Last week leaders from across the Cyber, Signal and Intelligence communities participated in the EW Warfighters Forum, at NSA-Georgia, located at Ft Eisenhower.
The event focused on changing Army culture and finding novel solutions to technologically evolve our warfighters. Discussions focused on emerging threats, current and future capabilities and fielding requirements for the Army of 2030.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth awarded Col. Frank Rubio the Army Astronaut Device during a pinning ceremony at the Pentagon today.
Rubio spent 371 days aboard the International Space Station from 2022-2023 breaking the record for the longest spaceflight for an American astronaut.
“Col. Rubio, you are a stellar example of the Army’s core values and what it means to lead a life of service,” Wormuth said. “You inspired audiences around the world as you orbited the Earth for 371 days, and now, back on Earth, you continue to inspire others as you share your experience with the public.”
The Army awards the astronaut device to personnel who complete at least one operational mission in space. With the award, Rubio joins Col. Anne McClain and Col. Andrew Morgan as the only active-duty Soldiers authorized to wear the device.
Army astronauts choose which specialty badge the device is placed on for their uniform. Rubio will wear his on his senior aviator badge.
A former UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, Rubio flew more than 600 combat flight hours during several overseas deployments. He then transitioned to the medical field as a family physician and flight surgeon before being selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017.
He served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 68 and 69, supporting numerous research projects including particle vibration experiments, biological testing and 3D tissue printing while also performing three spacewalks outside of the station.
“What an incredible honor it is to represent the Army,” Rubio said. “And honestly, the biggest honor for me out of this badge is the fact that to me it’s the ultimate team badge. You absolutely cannot get to space on your own. It takes a team of thousands to get you to space.”
Rubio launched into space Sept. 21, 2022 aboard a Russin Soyuz spacecraft alongside cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin. The crew’s initial six-month mission was pushed into a year-long stay following a space debris strike that caused their return capsule to lose all its coolant.
The trio logged more than 157 million miles during the mission and circled the globe nearly 6,000 times until finally returning to earth Sept. 27, 2023.
Back home, Rubio plans to continue working with NASA as they further their mission and he hopes to eventually return to space one day.
“There [are] few things where you can say ‘my job represents humanity,’ and that is a powerful thing to be a part of,” he said. “It’s just such an incredible experience to be able to inspire the next generation, contribute to science, technologies that we’re developing that [are] going to help humanity in ways that we probably can’t imagine right now.”
The Army has worked closely with NASA to advance space exploration since the beginning of the U.S. space program, and that partnership has produced 19 Army astronauts.
“These uniquely skilled and extremely qualified people represent the very best and most talented officers and warrant officers from within the Army,” Wormuth said. “As we humans explore further into space, and NASA returns to the moon and sets its sights beyond to Mars, the Army will continue to play an important role in the exploration of space long into the future. And we will build on the research that Col. Rubio did on the International Space Station for 371 record-setting days.”
Story by Christopher Hurd, Army News Service
Photos by SFC Nicole Mejia and Deonte Rowell
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AURORA, Colo. (AFNS) —
To best optimize itself for Great Power Competition, the Air Force plans to, among other things, bring back warrant officers within the cyber and information technology professions, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin during a presentation Feb. 12 at the Air Force Association’s 2024 Warfare Symposium.
That change was among two dozen announced by senior Air Force officials. Each change is specifically designed to prepare the service for strategic power challenges from competitors like China and Russia.
“Both China and Russia are actively developing and fielding more advanced capabilities designed to defeat U.S. power projection,” said Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. “The need for modernization against capable, well-resourced strategic adversaries never stops. But modernization isn’t the only thing we need to do to be competitive. Today we are announcing 24 key decisions we have made to improve both the readiness of the current force and our ability to stay competitive over time, to continuously generate enduring competitiveness.”
Those changes, Kendall said, focus on people, readiness, power projection and capability development and are implemented within the Department of the Air Force, the Air Force and the Space Force.
