Air Force Innovation Hub Hears Pitches for ‘Flightline of the Future’

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s technology innovation hub has asked technology companies, industry partners, academia, and others to “revolutionize” flight line operations. The effort—a “sequel” to AFWERX’s 2020 base of the future initiative—is aimed at addressing three specific challenges: airfield maintenance and repair; aircraft maintenance operations; and flight line security.

Projects on all three topics were presented in late August at the AFWERX Innovation Hub in Las Vegas, Nev., according to a Sept. 7 release.

A common theme, officials said, was autonomous technology. Project teams pitched using artificial intelligence and automated tech to collect airfield surface data and determine damage, streamlining maintenance and repair.

In particular, “smart pavement” was pitched as a potential innovation for the Air Force to use in its base of the future. Smart pavement has often been pitched as a future technology for highways and roads, with sensors embedded into the pavement providing data on traffic and working with smart cars.

For airfields, however, smart pavement can be used in other ways. Hill Air Force Base, Utah, already has a “smart runway,” thanks to a project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which installed sensors on and in the base’s runway to detect pressure, temperature, moisture, and movement, along with other data, according to Airport Improvement.

All that data, experts say, can help inform decisions about operations and maintenance, as engineers can monitor the runway’s conditions more closely.

Smart pavement could also help address flight line security, according to some pitches presented to AFWERX. Sensors embedded into lights on the runway or the surface of the runway itself could use facial recognition or scannable badges to determine the identity of individuals on the flight line.

Projects presented to AFWERX also touted the use of artificial intelligence and automated processes to improve aircraft maintenance.

“The technology shown during the AFWERX Challenge will completely transform aircraft maintenance operations,” Lt. Col. Yogi Lebby, Advanced Concepts chief, said in a statement. “These new modernizing solutions will allow maintainers to be more proactive, document more effectively, and drive efficiencies back into a maintainer’s day. The future is now and I’m excited to be part of the journey.”

The Air Force has been interested in the idea of using AI to improve maintenance for years now. In 2020, the service tripled the number of aircraft using predictive maintenance algorithms, with the hope of using vast amounts of data and machine learning to anticipate issues, which would allow maintainers to more quickly identify problems and start work on solutions.

While AFWERX said it evaluated “hundreds” of participants in its Flightline of the Future challenge, the program doesn’t have the ability to award any contracts itself. Instead, it engages with individuals, startups, small businesses, large enterprises, academia, and research labs, then connects them with other Air Force agencies that can award deals. Some projects pitched to AFWERX can be selected for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards.

A Satellite Swarm May be the Next-Gen Hurricane Hunters

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

LAFAYETTE, Colo.—A mockup of a 30-centimeter-long satellite on a shelf in the lobby of Blue Canyon Technologies may not look like much, but it represents a new approach to weather reconnaissance that could one day render one of the Air Force’s earliest missions obsolete.

The three-unit, or 3u, cubesat’s real-life counterpart is already in orbit, itself a pathfinder, while in a workroom at Blue Canyon Technologies in August, technicians put together one of six that NASA plans to launch as a constellation in 2022.

For now, the Air Force Reserve Command’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron—the “Hurricane Hunters”—flies WC-130J Super Hercules aircraft outfitted with weather gear out of Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., into and around tropical cyclones such as hurricanes to collect data on the location and intensity. The mission dates back to 1943 and started, according to the command, because of a dare between two Army Air Corps pilots. The squadron went to work in support of the National Hurricane Center as recently as Hurricane Ida.

These aircrews today place themselves in the “perfect temporal and spatial” situation to collect data, being right inside the storms, said William Blackwell, lead researcher for the TROPICS mission, short for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats. But coverage from those airplanes is “very sparse,” Blackwell told Air Force Magazine in an interview. Unlike an airplane inside a storm, a satellite in space can record data about an entire hurricane all at once.

If all goes according to plan, the TROPICS mission could “substantially improve our ability to forecast tropical storms,” said Blackwell, principal investigator for the NASA-funded program and associate leader of the Applied Space Systems Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory.

Existing satellites that detect visible or infrared light from low Earth orbit can’t “see” through the tops of clouds because those wavelengths don’t penetrate, Blackwell said.

