Official B-21 Rendering

X-37B Photographed in Orbit, has Surprising Ability

Skywatcher and satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands recently caught a rare glimpse of the U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane.

Vandebergh said he'd been hunting for the robotic spacecraft for months and finally managed to track it down in May. But it took a bit longer to get photos of the vehicle.

"When I tried to observe it again [in] mid-June, it didn't meet the predicted time and path," Vandebergh explained. "It turned out to have maneuvered to another orbit. Thanks to the amateur satellite observers' network, it was rapidly found in orbit again, and I was able to take some images on June 30 and July 2."

The X-37B's recent passes were almost overhead, Vandebergh added.

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Apparently, the X-37B can change its orbit in a surprising way.

US House of Rep Armed Services Committee Voted to Create US Space Corps Within the USAF

The House Armed Services Committee voted to establish a United States Space Corps within the Department of the Air Force. The vote came in the overnight hours Thursday. The committee began its markup of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday morning. After a nearly 21-hour session, the committee passed the NDAA 33-24.

The Space Corps amendment was offered by the HASC Strategic Forces subcommittee leaders Chairman Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Mike Rogers (R-Ala.). The proposal is similar to what the committee proposed in the 2018 NDAA, including the name of the new space service, U.S. Space Corps, rather than the Trump administration’s preferred name, U.S. Space Force.

Like the Marine Corps, the Space Corps would be led by a four-star Commandant who would be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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Is this the RQ-180?

Is this the RQ-180?

Black Projects are something of the exciting, wild west edge of aircraft development.  Their secrecy makes them wildly appealing, that which you are not supposed to know!  Their development happens far, far faster than in the open, so-called White Projects like the F-22 or F-35.  Turn around can be as fast as two to three years from the go button to an operational platform in the Black World, while the White World took almost two decades to get the F-35 into its initially operating capability status.  This makes the Black Projects a thing of excitement and mystery.  And something aviation watchers really, really want to find.

Most famously of the Black Projects is the F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational stealth aircraft.  More recently, the RQ-170 is another case of a black project that launched itself into the light in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  For a short time, it was called the Beast of Kandahar.  The remaining tail of the so-called stealth hawk used in the raid to kill Osama bin laden gave away its existence when special forces attempted to destroy it, but were only mostly successful.

On December 9th, 2013, Aviation Week ran an article on the existence of a much bigger UAV, one they dubbed the RQ-180.  It is supposed to be a flying wing or potentially a cranked kite aircraft.  The aircraft is supposed to be a high altitude recon UAV.  The manufacturer was supposed Northrop Grumman.  Once this aircraft was claimed to existed, the aviation watchers had themselves a new white whale.

One that may have been found.

In July 2018, I was approached by a some individuals I have been speaking with for a couple years now who have been camping outside of airbases in the Mojave snapping pictures.  Their hope and dream is to find and photograph a black aircraft that exist but are kept in secret from the world during the development and use.  If you have ever seen the movie Broken Arrow, the comment about guys in lawn chairs is pretty damned accurate.

The individuals I have been speaking with had established their bonafides before, discussing their finds and pictures for a couple years now, providing real, recent white world pictures and information that would come out about other systems days ahead of the publication curve.  I've been discreet about it.  One does not burn sources.

They think they found something, potentially the RQ-180.  Then "Zaphod58" provided the images.

The images were taken at night and the aircraft pictured looks a lot like the B-2.  The enthusiasts spent a good amount of time, weeks now, trying to prove to themselves it was not a B-2.  Some of their preliminary results are interesting.  They have convinced themselves it is not a B-2.  

They did NOT convince the USAF officially at least.  The photography enthusiasts reached out to the USAF to make sure they wouldn't get in trouble for publishing their photos: the time, date and information of where photos were taken was provided to the USAF.  The USAF responded and sent a review team. They USAF officially came back stating the aircraft is a B-2.  There was one B-2 at Edwards at the time.  However, the analysis the team did suggests the pictured aircraft is not a B-2.  However, it strongly suggests why the aircraft if, this is indeed an RQ-180, hasn't been spotted despite its size: it really, really looks like a B-2.  There are differences, but ones that would not be plainly visible to non AvGeeks.

