Remains of the two crew members aboard the E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft that crashed this week in Afghanistan were recovered Jan. 28, a US defense official confirmed. At first, Afghan special forces couldn't reach the site of the crash—a snowy field in Ghazni Province north of the aircraft’s operating base of Kandahar Airfield. A US defense official confirmed to Air Force Magazine that two people were onboard the aircraft when it crashed, despite earlier reports that the E-11 was carrying more.

Aerial refueling tanker availability remains a major roadblock to readiness for US Transportation Command, prompting the military to look at retaining even more aging tankers as well as the possibility of relying on private contractors to fill the gaps, the head of TRANSCOM said. Army Gen. Stephen Lyons said Jan. 28 that problems with the KC-46 Pegasus program are causing ripple effects that could ultimately shrink the number of aircraft that are available for operations. “We’ve got to figure out a way to mitigate the delayed fielding of the KC-46,” Lyons said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington, D.C.

A space architecture enterprise summit in mid-February will bring together stakeholders like the Space Development Agency, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Space Rapid Capabilities Office to determine how each group fits into the DOD’s new military space vision, according to a top Air Force space adviser. “The summit will bring together key organizations with architecture responsibilities to define a common lexicon, address architecture roles and responsibilities, and facilitate an integrated national security space architecture,” Shawn Barnes, deputy principal assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force for space, said in a statement following a Jan. 24 meeting with reporters. Barnes also said he expects the Pentagon in the next six months will lay out a single, department-wide plan for fielding and operating a network of space-based missile defense and missile warning systems.

Air Force Reserve Command is mulling where to place four newly funded C-130Js, prioritizing two wings with specialized missions. The fiscal 2020 defense spending bill provided an additional $730 million for 8 C-130J aircraft, including four for the Air Force Reserve and four for the Air National Guard. The Lockheed Martin-produced airlifters are slated for delivery to the Reserve in 2023. For the planes' new homes, the Reserve is looking at the 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown ARS, Ohio, and the 302nd Airlift Wing at Peterson AFB, Colo. The 910th AW offers the military’s only large-area, fixed-wing aerial spray capability that controls disease-carrying insects, pests, “undesirable vegetation,” and to disperse oil spills, according to AFRC. The 302nd AW is the Reserve’s only wing that flies the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System for the US Forest Service.