Austin Makes Surprise Visit to Ukraine with a Focus on Air Defense

Austin Makes Surprise Visit to Ukraine with a Focus on Air Defense

KYIV—Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III huddled with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Oct. 21 and unveiled a $400 million military aid package to help sustain Ukrainian forces through a challenging winter.

The military support includes munitions for HIMARS rocket systems, artillery ammunition, mortar systems and rounds, armored vehicles, and anti-tank weapons.

But the U.S. move fell short of Zelenskyy’s appeal that the U.S. lift restrictions on American long-range ATACMS missiles and allow Ukraine to use them to strike targets inside Russia.

Air & Space Forces Magazine is traveling with Austin on his surprise trip to Kyiv. The visit is Austin’s fourth and likely last trip to Ukraine as Pentagon chief.

During a long meeting with Zelenskyy and top Ukrainian officials, Austin discussed the military situation Ukrainian forces face in the east, where Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armed forces have been grinding out gains while Ukrainian troops try to hold a small stretch of Russian territory seized near Kursk, Russia.

They also conferred over Ukraine’s efforts to recruit troops and regenerate its forces so Ukrainian forces can contend with their larger adversary, a U.S. Defense Department official said.

Zelenskyy and Austin spoke one-on-one for around 15 minutes, the official said, describing the talks as “freewheeling and open.”

A particular priority for Ukraine, which Zelenskyy has stressed publicly and privately, is acquiring more air defense interceptors, which have been all the more important as the war has devolved into a battle of attribution, both on the ground and in the air.

“During the meeting, we discussed critical defense priorities, including Ukraine’s air defense capabilities,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on social media.

Russia has been attacking Ukraine’s energy grid, critical infrastructure, and troops with missiles, glide bombs, and drones, creating a wave of destruction just as winter approaches. As Austin stepped off an overnight train from Poland in Kyiv, the temperature was a few degrees above freezing, a reminder of the cold Russia aims to weaponize in the months to come. In the overnight hours before Austin’s arrival, Russia launched drones at the Ukrainian capital.

“We’ve been pretty consistent throughout saying that one of the key systems on the battlefield is air defense,” Austin said. “We will continue to push to get them the air defense systems and the interceptors that they need to protect their territory. It’s the second largest country in Europe, and so a big space to protect, a lot of cities and populated areas that they need to protect.”

Zelenskyy also has had to contend with American politics and sustaining political support in other countries in the West.

After an unsuccessful counteroffensive last year, Zelenskyy has offered a new “Victory Plan” in recent months, which calls for NATO to formally invite Ukraine to join NATO and frees the Ukrainian military to use ATACMS and other Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia.

The Biden administration has declined to give Ukraine that latitude out of apparent concern that doing so could give Russia an excuse to escalate the conflict. Austin indicated no change is yet in sight. “We don’t have any change to our policy,” Austin told reporters before arriving here.

Former President Donald Trump has said that, if elected, he would swiftly negotiate a deal to end the war, but has not offered any details of how that would be accomplished. His running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), said in September that a deal could require a pledge of neutrality by Ukraine and the establishment of a demilitarized zone, but Ukraine’s leaders worry the arrangement would enable Russia to retain land seized during the conflict.  

Austin also visited the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. He was joined by U.S. European Command boss Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli and the head of Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, which runs a multinational coordination cell to provide equipment, training, and aid to Ukraine, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Curtis A. Buzzard.

Their Ukrainian counterparts included Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustern Umerov, who was positioned around a circular table with Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, who commands Ukrainian forces, and other top officials, including the military spy chief and the minister responsible for defense production. Cavoli and Syrskiy also jointed Austin and Zelenskyy’s discussion earlier in the day.

Umerov promised updates on the “operational zone,” Army, Air Force, Navy, and defense production. The DOD official said the sides also discussed recruiting and retention with Zelenskyy and the military leaders. Zelenskyy signed a law in April to lower the conscription age to 25 to shore up manpower shortages.

“We have a good team from both sides,” Umerov said before the meeting.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III meets with Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 21, 2024. DOD photo by Chad J. McNeeley

Speaking to reporters before arriving in Kyiv, a senior defense official said that one point of discussion would be how Ukraine can use its resources against the Russian military’s larger mass to have a “concentrated effect.”

“Russia is not ready to call it quits and so that does place a steep burden on the Ukrainians to continue to field forces, to continue to train those forces, to employ vast amounts of equipment they’re receiving on a continual basis,” the senior defense official said. “It’s important for the Ukrainians to be able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise on the battlefield.”