The TROPICS pathfinder, on the other hand, has shown that it can, in effect, peer inside—”below the clouds, where it really matters,” Blackwell said. TROPICS detects longer-wavelength microwave radiation, which penetrates the cover and reveals clues about the storm’s intensity, including moisture and a core temperature anomaly that indicates the maximum sustained wind speed.

Polar-orbiting satellites that gather data for other agencies do observe microwave radiation—Blackwell estimated the satellites at “school-bus-sized”—and “then you have to wait six hours before the next one flies over.” Yet even adding in observations that international partners may contribute, “there’s still a big gap.”

Assuming the pathfinder continues to check out, the six-satellite TROPICS constellation will bring that “revisit” rate down from six hours to about 50 minutes, Blackwell said. A constellation of 24 could get the revisit rate down to about 6 minutes.

The $30 million mission includes the cubesats and a year-and-a-half of operations—a three-month commissioning period to get the satellites set up and checked out followed by a year of data collection and then three months of decommissioning at the end. If it works well, Blackwell could envision stretching out the operations to as long as three years.

TROPICS’ pathfinder cubesat made three passes over Hurricane Ida just before and just after the storm made landfall in Louisiana in August. The images show the hurricane’s “very clear structure” over the Gulf of Mexico and later when “the storm kind of dissipates” over land, Blackwell said.

“Initial images” released by NASA of Hurricane Ida detected at 205 gigahertz, one of the cubesat’s 12 channels, “lend a lot of confidence that the data we receive from the imager will be useful in characterizing a hurricane’s structure,” said NASA’s Patrick Duran, TROPICS applications lead at Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., in a Sept. 3 release. “It’s really great to see how well the 205-GHz imagery represents Ida’s inner core.”

Blackwell said the rest of the channels are up and running now as well.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Colleen F. Mitchell

Sept. 8, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Colleen F. Mitchell, an aerospace medical technician assigned to the Air Force District of Washington.

Mitchell was the sole aerospace medical technician assigned to Manda Bay, Republic of Kenya, in support of Operation Octave Shield. She risked her personal safety to help establish a casualty collection point during the first ever Al-Shabaab attack on a U.S. military base in Kenya. She activated and led a team of four augmented medical personnel to provide immediate triage and assessment for predicted casualties upon direct impact of 10 confirmed mortar attacks, 38 rocket propelled grenades, and numerous small arms fire exchanges at the camp compound and the airfield.

Mitchell courageously provided emergent prolonged field care for more than 16 hours, assisting in stabilization of two critical and four acute stress casualties. She also flawlessly executed Manda Bay’s first walking blood bank, where she pre-screened 12 individuals for stand-by donation.

2021 Outstanding Airmen of the Year honoree Staff Sergeant Colleen Mitchell. USAF

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

SOUTHCOM Concludes Haiti Humanitarian Mission

Sept. 7, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

U.S. Southern Command wrapped up its humanitarian mission to Haiti on Sept. 3, flying the last of 671 missions after the island nation was ravaged by an earthquake and tropical storm.

The logistics were achieved thanks to the Arkansas Air National Guard’s 188th Wing, the Puerto Rico National Guard’s aviation unit, Special Operations Command-South, U.S. Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras, and SOUTHCOM’s own assets, none of which were deployed globally at the time.

“We had all components on deck,” said SOUTHCOM Commander Adm. Craig S. Faller, who is due to hand over command in October, in a statement. “Less than 24 hours after the earthquake, the U.S. Coast Guard began lifesaving efforts and delivery of aid, a testament to the urgency with which we come to help our partners in their time of need. Our Task Force worked around the clock to save lives.”

SOUTHCOM spokesman José Ruiz told Air Force Magazine military assistance was crucial in the early stages of the relief operation.

“As those disaster-relief missions progress and more experienced experts arrive to aid longer-term recovery and reconstruction, U.S. military capabilities are no longer requested, and roles previously performed by military units and troops are assumed by other, more experienced relief organizations,” he said.

Helicopters were delivered from JTF-Bravo; situational awareness teams deployed from SOC-South; and helicopters assisted from the Puerto Rico National Guard along with C-130s from the Arkansas Air National Guard.

The Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force deployed personnel and assets, including the USS Arlington, Billings, and Burlington, as well as MV-22 Ospreys.

Ruiz said the timely disaster response helped rescue more than 477 people and delivered nearly 600,000 pounds of aid.

