Tag Archives: Air Force

SpaceX launches first U.S. national security space mission

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – A SpaceX rocket carrying a U.S. military navigation satellite blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on Sunday, marking the space transportation company’s first national security space mission for the United States.

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying a roughly $500 million GPS satellite built by Lockheed Martin Corp lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:51 a.m. local time (1351 GMT). Four previous scheduled launches in the last week, including one on Saturday, were canceled due to weather and technical issues.

The successful launch is a significant victory for billionaire Elon Musk’s privately held rocket company, which has spent years trying to break into the lucrative market for military space launches dominated by Lockheed and Boeing Co.

SpaceX sued the U.S. Air Force in 2014 over the military’s award of a multibillion-dollar, non-compete contract for 36 rocket launches to United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed. It dropped the lawsuit in 2015 after the Air Force agreed to open up competition.

The next year, SpaceX won an $83 million Air Force contract to launch the GPS III satellite, which will have a lifespan of 15 years.

The satellite is the first to launch out of 32 in production by Lockheed under contracts worth a combined $12.6 billion for the Air Force GPS III program, according to Lockheed spokesman Chip Eschenfelder.

The launch was originally scheduled for 2014 but has been hobbled by production delays, the Air Force said.

The next GPS III satellite is due to launch in mid-2019, Eschenfelder said, while subsequent satellites undergo testing in the company’s Colorado processing facility.

(Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson and Gina Cherelus; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Daniel Wallis)

Trump orders creation of U.S. force to dominate space

FILE PHOTO: The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. aboard, is photographed from the Command and Service Modules in lunar orbit in this July 1969 file photo. Courtesy NASA/Handout via REUTERS

By Makini Brice and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he was ordering the establishment of a sixth branch of the military to clear the way for American dominance of space.

“It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space,” Trump said before a meeting of his National Space Council.

“We are going to have the Air Force and we’re going to have the ‘Space Force.’ Separate but equal. It is going to be something. So important,” he said later.

The United States, however, is a member of the Outer Space Treaty, which bars the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in space and only allows for the use of the moon and other celestial bodies for peaceful purposes.

Trump also signed a directive on the management of traffic and debris in space.

The announcements were his administration’s latest moves to scale up U.S. space exploration. The United States wants to send robotic explorers to the moon as soon as next year as a preparatory step towards sending astronauts back there for the first time since 1972, a NASA official said on Monday.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning a series of lunar missions beginning next year aimed at developing the capacity for a return to the moon, said Cheryl Warner, a spokeswoman for NASA’s Human Exploration Directorate.

NASA will work with private companies, which have not yet been chosen, on the missions, Warner said in a phone interview.

In December, Trump signed a directive that he said would enable astronauts to return to the moon and eventually lead a mission to Mars. He ordered the government last month to review regulations on commercial space flights.

Americans first landed on the moon in 1969, reaching a goal set by former President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and capping a decade-long space race between Washington and Moscow.

Since then, U.S. efforts to explore beyond the Earth’s orbit have largely focused on remote spacecraft that do not have human crew members, though American presidents have repeatedly raised the idea of sending human explorers back to the moon or further.

President George W. Bush in 2004 said humans would return to the moon by 2020. His successor, President Barack Obama, said in 2016 the United States would send humans to Mars by the 2030s.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone and Paul Simao)

Israel hints it could hit Iran’s ‘air force’ in Syria

FILE PHOTO - An Israeli soldier walks near a military post close to the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israel February 10, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel released details on Tuesday about what it described as an Iranian “air force” deployed in neighboring Syria, including civilian planes suspected of transferring arms, a signal that these could be attacked should tensions with Tehran escalate.

Iran, along with Damascus and its big-power backer Russia, blamed Israel for an April 9 air strike on a Syrian air base, T-4, that killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) members. Iranian officials have promised unspecified reprisals.

Israeli media ran satellite images and a map of five Syrian air bases allegedly used to field Iranian drones or cargo aircraft, as well as the names of three senior IRGC officers suspected of commanding related projects, such as missile units.

The information came from the Israeli military, according to a wide range of television and radio stations and news websites. Israel’s military spokesman declined to comment.

However, an Israeli security official seemed to acknowledge the leak was sanctioned, telling Reuters that it provided details about “the IRGC air force (which) the Israeli defense establishment sees as the entity that will try to attack Israel, based on Iranian threats to respond to the strike on T-4.”

The official, who requested anonymity, would not elaborate.

Israel’s Army Radio reported that, given tensions with Iran over Syria, the Israeli air force canceled plans to send F-15 fighter jets to take part in the U.S.-hosted exercise Red Flag, which begins on April 30.

“EXPOSED”

Roni Daniel, military editor for Israeli TV station Mako, said the disclosure was a signal to Iran that its deployments in Syria “are totally exposed to us, and if you take action against us to avenge (the T-4 strike) these targets will be very severely harmed”.

