S. and on its own, Mastalir noted. 

“This year, Japan has launched multiple optical and radar intelligence-gathering satellites and capped off the year with the launch of Kirameki 3, yet another military communications satellite aboard the newest generation H3 rocket,” Mastalir said, adding that the country will launch its first space domain awareness satellite in 2026. 

U.S.-Japanese cooperation in military space is also growing. Late last year, Japan joined the Combined Space Operations initiative, a multinational partnership to improve coordination in space. A few months later, Japan announced it would expand its Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, a collection of positioning satellites for the Indo-Pacific that hosts U.S. Space Force payloads. And last month, the Japanese reached an agreement to join USSF’s Wideband Global Satcom satellite network.  

Still more opportunities to collaborate are on the table—and Laughton, an acquisition officer by trade, can help make that happen, Mastalir said.  

“I wanted a materiel leader here at this component because we have a historic opportunity to buy, build, and operate capabilities that are allied by design with Japan, and there is no one better positioned to make that happen than Colonel Laughton,” Mastalir said. 

Jost also hinted at how the U.S. and Japan can collaborate more in space. 

“Whether it is enhancing satellite communications, accelerating space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, assuring persistent navigation, or bolstering missile defense capabilities, our commitment is clear,” Jost said. “We will work hard side by side with our Japanese allies to capitalize on the opportunities and meet the future challenges in the space domain head-on.” 

To make that happen, Laughton said, both the U.S. and Japan need organizations dedicated to space. In addition to U.S. Space Forces Japan, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force is poised to become the Japan Air and Space Self-Defense Force in the coming years. 

“We are excited about synchronizing together, exchanging ideas and planning and exercising side by side, what we can do and achieve in from and to the space domain is rapidly growing, and so too must both of our organizations in order to seize key security opportunities,” Laughton said. 

Those opportunities will also come as the broader U.S.-Japan military alliance is poised to transform. In July, the Pentagon announced plans to convert U.S. Forces Japan into a joint force headquarters, shifting from an administrative organization to an operational one. At the same time, Japan is establishing its own Joint Operations Command. 

“It is not lost on me the importance of taking command of Space Forces Japan at a time when both the establishment of the Japan Joint Operations Command and the conversion of U.S. Forces Japan as a joint force headquarters are nearly upon us,” Laughton said. “Each of these events is significant by itself. Combined, this is a historic moment for our alliance. When we add the capabilities of our Japanese and U.S. space teams to both of these efforts, we now have something truly monumental.” 

Nellis Warfighters to Begin Training on Next-Gen F-35 Simulator in 2025

Nellis Warfighters to Begin Training on Next-Gen F-35 Simulator in 2025

Dec. 4, 2024 | By Patrick Reardon

The U.S. Air Force’s long-awaited, much-anticipated Joint Simulation Environment (JSE)—a high-fidelity simulated battlespace system that warfighters will use to train on fifth-generation platforms—is expected to reach initial operational capability in 2025 at the Joint Integrated Test and Training Center Nellis (JITTC-N) at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, with full integration expected by 2028, experts from HII say.

JSE’s development has been a years-long collaboration between the Air Force and U.S. Navy that is fully coordinated across services to help ensure a consistent strategic approach. In addition, government and industry collaboration and systems development is significant with the various elements of the JSE ecosystem being developed and evaluated.

HII, together with the Air Force and Navy, is playing an integral role in evolving and integrating the JSE technology at a faster pace than America’s adversaries. 

HII currently supports the Air Force at the JITTC-N as the lead contractor, supporting capability studies, battlespace and platform integration, and software development tasks.

“[JSE] is so critical for the warfighter because today’s training ranges just can’t keep up with the fifth-gen platforms and how they need to train. These platforms can’t train systems high—they don’t have the space required on ranges. You don’t get the threat densities, and you can’t keep up with the adversary threat evolution,” says Mike Aldinger, HII Mission Technologies’ vice president for Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC).

The initial instantiation of the JSE at JITTC-N will allow up to eight warfighters at once to train on F-35 platforms (in what Aldinger calls a “fighter in a box”) in a real-time combat simulation against eight Virtual Adversary Training Sims (VATS). Aldinger says this is planned for 2025, with the Air Force’s goal then being to extend the battlespace to support larger- and larger-scale simulations as JSE capabilities grow and the Air Force’s mission sets evolve.

The F-35 will initially be the primary platform in the JITTC at Nellis, but will also integrate F-22 and E-7 platforms with JSE’s capabilities. Within five years, Aldinger says, the JITTC-N is expected to support a fully joint training environment between multiple platforms across multiple services—including those of America’s coalition partner nations.