Trouble began on the Caribbean island when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Aug. 14, killing 2,200, followed two days later by the fierce winds and rain produced by Tropical Storm Grace.

Joint Task Force-Haiti stood up Aug. 15 and was led by Rear Adm. Keith Davids with the Coast Guard providing search and rescue in remote areas; the Army, Navy, and Puerto Rico National Guard delivering helicopters; and Air Force C-130s providing airlift and logistics capabilities throughout the mission.

In all, the DOD response entailed 19 helicopters, six ships, eight transport aircraft, and 1,200 personnel. In Haiti, the U.S. delivered food, water, and medical supplies with several hundred flights.

The humanitarian response now turns over to USAID to provide food, shelter, and health care to affected areas.

Watchdog: Air Force is Tackling In-flight Physiological Issues But Can’t Fix Them All

Sept. 7, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is working to improve safety and reduce pilot physiological events in some of the aircraft most commonly cited for those issues, but the service can do only so much to reduce risk due to human error and the “hazards inherent to the aviation occupation,” a new report from the Defense Department’s Inspector General states.

That assessment stands in contrast to what Col. Mark Schmidt, then-lead of the Air Force Physiological Episodes Action Team, told Air Force Magazine in December 2020, saying, “the objective is to drive physiological episodes to zero.”

The audit of the Air Force’s actions taken to mitigate physiological events from the Pentagon’s IG examined four aircraft specifically—the F-15C, the F-15D, the F-15E, and the T-6A—after identifying them as the fighter and trainer aircraft with the highest reported rates of physiological events, defined as “any injury, illness, or abnormal physiological condition experienced by aircrew or others because of the flight environment.”

The report, released Sept. 2, states that the Air Force has managed to close 47 of 79 recommendations resulting from investigations of mishaps to reduce physiological events in the four aircraft, while also conducting 67 research studies since 2010 on the topic.

Many of the physiological events studied were related to a lack of oxygen, a condition called hypoxia that can result in cognitive impairment, slow reaction time, feeling dizzy or lightheaded, difficulty concentrating, and tingling or numbness in the extremities.

It’s an issue that has received increasing attention over the past few years. In 2012, the Air Force launched a large-scale investigation into breathing problems on board the F-22 Raptor, where pilots said they sometimes even blacked out at the controls due to lack of oxygen. Data from the Inspector General’s report captures the scale of that problem, with 57 combined physiological events reported in the F-22 in 2011 and 2012, compared to 33 total from 2013 to 2020, after the service began fixing several identified problems and installing backup oxygen systems in every jet.

But while the F-22 has improved, other fighters have experienced more issues. The T-6A trainer has had the most high-profile problems, leading to a grounding of the fleet in 2018 after a surge in hypoxia-like events. Since the Air Force has said it plans to redesign the oxygen system and adjust oxygen control levels in flight, the reported rate of events has dropped by more than half, the DOD IG found. But in both 2019 and 2020, the rate of physiological events per 100,000 flight hours was still higher than 25, compared to 6.63 in 2010.

The inspector general’s report did note that “because the T‑6A Texan II is the first aircraft flown by Air Force aircrew, the nerves of the aircrew could be a factor in the increase of reported” events.

Still, the report found that most of the recommendations resulting from Air Force investigations and studies conducted by the service’s 711th Human Performance Wing have been related to the T-6A—51 of the 79 total recommendations have had to do with the aircraft, and there have been nine research studies on it since 2017 alone.

Pilots in the F-15E, meanwhile, reported 3.06 physiological events per 100,000 flight hours in 2010 and have never gotten below that number since. In 2020, the rate was 8.51.

The two planes that saw lower reported rates of physiological events in 2020 compared to 2010 were the F-15C and F-15D. But the report did note that “the reductions were not consistent each year across all reviewed aircraft,” with a significant increase reported for those two planes in 2015 and 2016.

In response to that surge, the Air Force established an independent review team to study the root causes. That team issued recommendations that led to the Air Force’s F-15 system program office implementing new maintenance procedures to better respond to reported hypoxia events, installing a new, digital cockpit pressure monitoring and warning system in the fighters, and upgrading and replacing canopies and canopy seals after reports of leaks.

In addition to fixing issues with the aircraft, the DOD IG’s report found that the Air Force has implemented training to help pilots and aircrew identify and prepare for physiological events, starting with Undergraduate Flying Training but including periodic refreshers.

