Space Force Boosting an Ecosystem of GPS Alternatives in Low-Earth Orbit

July 1, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

The Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.

A half-dozen companies, including two with research contracts from Space Force or Air Force tech incubators, are currently planning low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellations of hundreds of small satellites that will offer position, navigation, and timing services to augment or back up GPS.

The military has long been concerned about its reliance on GPS, but over the past few years civilian users have experienced increasingly severe GPS interference around conflict zones in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

In particular, civil aviation has been hard hit, said Lisa Dyer of the GPS Innovation Alliance, a trade association that represents GPS receiver manufacturers, satellite operators, and user groups like boaters, surveyors, and autonomous vehicle developers.

GPS jamming, used to stop drone attacks and smart bomb targeting, creates “unnecessary extra burdens on our air traffic controllers and flight crews, and it’s increasing risks to the safety of the flight crews and the passengers,” Dyer told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

PNT signals from low-Earth orbit are harder to jam, experts say, because they are broadcast from much closer to the earth’s surface. New cryptographic techniques make the signals hard to impersonate with bogus data, a problem known as spoofing. And two of the new constellations also plan to use a completely different frequency band for their signals, which will also make jamming more difficult and more complicated.

LEO satellites orbit between 100 and 1,200 miles above the surface of the Earth. GPS and its other major PNT constellations like China’s BeiDu, Russia’s GLONASS, and Europe’s Galileo are all in medium-Earth orbit, 11,000-15,000 miles above the surface.

“There are some advantages to medium-Earth orbit and some advantages to low-Earth orbit,” said Dyer.

The main advantage of MEO, she explained, is the smaller number of satellites required. From a higher orbit, a satellite is visible over a greater proportion of the earth’s surface. In MEO, 24 satellites is enough to offer near-global coverage. The current GPS constellation has 31 satellites in orbit, which means there’s some redundancy, Dyer said.

The main advantage of LEO is the signal can be orders of magnitude stronger when it arrives at the receiver, making it easier to receive and harder to jam, said Patrick Shannon, co-founder and chief executive officer of TrustPoint, a LEO PNT startup that launched its third satellite last month.

With several hundred satellites in a large LEO constellation, users can also see more satellites in the sky at one time, and therefore receive more triangulating signals, making LEO PNT potentially more accurate than MEO-based systems.

TrustPoint staffers at the company HQ in Herndon, Va., watch the launch June 23, 2025 of Time Flies, their third LEO PNT satellite, from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Courtesy TrustPoint

The new GPS alternatives use cryptographic authentication, which means the user can be sure the data they’re getting is genuine and not a fraudulent replacement, or “spoofed” signal, designed to mislead. The new generation PNT systems also use encryption, which scrambles the signal so only those with the correct cryptographic key loaded in their receiver can use it. As well as guarding against spoofing, this makes subscription-only services easy to offer.

Both the Air Force and Space Force technology incubators—along with Department of Defense-wide efforts like the Defense Innovation Unit—have sought to seed commercial companies working in this space, with the aim of easing the emergence of a new ecosystem of LEO PNT providers that can provide a secure alternative to GPS.

Last year, TrustPoint was awarded three phase II research contracts from the Department of the Air Force: a Small business Technology Transfer (STTR) award of $1.6 million from AFWERX, the Air Force’s technology incubator; and two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards worth a total of $3.8 million from SpaceWERX, the Space Force equivalent. The company is commercially focused, said Shannon, but is happy to be part of the Space Force’s Alt-PNT cadre of startups that are developing alternatives to GPS for military use, as well.

The awards helped TrustPoint develop technology to broadcast and receive PNT signals in C-Band, Shannon said, with a frequency just over five gigahertz. That’s much higher than the one to two gigahertz L-Band frequencies used by GPS and its state-backed alternatives.

The higher frequency C-Band signals are more subject to degradation during adverse weather and when traveling through buildings than L-Band, but make up for that by being transmitted from satellites over 30 times closer to the Earth, Shannon said. And the faster fall off in signal power over distance for the higher frequency C-Band signal, called path loss, complicates jamming efforts as well.

“The distance a signal travels is a function of the power behind it,” said Shannon, but a C-Band jammer loses power more quickly. An L-Band broadcast will travel three times as far as a similarly powered signal in C-Band, meaning someone trying to jam C-Band service will need many more jammers or much more powerful ones. They’ll also need new equipment, since existing GPS jammers are built to target L-Band broadcasts.

“The infrastructure required and the physical complexity of denying C-Band makes it much more difficult and costly,” concluded Shannon.

The satellites in TrustPoint’s constellation will be so-called microsats, only about the size of a four-slice toaster. The company aims to have about 350 of them in orbit by the end of the decade, but will be able to start offering a service with a fraction of that number in 2027, Shannon said.

He also said that the small size of the satellites and advanced manufacturing technologies would allow the firm to put the entire constellation up for “$100 million, give or take, not billions.”

The global market for assured, or hard-to-jam, PNT is predicted to grow almost 25 percent a year from $400 million a year in 2022, to $3.5 billion a year in 2032, according to one forecast.