The differences noted are.

1.  The nose gear is wrong for the B-2.

2.  The central fuselage is narrower than on the B-2.

3.  The intakes appear to be further apart from the center fuselage than on the B-2.

4.  The wingspan appears to be different than the B-2, 132 ft vs 172 ft.

5.  There appears to be a central, singular center line bomb bay.  The B-2 has two slightly off center symmetrically placed bomb bays.

6.  The engines were powered up at one point, but some of the secondary inlets were not open as would it would be on a B-2 on the ground.

Amongst others.

One of the striking bits that someone ought to take note of is bomb bay.  The AvWeek article indicated the RQ-180 was a high altitude recon aircraft.  A bomb bay would most likely mean the RQ-180 is a dual use, recon and strike platform.  Some have wondered why there seems to be a lack of any sort of evidence for a black strike UAV.  This might be why.  It was sitting under the noses of people thinking they were looking for a recon aircraft when it was really both.

Other noticeable differences as per above are the landing gear. On the B-2, the landing gear is attached to the strut. The people who photographed and analyzed the aircraft in the photos think the land gear does not appear to do so here. The central fuselage is narrower, but the entire aircraft appears to be 4 ½ feet lower than the B-2.

When presented with something like this, you need to ask how to either prove it beyond a doubt or look for flaws.  I thought I might see a way for both.

I did ask to see if they could run some imagery analysis, even rudimentary ones, for something specific.  The RQ-180 is supposed to be a flying wing or a cranked kite.  If it was a cranked kite, then it could be possible to detect the join where the wing meets the body of the aircraft.  This would be hard to refute proof the aircraft photographed was an RQ-180. Unfortunately, the Mojave even at night was too hot and distorted the imagery too much to be able to detect whether there was a join.

I also flagged what might be another bomb bay door and asked them to be sure.  They did some more analysis and came back convinced it is actually the power coming in via cables.

Neither the definitively pro RQ-180 was passed (can't tell if this is a cranked kite or not) nor was the refutation either: the possible bomb bay door, indicating two bays consistent with a B-2, seems to have been a bust as well.  Neither was strong either way.  So, the above, while interesting isn't quite a slam dunk.

With the response from the USAF being so 'meh,' the team then sent off the pictures for imagery analysis.  Unfortunately, that path too turned out inconclusive.  Could the differences in the pictures actually be just distortions caused by the July heat of Edwards AFB?  While possible, it doesn't seem to be the case.

That said, this looks like it is interesting and could very well be the RQ-180.  It makes sense why the RQ-180 has been able to be cloaked in secrecy for another 5 years after AvWeek made their claim on its existence: it looks a lot like a B-2.  For someone not an AvGeek or pro, this flying at night would be really, really hard to distinguish from a B-2, especially if it is 'just' a flying wing.  The inlets, for that matter, appear to have been recycled from the B-2 program.  If they work, reuse makes perfect sense.  Other parts are probably as well.  

Ironically, the USAF's response might actually be the strongest supporting evidence.  If the RQ-180 was not on the ground that night, they'd have not bothered sending anyone to check out what was photos were taken?  When they reviewed the photos, they might have just felt it was equivocal enough they need not bother.

The other possibility is that this was an early form of the B-21 Raider.  There are rumors a demonstrator was built by each team.  This then might be the winning demo.  That's the stance David Cenciotti at The Aviationist is taking.  He feels it is less likely to be a RQ-180 than a B-21 prototype.  From what I have heard in rumors about the B-21.  The inlets appear wrong, for one.  The photographed aircraft has more in common with the B-2, but, as noted, is has significant differences.

Is this the RQ-180?  Very strong maybe.  I think so, but I am not religiously convinced.  This was an amazing find and some great pix. We await newer, clearer pictures and/or the USAF coming clean to know for sure.

Two American Airmen Seem to Have Been Attacked with Lasers

Two U.S. airmen were slightly injured by laser beams directed at their aircraft from the Chinese military base in Djibouti, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

"This activity poses a true threat to our airmen," said Dana White, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson. "It's a serious matter, so we're taking it very seriously."