According to Daniel, Israel was bracing for a possible Iranian missile salvo or armed drone assault from Syria.

There was no immediate response from the IRGC or Syria.

The Iranian death toll in T-4 was unusually high. “It was the first time we attacked live Iranian targets – both facilities and people,” the New York Times on Sunday quoted an Israeli military source as saying.

Iran, Israel’s arch-foe, has cast its military personnel in Syria as reinforcements helping President Bashar al-Assad battle a seven-year-old insurgency. The Iranians have also described their cargo flights to Syria as carrying humanitarian aid only.

An Israeli-Iranian showdown over Syria has loomed since Feb. 10, when Israel said an armed drone launched from T-4 penetrated its air space. Israel blew up the drone and carried out a raid on Syrian air defenses in which one of its F-16 jets was downed.

“Israel is headed for escalation,” Yaacov Amidror, former national security adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM. “There could be a very big belligerent incident with Iran and Hezbollah.”

While not claiming responsibility for the T-4 strike, Israel has restated a policy of preventing Iran setting up a Syrian garrison. Scores of previous such raids went unanswered but Israel worries that changing conditions may now embolden Iran.

Russia, which long turned a blind eye to Israeli actions in Syria while serving as a brake on retaliation by Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla allies, is now at loggerheads with Western powers over accusations, denied by Syria’s government, that it has used chemical weaponry in fighting.

(Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London; writing by Dan Williams; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Israeli air force gives Tel Aviv a scare as Syria tensions flare

FILE PHOTO: An Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jet releases flares during an aerial demonstration at a graduation ceremony for Israeli air force pilots at the Hatzerim air base in southern Israel December 29, 2016. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israeli police emergency lines lit up on Thursday after warplanes roared over the Tel Aviv coast, dropping anti-missile flares and performing aerobatics at a time of tension along the border with Syria.

It was just a rehearsal – practice flights are held every year – for the Israeli Air Force’s annual Independence Day national flypast on April 19, but no prior announcement was made.

“Many calls were received from worried citizens about noise from a squadron of planes in the Tel Aviv area,” police said in statement. “We would like to make clear they were training for the Independence Day aerial display. There’s no emergency.”

Under clear skies over Tel Aviv’s Mediterranean beach, two F-15 jets maneuvered through a series of sharp turns, climbs and dives in what appeared to be a mock dogfight as the sound of their engines crackled through the streets.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Russia of imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas attack, and Israel held top-level security consultations over concerns it might be a target for Syrian or Iranian retaliation.

Trump said on Thursday that a possible strike against Syria “could be very soon or not so soon at all”.

Despite the tensions, the commander of Israel’s armed forces, Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot, flew to Poland on Thursday morning to take part in Holocaust Remembrance Day events.

The Israeli military tweeted a video of him boarding a plane but did not immediately say when he was scheduled to return. A source in the delegation told Reuters, however, that Eizenkot would be back by nightfall.

In Israel, sirens blared for two minutes during the morning to mark the remembrance day, bringing traffic to a standstill as motorists and pedestrians stood to honor the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

Civil defence authorities issued the customary notice beforehand that in the event of a real emergency, the sirens would sound in a rising and falling, rather than a constant, tone.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by David Stamp)

U.S. bombers challenge China in South China Sea flyover

FILE PHOTO - A B-1B Lancer from the U.S. Air Force 28th Air Expeditionary Wing heads out on a combat mission in support of strikes on Afghanistan in this file picture released December 7, 2001. Cedric H.Rudisill/USAF/Handout via REUTERS

TOKYO/BEIJING (Reuters) – Two U.S bombers have flown over the disputed South China Sea, the U.S. Air Force said on Friday, asserting the right to treat the region as international territory despite China’s claim to virtually all of the waterway.

The flight by the B-1B Lancer bombers from Guam on Thursday came as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping prepare for a meeting on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Germany.

The two leaders were expected to discuss what China can do to rein in North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapon programs.

North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday that some experts believe has the range to reach Alaska and Hawaii and perhaps the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

While Trump has been seeking China’s help to press North Korea, the U.S. military has, nevertheless, been asserting its “freedom of navigation” rights in the South China Sea, at the risk of angering China.

Asked about the flight by the two U.S. bombers, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said there was no problem with freedom of navigation or overflight for the East and South China Seas.

“But China resolutely opposes individual countries using the banner of freedom of navigation and overflight to flaunt military force and harm China’s sovereignty and security,” he said.

China’s Defence Ministry, in a short statement sent to Reuters, said China always maintained its vigilance and “effectively monitors relevant countries’ military activities next to China”.

“The Chinese military will resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” it added, without elaborating.