Shannon acknowledged that TrustPoint was already facing competition. “This is a massive problem,” he said of GPS jamming and spoofing. “Many industries, many nations, are experiencing these issues, and everyone’s looking for a solution. And that, of course, is an economic opportunity that a lot of companies are looking at.”

Those competitors include other members of the Space Force’s altPNT cadre, like Xona, a California-based startup which launched its first production satellite last month and recently announced a series B funding round and other capital backing to the tune of $92 million.

Xona aims for a constellation of 250-300 satellites and will broadcast signals in both L-Band and C-Band, according to its website. The company says it is partnering with receiver manufacturers to produce devices that can receive both GPS L-Band and LEO PNT C-Band signals.

Xona, TrustPoint, and other LEO PNT startups will have to contend with an incumbent; Iridium, the first-ever LEO constellation, has been providing an L-Band PNT service for eight years, initially in partnership with Satelles, until Iridium acquired them last year. The partnership, said Satelles founder and now Iridium vice president of PNT Michael O’Connor, began as an ahead-of-its-time venture founded in the early years of the last decade, when concerns were only just starting to emerge about the fragility of GPS and the increasing dependence of the U.S. and global economy on it.

Iridium, which launched in the 1990s, had an L-Band channel originally used to provide a global pager service, O’Connor said. Satelles’ engineers figured out how to design a signal that could use it for PNT: “You’re 25 times closer to the Earth, and that [pager] channel was a strong signal … 1,000 times stronger” than GPS, said O’Connor.

By the time the service launched in 2016, North Korea had begun periodically jamming GPS signals over Seoul, and researchers from the University of Texas at Austin had shown how to take over drones by spoofing GPS signals.

GPS antennas are generally able to receive the Iridium broadcast, explained O’Connor, and Satelles partnered with equipment manufacturers to update the software that interpreted the signal so it could get timing and positioning data from the signal.

The initial customers were technology-driven businesses that used GPS for timing, rather than location, O’Connor said, like mobile phone network operators, cloud computing providers, and financial institutions. “We’re installed in major stock exchanges all around the world,” he said. “It turns out that if you can mess with the time at the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, bad guys can get up to all kinds of mischief.”

Now that GPS interference is a reality, O’Connor said, Iridium’s LEO PNT is expanding into maritime, aviation, and other markets. “Industries out there are starting to recognize today that they have very serious problems around GPS jamming and spoofing. … Everyone’s seeing the writing on the wall that it is a problem, and you need a solution to that. And that’s our mission: To protect networks, protect our society, protect the fabric that keeps us connected.”

Air Force Cuts Alternate PT Drills for Trainees amid ‘Complete Rewrite’ of BMT

June 30, 2025 | By David Roza

Trainees in Basic Military Training and technical school no longer have the option to try alternate PT drills if they fail an initial assessment, according to a policy change the Air Force made in April. The move is part of a larger shift out of the classroom and into hands-on, physically demanding scenarios to prepare Airmen for future conflict, officials said.

“In addition to these changes, the BMT curriculum is undergoing a complete rewrite to incorporate more physical training, focusing on the skills needed to defend, operate, generate, and sustain air and space power,” said Capt. Paige Skinner, a spokesperson for the 2nd Air Force, which runs Air Force enlisted training. The news was first reported by Stars & Stripes.

New recruits in BMT and Airmen in tech school preparing for their specific career field must meet or exceed the Air Force’s minimum standards for a physical fitness test involving pushups, sit-ups, and a 1.5-mile run. Before April, if participants failed to pass a component of the test they could retest using an alternate method and not have to retake the entire test.

For example, if they failed at pushups, they could retest with traditional pushups or with hand-release pushups (where Airmen lower their chest all the way to the ground and extend their hands out to the sides before pushing up again). If they failed at situps, they could retest in that or with the reverse cross leg crunch. If they failed at the 1.5-mile run, they could retest in that or with a 20-meter high-aerobic multi-shuttle run (HAMR).

Today, if trainees fail at any of the components, they must retake the entire test in its original components.

The alternate components were initially authorized in October 2022, as the Air Force was coming back from the COVID-19 pandemic. During the early stages of the pandemic, physical fitness assessments were suspended for about six months as the service developed and implemented modified PT procedures “that would enable the training pipeline to continue operating safely,” Skinner explained.

“The goal was to balance the need to maintain fitness standards with the need to protect trainees from the spread of the virus,” she added.

As pandemic restrictions pulled back, normal fitness standards and procedures were reinstated, but the alternate exercises remained until this April. BMT trainees have to take the physical training test at least three times, during the first, third, and fifth weeks of training.

If trainees fail each of their three chances to pass the test, BMT group commanders review the case to decide whether the trainee will be washed back to another training flight, eliminated from BMT, or, in extraordinary circumstances such as an injury temporarily affecting performance, granted a waiver.

“Trainees are not authorized alternate test components to maintain consistency, standardization, and developmental expectations across the training pipeline,” Skinner explained. “The goal is to establish a common baseline of physical readiness.”

The update is part of a larger batch of changes at BMT. Starting this fall, officials plan to roll out a new curriculum for BMT that will focus on training Airmen and Space Force Guardians in much smaller groups and replace some classroom instruction with a more hands-on learning approach. There could also be more daily PT training and more exercises simulating combat.

“Basically, we’re trying to get our Airmen and Guardians prepared for, if they’re out in a deployed environment, ’Can you pull something? Can you push? Can you put something over your head?” Chief Master Sgt. Whitfield Jack, the senior noncommissioned officer for the 737th Training Group, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in May. “Can you bend down and squat and pick something up?’ … more litter carries and pulling rope and things like that.”

Trainees may find themselves working in 12- to 15-person teams instead of flights of 50 trainees, and they may work out 90 minutes a day rather than just an hour. These changes are themselves part of a larger shift across the Air Force to prepare troops for the physical and mental challenge of a future conflict, which could see Airmen launching and recovering aircraft from small, isolated airfields exposed to enemy attack.

“So it’s about creating that mindset and changing this concept of, ‘well, I’m not the person pulling the trigger, so I’m not really a warrior,’ to ‘what is it that I do that’s going to contribute to our success’ as that basic guiding principle,” Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson, who oversees Air Force enlisted training, said in May.

Indeed, Airmen across the force may have to hit the gym more often going forward. Earlier in June, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David A. Flosi told other enlisted leaders that upcoming PT tests may include a two-mile run, and that Airmen may have to take the assessment twice a year rather than once a year. No final decisions have been announced, however.

Flosi told the enlisted leaders that Airmen must be physically fit for combat, which they might face at any time.

“Any day could be the day—that’s what has been on my mind and the focus of your AF leadership this past couple weeks,” he wrote, referencing recent deployments to Europe and the Middle East as part of the U.S. response to rising tensions between Israel and Iran.

Senate Confirms New Commanders for Europe, Middle East, ACC

June 30, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Senate confirmed new four-star leaders of U.S. forces in Europe and the Middle East, plus a new boss for the Air Force’s biggest command, over the weekend.

Lawmakers on June 29 also approved a reshuffling of Air Force officials that will put new faces in the service’s Pentagon headquarters.

The vote put Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, who will be promoted to four-star general, in charge of U.S. European Command. He’ll also lead NATO forces as the alliance’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a role traditionally held by the EUCOM commander. Grynkewich, currently the Joint Staff’s operations director, is set to take over the twin role in a July 1 ceremony.

Vice Adm. Brad Cooper will also advance to U.S. Central Command’s top job as a four-star admiral after serving as its No. 2 officer since February 2024. CENTCOM did not respond to a query June 30 on when Cooper is expected to take command.

Within the Air Force, Lt. Gen. Adrian L. Spain, who currently serves as the Air Force’s operations chief, is set to take charge of Air Combat Command at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va. He’ll be overseeing the Air Force’s largest swath of strike and reconnaissance aircraft as well as cyber and electronic warfare units after about 18 months of setting policy for combat units.

Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee about joint force readiness, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 12, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich)

Spain is succeeding Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach at ACC. Wilsbach made waves during his tenure with a renewed focus on standards and a revamped approach to readiness metrics.

Spain will be succeeded as the service’s deputy chief of staff for operations by Lt. Gen. Case A. Cunningham, who currently oversees troops in Alaska for the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The Senate also confirmed Lt. Gen. John. J. DeGoes to run Air Force Medical Command in addition to his current role as the service’s surgeon general. The command oversees training and resources for battlefield medics and supports military-run health centers on bases around the world.

Lawmakers have yet to move forward on other key nominees connected to the Department of the Air Force.

Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Space Force’s No. 2 officer who was tapped to run the Pentagon’s Golden Dome domestic missile defense initiative, and Lt. Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, chosen to lead U.S. Africa Command, are awaiting hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Anderson would become the first Airman in that role if confirmed.

Matthew Lohmeier’s nomination for Air Force undersecretary has also remained in limbo since mid-May, pending a confirmation vote by the full Senate.

SDA’s Next Phase of Data Transport Satellites on Hold

June 30, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

The long-term future of one of the Space Development Agency’s two satellite constellations is on hold as officials study the options for replacing a planned “data transport layer” with one or more commercial solutions. President Trump’s proposed 2026 defense budget zeroes out funding for a future tranche of satellites.

SDA’s Transport Layer is intended to be the “backbone” of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control system for moving data from sensors to shooters. The experimental Tranche 0 satellites have launched and contracts are already awarded to launch more than 300 Tranche 1 and 2 satellites beginning this summer and continuing into 2027.

Now the Transport Layer’s Tranche 3 in doubt. A Department of the Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the 2026 budget request sent last week includes around $1.8 billion to continue Tranches 0, 1, and 2—but not Tranche 3—even though Tranche 3’s preliminary funding was included in fiscal 2025 and contracts had been expected this year.