During a speech at Ukraine’s Diplomatic Academy—yards from burned-out wrecks of Russian armored vehicles in the square outside—Austin sought to reassure the Ukrainians that the West would stand by them. “The Kremlin’s malice has not broken Ukraine’s spirit,” he said. 

Austin also appeared to send a message to the U.S. public and Congress.

“For anyone who thinks that American leadership is expensive—well, consider the price of American retreat,” he said.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zeleynskyy in Kyiv, Oct. 21, 2024. DOD photo by Chad J. McNeeley
SpaceX Wins New Launches; USSF Continues to Press for Competition

SpaceX Wins New Launches; USSF Continues to Press for Competition

SpaceX secured orders for Phase 3 launches under the National Security Space Launch program, the first provider to do so, even as the Space Force continues its push to increase its launch options.

Space Systems Command awarded two task orders to SpaceX Oct. 18, covering seven launches for the Space Development Agency’s data transport satellites and an undisclosed number of launches for the secretive National Reconnaissance Office. 

SpaceX is one of three companies selected for “Lane 1” of NSSL’s third phase, conceived as commercial-like missions carrying a higher tolerance for risk. But the other two—United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin—are still certifying their new rockets for NSSL requirements. That leaves SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets as the only proven workhorses, which is why SpaceX accounted for 90 percent of U.S. launches in 2023. 

“We are excited to kick off our innovative NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 effort with two task orders that support critical NRO and SDA missions,” said Lt. Col. Douglas Downs, SSC’s materiel leader for Space Launch Procurement. “Industry stepped up to the plate and delivered on this competition.” 

ULA and Blue Origin did compete for the task orders, SSC officials said, even though their rockets have not yet been certified. The task order covers missions that are still months away—the NRO launch window will run from summer 2025 to summer 2026 and the SDA launches, timed for 2026, are to send into orbit Tranche 2 of its proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation. 

“In this era of Great Power Competition, it is imperative to not leave capability on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, said in a statement. “The Phase 3 Lane 1 construct allows us to execute launch services more quickly for the more risk-tolerant payloads, putting more capabilities on orbit faster in order to support national security.” 

In its release, SSC continued to stress the importance of competition for launch, noting that more providers will be able to compete for Lane 1 with an “on-ramp” opening up later this year. More task orders are expected after that in the spring of 2025. All told, Lane 1 is expected to include at least 30 missions. 

Nine other potential launch providers are part of the Space Force’s Orbital Services Program-4, meant for fast-turnaround launches and small payloads. Firefly Aerospace, Astra Space, and Rocket Lab have all launched military satellites before. 

SSC plans contract awards for Lane 2 launches, as well, comprising critical missions with low tolerance for risk. Panzenhagen told reporters last month that the command anticipates making three contract awards before the end of the year, but without a new budget from Congress, those awards are likely to be delayed. 

Air Force Safety Czar Says New NDA Plan ‘Really Is Protecting’ Airmen

Air Force Safety Czar Says New NDA Plan ‘Really Is Protecting’ Airmen

A new effort that requires aircraft maintainers to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) so they can access more information about costly accidents will not change the level of transparency surrounding those events, the Air Force’s top safety officer said Oct. 18.

“The truth is, there’s no change in the status of the availability of access to the public, to the private, or to Congress through the [Freedom of Information Act] program, and anything that is not safety privilege,” Maj. Gen. Sean M. Choquette, the Air Force Chief of Safety and commander of the Air Force Safety Center, told reporters.

Earlier this week, news broke that the Air Force is rolling out new annual privileged safety information (PSI) training for maintainers across the service so they can receive the full picture of mishap events–—including factors, findings, causes, and recommendations—and thereby gain a better understanding of what caused them. After the training, maintainers would have to sign an NDA, a contract not to share confidential information.

The move is in response to a bump last year in ground mishaps involving maintenance, aircraft towing, and other flight line work, Choquette explained. The general said it was not a “marked increase or a significant increase, but we saw an upward trend.”

Two types of investigations take place when a mishap occurs. One is an accident investigation board (AIB), a monthslong legal proceeding where the final report is available to the public and can be used for disciplinary and other actions. The other is a safety investigation board (SIB), where the goal is to conduct a root cause analysis and get lessons learned out to the rest of the force as soon as possible.

