Air Mobility Command has big plans to overhaul its gray-tailed heavies for the high-end fight, turning airlifters into command and control assets and possibly putting air-to-air missiles on tankers. The long-term planning is a shift away from the idea of keeping mobility assets away from a fight, using them instead just as delivery platforms for other combat forces. AMC boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost addressed concerns about the future of mobility and the idea of doing “something out of the box,” during a March 31 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event, saying, “Why wouldn’t we?”

More of the world’s militaries are reorganizing their command structures to prepare for future wars in space while coming up with ways to counter satellites directly or to interfere with satellite communications, according to a report out April 1. In the 2021 edition of Global Counterspace Capabilities: An Open Source Assessment, the nonprofit Secure World Foundation rounds up the publicly known or suspected activities, plans, and likely technological capabilities of eight spacefaring militaries in categories from weapons that target satellites in orbit, to jamming of satellite communications, to cyber attacks on satellite ground stations.

The Air Force wants to turn to virtual reality to make their B-52 pilots proficient at aerial refueling. Air Force Global Strike Command’s innovation hub STRIKEWERX has kicked off a challenge to have industry, government, academia, and even individuals create a mixed reality training system for its Stratofortress pilots to practice receiving fuel. The goal is for pilots to learn the skill more quickly and with fewer expensive real-world flights. The Mixed Reality Air Refueling Challenge began March 16 and runs through April 13, with a selection event planned for early June.

Boeing announced April 1 it has delivered the first upgraded cryptography units to the Air Force to improve launch code security for the service’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. The upgraded units improve encryption for the codes, along with improving security by eliminating the need for in-person code changes at the approximately 400 remote missile alert stations, Boeing said in a release.

Video recordings from this year’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium are now free to watch, featuring Acting Secretary John P. Roth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. Jay Raymond in conversation with famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Senior Air Force and Space Force leaders also discuss Science, Technology & Innovation in All Domains and Emerging Technologies in the High-End Fight.