The United States has criticized China’s build-up of military facilities on South China Sea reefs and tiny islands it has constructed, concerned that they could be used to extend its strategic reach.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims in the sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year.

The two Lancers that made the flight had earlier trained with Japanese jet fighters in the neighboring East China Sea, the first time the two forces had conducted joint night-time drills.

Two U.S. Lancers flew from Guam over the South China Sea last month, while a U.S. warship carried out a maneuvering drill within 12 nautical miles of one of China’s artificial islands in the waterway in late May.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly in TOKYO; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Unmanned U.S. Air Force space plane lands after secret, two-year mission

The U.S. Airforce's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission 4 after landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.,

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – The U.S. military’s experimental X-37B space plane landed on Sunday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing a classified mission that lasted nearly two years, the Air Force said.

The unmanned X-37B, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, touched down at 7:47 a.m. EDT (1147 GMT) on a runway formerly used for landings of the now-mothballed space shuttles, the Air Force said in an email.

The Boeing-built space plane blasted off in May 2015 from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The X-37B, one of two in the Air Force fleet, conducted unspecified experiments for more than 700 days while in orbit. It was the fourth and lengthiest mission so far for the secretive program, managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

The orbiters “perform risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies,” the Air Force has said without providing details. The cost of the program is also classified.

Personnel in self-contained atmospheric protective ensemble suits conduct initial checks on the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 1.

Personnel in self-contained atmospheric protective ensemble suits conduct initial checks on the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 1. REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Michael Stonecypher

The Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit group promoting the peaceful exploration of space, says the secrecy surrounding the X-37B suggests the presence of intelligence-related hardware being tested or evaluated aboard the craft.

The vehicles are 29 feet (9 meters) long and have a wingspan of 15 feet, making them about one quarter of the size of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s now-retired space shuttles.

The X-37B, also known as Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, first flew in April 2010 and returned after eight months. A second mission launched in March 2011 and lasted 15 months, while a third took flight in December 2012 and returned after 22 months.

Sunday’s landing was the X-37B’s first in Florida. The three previous landings took place at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Air Force relocated the program in 2014, taking over two of NASA’s former shuttle-processing hangars.

The Air Force intends to launch the fifth X-37B mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the Kennedy Space Center, later this year.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

White House names retired Air Force general as first cyber security chief

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Thursday named a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general as the government’s first federal cyber security chief, a position announced eight months ago that is intended to improve defenses against hackers.

Gregory Touhill’s job will be to protect government networks and critical infrastructure from cyber threats as federal chief information security officer, according to a statement.

The administration of President Barack Obama has made bolstering federal cyber security a top priority in his last year in office. The issue has gained more attention because of high-profile breaches in recent years of government and private sector computers.

U.S. intelligence officials suspect Russia was responsible for breaches of Democratic political organizations and state election systems to exert influence on the Nov. 8 presidential election. Russia has dismissed the allegations as absurd.

Obama announced the new position in February alongside a budget proposal to Congress asking for $19 billion for cyber security across the U.S. government. The job is a political appointment, meaning Obama’s successor can choose to replace Touhill after being sworn in next January.

Touhill is currently a deputy assistant secretary for cyber security and communications at the Department of Homeland Security.

He will begin his new role later this month, a source familiar with the matter said. Touhill’s responsibilities will include creating and implementing policy for best security practices across federal agencies and conducting periodic audits to test for weaknesses, according to the announcement.

Grant Schneider, who is the director of cyber security policy at the White House’s National Security Council, will be acting deputy to Touhill, according to the announcement.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

U.S. Air Force veteran convicted of attempting to join Islamic State

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tairod Pugh, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was found guilty on Wednesday of attempting to join Islamic State, according to his lawyer.

The conviction marks the first case in more than 75 Islamic State-related prosecutions brought since 2014 by the U.S. Department of Justice to reach a jury verdict.

After a week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court, a jury found Pugh, 48, guilty of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, and obstruction for destroying four portable electronic storage devices after his detention in Turkey.

“Of course, we are disappointed with the verdict as we put in great effort to defend the case, but the jury appeared to be fair and genuinely concerned about reaching the correct verdict as they saw it,” Pugh’s lawyer Eric Creizman said.

Pugh will be sentenced in September, Creizman said.

Prosecutors said Pugh immersed himself in violent Islamic State propaganda for months before buying a one-way flight from his home in Egypt to Turkey, where he hoped to cross the Syrian border into territory controlled by the extremist group.

He was detained by Turkish authorities at an Istanbul airport and eventually flown to the United States to face terrorism charges.

Pugh’s defense lawyers argued that his only offense was to express “repugnant” views about Islamic State in Facebook posts and to watch dozens of the group’s slickly produced recruitment videos. They said he traveled to Turkey to find work, not to become a jihadist.