“JSE is intended to provide a standards-based simulation environment that all of the different platforms can use,” says John Bell, the chief technology officer for Mission Technologies. “One of the visions for JSE is to provide a platform-agnostic cockpit, which can be modular and can be reconfigured to support all the various specific platforms that our pilots need to train in.”

Bell says the cockpits are a good example of the advantage JSE provides the warfighter: a combination of virtual reality environment and physical reality—a fully synthetic environment that will allow all its users to train together today the same way they’ll fight together tomorrow.

HII’s integration efforts at JITTC-N have been an ongoing work in progress and will continue to evolve long after the JITTC-N reaches IOC in 2025, Bell says.

“Anybody who has paid attention to present day armed conflicts has seen that the way war is being conducted is completely different from wars of years past,” he says. “Because of that, the simulation systems that we have to build to train our warfighters are continually evolving. And because of that, the standards that we build to connect them together must continually evolve.”

“HII has a lot of experience in developing those standards,” Bell adds. “We’ve done this for the Navy, in building a complete worldwide distributed training network for all the Navy’s warfare systems. And so we’re able to bring that expertise to bear in the JSE.”

Learn more about HII’s involvement in developing the next generation of joint training here.

US Launches Self-Defense Airstrikes, A-10s Fly over Syria amid Escalating Civil War

US Launches Self-Defense Airstrikes, A-10s Fly over Syria amid Escalating Civil War

Dec. 3, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. carried out airstrikes on Dec. 3 to defend U.S. forces in eastern Syria, the Pentagon said. 

The operation destroyed three truck-mounted rocket launchers, mortars, an armored personnel carrier, and a T-64 tank. The strikes were intended to defend American forces at their outpost and not to intervene in the civil war in Syria, where a rebel group has seized Aleppo and is attacking Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad. Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said that the “self-defense strike” took place after rockets and mortars were fired toward American troops.

“We’re still assessing who is operating these weapons, but do know that there are Iranian-backed militia groups in the area,” Ryder said. “There are also Syrian military forces that operate in the area.”

The strikes were the second time in recent days that the U.S. has used force to defend its troops in eastern Syria. On Nov. 29, A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, which have been repeatedly deployed to bolster airpower in the region since spring 2023, struck militants that were getting ready to launch rockets at the American position, Ryder said.

Videos have emerged online of A-10s flying low and popping flares in what is purported to be eastern Syria, though the U.S. military has not confirmed—or disputed—the veracity of those images. The DOD has made clear the objective of U.S. airstrikes was the self-defense of U.S. troops amid speculation online the targets were part of a broader military campaign.

“These self-defense actions successfully eliminated imminent threats to U.S personnel and were not linked to any broader activities in northwest Syria by other groups,” Ryder said. “Let me underscore that the U.S. mission in Syria remains unchanged as U.S. and coalition forces continue to focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS.”

About 900 American troops are deployed in eastern Syria, where they advise and support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are trying to prevent a resurgence by Islamic State militants.

”Our forces have fought alongside each other and bled alongside each other. But our focus in Syria remains the defeat ISIS mission,” Ryder said.

However the situation in Syria has become extraordinarily complicated as Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, or HTS, an Islamist group supported by Turkey that opposes Assad, has mounted a surprise offensive against the Assad regime. The U.S. has sought to keep its distance from that conflict but has urged the Turkish-backed groups not to fire on SDF that are trying to evacuate Kurdish civilians from the battle area. 

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN the U.S. had “real concerns” about the goals of Hayat Tahrir. “At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Al Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure.”

Years After USAF and Navy Were Told to Up Fighter Readiness, One Fleet Has Done It: F/A-18

Years After USAF and Navy Were Told to Up Fighter Readiness, One Fleet Has Done It: F/A-18

Dec. 3, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Navy is keeping its fleet of F/A-18 Super Hornets at 80 percent readiness, six years after former Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered both the Air Force and Navy to raise their fighters’ readiness levels. The Air Force, meanwhile, has abandoned that goal and its fighters’ mission capable rates are still lagging.

Speaking at the Stimson Center on Dec. 3, Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti said her service couldn’t afford to throw “more money and people at the problem” when Mattis ordered the increase in readiness rates, particularly for the Navy and Air Force’s biggest respective fighter fleets, the F/A-18 and F-16.

The Navy reached its goal with the F/A-18 “by unpacking the challenge,” Franchetti said of her aviation command, which looked for “the root cause, and started working on that.”

Service officials previously said that they succeeded with F/A-18 readiness by maintaining more comprehensive databases on each aircraft, using proactive maintenance, and streamlining the logistics and parts supply enterprise.

The Air Force dropped the 80 percent mission capable rate benchmark in 2020. The service said then that it had different challenges than the Navy, and that traditional mission capable rate metrics weren’t a good indicator of readiness anyway. For fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which the Air Force supplied data, the F-16 mission capable rate was 69 percent. The Air Force has, however, adopted many of the same practices that the Navy used to raise the F/A-18’s availability.

The Navy’s definition of aircraft readiness may also differ from the Air Force’s, which distinguishes between aircraft able to do some of their assigned missions, or “mission capable,” versus all its assigned missions, or “full mission capable.”  

Broadly, the Navy’s goal is to have 80 percent of all its forces “surge ready” by 2027, when Chinese President Xi Jin Ping “has told his forces to be ready to invade Taiwan,” Franchetti said.

Her approach is getting those forces “in and out of maintenance on time … making them ready to go. So when we need them, we can call on them.”

Franchetti has 33 focus areas across the surface, subsurface, and aviation domains to increase Navy capability and readiness.

“Another one is integrating robotic and autonomous systems,” she said. “We have a lot of different experimentation going on, but how do we bring that capability and that mindset into our regular formations?” Her other main pushes are “investing in our people and high-end quality training [and] investing in our Maritime Operations Centers so we can command that broader fleet fight that we know are going to need to do in the future.”

She’s asked her service-wide Navigation Plan implementation team to focus on “things like long range fires; protection; logistics; live, virtual, constructive training” as the ways to “get after those enduring capabilities.”

Like her Air Force counterpart Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin, Franchetti said the character of war is rapidly changing, and “you can see that we are going to fight in a system-of-systems way. It’s really a joint warfighting ecosystem. … We are going to have capabilities that we deliver through the Navy that enable other services to use their capabilities, and it’s this ecosystem of interdependent capabilities that we need to be able to contribute to.”

Her plan will be different from previous ones in that “It has a date. So we are all focused on getting after these capabilities by 2027.” She said that year is “not a cliff, it’s a waypoint on the way to being more ready every single day.” Also, for each initiative, “there’s a single accountable individual,” and she said she herself will be accountable for the plan’s overall success.

“And we’re using metrics and data to understand where are we in getting after them,” she said.

A 296-Day Sprint: How the Air Force Brought Back Warrant Officers In Record Time

A 296-Day Sprint: How the Air Force Brought Back Warrant Officers In Record Time

Dec. 3, 2024 | By David Roza

When the first batch of Air Force warrant officers in 66 years graduates from their new training school at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. on Dec. 6, it will mark not only a new era for the Air Force, but also a major bureaucratic achievement as career field managers, personnel gurus, and other experts sweated behind the scenes to stand up the new program in less than a year.

For an organization as large as the Air Force, big changes often take a while. But when Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall announced the return of warrant officers in February, he gave planners a tight deadline: graduate the first batch by the end of the year. Lt. Col. Justin Ellsworth, career field manager for cyberspace operations officers, clocked 296 days between the official announcement in February and the graduation on Dec. 6.

“We found out about it a few weeks prior to SecAF’s announcement, and from that point forward it’s been all hands on deck,” he said.

Enlisted and commissioned Airmen are developed to eventually serve leadership functions, but that takes time and focus away from hands-on skills, which is particularly disruptive in fast-moving career fields such as cybersecurity and information technology. Warrant officers cover that gap and serve as dedicated technical experts, said assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs Alex Wagner.

“With perishable skills, like cyber, like IT, where the technology is moving so rapidly, folks who are experts in that can’t afford to be sent off to a leadership course for eight or nine months,” Wagner said in April.

Bringing back warrant officers now is particularly crucial as the service tries to stay ahead of rivals such as China and Russia, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin.

“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,” Allvin said in February. 

But realizing that vision in such a short time was a challenge. Each rank in the Air Force has policies and systems for pay and benefits, retirement and separation, service commitments, constructive service credits, and other factors of day-to-day military life. 

One of the planners charged with figuring out how those policies and systems would work for warrant officers was Lt. Col. Marjorie Barnum, chief of the retirement and separations branch within the Air Force Directorate of Manpower, Personnel, and Services, or A1 for short.

