AFA Warfare Symposium 2026: The Year of Readiness Takes Center Stage in Denver

The Air & Space Forces Association’s 2026 War­fare Sym­po­sium descend­ed on the Gay­lord Rock­ies Resort and Con­ven­tion Cen­ter this week with more than 9,000 atten­dees, over 150 exhibitor booths, and 40-plus pan­els. For three days, the Depart­ment of the Air Force’s senior lead­er­ship laid out what they are call­ing the “Year of Readi­ness,” a frame­work that touch­es every­thing from sixth-gen­er­a­tion fight­er time­lines to the future of space-based sen­sor fusion. Here is a com­pre­hen­sive run­down of the major themes and announce­ments that came out of Denver.

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SECAF Meink Sets the Tone: Acquisition Transformation and B‑21 Acceleration

Sec­re­tary of the Air Force Troy E. Meink opened the sym­po­sium on Feb­ru­ary 23 with a keynote address focused on acqui­si­tion reform and mod­ern­iza­tion. The head­line announce­ment was a $4.5 bil­lion pro­duc­tion deal with Northrop Grum­man designed to accel­er­ate B‑21 Raider bomber pro­duc­tion by 25 per­cent. The deal, fund­ed through the con­gres­sion­al rec­on­cil­i­a­tion pack­age known as the “One Big Beau­ti­ful Bill Act,” con­firms that the B‑21 remains on sched­ule to arrive at its first oper­a­tional base, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dako­ta, in 2027.

Meink also announced plans to estab­lish approx­i­mate­ly 27 “port­fo­lio acqui­si­tion exec­u­tives” across the Depart­ment of the Air Force, grant­i­ng them far greater author­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty over the full life­cy­cle of the sys­tems they acquire. The goal is to short­en time­lines and empow­er deci­sion-mak­ers who are clos­est to the pro­grams, rather than run­ning every deci­sion through lay­ers of bureau­cra­cy. The mes­sage from Meink was clear: the tra­di­tion­al acqui­si­tion pipeline can­not keep pace with the threat envi­ron­ment, and the Depart­ment is restruc­tur­ing to move faster.

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Ringleader: The Sensor Fusion Exercise That Could Change Everything

Per­haps the most con­se­quen­tial announce­ment of the sym­po­sium was the unveil­ing of “Ring­leader,” a new series of exer­cis­es designed to test the Depart­ment of the Air Force’s abil­i­ty to fuse sen­sor data from across the entire Defense Depart­ment and trans­late it into action­able tar­get­ing infor­ma­tion at speed and scale.

Air Force Sec­re­tary Meink intro­duced the con­cept dur­ing his keynote, and Chief of Space Oper­a­tions Gen. Chance Saltz­man elab­o­rat­ed in a sub­se­quent round­table. Saltz­man described the effort as fun­da­men­tal­ly about answer­ing the ques­tion of how bat­tle man­age­ment works when you are col­lect­ing data from a glob­al con­stel­la­tion of sen­sors in vol­umes nev­er before seen. The Air Force and Space Force will col­lab­o­rate on mod­el­ing and sim­u­la­tion exer­cis­es to stress-test the DAF Bat­tle Net­work, the infra­struc­ture designed to con­nect sen­sors, pro­cess­ing sys­tems, and shooters.

The Ring­leader exer­cis­es will lever­age the Dis­trib­uted Com­mon Ground Sys­tem (DCGS), pro­lif­er­at­ed satel­lite archi­tec­tures, and emerg­ing mov­ing tar­get indi­ca­tion capa­bil­i­ties from both ground and air­borne plat­forms. While Meink did not explic­it­ly name the Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense ini­tia­tive, the con­nec­tion is unmis­tak­able. Space-based track­ing, satel­lite sen­sor net­works, and rapid tar­get­ing data trans­mis­sion are foun­da­tion­al to both Ring­leader and the broad­er mis­sile defense archi­tec­ture the Pen­ta­gon is building.

Avi­a­tion Week report­ed that the find­ings from Ring­leader could prove direct­ly valu­able to the Gold­en Dome effort, with Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Pentagon’s lead acqui­si­tion offi­cer for the pro­gram, pri­or­i­tiz­ing inte­grat­ed com­mand and con­trol as a near-term deliv­er­able. Exper­i­men­ta­tion is expect­ed to begin lat­er this year, fund­ed in part by the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion bill and pri­or appropriations.

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F‑47 On Track, CCAs Enter Weapons Testing

On the mod­ern­iza­tion front, Gen. Dale White con­firmed that Boeing’s F‑47 sixth-gen­er­a­tion fight­er remains on track to fly with­in the next two years. The ambi­tious 2028 first-flight time­line, set just three years after the con­tract was award­ed in March 2025, con­tin­ues to hold. White, who serves in the new­ly cre­at­ed role of Direct Report­ing Port­fo­lio Man­ag­er for Crit­i­cal Major Weapon Sys­tems, told reporters the pro­gram is per­form­ing excep­tion­al­ly well.