Spotlight: Science and Tech
Within the Air Force, Allvin explained, the service is looking to better attract and develop cutting-edge talent, specifically within information technology and cyber fields. The service plans to expand technical tracks for officers and create technical tracks for enlisted, and to also reintroduce the rank of warrant officer within the information technology and cyber fields as a way to maintain technical leadership with those skills.
“We know there are people who want to serve. They just want to code for their country. They would like to be network attack people and do that business,” Allvin said. “But everybody needs to see themselves into the future beyond just this assignment or the next. So, developing that warrant officer track for this narrow career field, we anticipate will drive that talent in and help us to keep that talent. There’s something specific about this career field, why it’s attractive and it’s a nice match for a warrant officer program. The pace of change of the cyber world, the coding world, the software world — it is so rapidly advancing, we need those airmen to be on the cutting edge and stay on the cutting edge.”
The Air Force had warrant officers when it was created in 1947, after being split off from the U.S. Army. But the service stopped appointing warrant officers in the late 1950s.
Allvin also discussed changes in the way the Air Force will conduct exercises. The plan is for the service to implement large-scale exercises and mission-focused training which encompasses multiple operations plans to demonstrate and rehearse for complex, large-scale military operations, he said.
“We’re going to reorient ourselves to more large-scale exercises rather than a smaller scale that have been a product of the last two to three decades,” Allvin said. “Large-scale means multiple weapons systems, multiple capabilities, coming together in a combat-simulated environment and showing our ability to execute the mission that’s going to be expected of us in the high-end conflict.”
Exercises in recent years, he said, have already been getting bigger. But those enhancements have been driven at the local level, not from the top down. That will change.
“Our Air Force needs to institutionalize this,” he said. “And we’re going to do that.”
He said the Air Force is looking at fiscal year 2025 for its first large-scale, multi-combatant command exercise targeted at Indo-Pacom.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said a change underway within the Space Force is to enhance readiness by implementing standards that reflect operations under contested conditions rather than those of a benign environment.
“The legacy force that we had, our roots … were built around efficiency, built around a benign environment,” he said. “So, the standards for readiness that we kind of held our forces to was different. It wasn’t built for the domains that we’re facing, a contested domain.”
Now, Saltzman said, the Space Force must rewrite its standards for readiness centered around a contested domain, rather than an uncontested domain.
Spotlight: DoD Space Strategy
That, he said, means in part having the right mix of officers, enlisted personnel and civilians in Space Force units. It also means training must be aimed at more than just procedural competency.
“As soon as you put a red force in the mix, as soon as you put a threat in the mix, it radically changes your training,” he said. “You have to have advanced training, you have to have tactics training, you have to understand how you work together, in-comms, out of comms, with other units, in order to continue to achieve the kinds of effects in a contested domain when an adversary, a capable adversary, is doing everything they can to stop you from being successful.”
Space Force, he said, will build a training infrastructure and a test infrastructure to validate its tactics so operators will know more than just how to operate equipment — but will be successful against an adversary.
Kristyn Jones, who is currently performing the duties of the under secretary of the Air Force, also pointed to changes at Department of the Air Force level. There, she said, among those changes, the department expects to create an Air Force Integrated Capabilities Office to lead capability development and resource prioritization. The office is expected to drive Department of the Air Force modernization investments.
“We’ll be looking at capabilities across our services, not in stovepipes,” she said. “We’re enabling end-to-end creation of effects. This organization will help us to prioritize our investments and will be responsible for working with us to determine the next iteration of operational imperatives.”
By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News
New Devices featuring FLIR Lepton Fill Mobile Device Market Gap and Open New Opportunities with an Intrinsically Safe Wearable
Goleta, Calif., and Barcelona, Spain – Feb. 21, 2024 – Teledyne FLIR, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, is showcasing two new Thermal by FLIR products with collaborators Blackview and RealWear at Mobile World Congress (MWC). The new rugged BL9000 Pro 5G mobile phone from Blackview and the new RealWear Navigator™ Z1 assisted-reality wearable feature the FLIR Lepton® 3.5 thermal micro camera module.