“There was a lot of behind the scenes work to make sure that the pay and personnel systems were ready to incorporate” the new ranks, Barnum explained. “It’s definitely still a work in progress, but the right thing to do by the new warrant officers is to have that done before they finish warrant officer school.”

Beyond that, planners also had to figure out how to convene boards for evaluating future warrant officers, how to strike the right force balance, and how to reintroduce the ranks to an Air Force that had not seen warrant officers since the 1980s. 

Col. Andrew Feth, who represents the Air Force Chief Information Officer on the warrant officer project, likened it to a famous scene in the film “Apollo 13” where NASA engineers dump spare parts on a table to figure out how the imperiled astronauts could save their spacecraft with the gear they had on hand. 

“We were all the parts on the table,” Feth explained. “We all had our own skills and knowledge within our own areas, as you see in a lot of large bureaucratic organizations where everybody has a role. We had to figure out ‘how am I going to get this done with all these different stovepipes?’”

U.S. Air Force Warrant Officer Training School class 25-01 in process to Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Oct. 8, 2024. Class 25-01 is the first class to attend WOTS and will be the first active duty warrant officers in the U.S. Air Force since 1980. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Evan Lichtenhan)

Just 10 days after the initial announcement, officials at Air Force headquarters met with representatives from the other services to learn the institutional roles of their warrant officer programs. Then they met with Air Force IT and cyber experts to figure what functional roles warrant officers ought to fill based on that guidance.

Eventually, the Air Force decided WOs would play three roles: professional warfighters, technical integrators, and trusted advisors. Meanwhile, Air University stood up a Warrant Officer Training School in June, to be staffed by Airmen who graduated from the Army warrant officer instructor course in July.

Back at Air Force headquarters, the cross-functional team stepped outside their usual lanes to hammer out the policy details. 

“I learned a lot more about A1 personnel policy than I’ll ever need to know,” Ellsworth said.

Barnum said another key factor was support from the highest levels of the service, including multiple Air Force headquarters directorates, the Air Force Personnel Center, and Air Education and Training Command. Leaders from all corners agreed on the importance of having warrant officers and shared a vision for its success.

“That gave us the engagement down into the functional levels,” Barnum said. “If it’s a priority for your boss, it’s a priority for you.”

It helped that the rank-and-file were also fans of the effort. Nearly 500 Airmen applied for just 60 slots when applications opened in April, two months after the program was announced. 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. As a career field manager, Ellsworth felt that enthusiasm in person during visits with Airmen.

“They were so pumped to see this come back again, we already have folks asking when the next board is going to be,” he said. “Just having that really helped make this a success.”

At the end of the day, it took elbow grease; when asked how many hours they spent working on the warrant officer project every week, the team members laughed.

“Let’s say we’re happy that the government doesn’t pay overtime,” one of them said. “Otherwise we’d have resource problems.”

Members of the Oklahoma National Guard cybersecurity team work together to defend networks during Cyber Shield 2023. Master Sgt. Mireille Merilice-Roberts/ONG

The work isn’t over: outstanding questions include modeling the right mix of skills and grades to retain as the number of warrant officers grows, and what professional military education will look like for the warrant officer corps. Further down the road, the Air Force is still working out its “street-to-seat” program, where qualified civilians go directly into the warrant officer corps. 

The Army has a similar program for its cyber warrant officers, and the fiscal year 2025 defense spending bill includes language that would remove a one-year service requirement so that the Air Force can do the same.

“The idea is to fill specific roles where we don’t have a strong bench right now within the military,” Feth said. “We want to make sure we get the right people in the right positions so that we can get after the great power competition gaps.”

In the meantime, officials launched a warrant officer roadshow—a series of town hall briefings and leadership meetings at bases across the Air Force to get them ready for the new ranks. 

“The last regular Air Force warrant officer retired in 1980, so it’s been a minute,” said Ellsworth. “We want to make sure when the warrant officer shows up, [the base] understands here’s how you utilize him or her within your organization.”

The lieutenant colonel pointed out one last factor that helped stand up the warrant officer program so quickly: the threat of rivals such as Russia and China.

“This focus on great power competition has galvanized us as an Air Force to come together and get things done,” he said. “I’ve been in the Air Force just about 18 years and I’ve never seen us move this fast on a program.”

B-1 Bombers to Relocate from Ellsworth to Grand Forks Starting This Week

B-1 Bombers to Relocate from Ellsworth to Grand Forks Starting This Week

Dec. 3, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force will move 17 B-1 bombers and more than 800 Airmen to Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., for the next 10 months starting this week, so that Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., can undergo construction to host the new B-21 Raider. 