But prosecutors pointed to a letter he drafted to his Egyptian wife, found on his laptop, in which he vowed to fight for Islam and declared he had two options: “Victory or Martyr.” The letter was written days before he flew to Turkey, though it was unclear whether he ever sent it.

He also took with him to Istanbul a black facemask, a map depicting Islamic State’s strongholds in Syria and a chart of the border crossings between Turkey and Syria.

Only one other Islamic State-related U.S. prosecution has reached trial. In Phoenix, Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem is on trial for plotting with others to attack a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas. Two of his alleged associates were killed in a shootout with police at the event.

Pugh served as an avionics specialist in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990 and later worked as an Army contractor in Iraq from 2009 to 2010, prosecutors said.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Ed Tobin and Andrew Hay)

U.S. in talks to base long-range bombers near South China Sea

SYDNEY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is in talks to base long-range bombers in Australia, U.S. defense officials said, within striking distance of the disputed South China Sea, a move that could inflame tensions with China.

The deployments could include B-1 bombers and an expansion of B-52 bomber missions, said Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific, stressing that discussions were continuing and no decisions had yet been reached.

“These bomber rotations provide opportunities for our Airmen to advance and strengthen our regional alliances and provide (Pacific Air Forces) and U.S. Pacific Command leaders with a credible global strike and deterrence capability to help maintain peace and security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region,” said Pickart.

The United States does not currently fly B-1 bombers from Australia, but does conduct periodic B-52 missions.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declined to comment on the discussions.

“I can just assure you that everything we do in this area is very carefully determined to ensure that our respective military forces work together as closely as possible in our mutual national interests,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Should an agreement be reached, it would position further U.S. military aircraft close to the disputed South China Sea and risk angering China, analysts said.

“China will see it in the context of the (Australian Defence) White Paper which they have already mentioned that they expressed a certain degree of dissatisfaction,” said Euan Graham, director of the International Security Program at Sydney-based think tank, the Lowy Institute.

China’s Foreign Ministry expressed concern.

“Cooperation among relevant counties should protect regional peace and stability, and not target the interests of third parties,” spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.

Australia last month committed to increase defense spending by nearly $22 billion, seeking to protect its strategic and trade interests in the Asia-Pacific as the United States and its allies grapple with China’s rising power.

The potential stationing of B-1 bombers in Australia was raised by U.S. officials last year, but Australia’s then Defence Minister said they had misspoken.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims.

Tensions between the U.S. and China have been inflamed in recent weeks.

The U.S. Navy has carried out freedom of navigation exercises, sailing and flying near disputed islands to underscore its rights to operate in the seas.

Those patrols, and reports that China is deploying advanced missiles, fighters and radar equipment on islands there, have led Washington and Beijing to trade accusations of militarizing the region.

General Lori Robinson, talking to reporters in Canberra, said the U.S. would continue to conduct exercises through the disputed waterway, while calling on Australia to conduct similar freedom of navigation exercises.

“We would encourage anybody in the region and around the world to fly and sail in international air space in accordance with international rules and norms” the Australian Broadcasting Corporation quoted Robinson as saying.

(Reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Additional reporting by Jessica Macy Yu in Beijing; Editing by Bernard Orr and Lincoln Feast)

U.S. military leaders say women should have to register for draft

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. armed forces leaders said on Tuesday that women should be required to register for the military draft, along with men, as the military moves toward integrating them fully into combat positions.

Congress should begin to look at legislation requiring women to register for the Selective Service, they told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on women in combat.

“I think that all eligible and qualified men and women should register for the draft,” said General Robert Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps.

The U.S. military is currently an all-volunteer force, but young men are still required to register in case the draft is reactivated.

The military leaders at the hearing said it would take years for women to be fully integrated into combat units, although they generally voiced strong support for the plan to skeptical committee members.

“Full integration will likely take several years,” Patrick Murphy, acting secretary of the Army, said.

Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, estimated that full integration of women would take “no less than one to three years of deliberate effort.”

President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, Ash Carter, announced in December that the military would let women serve in all combat roles, a historic announcement greeted with intense skepticism by many Republican members of Congress.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, the committee’s chairman, objected to the announcement at the time. He said it would have “a consequential impact” on U.S. forces and their war-fighting capabilities.

At Tuesday’s hearing, McCain again expressed doubts, saying he worried there had not been enough planning before the announcement. “I am concerned that the department has gone about things backwards,” McCain said.

Some Republican critics of the plan have said they fear it would lead to the imposition of quotas mandating a specific number of women in some units, such as Marines in positions that might require hand-to-hand combat.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus rejected that suggestion as “unacceptable,” adding, “It would endanger not only the safety of Marines, but also the safety of our nation.”

Many Democrats have expressed strong support.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the panel, said physical abilities alone do not determine whether a military unit is effective.

“Fighting and winning wars, as I’m sure our panelists know well, involves much more than that,” Reed said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis)