The Air Force Reserve is a 70,000-member force of “citizen-airmen” providing “an affordable, cost-effective option” for national defense in an era of budgetary constraints, Lt. Gen. Maryanne Miller, Chief of Air Force Reserve, said at ASC16. At a time when “we have the smallest Air Force in our history,” the Reserve provides a “surge-ready capacity” particularly well-suited to the wars of the present, Miller added. Going forward, Miller called for new policies aimed at helping Reservists ”balance civilian life and life as airmen.”
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.