The service first announced plans for the temporary move in August, contingent on a final environmental assessment and legal review. The 319th Reconnaissance Wing, the host unit at Grand Forks, confirmed the final basing decision Dec. 2, and a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the first two bombers are set to arrive this week, depending on weather conditions. 

Those first aircraft will help prepare Grand Forks for maintenance operations, while the rest of the fleet will follow in January, the spokesperson said. Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the B-1 fleet, previously said the relocation would start in February 2025. 

Construction at Ellsworth related to the B-21 has been ongoing for a few years now, but the B-1 relocation is necessary now to complete a runway construction project. 

Grand Forks is the closest Air Force base to Ellsworth with a paved runway for fixed-wing aircraft. The two installations are separated by about 400 miles. 

Grand Forks has a long history with bombers. Beginning in 1963, the base housed B-52 bombers under the 319th Bomb Wing until it transitioned to B-1 missions in 1986. The last B-1s departed in 1994 and the wing was re-designated as the 319th Reconnaissance Wing. It currently hosts RQ-4 Global Hawk drones. 

The base still meets many requirements to host the B-1, such as minimum runway lengths and facilities for refueling and storing munitions. 

“There’s no doubt integrating the B-1 community into our Grand Forks Unmanned Aerial System ecosystem will pay dividends for everyone involved,” said Col. Tim Monroe, 319th Reconnaissance Wing commander. “This temporary relocation is the vanguard of Air Force integration, readiness, and agile combat employment, and epitomizes the mantra of One Team, One Fight.” 

A B-1 from Ellsworth landed at Grand Forks to conduct a hot-pit refueling operation in preparation for the move, and in November, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife met with civic leaders from Grand Forks, N.D. 

The 17 B-1s heading to North Dakota represent more than a third of the Lancer fleet, which will stand at 44 aircraft following several recent crashes and regenerations from the “Boneyard.” 

This is not the first time Ellsworth B-1s and Airmen have had to relocate. A crash in January closed the base’s runway and forced some of the bombers to move for a few weeks to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, the other main B-1 base. 

GPS: A Connecting Force

GPS: A Connecting Force

Dec. 3, 2024

Every day, over 12,000 miles above our heads, Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites work silently to keep everything from military exercises to everyday activities on track. 

Their positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) are crucial to U.S. military operations that protect our national security and promote global stability. GPS satellites provide navigation for all major field assets, critical location information and supply delivery to troops in the battlefield.   

In addition to these vital efforts, GPS also helps civilians get to where they need to go, serves as the backbone for banking, and enhances global farming activities, to name a few. The atomic clocks onboard these satellites also provide pivotal timing information that keeps our modern and rapidly evolving world operating smoothly.  

Beyond our daily lives here on Earth, space is the ultimate high ground. It’s the fabric that surrounds us and connects all domains, and GPS’ positioning and timing capabilities are key to feeding a more comprehensive picture of the ever-changing threat environment in space. 

Positioning Across Domains

With its 21st Century Security® model, Lockheed Martin is leading the industry shift to a mission-centric approach that uses the latest technologies to network these platforms together and vastly improve their effectiveness and deterrence value.

This comes as the Department of Defense recognized the imperative to connect across environments, and our customers have made steady progress on joint all-domain operations (JADO) and combined joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2).  

As proliferated networks and the sheer number of assets in space continues to increase in the name of resilience, GPS satellites and the positioning information they provide through signal trilateration become even more critical for spatial awareness. The GPS constellation is integral to understanding the positionality of assets on land, sea, air and in space, which ultimately helps underpin the ability to seamlessly connect everything together to counter threats. 

Continued Investment for Assured Security 

The fleet of 31 GPS satellites above our heads is strong, but aging – with nearly half of them already operating beyond their intended design lives. More GPS satellites are needed in space to ensure there is never a gap in the advantages they bring. 

Unlike other countries’ positioning and navigation systems, the U.S. has no back-up option, and so we must do what we can to stay ahead of the curve of time. 

There are four satellites remaining in the current GPS III constellation launching in the future, all of which provide eight times more anti-jamming power and carry the modernized secure military communications satellite code (M-code) signal. Once launched, these satellites will increase the number of on-orbit assets with this key capability for the warfighter.

A GPS III satellite undergoes testing within a Lockheed Martin Anechoic Test facility to ensure the signals of the satellite’s components and payloads do not interfere with each other during operations. Lockheed Martin photo.

What’s Next for GPS?