“DOD is conducting an Analysis of Alternatives to determine the requirements and architecture for proliferated SATCOM, to include both government-owned and commercial,” the spokesperson said. “A final decision on this architecture has not been made, but there is and will continue to be investment in commercial SATCOM appropriate to meet warfighter needs.”

An SDA spokesperson referred questions to the department.

The Space Force has yet to release detailed budgets for SDA’s Transport Layer program, but its funding does appear to be down some $300 million from last year’s request.

Multiple lawmakers voiced concerns about potential cuts to the Tranche 3 Transport Layer to Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman during hearings in June.

On June 5, Rep. Derek Tran (D-Calif.) asked Saltzman about “rumors” that Tranches 2 and 3 would be canceled and if he would commit to continuing Tranche 2. Saltzman endorsed Tranche 2 but did not comment on Tranche 3, saying “we’re committed to making sure that that program is successful and looking at the broad array of capabilities that might complement it.”

On June 24, queried by both Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) about potentially cancelling Tranche 3, Saltzman indicated that phase would be on hold in 2026. “There’s still some money in Tranche 2 to continue to flesh out that space data transport network,” Saltzman said. “Now we have to look at what are the other avenues to deliver potentially a commercial proliferated low Earth orbit constellation. And so we are simply looking at alternatives as we look to the future as to what’s the best way to scale this up to the larger requirements for data transport.”

SDA sent a notice to industry last year detailing plans for scores of Tranche 3 satellites in 2025, but earlier this spring the agency called off planned solicitations, saying they would “not proceed until further budgetary guidance has been received.”

A gap in funding would push back potential Tranche 3 Transport launches beyond the originally planned start in late 2028.

Still, SDA Director Derek M. Tournear indicated at last week’s Defense One Tech Summit that he was still thinking about Tranche 3, referring to how the agency is using lessons learned on Tranches 1 and 2 as it plans for integration on Tranche 3.

SDA is also still working on a Tranche 3 for its Tracking Layer, for missile tracking and warning.

The main alternative to the Transport Layer is “MILNET,” a secretive “future proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) satellite communications architecture that will provide global, integrated, and resilient capabilities across the Combat Power, Global Mission Data Transport, and Satellite Communications mission areas,” according to the DAF spokesperson.

Tran and Coons both said they were told MILNET will consist of SpaceX commercial satellites in low-Earth orbit, but Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said was not necessarily correct. “MILNET … should not be taken as just a system,” he said. “How we field that going forward into the future is something that’s still under consideration.”

The DAF spokesperson said requirements and the architecture for MILNET are still in development, and suggested the department is looking to ensure neither SpaceX nor anyone else will dominate the program.

“We are also investigating communication between different optical crosslinks in order to support a scalable multi-vendor satellite communication architecture that avoids vendor lock,” the spokesperson said.

A Pentagon comptroller document lists “pLEO SATCOM (MILNET)” as earmarked for $277.4 million in fiscal 2026.

A Space Systems Command program called pLEO that manages commercial satellite communications contracts for organizations across the Department of Defense. SpaceX has dominated that program through its Starlink and Starshield constellations, but it is unclear if or how that will be related to MILNET.

Air Force and Space Force Hit 2025 Recruiting Goals 3 Months Early

June 30, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The Space Force and Air Force have both hit their fiscal 2025 recruiting goals with months to spare, extending a promising trend that has boosted the services’ ranks, officials announced June 30.

The Space Force was seeking to enlist 800 Guardians this year, and the Air Force wanted to enlist more than 33,000 Active-duty Airmen, as well as 7,600 Airmen for the Air Force Reserve and 8,679 for the Air National Guard, service officials have said.

The Air Force Recruiting Service, which is responsible for recruiting for both services, said in a news release that the Department of the Air Force had “achieved 100 percent of its annual recruitment goal three months ahead of schedule.”

So far, the Air Force and Space Force have contracted with around 30,000 recruits, 25,000 of whom have already begun basic military training, according to the Air Force Recruiting Service. The rest will complete BMT by the end of September, when the fiscal year comes to a close.

There are also more than 14,000 recruits in the Air Force’s Delayed Entry Program (DEP), the strongest figure in the past decade, according to service officials. The Air Force also has what it says is a record 750 Special Warfare recruits.

“I am excited that both the Air Force and the Space Force have met their fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals three months early,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy E. Meink said in a statement. “The fact that we have even exceeded this goal and currently have a DEP at its largest level in 10 years speaks to the vast number of volunteers interested in serving their country today.”

For the Space Force, it is the sixth straight year it has hit its recruiting goals, meeting its target every year since its inception as a service. The Air Force has now hit its goals two years in a row.

“It’s clear Americans are excited about the Space Force, and this achievement is a direct reflection of the talent our mission continues to attract,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said in a statement, praising the “high-caliber patriots” his service has signed on.

Space Force officials touted not only the quantity but the quality of the recruits. According to service data as of May 31, some 93.5 percent of Space Force recruits scored above-average on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a mandatory test given to those seeking to serve in all U.S. military branches that determines which jobs the recruit qualifies for.

One in five recruits holds some form of college degree, and 12.9 percent have at least a Bachelor’s degree, according to USSF officials.

The Air Force Recruiting Service handles recruiting for the Space Force, as one of the support functions the Air Force provides its sister service. However, AFRS has established a dedicated squadron of Guardian recruiters as the Space Force continues to carve out its own culture, and its mission and ranks continue to expand.

“I’m grateful to the incredible recruiters whose tireless dedication made this milestone possible,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna said in a statement.

Bentivegna also showered praise on the USSF recruits, saying, “Each one reflects the very best of our nation, and their decision to serve speaks volumes about the talent, drive, and potential they bring to our mission.”

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin touted “record recruitment” in a statement. The Department of the Air Force did not break down its recruiting totals by component or provide precise overall figures in the June 30 announcement.

AFRS said the Air Force “attributes its success to a modernized recruiting approach, expanded community outreach, and a focus on highlighting career development.” The Air Force Recruiting Service has also hired 277 additional recruiters this year to help achieve its goals, service officials previously stated.

“The Air Force invests in our Airmen and patriotic Americans ready to serve have noticed and are lining up and signing up,” Allvin said. “That’s evident with the largest number of Special Warfare candidates awaiting training on record and the throngs of recruits motivated to start basic military training. We’re thrilled to welcome these warriors into our Air Force!”

Air Force Munitions Gets Big Boost from Reconciliation

June 28, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force’s weapons procurement accounts—often used as a “bill-payer” for other priorities and to fill budget gaps—is poised for a major boost from the reconciliation package currently being debated by Congress. But without detailed budgetary information beyond fiscal 2026, it’s unclear whether the growth in stockpiles will be sustained.

The fiscal 2026 budget request released June 26 also saw the first-ever information on spending for the secret air-to-air AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, as well as on a new family of cruise missiles intended to be built at scale and at relatively low cost.

The Air Force spent $4.8 billion on munitions in fiscal 2024, a figure that fell to $2.57 billion in the ’25 budget. The ’26 request includes a modest rise in the base budget, to $2.85 billion, but with the reconciliation add of $1.94 billion, it rises all the way to $4.78 billion.

Budget documents released thus far by the Pentagon don’t include the traditional five-year spending plans, often called the Future Years Defense Plan or FYDP. Such plans are usually what weapons manufacturers use to help gauge their production capacity investments. It remains to be seen if the weapons spending surge will be the start of sustained growth, or a one-time, catch-up investment before a return to old habits of raiding the weapons accounts to cover other needs.

Weapons manufacturers have unanimously called on the Pentagon and Congress in the last three years to set a clear “demand signal” for routine and surge production capacity. Without such a transparent roadmap, manufacturers have said they can’t justify to stockholders the expense of adding space, tooling, and workforce if they’re not sure orders will appear.

JATM

Making its premiere in the Air Force’s unclassified budget this year is the AIM-260 JATM, built by Lockheed Martin, which is expected to vastly increase the range at which Air Force and Navy fighters can engage enemy aircraft. The Air Force is asking $376.9 million for 112 missiles, all from reconciliation, but revealed that it bought 104 missiles in fiscal 2024 and 40 in 2025, for $373.5 million and $165.6 million, respectively. Roughly speaking, that puts the cost of the latest missiles cost at about $3.36 million each, down from $4.14 million in ‘24, not including long-lead spending. The Navy is also requesting $301 million for JATM procurement.

Development of the missile is still far from over, though, with the Air Force asking for $425.1 million for JATM research, development, test and evaluation, while the Navy is asking $222.8 million for JATM RDT&E; a combined $647.9 million investment.

AMRAAM

By contrast, the Air Force is planning $665.1 million for 483 of its AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided air-to-air missiles, the service’s primary rsuch weapon for the last 35 years, giving it a price of roughly $1.38 million apiece.

The AMRAAM buy was also significantly increased by reconciliation. While the Air Force requested $365.1 million for 226 AMRAAMs, reconciliation added $300 million for 257 more. USAF wants $51.7 million to continue AMRAAM research and development,

Air Force officials have said that AMRAAM will be the primary weapon of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which will escort crewed fighters in future air combat, although they have said that JATM will also be in the CCA’s weapons mix at some point.

amraam ukraine rtx — U.S. Air Force Airmen assigned to the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, prepare to load an AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) during an integrated combat turn (ICT) training, Nov. 21, 2022, at Prince Sultan Air Base Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Shannon Bowman

FAMM

Another new item in the munitions portfolio is the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles, about which the Air Force did not offer any background. The program is set to include 3,010 weapons for $656.3 million, all provided by reconciliation. That translates to a per-unit cost of $218,000 per cruise missile. Anduril Industries has been promoting its “Barracuda” low-cost cruise missile, as has Lockheed Martin, which last fall rolled out its “Common Multi-Mission Truck” cruise vehicle which could carry a variety of payloads.

Two of the largest buys in the Air Force weapons category are the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and the externally similar AGM-158C Long Range Air-to-Surface Missile, both made by Lockheed Martin. The Air Force is buying 389 JASSMS and 118 LRASMS, at a cost of $1 billion and $431.6 million, respectively. The JASSM will cost about $2.6 million apiece if the budget is approved, while LRASM will cost $3.6 million each. The Air Force is also continuing development of JASSM, with $232.3 million requested for the effort.

Marking a return to the Air Force’s weapons portfolio is the AGM-183 Air Launched Rapid-Response Weapon, or ARRW, a rapid-prototype boost-glide hypersonic missile that the service seemingly lost interest in two years ago, when the large weapon completed initial testing off B-52 bombers. The Air Force wants $387.1 million for ARRW procurement in 2026, without specifying a number of units. The other Air Force-acknowledged hypersonic program—the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile—is requested at $802.8 million for RDT&E, none of which was added by the reconciliation. Unlike the ARRW, the HACM is an air-breathing missile with longer range, while small enough to be carried by fighter-sized aircraft.

The Air Force expects that the new Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW) will be, broadly, a replacement for the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), by virtue of being faster and better able to skirt enemy air defenses. The SiAW, based on Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, was requested at $185.9 million for 99 units, with an additional $255.3 million for continuing development.

The Air Force is sticking with 1,500 JDAMs a year, though, asking $126.4 million for that number of units in 2026.

The AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off, the nuclear-armed cruise missile that will succeed the AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile, would get $442.7 million in procurement, to cover missile production and advanced procurement. A further $606.9 million would fund continuing development; overall, a $1.05 billion investment in the Raytheon program. The LRSO is largely classified but Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Global Strike Command, recently said LRSO is doing well and he anticipates no program delays. The Air Force published the first image of the missile in June. While the Air Force waits for LRSO, it’s requesting $175.4 million in RDT&E to keep the missile credible down the line.

The Air Force wants to buy 806 of the Small Diameter Bomb II Stormbreaker, also made by Raytheon, for $307.7 million. Production of Stormbreaker has been fairly consistent in recent years, reaching its recent high water mark of 868 units in fiscal 2025. The Air Force is asking another $24.8 million for ongoing development of the weapon.

The Air Force is asking $6.8 million to buy more GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, 14 of which were used to attack Iranian nuclear development facilities in June. The service did not specify how many bombs that amount would buy.

Lonely Days, Restless Nights: New Study Looks at How Military Spouses Are Holding Up

June 27, 2025 | By David Roza

A new survey found that military and veteran spouses experience depression and anxiety at two to three times the rate of the general population, with many also reporting difficulty finding community, peer support, and suitable employment.

Released June 27, the Military and Veteran Spouse Wellness Survey is the first to focus on wellness, “a positive state of being that involves more than just the absence of illness,” wrote the study authors, who included researchers from The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness (IMVFW), and InDependent, a nonprofit promoting wellness among military and veteran spouses.

The survey broke wellness into eight related categories as defined by the U.S. government: emotional, physical, intellectual, social, occupational, financial, spiritual, and environmental, which involves factors such as home and neighborhood quality.

Previous studies conducted by the Defense Department and groups such as Blue Star Families and the Military Family Advisory Network studied spouse satisfaction with military life, the impact of frequent moves, and other challenges military families face, but this was the first to use a holistic wellness framework.

“Behind our service members is a backbone of strength, sacrifice, and fortitude, the force behind the forces,” Lyndsey Akers, senior consultant for AFA’s United Forces & Families program, said at an AFA event promoting the study. “And yet the comprehensive wellness that we’re going to dig into today has been underrepresented in the conversations that shape outcomes. That’s why today matters.”

Screenshot via the Military and Veteran Spouse Wellness Survey.

Between September 2024 and January 2025, the study received 1,150 complete responses, split about evenly between veteran and military spouses. Most respondents’ partners served in the Army (38.2 percent) and Air Force (25.8 percent), while the most frequently reported partner ranks were mid-level officers (O4–O6; 26.2 percent) and senior enlisted (E7–E9; 23.6 percent).

About 76 percent of respondents had children, and the vast majority of respondents were women (90 percent), White (79.3 percent), and living within the United States (89.2 percent). More than half of respondents had a bachelor’s or more advanced degree, and 37.6 percent were employed full-time.

Among the key findings, respondents reported moderate overall wellness satisfaction, with an average rating of 6.58 out of 10. Respondents rated their environmental, spiritual, and intellectual wellness highest, while they rated their physical and emotional wellness satisfaction the lowest.

Over half of respondents experienced some level of anxiety or depression. Respondents cited mild (31 percent), moderate (18 percent), and severe depression (14 percent) at two to three times the rate of the general population (13.9 percent, 4.6 percent, and 2.9 percent, respectively), with similar results for anxiety.

Almost a quarter of respondents (24 percent) said accessing mental health care for themselves was a challenge, as did 25 percent about physical health care.

Sleep is also hard to come by: 62 percent of respondents indicated sub-threshold clinical insomnia, which refers to sleep difficulties that don’t meet the full diagnostic criteria for insomnia. On top of that, 19 percent and 5 percent of respondents reported moderate and severe clinical insomnia. Fully 34 percent said they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the quality of their sleep. About half of respondents met the criteria for sub-threshold nightmare disorder, where nightmares regularly disrupt quality of life.

About 65 percent of respondents showed moderate or high levels of loneliness, with 53 percent reporting challenges finding community, 38 percent citing challenges finding support, and 23 percent reporting frequent feelings of isolation.

About 33 percent of respondents reported struggling to find meaningful employment. Most spouses reported moderate financial well-being, but 10 percent cited affording meals as a challenge, and only about 37 percent said they usually had a good life-work balance.

Most respondents cited moderate to strong spiritual wellness, meaning they felt their lives have meaning and clear purpose.

About 81 percent of respondents scored highly on a perceived neighborhood quality scale, but only 32 percent felt they could call on a neighbor for help if they needed it.

Not all was doom and gloom, though. The study found “many spouses demonstrated resilience and positive behaviors, such as moderate-to-high engagement in intellectual and spiritual wellness practices and generally health-conscious nutrition habits.”

The researchers behind the survey suspect social isolation contributes to many of the reported problems.

“About 50 percent of participants felt that finding community or friends was the number one challenge that they are currently facing,” said Evie King, president of InDependent. “You can probably start sewing a line through so many areas of wellness where this trend seemed to resonate.”

Recent research shows that many military spouses are dissatisfied with the process and tempo of permanent change of station moves, which for Active-Duty families usually occur every two to three years. Indeed, a Defense Department report in May found record rates of Active-duty military spouses want to leave the military community, with a large number of them frustrated by the difficulty of finding employment, child care, and reimbursement for moving costs after a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) move.

The new survey did not ask for respondents’ number of PCS moves, so it couldn’t track whether spouses with more moves under their belts had higher loneliness scores.

“But I think anecdotally we’ve heard so much in our community that that is likely a contributor,” said IMVFW director Elisa Borah. “It’s really hard to connect with new support systems, new friends, and then knowing you’re moving again in two years … you’re hesitant to form strong bonds.”

The survey isn’t the first to detect the challenge of social isolation. A core takeaway of a 2024 conference at the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center was that unit leaders can improve morale and cohesiveness by doing more to bring Airmen and families together, especially in the middle of what top U.S. health officials have called a “loneliness epidemic.”

“We know that this lifestyle is isolating, lonely, it leads to mental health concerns if you’re not supported or even know how to pay attention to your mental health,” Borah said. “I think that’s where we can make the most impact and improve our programming.”

The study was light on specific policy recommendations, but authors said it underscored the importance of holistic wellness for spouses. They encouraged community leaders and military officials to address gaps in support—”particularly in areas such as mental health, employment, and social connection.” The authors also hope to conduct future surveys every two years, if not annually.

“Insights alone do not shift culture,” Akers said. “Intentional and informed action does.”

‘Excess’ Nuclear Missile Funds Used to Modify Trump’s New Air Force One

June 27, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Air Force diverted what it says was excess funding from its delayed new nuclear missile program to modify a former Qatari royal jet for use as President Donald Trump’s Air Force One, the service’s top civilian said June 26.

But Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink insisted the move will “absolutely not” delay Sentinel’s progress, saying that money was “early-to-need” funding the high-priority missile modernization project didn’t use last year.

“We will ensure that those resources are there,” Meink said at a June 26 Senate hearing on the Air Force’s 2026 budget request. “The Sentinel program is fully funded . . . to execute as quickly as possible.”

Turning the former Qatari jet, a Boeing 747-8, into the presidential transport is slated to take “just short of a year,” he added.

It’s unclear how much money the Air Force shifted from Sentinel to retrofit the Qatari jetliner. Lawmakers have said the service reduced the Sentinel budget in 2025 by nearly $1.2 billion, with the service’s 2026 budget documents citing the yearlong continuing resolution, under-execution because of a review related to cost and schedule overruns, and “service-assumed termination liability.”

Procurement budget documents, which could shed some light on the spending plans for the new Air Force One, have yet to be released. An Air Force spokesperson declined to elaborate on the secretary’s remarks.

A previous tentative design of the next Air Force One is depicted in an artist rendering. Boeing illustration.

Earlier this month, Meink estimated it will cost less than $400 million to modify the former Qatari jet with the security and communications equipment it needs to serve as Air Force One. That’s far lower than reported estimates from the Air Force that it could take $1.5 billion to bring the plane up to the safety and security standards set for presidential transport.

It’s also unclear whether the House and Senate armed services and appropriations committees would have to sign off on the transfer, as they often do when federal dollars change accounts.

Concerns about accepting a foreign jet to ferry Trump—after his administration inked a $3.9 billion contract for two new Air Force One planes in 2018—have become a common refrain among Democratic lawmakers at recent budget hearings.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), at the June 26 Senate defense appropriations subcommittee hearing, raised news reports that the Qatari plane will be limited to domestic travel and will require a fighter escort if it lacks the security measures that are built into the main Air Force One program.

“This looks like one of the bigger wastes of money inside your budget,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Air Force leaders at the hearing. “It also presents some real ethical and moral problems, I think, for this committee.”

Meink declined to answer a question from Murphy on whether the 747-8 would enter Trump’s personal possession once he leaves office. Multiple media outlets reported in May that White House Counsel David Warrington wrote a memo in March stating that the government could send the plane to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation at the end of his term.

“I can just speak [to] what I’ve been asked to do, and what we’ve signed up to do,” Meink said. “The current [VC-25] is challenged from a readiness perspective, very challenged. It’s a very old aircraft.”

The secretary said he wasn’t sure whether the government has officially tapped a contractor to handle the retrofit, but that the Air Force can move forward with that contract once it takes possession of the jet.

Meanwhile, if the Air Force can agree on a way to accelerate the previously planned replacement, Boeing could deliver the pair of 747s, dubbed VC-25B in military parlance, in October 2027 at the earliest. That means Trump could use the Qatari plane for at least a year.

“The VC-25Bs are going to show up later than we’d initially hoped for, and I’ve been asked to modify this aircraft as soon as we get possession of it, and we are positioned to do that,” Meink said.

The Air Force is asking Congress for $602 million for the VC-25B in 2026, according to budget documents released June 27. The program’s total acquisition cost is now estimated at $6.2 billion for the two planes, according to the Government Accountability Office’s annual weapons report.

The service is also seeking $4.2 billion for Sentinel development next year. That funding would be split between $2.6 billion in the base budget and $1.5 billion as part of the reconciliation megabill under consideration on Capitol Hill. Congress may offer up to $2.5 billion in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” to develop the new land-based nuclear missiles, which can be spent over the course of several years.

Northrop Grumman is building a new generation of land-based nuclear weapons to sit on alert in underground silos across the northern United States. Meink indicated the initiative now requires less money than expected in 2025 after its ballooning cost and slowing schedule forced Air Force officials to overhaul the program. That made some of the money Sentinel had received from Congress this year too early for the work it was intended to fund.

GAO recently noted that a “reasonably modified Sentinel program with redesigned launch facilities” could cost $170.6 billion.

Meink told senators the military is still reconsidering its requirements for the new missiles in a bid to rein in spending and speed their delivery.

New Report: Loose Safety Pin, Straps Led to Ejection Mishap that Killed T-6 Pilot

June 27, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

An instructor pilot didn’t fully insert a safety pin into his T-6 ejection seat when taxiing after a flight last spring, then inadvertently pulled the handle while not fully buckled into his seat, leading to his death when the ejection system sent him 100 feet into the air at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.

An Air Force Accident Investigation Board reached that conclusion in a report issued June 23 into the mishap that killed Capt. John Robertson of the 80th Operations Support Squadron more than a year ago.

The accident occurred May 13, 2024, after an uneventful training flight for Robertson and an international student pilot, a member of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program. It was Robertson’s second flight of the day. Upon landing, the two pilots ran through the standard checklist, which included verifying that both had re-inserted safety pins for their ejection seats and set the system so that each ejection seat functioned independently of each other.

Based on physical evidence recovered from the scene, investigators determined Robertson partially inserted his safety pin but failed to push it all the way through.

“The elongation of the seat safety pin hole on both the leading surface of the housing and the front edge of the ejection handle indicates the seat safety pin was at least partially installed during the ejection sequence,” the report states, before noting that it likely popped out and struck an airspeed indicator in the cockpit during the ejection sequence.

Another instructor pilot told investigators they had seen several pilots fail to fully insert their pins after flights.

After that, the student pilot started taxiing to the ramp, while Robertson started unbuckling from his seat. He disconnected from five of 11 connection points to the ejection seat—including straps connecting him to the parachute—when the handle was inadvertently pulled.

Investigators noted that instructor pilots often started to unbuckle while taxiing, and that there is no information in various training documents and checklists on when T-6 instructors should disconnect.

Using simulators and noting where different straps and pieces landed, investigators concluded that Robertson likely pulled the handle by accident when he was leaning forward to unbuckle a strap on his left leg and one of the previously disconnected straps became entangled with the handle.

“When the pilot sits back upright after bending over to disconnect the left leg restraint garter, the pilot can inadvertently actuate the ejection seat control handle if the V-ring from the pilot’s harness chest strap is caught in the ejection seat control handle and the seat safety pin is not fully installed into the seat,” the report states.

The ejection system shot Robertson and his seat into the air, at which point the pilot and seat are meant to separate and the pilot’s parachute deploys. But because Robertson had disconnected from his parachute, he instead fell around 100 feet through an aircraft shelter.

He was transported to a local hospital, where he died in the early hours of May 14.

The Accident Investigation Board report noted that Robertson “was respected by leadership, fellow instructors, and students” and had been “recognized as the Instructor Pilot of the Year for 2023.” His colleagues described him as “a very caring instructor who would proactively reach out to students to strike up a conversation and would spend extra time explaining a concept to a student who did not understand the topic.”

The mishap was the first fatal T-6 accident for the Air Force since fiscal 2004.