"You'd have to ask the Chinese about their motivations" for targeting U.S. aircraft in Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa state where American and Chinese military bases are about four miles apart, she said.

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SpaceX Will Seek US Government Money for the BFR/BFS Rocket

The president of SpaceX said she expects the company would receive additional funding from the U.S. government to support the development of its large reusable launch system.

Speaking at the NewSpace Europe conference here Nov. 16, Gwynne Shotwell noted that SpaceX is already receiving funding from the U.S. Air Force supporting the development of Raptor, the engine that will power the vehicle known as BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket, and the reusable spacecraft known as BFS or Big Falcon Spaceship.

“I do anticipate that there is residual capability of that system that the government will be interested in,” she said. “I do see that we would likely get some funding from the government for BFR and BFS.” She added, though, that work on the vehicles was not contingent on receiving government funding.

One avenue for doing so would be through the U.S. Air Force’s Launch Services Agreement competition, which plans to provide several awards to companies to help fund development of prototype launch systems, though initial test flights, to end U.S. reliance on the Atlas 5 and its Russian-manufactured RD-180 engine. Proposals for the competition are due to the Air Force Nov. 20.

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Northrop T-X Prototype Spotted in Mojave

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USAF to Make Recommendation on A-10 Replacement in Fall

The US Air Force is deliberating if and how to replace its close-air support workhorse, the A-10, and may have a better picture of their path forward later this year, the service’s top civilian said Wednesday.

During an interview with Defense News, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said she and other top service leaders — such as Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein — will be briefed on various options for replacing or augmenting the A-10 Warthog this fall, as the service begins to build its next five-year budget plan.

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The USAF Air Combat Chief is NOT thrilled with the idea of an aircraft meant for permissive airspace only.

US Air Force Presses Ahead With Nuclear Weapon Systems

The Air Force moved ahead with two critical nuclear modernization programs on Friday, releasing requests for proposals for its intercontinental ballistic missile replacement and a nuclear cruise missile.

The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), which replaces the 1960s-era Minutemen III ICBM, and the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon, which will supersede the AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missile, are seen by the service as pivotal for maintaining the nuclear triad and an effective strategic deterrent.

However, both programs have come under fire by lawmakers and analysts who assert that the the weapons are too costly, duplicative or even that they could add to global instability.

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The replacement nuclear bomb has received the go ahead to start production engineering.

US Air Force Interested in two Aircraft for Replacing the A-10

The US Air Force is considering two new procurements to boost their close air support mission, including an off-the-shelf option for permissive environments and a cheap, clean sheet design aircraft that would replace the Fairchild Dornier A-10.

In a recent briefing, air force officials laid out their plan for the light-attack OA-X and the A-X2, a short-term replacement for the A-10. The service is looking at an initial order of about 20 aircraft for the OA-X mission a early as next year, with serious procurement launching in Fiscal 2018, Dan Goure, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, tells FlightGlobal. To meet that rapid need, the service is examining two fully developed aircraft, Beechcraft’s AT-6 and Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano, and are planning a “fly off” for this fall.

The air force has excluded Textron AirLand’s Scorpion, a dual light attack fighter and trainer aircraft still in its development phase, as an option for OA-X.

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The funding is not certain and the USAF Sec is wary.  She's not been briefed.

New Nuclear Cruise Missiles are Supported by Former Defense Officials

The U.S. and Russia can easily tell the difference between a conventionally armed cruise missile en route to a target and a nuclear armed one, former senior defense officials told a Senate panel on Wednesday.

John Hamre, deputy secretary of defense during President Bill Clinton’s second term, and Franklin Miller, a special assistant on defense policy and arms control to President George W. Bush and a member of the National Security Council, told a Senate subcommittee that using a cruise missile for a conventional strike would not spur an adversary to go nuclear.

“The launch of a conventional weapon and the launch of a nuclear weapon occur in context,” Miller said. “So the launch of [U.S.] cruise missiles against Iraq or indeed the launch of Russian cruise missile against Syria did not raise any questions of nuclear use.”