The Col­lab­o­ra­tive Com­bat Air­craft (CCA) pro­gram also marked sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones. The Air Force announced it has entered weapons test­ing on CCAs and plans to put them in the hands of oper­a­tional Air­men for exper­i­men­ta­tion this sum­mer. Anduril Indus­tries revealed at the sym­po­sium that its YFQ-44A CCA flew with two dif­fer­ent mis­sion soft­ware sys­tems dur­ing the same flight on Feb­ru­ary 24, a notable demon­stra­tion of soft­ware flex­i­bil­i­ty. Gen­er­al Atom­ics also made news by pub­licly nam­ing its CCA: the Dark Merlin.

On the propul­sion side, the Air Force award­ed ini­tial con­cep­tu­al design con­tracts for CCA Incre­ment 2 engines to four man­u­fac­tur­ers, with Kratos/GE Aero­space secur­ing a $12.4 mil­lion con­tract for their GEK1500 engine and Hon­ey­well receiv­ing a con­tract for its SkyShot 1600 small-thrust engine. These engines, pro­duc­ing thrust in the 800 to 2,800-pound range, are designed to pow­er the next gen­er­a­tion of CCAs and low-cost attri­ta­ble munitions.

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Space Force: Superiority, Kill Chains, and the Vulcan Problem

The Space Force had a promi­nent pres­ence through­out the sym­po­sium. Lt. Gen. Dou­glas Schiess, Deputy Chief of Space Oper­a­tions for Oper­a­tions, empha­sized that space supe­ri­or­i­ty is now a non-nego­tiable oper­a­tional require­ment. The Space Force is mov­ing beyond lega­cy force gen­er­a­tion mod­els, imple­ment­ing advanced train­ing cycles designed to pre­pare Guardians for con­test­ed envi­ron­ments rather than rou­tine operations.

The ser­vice is active­ly bol­ster­ing its con­tri­bu­tions to long-range kill chains, the tar­get­ing archi­tec­tures that indus­try and gov­ern­ment agree the Unit­ed States will need in any large-scale con­flict. This includes devel­op­ment of space-based ground and air­borne mov­ing tar­get indi­ca­tion sen­sors, a pro­gram that was pre­vi­ous­ly clas­si­fied under a bud­get line called “Long Range Kill Chain” and now car­ries approx­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion in fund­ing for fis­cal year 2026.

How­ev­er, the sym­po­sium also sur­faced a sig­nif­i­cant set­back. The Space Force announced it is paus­ing all mil­i­tary launch­es on Unit­ed Launch Alliance’s Vul­can rock­et fol­low­ing an anom­aly dur­ing the USSF-87 mis­sion on Feb­ru­ary 12. The mis­sion suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered two GSSAP neigh­bor­hood watch satel­lites to orbit, but one of the sol­id rock­et boost­ers emit­ted an unusu­al debris plume that is now under inves­ti­ga­tion. Col. Eric Zary­bin­sky, the pro­gram exec­u­tive offi­cer for assured access to space, told reporters that no nation­al secu­ri­ty mis­sions will fly on Vul­can until the anom­aly is resolved, a process that could take months. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly prob­lem­at­ic because the Vul­can was sched­uled to car­ry a GPS III satel­lite in March and a next-gen­er­a­tion mis­sile warn­ing satel­lite in May. Break­ing Defense report­ed that ULA is work­ing with Northrop Grum­man, the boost­er sup­pli­er, to estab­lish an inves­ti­ga­tion team, and that this is the sec­ond time Vul­can has expe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar boost­er anom­aly. The Space Force may trans­fer some mis­sions to SpaceX’s Fal­con 9 to avoid cas­cad­ing delays across the 2026 launch manifest.

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Warfighting Readiness: The Panel That Set the Baseline

A Feb­ru­ary 24 pan­el titled “Rein­forc­ing Warfight­ing and Per­son­nel Readi­ness” brought togeth­er Under Sec­re­tary of the Air Force Matt Lohmeier, Lt. Gen. Schiess, and Lt. Gen. Case Cun­ning­ham, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Oper­a­tions. The panel’s cen­tral mes­sage was that every­thing the Depart­ment does must be viewed through the lens of warfight­ing readi­ness and lethality.

Lohmeier empha­sized that readi­ness and mod­ern­iza­tion should not com­pete for resources. He announced that the Depart­ment is restor­ing crit­i­cal readi­ness fund­ing for sus­tain­ment, main­te­nance, and fly­ing-hour pro­grams. Fis­cal year 2027, he said, will be the year of restor­ing foun­da­tion­al readi­ness accounts. He also stressed that acqui­si­tion reform and clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­try are essen­tial to deliv­er­ing capa­bil­i­ties faster, not­ing the Depart­ment is incen­tiviz­ing com­pe­ti­tion in ways it has not done before.