Ruggedized Mobile Handset from Blackview
The new Blackview BL9000 Pro features MyFLIR® Pro, the most advanced user application in the market. The upgraded app empowers BL9000 Pro users with the patented image processing capability, VividIR™, along with advanced features including temperature alerts, isotherms, and MSX® intensity adjustment to view thermal images in greater detail. The BL9000 Pro can also interface with the Teledyne FLIR Mobile SDK for Android OS, allowing for approved third party apps and enterprise software integration.
“This is the only handset on the market with the latest Android 14, FLIR Lepton 3.5, 5G connectivity, and MyFLIR Pro advanced thermal ecosystem offerings, making it the ultimate smartphone device for getting the job done in harsh environments,” said David Xu, founder, general manager, and CEO, Blackview. “We are proud to launch an enhanced, ruggedized handset that provides a masterful blend of practicality and innovation in technology and design.”
Assisted Reality Wearable from RealWear
RealWear’s Navigator Z1 hands-free headset is the first intrinsically safe assisted-reality thermal product built for oil and gas professionals in production environments. The Z1 allows for hands-free communication and two-way data sharing that revolutionizes knowledge sharing while tackling operational inefficiencies and mitigating safety risks. RealWear’s hardware and software, enabled by the power of the FLIR Lepton 3.5, provide streamlined workflows in the most hazardous of environments.
Comprehensive Support for Thermal Advancement
“It is always impressive to see the new ways that our innovative Thermal by FLIR collaborators integrate our camera modules and use our experience to develop cutting-edge, high-value products to industry and consumers,” said Mike Walters, vice president, uncooled thermal imaging camera cores, Teledyne FLIR.
Thermal by FLIR program collaborators benefit from more than four decades of dedicated thermal industry expertise, gaining assistance across every stage of product exploration from development to marketing. For additional information on the Thermal by FLIR program, visit www.flir.com/oem/thermal-by-flir.
To see the new Thermal by FLIR partner innovations at Mobile World Congress, visit the Teledyne FLIR stand in Hall 7, number 7B6, February 26 – February 29, 2024.
Ness Ziona, Israel – February 22, 2024 – Creomagic Ltd., a global leader in Wireless Communication Solutions to showcase CreoHub —an advanced personal radio device that acts as a fortress of connectivity engineered to support secure, immune, and intelligent communication for tactical units engaged in modern warfare and complex security operations. CreoHub unique capabilities address the critical challenges of spectrum scarcity, electronic warfare, and seamless integration of autonomous systems within tactical frameworks. Creomagic will showcase CreoHub at Enforce Tac, Nurnberg, Germany, 26-28 February 2024.
In the rapidly evolving arenas of combat and security, the need for a resilient communication system to counter emerging threats has become increasingly crucial.
CreoHub is a field-proven radio device for modern military operations ensuring uninterrupted, high-throughput wireless coverage for multidomain operations across land, air, and sea. CreoHub advanced radio capabilities establish secure and resilient networks ensuring robust connectivity even in the most contested and challenging environments.
“CreoHub encapsulates our vision for a seamless, secure, and intelligent communication ecosystem, specifically designed to meet the rigorous demands of tactical units,” remarks Alex Shapochnik, Creomagic Co-Founder and CEO. “It represents our relentless
pursuit of innovation, providing tactical teams with a decisive edge in operational areas.”
Equipped with cutting-edge antennas technology, Cognitive-Radio methodologies, and powered by Artificial Intelligence, CreoHub secures a dominant position in the field by ensuring uninterrupted connectivity and high data transfer rates under any condition.
Its advanced waveform technology and adaptive networks are tailored to maintain operational continuity and resilience, proving indispensable for mission success.
Operational feedback from tactical experts underscores CreoHub’s critical role in transforming tactical communication landscapes, presenting a new era of mission efficiency and security.
Vertx is at EnforceTac 2024 in Nuremberg from February 26-28, 2024, to showcase the newly launched Recon Flex and Recon X uniform collection. Make sure to stop by Booth #679 in Hall 7 to check out their latest gear and apparel.
For more information about Vertx and Vertx Pro, please visit their website.