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USAF Considering Expanding T-X Role to A-10 Replacement, Aggressor

The US Air Force is considering expanding the scope of its T-X trainer requirement to include the role of an aggressor aircraft or potentially as a replacement for its Fairchild Dornier A-10 Warthogs.

Although the service is yet to issue a formal request for proposals on T-X, USAF officials have expressed interest in using the aircraft to fulfill the close air support mission of the A-10 replacement, also known as AT-X, said Dan Darnell, vice-president of strategic initiatives at Raytheon, speaking at the show on Tuesday.

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US AFSOC Committed to Testing, Deploying Lasers on AC-130J Gunships

Air Force Special Operations Command has accepted that it will trade some offensive capability for cost savings and fielding time on its future laser-equipped Lockheed Martin AC-130J Ghostrider if the laser is mounted on the side of the aircraft.

Although a laser turret mounted on the bottom of the gunship will provide more offensive and defensive capability in the long run, the belly-mounted turret would cost more and take much longer to develop, an Air Force spokesman told FlightGlobal this week. The side configuration would require fewer modifications to the existing aircraft, he added.

A recent Air Force Scientific Advisory Board study examined the laser’s placement in a turret on the aircraft’s belly versus mounting the laser on the side in place of the 30-millimeter gun. The AFSAB found the side-mount position would reduce the area the laser could prosecute since the aircraft itself would block its effective hemisphere. Half of that hemisphere points upward, a direction that’s largely useless against surface-to-air missiles, AFSAB chair Werner Dahm said in a June 24 email to FlightGlobal. The belly-mounted turret would have full range to target SAMs.

“To keep demo costs down they [AFSOC] are considering putting the turret in the existing side hole, where the gun currently sits,” Dahm said. “This will still allow us to learn a lot about how to employ a laser in AFSOC missions, but it is not nearly as useful as having the turret on the bottom in the demo.”

But AFSOC chief Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold, who is pursuing an aggressive schedule for the laser gunship and plans to field a testbed by 2020, would make the capability tradeoff in order to field the aircraft faster.

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Arguing Over the A-10's Role of Close air Support

Last year, at the height of the F-35/A-10 close air support (CAS) debate, Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Mark A. Welsh III stated that the Air Force averaged 20,000 CAS sorties a year in Afghanistan. But was it really CAS? Within the fighter/attack community, the narrative of seasoned aviators who’ve “been there, done that” tout that airpower did not really perform CAS at all. Instead, they argue it featured glimmers of CAS sprinkled on what was actually ground-directed dynamic targeting. Not only are they right, but the distinction is even more important, as it biases and bounds the air support dialogue of the A-10, its potential successors (A-X2 and/or OA-X), and even the F-35. Air support in Afghanistan worked, but it is a mistake to think it was all CAS.

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The (eventual) retirement of the A-10 Warthog has been a challenging issue for the Air Force. The original plan to replace the A-10 entirely with F-35 has fallen by the wayside, buttressed by the reality that the extended combat deployments undergone by the fighter/attack force were never envisioned when the F-35 plan was hatched. Twenty-five years of continuous conflict, most of it irregular in nature, has highlighted the utility of a relatively slow, heavily armed multirole aircraft. Our operations over the past decades have been largely very similar to the kind of counterinsurgency demands that led to the requirement for a new attack aircraft (then called A-X) in 1966.

As the Air Force has moved toward the position that a replacement attack aircraft (A-X2 or OA-X) is necessary, one persistent issue continues to arise: What kind of aircraft might be able to do “high threat” CAS? In a presumed environment where the air defenses are too lethal for the A-10 to survive, wouldn’t the F-35 be a better alternative? The question itself is highlights a persistent trend in Air Force concept development — a mythical set of conditions that is highly unlikely, fundamentally not credible, based on a misunderstanding of the air threat, or, in this case, all three. There is no reasonable case to be made for an aircraft that can survive in a high-threat CAS environment, because there is no credible case to be made that any aircraft can survive in such an environment. It isn’t that there isn’t a need to apply airpower in such an environment. Rather, it is that having a need doesn’t equate with delivering a capability. The idea that the Air Force can deliver effective CAS in a highly contested environment is a myth, one that the Air Force would be well served to get rid of.

