NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The Air Force Test Center is prepared to keep up with the Pentagon’s calls to buy, develop, test, and field technology quickly—but safety remains the top priority, the center’s commander said.
“We always want to proceed safely forward. The work that we do, as I’ve noted, is, can be dangerous. So we don’t want to take risks that are unnecessary and unsafe. So that’s always something that we’re on the lookout for,” Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, who leads the Air Force Test Center, told reporters during this week’s Air, Space & Cyber conference hosted by the Air and Space Forces Association.
Some context: Massaro’s comments come just three months after eight airmen died during a test flight of Boeing’s B-52 Stratofortress at Edwards Air Force Base in California. They also come nearly a year after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed for sweeping acquisition reform, which includes “being open to buying the 85 percent solution” while achieving the more perfect solution over time. Separately, the Pentagon has slashed staff and reorganized its weapons testing organization, which raised oversight concerns, according to a Government Accountability Office report released earlier this year.
“There’s a lot of capabilities out there today that might not be—from a technology perspective—exactly what it looks like in our minds at the end state. But it’s at least the same, if not better, than what might be out there today,” Massaro said. “So there’s a risk calculus there from an operational and acquisition risk when you do your cost schedule performance and then overlay that on the effectiveness and employability for the combatant and for the operational warfighter.”
The Air Force is currently testing system upgrades for the B-52, one of the service’s oldest aircraft, that could keep it operational through the 2050s.
The center works with program acquisition executives and operators to “understand where those balances are, and design our test programs to accommodate for more rapid” testing and integration, Massaro said.
“A clear example was our rapid integration of Falco, the [Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System], on the F-15E. Our people, processes, and test assets were postured to respond through integrated developmental and operational testing,” he said.
“The Falco was a little bit over a year ago…We had F-15E’s. We had the rockets. We just had never connected them together in that way. So we had one technical risk to really get through, and [it] allowed us to go very quickly. So that’s balancing the risk of the programmatic side when an operational warfighter needs it really quick, and understanding where you can make those trades. And with safety always as a backdrop.”
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Here come the MMAs. The Air Force wants Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMAs, to replace General Atomics’ storied MQ-9 Reaper drone, Troy Meink, the service’s secretary announced earlier this week. It’s a call that Swarm Aero has been waiting for—and building toward for the past four years. On Monday, the company unveiled its autonomous Gamera aircraft, a long-range strike aircraft that boasts seven connection points for payloads like missiles and sensors. The UAS is powered by the company’s Legion autonomy software.
- “We thought there would be a need that ultimately…to carry a very large payload like the LRASM that we see here, a long distance, and do so as cost effectively as possible,” Peter Kalogiannis, Swarm Aero’s CEO, told Defense One. “The $10 million listed in the solicitation, that really enables those volumes. And again, we’ve designed from the very beginning for those volumes, and quite frankly, for that price point, we’re very very competitive against them.
- The company is building “several” prototypes in its Oxnard, California, facility and expects the first flight by the end of 2027.
- “This is something that makes the rest of the force—the bombers, the fighters, the B-21s, the F-47s—it makes them more lethal and more survivable. By being able to take some of the mission sets that they would otherwise potentially have to do, and freeing them up where they can be most effective,” Oliver Palmer, the company’s co-founder, told Defense One.
- And while it’s early, the company is looking forward to what the Air Force has in store and the innovation it could spark.
- “Frankly, we need competition in large aircraft production. There has historically been a monopoly structure of awarding programs that are intended to be around for 20-, 30-plus years,” Palmer said. “There have been a lot of really great reasons to do that, but increasingly we need competition because the cycle of technology competition with adversaries like China and others is changing so fast…and the model has to change. They started that with CCA. It sounds like they’re gonna do that again with MMA. We absolutely welcome this.”
AI integration station. The technology has had a big week in national security, so it’s only natural that the topic surfaced in chatter throughout the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.
- The Space Force’s newly appointed top buyer, Erich Hernandez-Baquero, said the military has to “lean in” to the technology.
- “We cannot afford to lose this race for artificial intelligence,” he said. “The answer is not to shy away from the technology, but to lean into it, understand it, and apply the right guardrails in place. And I think those AI experts have approaches for how to ensure those guardrails are in play, and we need to continue to support development of those guardrails in a way that supports our space missions.”
- The Air Force Test Center is also keen to collaborate with the tech industry, and now has a dedicated senior leader role for AI.
- “We have an artificial intelligence expert with us on staff now at the Air Force Test Center. So we are stepping into that world. We are looking to build and maintain those partnerships with tech in that space,” AFTC’s Massaro said.
- Air Mobility Command wants a more data-link connected fleet, which could allow for some AI use.
- “The ability for air crews to communicate, to coordinate tanker orbits and rendezvous, to pass threat information, to save lives and save aircraft has been everything we expected it to be,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, who leads the command, told reporters.
- The command is “well down the path” of having a quarter of its fleet data-link connected despite missing its original 2025 goal. But the strategy has “evolved.” The service is pursuing MAF NEXUS and “the goal is to have this on all mobility aircraft, whether they’re future builds and it’s incorporated, or it’s an add-on capability to existing aircraft.”
- The system “brings edge compute, the ability to then deploy AI and much more computing horsepower forward on the aircraft, and it does network with the rest of the joint force and the Air Force’s battle management system.”
One last, fun exercise: If you Google “Air Force MMA” you’re definitely going to get UFC-type content.
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