Since the only goal of the SIB is mishap prevention, safety investigators keep their findings confidential so that people involved in the accident can speak freely about what went wrong, Choquette said. That protection is called safety privilege, meaning the information discussed can’t be released or used for disciplinary action, and the Air Force uses NDAs to maintain it.

“In order for [Airmen] to talk in a fulsome way about what occurred, we don’t want to put them in a situation where they feel like they can’t tell the whole story, because it’s going to come out in an article that’s going to be read by their family or their superiors or their subordinates,” the general said.

Maj. Gen. Sean Choquette, Department of the Air Force Chief of Safety, addresses students in the Air Force Safety Course at the 344th Training Squadron June 13, 2024, at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. (U.S. Air Force photo by Christa D’Andrea)

For decades, Air Force aircrew have signed NDAs so that when a mishap occurs, aviators across the service can quickly pick up lessons learned from privileged SIB information. Often that information-sharing takes the form of wing commanders bringing all aviators on a base into an auditorium to discuss the issue. But historically, maintainers were not part of those meetings.

“It was purely operations,” Choquette said. “And I can’t tell you why that was the case, but we said, ‘hey, they need to be brought into the fold here, because ground operations mishaps were increasing, and they need to be better trained on where mistakes are being made.’”

In the past, when a mishap occurred, any maintainers involved would be brought into the SIB and sign an NDA afterwards. But because maintainers writ large did not receive privileged safety information training or sign NDAs, the lessons from the SIBs never percolated to the wider force until the AIB came out months later, which does not include all the relevant information because AIBs are for public release.

“The difference now is, instead of just signing an individual or multiple individuals who are involved in a mishap, every maintainer out there will be [provided] the capability to sign that NDA, become a part of the safety privilege system,” Choquette said. 

The goal is for all 80,000 maintainers across the Air Force to sign onto the privileged safety information training and NDA requirements so that they can access SIB findings and be better positioned to prevent future mishaps.

“Our hope is that all of them will do that, because it really is protecting them and protecting the system so that will increase our readiness,” Choquette said.

The NDA would be the same one that aviators currently fill out. If maintainers see problems on the flight line, the hope would be for them to notify their chain of command, but if they share safety privilege information to the public, they could face administrative action, just like anybody else who does so, the general said.

One general area that might benefit from privileged safety information training is towing aircraft around the flightline, which has seen “a real increase in mishaps,” the general said. 

Towing aircraft may sound simple, but maneuvering in and out of hangars and around other expensive aircraft while adhering to a range of spotter and clearance requirements is a complicated task.

“Those things are written into regulations, but, as in most things, a picture is worth a thousand words,” Choquette said. “If we can take an actual towing mishap, the information that came out of that safety investigation board, put a small group of people or a unit in a room and actually talk through the lessons learned out of that investigation, that drives home the concepts and how important they are and why they’re important.”

Airmen from the 2nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and 2nd Maintenance Squadron, take a break while working on B-52 Stratofortresses assigned to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, at Navy Support Facility, Diego Garcia in support of a Bomber Task Force mission, March 23, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Staci Kasischke)

At least one crew chief thinks the effort could help maintainers stay safe.

“I think it will aid in obtaining the full picture as a lot comes with a mishap,” the maintainer told Air & Space Forces Magazine on the condition of anonymity. “By that I mean major mishaps being a ‘Swiss cheese’ effect, and usually not due to one major misstep but an accumulation of events or missteps that can build into a perfect storm.”

Wider Reform

The new training is part of a larger safety center campaign to integrate risk and readiness, which aims to better prepare Airmen to make risk-informed decisions. 

Officials say the campaign, as well as a wider safety center strategic plan unveiled in April, is meant to ready the force for Agile Combat Employment, a concept where small teams of Airmen launch and recover aircraft at remote or austere airfields, then relocate to avoid being targeted by enemy missiles. Airmen will likely have to carry out those operations without support and without connection to higher command, which is forcing a wider recalculation of risk across the service.

What does that look like in practice? Choquette pointed to the preflight risk assessments aviators perform, where they discuss aircrew qualifications, weather, aircraft conditions, threats, and other factors that affect the mission risk.

The general hopes to translate that practice to maintainers, so that production superintendents or other flight line leaders have a standard process by which they can assess the qualifications of their maintainers, the weather on the flight line, the state of the aircraft, and other risk factors.

That way, “they can make a better risk-informed decision, to execute smartly, or make some mitigations, [such as] ‘hey, I have a three-level supervisor out there, I really could use a five-level today because this is a complex operation we’re doing here, let’s swap these two NCOs out to better execute today,’” the general said.

