As the new coronavirus spreads, USAF aircrews are practicing “isolation in motion” to stay healthy while flying important airlift missions. While they can’t practice social distancing in a cockpit, aircrews are isolated before missions, and they go straight from their aircraft to their billets once arriving at a base. Scott Air Force Base, Ill., is experimenting with so-called "hard crews" to minimize an aircrew's exposure risk, flying with the same crew, whenever possible, for the duration of the of the pandemic. U.S. Transportation Command also is increasing its use of the civil reserve air fleet to bring Americans affected by COVID-19 home.

More than 1,800 Airmen in jobs that support space operations will transfer from the Air Force to the Space Force over the next six months, the Air Force said March 31. Twenty-three intelligence, acquisition, and other organizations will become part of the Space Force, joining the thousands of employees like satellite crews and launch experts who are already assigned to the new service. The Air Force has not announced a formal timeline for moving over those space operations Airmen known as 13S officers and their 1C6 enlisted counterparts. “The missions and billets will simply be transferred to the Space Force and remain in place to leverage the talent, infrastructure, and key capabilities at their current location,” the Air Force said.

Flight testing of top-priority programs is ramping back up this week at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and other locations around the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr. said. New procedures are balancing urgent operational needs with the safety of personnel and the need to keep the test enterprise going for the long term. “We’re adjusting to a whole new norm. It’s causing us to flex and look at things differently, and showing the importance of good communications between the program executive officers and the program managers, the contractors and the test community, to make sure we’ve got the right people at the right place to get the testing done."

A C-17 and Airmen from multiple bases flew a 41-hour, 6,866 mile emergency airlift mission across 12 time zones to bring one-month-old twins to the Washington area for emergency neonatal care. The long-distance aeromedical evacuation mission came on short notice, after the twins were born to U.S. Soldiers serving in South Korea’s coronavirus epicenter. The neonatal care they needed is not available in the region, so the base reached out to Pacific Air Forces for help.

As U.S. Africa Command has ramped up its airstrikes targeting extremist groups throughout the continent, the command announced it will begin providing quarterly public reports of its investigations into civilian casualties. The step, slated to begin next month, is similar to U.S. Central Command's policy of releasing monthly details on its investigations into civilian casualty claims.

L3Harris and Raytheon will develop and build specialized modems that work with the Protected Tactical Waveform, an anti-jamming technology for satellite communications, according to the Space and Missile Systems Center. The companies on March 27 each secured contracts worth up to $500 million that could last up to 10 years, after beating out Viasat to move on in the Air Force and Army Anti-Jam Modem (A3M) program. “The A3M directly supports Protected Tactical SATCOM (PTS) and is a critical capability to increase anti-jam and communications capacity for joint tactical warfighters in contested environments,” an SMC spokeswoman said. “A3M will benefit all DOD SATCOM and national security efforts and ultimately keep the nation and our allies operating safely from anywhere at any time.”