While the inspector general’s office offered no new recommendations as a result of its audit, the issue of physiological events is unlikely to die down anytime soon. In its markup of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee included a provision requiring the Defense Department to investigate issues and compile a report on the pilot breathing system of the F-35. That requirement came just a few months after NASA conducted its own study on pilot breathing issues, mostly in the F-15 and F/A-18, but also in the F-35.

After just three reported physiological events for the fifth-generation fighter during its first four years flying in the Air Force, there have been at least three events in the F-35 every year since, according to the DOD audit.

As COVID-19 Cases Mount, Pentagon Limits Who Can Come to Work

Sept. 7, 2021 | By Tobias Naegele

The Pentagon is imposing new limits on how many people may come to work as the numbers of COVID-19 infections continue to rise in the National Capital Region. Beginning Sept. 9, Pentagon offices will be limited to 40 percent of capacity as the Pentagon institutes Health Protection Condition “Bravo+.”

The new limits on capacity at the world’s largest office building come at a time when most military leaders had imagined things would be returning to normal. But the spread of the delta variant of the disease forced officials to ratchet up protections to “HPCon” Bravo on Aug. 2, and five weeks later, to do so again.

“We continue to see a steady increase in coronavirus disease … cases and positive test results in the National Capital Region,” wrote Michael B. Donley, the director of administration and management at the Pentagon, a role sometimes dubbed “mayor of the Pentagon.” “Data suggests the COVID-19 Delta variant may be more transmissible than the original strain of the virus,” he added.

Donley said the number of cases in the D.C. region had reached the Bravo+ threshold of 16-30 average new cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.

Under the new guidance, commanders and supervisors are directed to support maximum telework opportunities to eligible employees, and masks must be worn indoors at all times except when alone in an office, for identification purposes, or when necessary to accommodate a disability. In addition, the workforce will be subject to random COVID-19 entrance screening, and all visitors will be screened. Pentagon dining facilities are open but for takeout service only.

The move follows new vaccination deadlines for Air Force and Space Force members announced over the Labor Day weekend. Active-duty Airmen and Guardians have until Nov. 2 to be fully vaccinated. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve members have until Dec. 2. Members can get any COVID-19 vaccination they choose, but only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Because the protocol requires three weeks between shots to be fully vaccinated, time is short for members who have not yet received their first dose.

Noteworthy among the limits imposed by the Pentagon is the shuttering of its outdoor 9/11 Memorial, which is closed to the public except for pre-approved activities just as the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Valerie Graw

Sept. 7, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Valerie Graw, a cyber operations controller with the 88th Communications Squadron Cyber Operations Center.

Graw led nine personnel and steered cyber operations for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, during the coronavirus pandemic. Her team resolved 5,800 network outages and enabled the increase in Air Force virtual private network users from 60,000 to 428,000, which resulted in her selection as Air Force Materiel Command’s 2020 cyber systems Airman of the Year.

Additionally, as the installation’s sole maintenance tracking system administrator, she created and managed accounts for 400 users and eight Air National Guard units. Her actions protected $6 million in information technology assets and shielded the Department of Defense’s second-most-attacked network.

Graw also earned her Community College of the Air Force degree in Information Systems Management and graduated from Airman Leadership School in the top 10 percent of her class, garnering distinguished graduate and the academic achievement award.

Staff Sgt. Valerie Graw, one of 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021. Air Force photo.

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

Cutting-Edge Digital Solutions for USAF ICBM Modernization

Sept. 7, 2021

The United States Air Force’s transition from the Minuteman III ICBM to the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent will be one of the most important weapon system deployments ever.

The U.S. Air Force debuted the Minuteman I Missile in 1962, the Minuteman II in 1965, and the Minuteman III—with a planned a 10-year life span—in 1970. A half-century later, 400 Minuteman IIIs remain on alert.

“Minuteman III was a 10-year weapon system that was asked to last 60 years,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony W. Genatempo, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and program executive officer for strategic systems, during an AFA conference in June. But now the transition to a next-generation missile is beginning—and awareness that there’s more to be modernized than the missile alone is growing clearer.

As the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) is developed and fielded, the Air Force must also update its missile launch facilities and support infrastructure, launch control centers, squadron and wing support infrastructure, and command and control systems, as well as policies, processes, procedures, security, the supply chain, and even the workforce. All must adapt to the coming changes, even as the existing systems must remain ready and continuously on alert, ready to deploy on very short notice.