The risk management could even apply to Airmen’s personal lives, such as whether or not to go skiing in bad weather or take a road trip on Memorial Day weekend.

On an even broader level, as the chair of the Joint Safety Council, Choquette is working with his counterparts to promote similar practices across the services and share best practices for common platforms such as the H-60 helicopter and V-22 tiltrotor transport.

“We share information out so that we’re not just learning from our own information and our own safety prevention systems, but we’re learning from each other,” he said.

Photos: NATO Wraps Up First-Ever ‘Ramstein Flag’ Exercise in Greece

Photos: NATO Wraps Up First-Ever ‘Ramstein Flag’ Exercise in Greece

To the likes of Red Flag, Green Flag, and Black Flag, now you can add Ramstein Flag. 

NATO Allied Air Command wrapped up its first ever “Flag” event at Andravida Air Base, Greece, last week, after more than 130 fighters and other aircraft from 12 countries took part in a large-scale, live-fly, first-of-its-kind European exercise. 

From Sept. 30 to Oct. 11, NATO fighters conducted around 1,100 sorties, primarily focused on counter anti-access/area denial and integrated air and missile defense missions, according to a release from U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Among the participants: USAF F-35 fighters from RAF Lakenheath, U.K., and KC-135 tankers from RAF Mildenhall, U.K.  

The U.S. Air Force hosted its first Red Flag exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., in 1975—49 years ago— with the goal to “train as you fight,” using large-scale, realistic environments and adversaries to help hone Airmen’s aerial combat skills. 

Over the years, the concept expanded around the world, with Pacific Air Forces hosts Red Flag-Alaska exercises multiple times per year. NATO and its members regularly conduct air exercises, but Ramstein Flag took things up a notch, designing the exercise “to provide realistic combat settings,” according to a NATO Allied Command release.

“Ramstein Flag signifies the future of NATO exercises, focusing on current and future threats,” said Gen. James B. Hecker, head of USAFE and NATO Allied Air Command. 

In addition to the U.S., the exercise included participants from Canada, Hungary, Poland, Romania, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Greece, and Sweden. Fighters included F-35s, F-16s, Gripens, Eurofighter Typhoons, F-4E Phantoms, and Dassault Rafales. 

Ramstein Flag will now become a “routine” event—the next one is already scheduled for spring 2025, a USAFE spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Whether that event will also focus on counter-A2/AD and IAMD is not yet clear, but Hecker has said he considers both missions crucial, drawing upon lessons learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where neither side has been able to obtain air superiority, leading to a brutal war of attrition.  

Both the U.S. Air Force and NATO are investing more in large-scale, realistic exercises . USAF made building up such events part of its “re-optimization” for great power competition initiative, with the intent to practice “complex, large-scale military operations.” But allies are also in on the push. Last summer’s German-led Air Defender 2023 was the largest air exercise in NATO’s history, and this summer, NATO held its first ever one-on-one fighter competition at Ramstein.

NATO Scrambles Fighters, Ups AWACS Flights to Protect Romania from Russian Incursions

NATO Scrambles Fighters, Ups AWACS Flights to Protect Romania from Russian Incursions

BRUSSELS—NATO is stepping up its air defense efforts on its Eastern Flank, top alliance officials said Oct. 18, just one day after allied warplanes scrambled in response to an incursion into Romania’s airspace.

“Allies agreed that air and missile defense remains an alliance priority,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told alliance defense ministers at NATO’s glass-enclosed headquarters. “This is all the more important given Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has resulted in multiple NATO airspace violations, including just yesterday in Romania.”

Fighter aircraft from multiple NATO countries were scrambled after what was likely a drone breached Romania’s airspace, an allied official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“This is all part and parcel of our enhanced vigilance,” the official said.

There was another airspace incursion on Oct. 19. Two Spanish F-18s and two Romanian F-16s were scrambled.

The airspace violations represent a continual challenge for the alliance as missile fragments and other projectiles have landed in alliance territory and cut through its airspace as Russia wages a full-scale war just to NATO’s east.

NATO Allied Air Command, led by U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, has stepped up the alliance’s air policing efforts since 2022, the year Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. has also deployed fighters on NATO’s eastern flank and conducted exercises with allied forces aimed at more realistically confronting a Russian aerial threat.

Recently, NATO began conducting additional flights of its E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to better surveil the Romanian airspace against Russian threats. The E-3s, one of the few platforms NATO owns as an alliance, began their increased presence Sept. 29, NATO said.

The “reinforcement of NATO air surveillance” in Romania came at the direction of U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who also heads U.S. European Command, to “monitor Russian military” activity, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin said.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III speaks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Oct. 17, 2024, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Photo by Chris Gordon/Air & Space Forces Magazine

The flights “strengthened Romania’s ability to respond to the increased air activity in the vicinity of its border,” NATO said in a release.

The E-3s are operating over alliance territory out of Preveza air base in Greece and NATO’s air base in Geilenkirchen, Germany, where the E-3s are headquartered.

“We’re forging NATO’s most robust defense plans since the end of the Cold War, and that will help ensure that we have the forces and capabilities to any contingency—that includes air and missile defense, which are crucial for defending the allied airspace,” Austin told reporters at the conclusion of the summit before departing to Italy for a meeting of the Group of 7’s ministers of defense.

Space-Based Targeting Challenges Nothing New for NRO, Deputy Director Says

Space-Based Targeting Challenges Nothing New for NRO, Deputy Director Says

The scale and pace of providing intelligence to military forces is changing, but the deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office said Oct. 17 that the agency is drawing on decades of experience to meet the challenge.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies, Troy Meink frequently cited the NRO’s history when describing how the intelligence organization is tackling new challenges. 

Established in 1960 to manage Air Force, Navy, and CIA reconnaissance efforts, the NRO’s very existence remained classified until 1992. Even after that, many of its activities remained shrouded in mystery, but in recent years, the agency has taken a more public role in the Pentagon’s growing space enterprise. 

Perhaps the NRO’s most high-profile effort is teaming up with the Space Force to provide ground moving target indication (GMTI) and replace legacy Air Force platforms with new satellites. Exactly who will control the satellites and how fast the intelligence community can provide data to service members is still up for debate, but Meink argued the NRO is uniquely positioned to support the mission. 

“We’ve been looking at operational support, looking for moving targets, really, almost since the first Gulf War,” Meink said. “ … This is just an extension of, to be honest, what we’ve been doing for many years. And we’re working closely with, obviously, [Air Force Secretary Frank] Kendall, [Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance] Saltzman, and the entire Space Force staff to deliver that capability.” 

Specifically addressing concerns about whether the NRO can provide targeting information at tactically relevant speeds, Meink said the agency has experience moving fast. 

“I think it’s important to note that many of the timelines we’re talking about today, the NRO was already supporting. This is a new phenomenology, this is new capability, but it’s not new mission for the NRO,” he said. “The timelines that we’re talking about here is not something the NRO has not been worrying about for many decades.” 

Particularly since being declassified, Meink added, the NRO has worked on tighter timelines. 

“The good thing is, we’re not starting from scratch. The NRO’s been around for a long time. We’re a highly classified organization. The last 30 years, it’s been more open, and that’s come with a lot more direct support for those missions that require that timeline,” he said. 

Still, Meink acknowledged that the GMTI mission his agency is working on with the Space Force will require speed and scale on a whole new level, to encompass everything from how the new satellites are tasked, how the data is processed and fused with other sources, and how to manage the sheer volume of information coming in. 

To address some of those issues, the NRO has invested in cyber and artificial intelligence, increasing its computing power and hiring data scientists to identify what levels of AI it will need at different points in the process. Commercial industry will also play a role. 

“A big part of us is now we don’t have to develop [AI technologies] from scratch. In many cases, we’re just adapting them to our environment,” Meink said. 

Another major challenge is just how rapidly the NRO needs to adapt to keep up with the state of the world. 

“The rate of change, given the threats we face, how fast that threat is evolving, how fast the demands for capability that not only the NRO but the entire space industry is seeing, requires a rate of change that’s really faster than maybe almost since the beginning of the NRO,” Meink said. 

Many of these challenges are not unique to the GMTI mission. Meink cited similar lessons from another joint NRO-Space Force venture, SILENTBARKER, a new space situational awareness satellite that launched in September 2023. 

“You’re integrating a new capability into a very large enterprise. How does that data flow to everybody who needs it, on timelines? … It’s one of those things, as you field new capability, how do you incorporate that into a very large, diverse ground infrastructure? That’s probably been some of the biggest lessons learned there.” 

Headbands That Can Take Vital Signs: Air Commandos Try Out High-Tech Fabrics

Headbands That Can Take Vital Signs: Air Commandos Try Out High-Tech Fabrics

High-Altitude, Low-Opening (HALO) parachute jumpers from Air Force Special Operations Command are sporting new headbands, woven from advanced fibers that measure and report the wearers’ vital signs, transmitting the data to a tablet or other device nearby. 

“We can measure body temperature, heart rate, and SpO2 [blood oxygen saturation] and wirelessly transmit that data to the team leader,” said Alexander “Sasha” Stolyarov, CEO of Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), a Defense Department-supported nonprofit manufacturing innovation institute.

It’s potentially life-saving information for HALO jumpers, who can suffer from hypoxia and hypothermia due to the intense cold and thin air at high altitudes. 

It’s also the product of “a beautiful marriage” between the Department of Defense and the private sector, said Tracy Frost, director of the DOD’s Manufacturing Technology Program. 

To be clear, explained Stolyarov, there is no widget buried in the headband.  

“We integrated the sensors in a distributed way within the fabric that makes up the headband itself,” he said. “So if you’re looking at the headband, it looks just like a regular headband. It stretches and twists.” But that fabric, and some flexible plastic strips inside, comprise the sensors that actually do that measuring—emitting the light and detecting it bouncing back at different wavelengths—the chip that does the computation, and the antenna that sends it wirelessly to the tablet.

“It’s all in the fabric,” he said. 

That gives the headband, worn unobtrusively underneath the HALO jumper’s helmet, a big edge over wristwatch-type wearables which suffer from “user friction” and can be rendered inaccurate by the wrong kind of movement.  

An official with Air Force Special Operations Command confirmed HALO jumpers had tested the prototype headband but declined to comment further. 

The HALO jumper headband is just one of a slew of new clothing items made possible by advanced functional fabrics. (Stolyarov doesn’t like the term “wearables” because of the clumsy plastic items that phrase brings to mind).  

Advanced clothing can do more than gather data; it can also respond, Stolyarov said.  

Because Air Commandos need nimble fingers, they often eschew the kind of thick gloves needed in extremely cold temperatures. AFFOA has prototyped a sleeve worn over the forearm that reacts to extreme cold by warming, raising the temperature of the blood before it reaches the fingers. It also makes thinner, less constricting gloves more feasible, he said.  

But that’s just the beginning.

Fabric that can sense and respond could help protect pilots, compressing or expanding to help ensure proper blood flow during high-G maneuvers.  

“Imagine a T-shirt that provides you and your healthcare provider with real-time meaningful information about how you’re doing in the real environment,” he said. “But you don’t feel like you’re being interrogated by medical equipment. You’re just wearing a T-shirt that you can actually throw in the laundry. … That kind of user adoption is what I think we’ll get to in five to 10 years.”

Further into the future, Stolyarov predicted that clothing could be designed to deliver treatment on the fly. “If the data tells me my wearer is sick, maybe I need to inject some drugs. That’s the next level. … You’re really talking about completely new materials that then enable completely new applications,” he said. 

AFFOA is one of nine Department of Defense-sponsored Manufacturing Innovation Institutes scattered across the country. 

Another six are sponsored by the Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce sponsors a 16th—all focused on different technology areas. 

The nine DOD-sponsored institutes cover industries from AFFOA’s textiles to digital manufacturing, design/automation and robotics, and biotechnology, said Frost.  

They were established in the 2010s with a two-fold purpose: To try and rekindle domestic manufacturing, which since the 1990s has outsourced most textile work to low-labor cost countries; and to focus on high-value, high-tech production. By doing so, the U.S. military ensures it can rely on a domestic supply chain, especially for cutting edge technology products. 

A Physiological Status Monitoring (PSM) Headband developed by AFFOA. Courtesy of AFFOA.

The institutes straddle the uncomfortable new reality of 21st century technology, where commercial, consumer-driven innovation, because of its scale, can outpace government-led efforts to develop technologies for national security. 

Frost said the institutes always strive to facilitate the development of technologies that are dual use: Developed to solve a national security problem, but useful in addressing the much larger consumer market. 

“They’re a beautiful marriage between addressing defense needs and addressing commercial needs and marrying up Department of Defense needs with commercial interest in developing new product lines and continuing to innovate,” she said. “There’s a big recognition that working together doubles our investment and our chances of reaching success in transitioning these technologies.” 

The United States lost almost one-third of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010. More than 64,000 factories closed, manufacturing capital investment and output suffered, and the productivity rate dropped. 

By 2016, when AFFOA was founded, “we had really lost our manufacturing base in textiles, because [since the beginning of the century] a lot of that work started going overseas to lower labor cost countries like China and other East Asian countries,” explained Stolyarov.  

It would be pointless to chase that low-value production, he added, so AFFOA set out to create a U.S. textile manufacturing base “differentiated based on technology. And what that means is having unique capabilities, being able to produce fibers and fabrics that no one else in the world knows how to produce.” 

The U.S. already led the world in laboratory-level capabilities, Stolyarov said—in addition to fabrics that can store data and do computation, its universities are able to synthesize “fibers that can change color, fibers that can store energy. There are fibers that can detect chemical and bio hazards.” 

U.S. universities had already produced fibers and fabrics that demonstrated all these capabilities, he said.

“Where we’ve struggled [as a nation] is in translating that into a manufacturing base, getting from the lab to the factory floor. …  [In 2016] no one had actually shown that you can produce these things on industrial manufacturing equipment,” he said. 

AFFOA and the other innovation institutes were set up to bridge that transition, Stolyarov said. “In a nutshell, we set out to work with our manufacturers to transition innovations that are taking place in academia or even maybe startups that are wanting to create companies out of those innovations, and help those founders and help those manufacturers harness the innovation that’s taking place here to create a manufacturing base.” 

AFFOA and its collaborators are experimenting with a variety of methods and patterns to incorporate conductive fibers into a fabric. Photo: Janet Preus
B-2 Bombers Strike Houthi Targets in Yemen

B-2 Bombers Strike Houthi Targets in Yemen

BRUSSELS—U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bombers struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Oct. 17, in a raid designed to degrade the group’s nearly yearlong campaign to disrupt global shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, the U.S. military said.

It was the first time stealthy B-2s, worth upwards of a billion dollars an aircraft, have been employed against the Houthis, U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Other U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy assets were also involved in the operation, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The B-2s—at least two, but officials did not say how many B-2s participated in the mission—struck five “hardened underground weapons storage locations,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, who is here for meetings at NATO headquarters. The targets “contained various advanced conventional weapons,” CENTCOM said, including “missiles, weapons components, and other munitions used to target military and civilian vessels throughout the region.”

The heavy B-2s were able to strike with greater force than is possible with the fighter jets and drones used in prior attacks. The larger-payload weapons delivered by the B-2 are designed for destroying underground targets. 

“This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” Austin said. “The employment of U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”

The B-2s dropped 2,000-pound BLU-109 JDAM guided bombs, a person familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Battle damage assessment is ongoing.

CENTCOM forces have conducted nearly daily operations against Houthi aerial and seaborne drones and ballistic and cruise missiles—both intercepting weapons and launching preemptive strikes before the group can launch their attacks. A rotating series of U.S. aircraft carriers and warships have been deployed off the coast of Yemen to protect vessels and conduct strikes against the Houthi forces that control most of Yemen. Still, the Houthis have managed to strike multiple commercial ships.

The Iranian-backed group has attacked vessels in the Red Sea region in what it says is retaliation for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas that began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The Houthis are part of a network of Iranian-backed groups in the region that includes Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, which have attacked U.S. forces in the region at least 180 times since last October.

“To deter the Houthi mindset is a challenge,” a senior U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine before the latest airstrikes occurred. The Houthis benefit in some sense by attracting attention. Military confrontation, the official said, “gives them a voice.”

U.S. and British forces have previously sought to degrade the Houthis capabilities, and Israel also has conducted airstrikes in response to Houthi drone attacks on Israel.

“Our whole goal is to keep the lines of communication across the ocean free for international trade and keep the Houthi threat from targeting innocent mariners, disrupting trade and free flow of commerce,” the senior defense official said. “But as far as deterrence, I’m not sure it applies to Houthis like it classically would to maybe a different rational actor.”

Iran has less influence over the Houthis than other groups it supports, experts say. The Houthis produce many of their own weapons components themselves and are less reliant on components from Iran, which still supplies the group with high-end materiel, the official said.

“Our assessment right now is that the Houthis maybe do more indigenous production of things than we previously maybe gave them credit for,” the official said.

In recent months, CENTCOM commander Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla has pushed for a more robust, “whole of government” approach to containing the Houthis. On Oct. 17, the U.S. sanctioned multiple companies, vessels, and individuals for helping supply the Houthis with weapons, the State Department announced.

“We will continue to make clear to the Houthis that there will be consequences for their illegal and reckless attacks,” Austin said.

Army Seeks New Space Capabilities for the ‘Tactical Edge’

Army Seeks New Space Capabilities for the ‘Tactical Edge’

The Army is doubling down on giving Soldiers better access to space capabilities—and insisting none of their efforts to advantage their troops will duplicate work by the Space Force. 

“Our top priority is: How do we deliver that capability responsive to the warfighter?” said Lt. Gen. Sean A. Gainey, head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference. “How do we continue to get after more tactical solutions that allow our Soldiers to maneuver around on a battlefield—different areas, different times, [with] smaller weight platforms.” 

Col. Peter Atkinson, space division chief at Army Headquarters, said the Army is investing in new space-based gear for communications, intelligence, and position, navigation, and timing. 

“This year, we started the fielding for mounted and dismounted assured PNT receivers,” Atkinson said. “And in [fiscal] ’25 we’re going to scale that across the Army, giving [Soldiers] the most capable, most reliant PNT receivers the force has seen.” 

Atkinson said the Army is also “moving out” to provide Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Nodes (TITAN) ground stations to enhance situational awareness and give Soldiers targeting data from satellites and high-altitude assets. And the Army is experimenting with new satellite communications terminals that will be able to connect to multiple satellite constellations, giving troops more options and increased reliability. 

The Army effort mirrors similar programs elsewhere: The Space Force is seeking $228 million to fund research and development of its own hybrid SATCOM terminal in 2025, the Navy has a program called Satellite Terminal (transportable) Non-Geostationary, or STtNG, and the Air Force Research Laboratory is pursuing something called Global Lightning.

Lawmakers complained earlier this year that the military services need to better coordinate these efforts.

But Atkinson said the Army is working with the Space Force as it plans for new equipment. 

“Everything we do is in partnership with Space Force,” he said. “We want to make sure that all of the efforts of Army Space are complementary. So we’re making sure to reduce any redundancy, duplicative efforts, and that’s been a major focus through the requirements process.” 

The Army released its Army Space Vision for multi-domain operations earlier this year, including plans to increase its space specialists and to establish a new enlisted career field. That prompted a spirited debate with experts from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, who argued in multiple op-eds that the Army is duplicating the Space Force’s effort, wasting resources, undermining cooperation, and favoring its own forces over joint capabilities.  

At AUSA, Atkinson did not directly reference those critiques, but he did reiterate the Army’s case for keeping its own native space capabilities. 

“It’s really important: Since the establishment of Space Force, what is the Army’s role?” Atkinson said. “It’s really critical for the Army to dominate on the land domain, to integrate multi-domain effects and multi-domain capabilities and … make sure that the warriors on the tactical edge have access to those capabilities.” 

Col. Don Brooks, Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence commandant, discusses the role of Army space in multidomain operations alongside Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command commanding general (right); Command Sgt. Maj. Maurice Tucker, 1st Space Brigade command sergeant major (left); and Col. Pete Atkinson, Army Space Division chief, G-3.5.7 (second to right) at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 15. (Photo by Lira Frye)

Col. Donald K. Brooks, commandant of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, said space-focused Soldiers are needed to ensure space capabilities are integrated into land forces to ensure warfighters have access to space capabilities on the battlefield. 

“Army Space is land-centric, providing scalable, mobile, expeditionary and forward postured forces in contested and austere environments that are able to keep pace with maneuver forces in support of large-scale combat operations in the multi-domain environment,” he said. 

“Our primary focus is to go forward into the theaters,” added Command Sergeant Major Maurice Tucker of the 1st Space Brigade. 

The Army has held to this view since at least 2021, when Brooks, then commander of the 1st Space Brigade, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that if a unit has “roles and responsibilities at the tactical and operational level, I think it could be retained and should be retained.” 

But Charles Galbreath and Jennifer Reeves, both retired colonels and now senior fellows at the Mitchell Institute, countered that argument in a September essay, saying it reflects an “underlying mindset … that if the Army doesn’t directly control it, they can’t trust it to deliver their desired effects.”

“While it is understandable that an Army commander would feel this way, this is the antithesis of joint integration at a time when no one service will ever fight by itself,” they wrote. 

Brooks said the Army and Space Force continue to have a strong joint relationship. “We’re very complementary to each other, and how we fight across the tactical, operational and strategic levels of warfare, on the operational side and the institutional side as well,” he said.