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USAF Space Command Readying for War in Space

Air Force Space Command has created a blueprint for fighting and winning wars in space, known by the innocuous title of the Space Enterprise Vision.

The existence of the plan is not classified but many of its working elements are.

The SEV is “an all-encompassing look at all the things we need to do to create more resilience in our space forces, enhance them, and respond to threats,” Air Force Space Command spokesman Col. John Dorrian says.

It includes current weapon systems and those planned for the near future, as well as changes to training and organization. It isn’t a direct result of the government-wide Space Portfolio Review, according to Dorrian, but it is “related.” A large part of the reason for that distinction, I think, is because the SPR dealt in great detail with US spy satellites, which Space Command does not control.

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USAF Wants UCAV to Replace its A-10, but Can't Afford it

The Air Force wants to replace the aging but beloved A-10 “Warthog” with a robotic “flying coke machine” that loiters over the battlefield, dispensing firepower at the touch of a button, the outgoing Chief of Staff said this morning. (More on that concept below). Gen. Mark Welsh also wants a “sixth-generation fighter” that can defeat the most advanced air defenses. But he can’t afford either.

As the service downsizes, both dollars and skilled people are in too short supply, Welsh said. The force has its hands full fielding the new “fifth generation” F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and keeping all its aging fourth-generation (and older) planes in the air.

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The USAF Does *NOT* Want to Replace the Minuteman ICBMs with Road Mobile Nukes

The US Air Force (USAF) is pushing ahead with its Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) programme to replace the ageing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet, and a top service official said a road-mobile option is not currently being considered despite some insinuations otherwise.

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USAF's Long Range Stand-Off Crusie Missile is a GO

A US Air Force (USAF) programme to develop and field a new nuclear-capable Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) cruise missile has undergone a Pentagon review and appears poised to proceed to development soon.

Pentagon acquisition executive Frank Kendall "is looking at what the acquisition strategy is, and is having a discussion right now - is there a cheaper way to do it?" Lieutenant General Jack Weinstein, USAF deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, told a handful of reporters during a recent meeting. He said the remaining discussions are meant to ensure the acquisition strategy is as cost-effective as possible and "there was no question during the last meeting that we're going to do an LRSO".

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The US Should be Ready to Fight in Space

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said the U.S. Air Force needs to be ready to engage in space combat.

“Other nations are preparing to use space as a battlefield, a big battlefield, and we’d better be ready to fight there,” Welsh said last week in Arlington, Virginia. “We don’t want to fight there but we better be ready for it because other people clearly are posturing themselves to be able to do that.”

Welsh, who will be retiring on July 1 after just over 40 years of service, made his comments Thursday morning in Arlington, Virginia, at an Air Force Association breakfast.

His comment about space as a battlefield came in the context of what the U.S. needs to be able to do to win future fights.

One of the absolutes in modern warfare, he said, is firepower – “more of it, more quickly and more precisely.” And the Air Force needs to have that not only in the air domain but in cyber and space domains.

Welsh credited Air Force Space Command with taking the lead “in at least thinking about the space domain as a warfighting domain.”

But Space Command has been thinking about space warfare for quite some time.

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What is the X-37B Space Plane Been Doing in Orbit for Nearly a Year?

For years now, the program to develop the X-37B spacecraft has been shrouded in secrecy. Originally intended as part of a NASA project to develop a reusable unmanned spacecraft, this Boeing-designed spaceplane was taken over by the Department of Defense in 2004. And while it has been successfully tested on multiple occasions, there remain some unanswered questions as to its intended purpose and what has been taking place during these flights.

This, predictably, has lead to all kinds of rumors and speculation, with some suggesting that it could be a spy plane while others think that it is intended to deliver space-based weapons. It’s latest mission – which was dubbed OTV-4 (Orbital Test Vehicle-4) – has been especially clandestine. And after nearly a year in orbit, it remains unclear what the X37B has been doing up there all this time.

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