“The Air Force operational tempo is to effectively replace one missile per week for nine years without sacrificing sortie alert status,” notes Ryan McKeon, director of strategy and defense at global management consultant Guidehouse. “That’s an incredibly complex endeavor, arguably one of the most complex and important weapon system rollouts and deployments ever planned.”

Keeping that rollout on track while keeping existing missiles ready and on alert is what makes the endeavor so challenging for the combat crews, maintainers, command authorities, and program office.

“It takes a wide variety of expert services, across the industrial base, to support this mission,” McKeon says. “From digital engineering, model-based systems engineering, acquisition, program management, financial management, cybersecurity and industrial coordination. The Air Force needs a strong, collaborative partner to help drive that transition. They’ve set a very high bar: There’s no room for failure, because this truly is a no-fail mission.”

Keeping the Minuteman IIIs operational is already a growing challenge. Parts are increasingly hard to source, and long-term, experienced professional staff are retiring.

To manage the effort, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center split the ICBM Systems Directorate in 2020. It now has two directorates to manage ICBMs at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, one for Minuteman III and the other for GBSD. To sustain the former and successfully develop and deploy the latter, the Air Force is seeking a single industry partner that can provide support through the transition, filling in the gaps and ensuring a successful way forward. Under the Integration Support Contract 2.0, the Weapons Center will strike a long-term partnership worth some $900 million to ensure Minuteman III operations continue unabated until the last missile stands down, all while deploying GBSD replacements on a relentless schedule from about 2029 to 2038.

“The new contract is completely different from the past support,” McKeon says. “What the government needs from the ISC 2.0 provider is a collaborative partner who understands the importance of that mission risk and has a depth of knowledge in all of the broad domains needed to keep this very large, very complex weapon system transition on schedule.”

Guidehouse, as a consultancy with decades of experience supporting large customers and bringing best-of-breed solutions to complex challenges, is uniquely situated to lead such an effort—consulting is its forte, and that’s ultimately what a trusted partner does.

“A program of this magnitude requires a broad, diverse and complex set of skills,” McKeon said. “So we went out and found the experts in industry.” A leading aerospace manufacturer is on board to ensure “knowledge parity” with GBSD builder Northrop Grumman; the leading digital engineering and digital twin company with experience in nuclear recapitalization; and a leading provider to the Air Force of program management and acquisition support. “We went out and found the expert in industry for every single one of those areas, and we also have a portfolio of critical small businesses that we’ve worked with before.”

To support long-term recruiting and retention requirements, Guidehouse reached out to academia, forging partnerships with several universities to support “upskilling” for current workforce members who will have to transition to new systems and technologies, but also to develop the workforce through recruiting by accessing students and those schools’ alumni networks.”

Charles Beard, Guidehouse’s Chief Operating Officer, began his career as an Air Force Space & Missile Operations Officer. “A credible nuclear strike capability during this transition to GBSD may be more important today than when I worked behind that blast door,” he said. Even years ago, he recalls being “amazed when I was first introduced to the weapon system at Vandenberg Air Force Base and became aware of the underlying technology. The designs were 50 years old and borrowed from other weapon systems of that era. The systems we were operating were built in the 1960s and modernized in the ’70s with a service life extension program in the 80s. This program isn’t a ‘cutover’ to GBSD—it’s a re-platforming of the mission to a 21st century missile, ground support, and command and control environment to support the warfighter’s ability to conduct this mission on behalf of the national command authorities. This program is about being able to maintain readiness of an aging weapon system and supporting the Global Strike community to make the transition to GBSD while maintaining readiness of the current platform, and to relieve some of the stress on combat crews and maintainers that stand alert on this mission every day.”

Beard said Guidehouse approached this program initially thinking it would take a secondary role but the more the consulting firm and its industry partners studied the unique needs of the Air Force, the more they realized they were better suited to deliver on the mission by leading. “The team that we’ve assembled is replete with former operators and maintainers, people who know this weapon system and understand the reasons why it needs to retire. It includes maintainers, manufacturers and developers of subsystems and components. That means we know what happens beneath the launcher lid and behind the blast door, we can translate the failure analyses into operational readiness and advise the Air Force on optional paths forward balancing the retirement of Minuteman and onboarding of GBSD.”

