USAF has a group of three specialists on a petroleum and oil infrastructure team, or POInT, whose mission is to check Iraqi pipelines for leaks and work with Iraqis to secure the pipes. They also check electrical infrastructure to try to ferret out whether a problem is insurgent-related or simply Mother Nature. The airmen from the 732nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron at Kirkuk, ride with a US Army convoy of the 555th Combat Support Battalion for protection throughout the region around Kirkuk Air Base, where about 40 percent of Iraq’s oil resource resides.
As the Space Force prepares to field new fleets of satellites that can track moving targets in the air and on the ground, it’s working to ensure it has the organizational structures in place to onboard and operate those systems.
