The Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) is the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command’s (AFSOC) top acquisition priority, as the command seeks to move beyond its current intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) framework that uses 50 General Atomics‘ MQ-9A Reapers, Air Force Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, the head of AFSOC, said on Sept. 12.
Under congressional reprogramming, AFSOC plans to conduct three A2E demonstrations in the next year, Bauernfeind told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association’s air, space and cyber conference at National Harbor, Md. The first demonstration is to use automated software to allow one operator to control three MQ-9s simultaneously, while the second is to explore how the Group 5 class MQ-9s can air launch “multiple” Group 1 and Group 2 drones to “the DepSecDef’s [Kathleen Hicks’] point on the Replicators,” and the third is to develop the sensor grid to include allied forces.
The Air Force model of one pilot, one cockpit, one data link to one airplane has existed since the 1990s, AFSOC has said, and the command wants to be part of the Air Force move beyond that.
“Our ISR infrastructure, specifically our MQ-9 architecture, has really been the same since the 1990s,” Bauernfeind said. “As we look at different studies, we hear of studies of it takes over 150 personnel or airmen to maintain a single MQ-9 orbit. That doesn’t seem too unmanned to me, as you talk about the operators, the intel, the communications, the security folks, the maintainers. It’s very intensive on them.”
The number of the AFSOC’s 50 MQ-9As available for ISR at a given moment is “far short” of the need, he said.
Bauernfeind said that AFSOC is “leaning in hard on automation” to include automatic takeoff/landing and satellite launch and recovery.
“We have made the decision we are going to get out of the takeoff and landing business and let the automation take that on for us,” he said. “The SATCOM launch and recovery paired with the automatic takeoff and landing is vastly increasing our combat capability. As an example we employed automatic takeoff and landing with SATCOM launch and recovery in one of our combat theaters, and it has extended on-station time by over 35 percent. To the combatant commander who has increasing ISR requirements, when you say that singular line you can now increase by 35 percent, you’re getting a lot more holiday cards.”
A2E, which is to rely on artificial intelligence (AI), is to allow AFSOC to operate beyond the horizon by using a family of drones.
Shield AI‘s V-BAT drones are part of A2E. “It’s really about who are gonna be those Group 1 and Group 2 UASes that we’re launching off the [larger drone] capital ships that can then provide that follow-on network,” Bauernfeind said. “We’re working with numerous UAV vendors to say, ‘Ok. How do we establish this?’ And that will be part of these demonstrations. How far can we push this network out–5 miles, 50, 500 miles? I don’t know. We have to work the physics and the tactics, techniques and procedures to find out how far we can push these networks out that will then give us that grid that we need to support the joint force.”
In March, AFSOC became the first domestic customer for the MQ-9B SkyGuardian–a follow-on to the renowned MQ-9A Reaper (Defense Daily, March 6).
Under the contract, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) said that it will provide three MQ-9Bs to develop A2E.
“A2E will increase the number of platforms AFSOC operators can manage by an order of magnitude, and through those systems, cover more terrain and prosecute more target across the spectrum of operating environments,” AFSOC said in March. “As part of A2E, AFSOC expects to take possession of its first MQ-9B, funded by congressional add, by the end of the calendar year. The MQ-9Bs currently slated for AFSOC will not be used operationally. They will be used to rapidly pathfind A2E concepts and technologies, planned to include sUAS and autonomy integration, beginning in calendar year 2024.”
GA-ASI said that the United Kingdom and Belgium are to buy the MQ-9B, while Japan already has them.