Orlando, February 18, 2010—With space becoming a more congested and contested domain, the Air Force’s focus should not solely be on protecting its space assets, but also on preserving “the appropriate redundancies” to them through airborne complements or other backup capability, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. Citing the case of intelligence satellites, Schwartz said they “should at least, in part, be backed up by other systems.” In some situations, he continued, “highly capable remotely piloted aircraft might be capable of providing some compensating capability,” even if it’s not identical. “We need to think in a cross-domain way when seeking such resilience,” Schwartz explained, noting that this message is “a footstomper” due it its importance.
Under a late summer sun, Air Force basic trainees practice safely rearming a retired F-16 Fighting Falcon at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, with mock AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. Nearby, a bulldozer levels the ground where the rest of this first new airbase training range will sit.