Lockheed Martin has already begun assembly of the next-generation GPS III Follow-On (GPS IIIF) satellites at its Littleton, Colorado, facility. These more advanced spacecraft will bring benefits like:

  • A boosted civilian signal for increased commercial flight safety.
  • An enhanced Regional Military Protection (RMP) derived from advancements in RF technology, which can overpower an attempted jamming signal in theater with up to 60 times stronger anti-jamming power. 
  • A new Nuclear Detection System (NDS) ability to monitor unsanctioned nuclear detonation activities, helping ensure global nuclear test ban treaty compliance. 

Lockheed Martin is working every day to bring GPS’ next-generation PNT capabilities to bear for our customers – bolstering civilian infrastructure and helping assure the safety of military operations around the world for years to come.    

© 2024 Lockheed Martin Corporation. All rights reserved.

Space Force Adds $196 Million More for Its Long-Delayed GPS Control System

Space Force Adds $196 Million More for Its Long-Delayed GPS Control System

Dec. 2, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Nearly 15 years and $8 billion after launching a project to build a completely new ground system to manage GPS satellites, the Space Force is pouring another $196 million into its long-delayed GPS Operating Control Systems, known as OCX.

Contractor RTX, however, may be wearing out its welcome with Space Force leaders. The latest contract modification, issued Nov. 27, is “an undefinitized change order modification,” a change that does not represent a new option award, a new program, nor an engineering change proposal.

Indeed, it’s possible RTX would not even be eligible for such awards, given its performance on the OCX program. Originally foreseen as a six-year contract in 2010, with delivery in 2016, only Block 0 of OCX is currently in use. Blocks 1 and 2 remain unfinished, even though, according to a Department of Defense contract announcement, the Pentagon has now spent almost $4.49 billion on them.

The Government Accountability Office now estimates DOD has spent more than $8 billion on all the blocks of OCX, includig $433 million on Block 3F meant for future GPS IIIF satellites. The program has drawn the ire of watchdogs, lawmakers, and the Space Force’s top acquisition official, Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition, who has called OCX “troubled,” an “albatross,” and a “problem child.”

Calvelli has said repeatedly he wants to get the program across the finish line and into operations, but that now seems impossible on his watch, as the current administration will turn over in January with the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.

In early 2023, Calvelli said he wanted to field OCX that year. By November, he pushed the timeline to summer 2024. In February 2024, the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation estimated that the Space Force would not field OCX until March 2025 and not operationally accept it until July. 

In May 2024, Calvelli told lawmakers in written testimony that he was hoping to transition the program to operations by spring 2025. In September, the Government Accountability Office said the Space Force wasn’t expecting final acceptance of the software until December 2025, and that was on a timeline with no margin for schedule slip. 

Calvelli and other officials have said the program has struggled because it attempted to create an entirely new, very large software system all in one go, a practice now largely abandoned in favor of rapid, iterative updates. Developmental testing has been slow, and even after RTX delivers the program to the Space Force, there will be months of operational testing. 

RTX Space

RTX, formerly Raytheon, has struggled with Space Force programs. In March, RTX pulled out of a $250 million agreement to build seven low-Earth-orbit missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency after determining it could not make a profit on the effort. In June, Space Systems Command dropped RTX from a planned missile warning/missile tracking satellite constellation in medium-Earth orbit. RTX officials have said they no longer want to be prime contractors for space systems.  

Calvelli, who has led a charge for more accountability in space acquisition, has declined to say if RTX is on the Contractor Responsibility Watch List—which identifies companies not meeting cost or schedule goals on space programs. Space Systems Command has consistently declined to comment on that list, but last month SSC boss Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant told reporters “there is a company on the watch list today.” 

“I won’t say who it is,” he added. “Those authorities reside with me right now. The [2025 National Defense Authorization Act] moves those authorities to the service acquisition executive, and Mr. Calvelli has indicated he would intend to use it perhaps more frequently.” 

Garrant confirmed that the unnamed contractor is on high-priority programs for the Space Force, and said its placement on the watch list “has absolutely worked as intended: We’ve seen significant improvement in performance and attention at the most senior levels of the corporation.” 

Garrant offered no other details. Speculation suggests RTX as the most likely candidate, especially since Garrant specifically ruled out Lockheed Martin, saying that firm is not on the list.

RTX declined to comment.

Under the 2018 law establishing the watch list, the Space Force cannot “award a contract to, execute an engineering change proposal with, or exercise an option” with contractors so designated. The contract change announced Nov. 27 does not meet that description.