The Air Force split its directorate, Beard said, to help each group focus on their mission. The contractor support will be part of what bridges the parallel efforts. “They’ve got one team that’s trying to build a new weapon system and get it through the milestones, and another that’s got to support and maintain the existing system, and it’s all taking place in a geopolitical context that hasn’t been seen for three decades,” Beard said. “So our role, as a consultant, is to help orchestrate that … to bring some of those new technologies and capabilities to those teams so they can focus on the blue suit roles they need to fulfill. We need to augment them, be their partners and provide the capabilities and tools to help them be successful.”

As a strategic partner and advisor, Beard sees the role of the ISC 2.0 contractor as offering a critical third perspective in discussions with the GBSD prime contractor. “We’ll provide an independent, objective, unbiased opinion that’s not wedded to a production schedule,” he said. With the contract structured to support ongoing operations as well as the transition, he explained, “we can really look at this through a strategic lens with an operational perspective.”

A twist to ISC 2.0 is its focused requirements for digital engineer know-how. That’s not surprising given that GBSD will be a 21st century weapon system conceived, modeled, and tested in a digital era. But the concept here is to also apply digital engineering to the existing system, Beard said. “In the case of a new start, like GBSD, digital engineering enables lots of variants and virtual prototyping, so you can make decisions through computational analysis,” he said. New digital models of the legacy Minuteman III have been created, he noted, “and that’s a great first step.” But Guidehouse sees potential to combine those models with other data, and to “apply some artificial intelligence to do prognostic health monitoring of the system … and use it to inform not only how we sustain that system for the next 10 years, but also how we can inform and prioritize solutions for the GBSD deployment.”

This is the critical advantage, Beard said, of a single contractor for both programs. Neither exists in isolation. Both must be successful to ensure U.S. security.

“We built a team of people who understand the mission, who understand there is no failure option here,” Beard said. “We understand the broad geopolitical context and how that is translated down to the crews who are working in very difficult circumstances. Our place is to help de-stress that, to allow them to see where they’re heading and to get there without delay, without extra cost, without stress.”

Vaccines Required for Active-duty Air Force, Space Force by Nov. 2

Sept. 5, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

Active-duty Airmen and Guardians have until Nov. 2 to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have until Dec. 2.

Personnel will be considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of a two-dose vaccine, according to a Department of the Air Force release, or two weeks after the first dose of a single-dose vaccine.

Because two-dose vaccines are usually given three weeks apart, that means those who have never received a dose at all may have to squeeze in the five-week process over the next eight weeks.

Exemptions may apply on medical or religious grounds. A forthcoming separation date won’t factor in, according to the release: “No exemptions from the vaccine will be approved solely because Airmen and Guardians have an approved retirement or separation date,” according to the release.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III mandated vaccination a day after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received full Food and Drug Administration approval, directing the services to set “ambitious timelines.”

The guidance approved by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Sept. 3 is “taking an aggressive approach” to the “highly transmissible Delta variant” to protect the whole force, including everyone’s families and the local communities, said undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones in the release. “As members of the nation’s Armed Forces, our Airmen and Guardians must be able to respond to situations around the globe—being fully vaccinated will help us safely meet the readiness requirements that our national security depends on.”

The full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine precipitated the mandate, but troops may also fulfill the requirement by voluntarily receiving another vaccine that has the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization, “including Moderna, Janssen, and AstraZeneca, from both military and civilian providers,” according to the guidance.

As of Aug. 30, 65 percent of Active-duty Department of the Air Force personnel, including both Air Force and Space Force, were fully vaccinated. Another 6.2 percent were partially vaccinated, according to the most recent statistics published by the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs. Adding in Guard and Reserve troops brought the percentages down overall—to 60.7 percent fully vaccinated and 5.2 percent partially vaccinated. Out of the 39,071 recorded cases among the DAF’s military personnel, 16 resulted in hospitalization, with two deaths.

Limitations on activities authorized for unvaccinated personnel are already underway. Kendall has authorized only vaccinated Airmen, Guardians, and Department of the Air Force civilians to attend AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 20-22, for example. Unvaccinated personnel will be limited to virtual attendance, Kendall determined.

New legislation in the House of Representatives would ban dishonorable discharges for troops who refuse to comply with the vaccine mandate.