Cun­ning­ham iden­ti­fied three guid­ing pri­or­i­ties shap­ing oper­a­tional readi­ness deci­sions: defend­ing the home­land, deter­ring Chi­na, and main­tain­ing glob­al respon­sive­ness. He rein­forced that readi­ness begins with peo­ple and lead­er­ship at the unit lev­el, and that com­man­ders need to be empow­ered with resources and clear expectations.

Lead­ers from Buck­ley Space Force Base also under­scored the oper­a­tional impor­tance of inte­grat­ing air and space pow­er dur­ing a sep­a­rate pan­el, as the char­ac­ter of war­fare con­tin­ues to evolve.  On a per­son­al note, Buck­ley Space Force Base will always be a spe­cial place for me since it was my first duty station.

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E‑7 Wedgetail: Still Unresolved

One of the more polit­i­cal­ly charged top­ics at the sym­po­sium was the future of the E‑7 Wed­getail air­borne ear­ly warn­ing air­craft. The Air Force signed a $2.5 bil­lion deal with Boe­ing in 2024 for two pro­to­types, plan­ning for a fleet of 26 to replace the aging E‑3 AWACS. But the Pentagon’s fis­cal year 2026 bud­get request attempt­ed to can­cel the pro­gram entire­ly, cit­ing ris­ing costs and a belief that satel­lites could assume the tar­get­ing mission.

Con­gress inter­vened aggres­sive­ly, block­ing the can­cel­la­tion and appro­pri­at­ing $1.1 bil­lion for E‑7 pro­to­types in the 2026 defense bills. At the sym­po­sium, Sec­re­tary Meink pledged to exe­cute the con­gres­sion­al­ly direct­ed fund­ing and deliv­er a plan for tran­si­tion­ing to engi­neer­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing devel­op­ment air­craft, but he point­ed­ly not­ed that deliv­er­ing a plan does not mean com­mit­ting to put it in the bud­get. The mes­sage was clear: the E‑7’s long-term future remains an open ques­tion between the Depart­ment and Congress.

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Additional Developments Worth Watching

The sym­po­sium pro­duced a steady stream of addi­tion­al announce­ments. U.S. Space Com­mand con­firmed it will offer sig­nif­i­cant relo­ca­tion bonus­es to civil­ians mov­ing to the command’s new head­quar­ters in Huntsville, Alaba­ma. Com­mer­cial satel­lite imagery analy­sis pre­sent­ed at the event revealed that Chi­na con­duct­ed a major five-week air exer­cise in late 2025 involv­ing approx­i­mate­ly 200 air­craft across eight bases and 1,200 nau­ti­cal miles. Lock­heed Mar­tin announced plans to demon­strate on-orbit mis­sile defense capa­bil­i­ties over the next three years. The Air Force Reserve and Air Nation­al Guard dis­closed ongo­ing efforts to equal­ize ben­e­fits and sta­tus for reserve mem­bers serv­ing along­side active-duty forces.

Mis­sion Delta 9, the Space Force’s orbital war­fare unit, received a live satel­lite for train­ing, enabling Guardians to prac­tice offen­sive and defen­sive maneu­vers in actu­al space oper­a­tions rather than sim­u­la­tions alone. And Ursa Major unveiled a new hyper­son­ic mis­sile designed for large-scale pro­duc­tion with dual-use poten­tial as both a weapon and a tar­get vehicle.

Lt. Gen. Gre­go­ry Gagnon received the Gen. Jerome F. O’Malley Space Vision­ary Award from AFA, and Chief Mas­ter Sergeant of the Air Force David R. Wolfe deliv­ered clos­ing lead­er­ship remarks using the U.S. men’s hock­ey team’s Olympic gold medal over­time vic­to­ry as a back­drop for his mes­sage about team­work and per­se­ver­ance under pressure.

The Mitchell Institute’s Lt. Gen. David Dep­tu­la (Ret.) pro­vid­ed analy­sis break­ing down why DAF lead­ers are call­ing this the “Year of Readi­ness” and why the Air Force faces a force struc­ture, age, and fund­ing crisis.

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The Bottom Line

The 2026 AFA War­fare Sym­po­sium was defined by urgency. From the B‑21 pro­duc­tion accel­er­a­tion to the Ring­leader sen­sor fusion exer­cis­es, from the F‑47 and CCA mile­stones to the Vul­can launch pause, the mes­sage from Depart­ment of the Air Force lead­er­ship was con­sis­tent: the win­dow for mod­ern­iza­tion and readi­ness invest­ment is nar­row, the threats are real, and the pace of exe­cu­tion must increase. Sec­re­tary Meink called these “once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties to accel­er­ate our progress.” The next twelve months will deter­mine whether the Depart­ment can match that ambi­tion with results.

 

February 27, 2026

Posted in Space.