Air Force projects underway at Grand Forks, but not all military announcements are backed by certainty

Dec. 30—GRAND FORKS — Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024. Shortly after it did, Sen. Kevin Cramer issued a statement that said the passage secures "major wins for North Dakota."

"From our Air Force bases to our Guard and reserve components, North Dakota has contributed mightily to our first constitutional responsibility: the common defense of the nation," said Cramer, R-N.D.

Later in the release, he added: "There's some important language here for Grand Forks, recognizing its ascension to a premier reconnaissance wing and ISR and unmanned aerial systems base."

The bill's passage, he noted, "prohibits the retirement of the RQ-4 Global Hawks at Grand Forks before September 30, 2028. The Global Hawk is working harder than ever around the world, and this legislation ensures the Air Force will have a plan to keep them flying and not degrade through attrition."

It's the latest in a series of announcements about Grand Forks Air Force Base, an installation whose future two decades ago seemed in doubt but now — according to a number of sources — appears to be an example of future missions and importance.

Yet not all military announcements are backed by certainty.

For instance, the news agency

Bloomberg recently reported

that the Air Force's "new intercontinental ballistic missile program is at risk of blowing past its initial $96 billion cost estimate by so much that the overruns may trigger a review on whether to terminate the project." According to Bloomberg, the Air Force's Sentinel initiative is intended to replace 1970s-era Minuteman III missiles, specifically to counter an arsenal expansion by China.

The Sentinel project — and any concern that its future is jeopardized — has implications in North Dakota, since Minot Air Force Base is among the U.S. bases chosen to host the initiative.

Sentinel is by no means abandoned, but the news of its cost concerns does spur a question: Are all of the recently announced programs at Grand Forks Air Force Base still on track?

In August 2021,

it was publicly announced

that Grand Forks Air Force Base had been selected to develop and train crews to support the nation's future efforts in ISR, an acronym for "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance." Word came out that year on Aug. 26, with a Grand Forks Herald report at the time noting that the announcement "means Grand Forks Air Force Base will play a central role in the U.S. Air Force's (ISR) efforts" in the future.

The announcement was attended by a number of dignitaries, including Cramer, Sen. John Hoeven, Mayor Brandon Bochenski, UND President Andrew Armacost and Col. Timothy Curry, who at the time was the commander of GFAFB.

"Grand Forks Air Force Base will remain central to the Air Force core ISR mission today and in the future," Curry said.

Said Hoeven: "Grand Forks Air Force Base will be one of the Air Force's premier locations for Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for years to come."

And Cramer said, "What the Air Force is announcing today is really a testament to the leadership in this community, at this base."

Hoeven, at the time, said GFAFB is like the hub of a wheel, with five "spokes," or core businesses, extending from it. At the time, they included:

* Operating unmanned Block 40 Global Hawk aircraft;

* Customs and Border Protection;

* the Northern Plains UAS Test Site;

* the low-earth-orbit satellite program, also known as LEO;

* and the ISR mission.

In an opinion editorial shortly after the announcement, the Herald said

"the future of Grand Forks Air Force Base is bright.

And while nothing in the fickle world of military bases, missions and appropriations is entirely certain, simply proclaiming a bright future at GFAFB shows things have come a long way in the past 10 or 20 years."

Earlier this month, both Cramer and Hoeven, North Dakota's two Republican representatives in the Senate, said they're confident the announced missions will still come to fruition at GFAFB. But it doesn't mean there isn't at least a small measure of uneasiness about the future, Hoeven said.

"As to the LEO and Sky Range, (they are) on track. As to existing ISR, yes, it's in good shape," Hoeven told the Herald. "As to future ISR, that is challenging. I never rest easy. At the end of the day, we have to secure hundreds of millions, and billions for these systems. I never rest easy on that stuff. ... We have to keep working on future ISR missions."

Cramer said he remains confident about the future of ISR, LEO and the other tasks that have been assigned to GFAFB.

"I am confident that it's still coming. And I am confident that there will be a more modern ISR coming to Grand Forks," he said. "We are in budget constraints and have multiple conflicts coming on, so it's getting harder to fund everything. The increments might be smaller and timelines might be changed."

But, he said, "ISR in Grand Forks is not going away, even in this austere time. And possibly, there could be an expansion of it."

Earlier this month, the Air Force confirmed to the Herald that "plans to host a future ISR mission at Grand Forks Air Force Base have not changed."

The Herald specifically asked about the status of

a September 2021 announcement

that the base "has been assigned a future satellite mission," with "GFAFB as a center to monitor and maneuver low-earth-orbit satellites."

The Air Force, through a base spokesperson, responded that "the Space Development Agency is building a state-of-the-art mission operations facility to command and control Tranche 1, the initial warfighting tranche, of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) on Grand Forks AFB through which we will enhance space communication capabilities for warfighters around the globe."

The project is on schedule, according to the Air Force, which noted that GFAFB is home to one of two SDA operations centers for the satellites, which will start launching in late 2024.

And in August 2023,

it was announced that GFAFB will be home to a satellite test and checkout center

in support of the SDA's LEO mission.

According to the Air Force response, that plan also is in the works and on schedule.

"SDA is building a first-of-its-kind within DoD (Department of Defense), Test and Checkout (TC&C) facility on Grand Forks Air Force Base where satellite vendor spacecraft operations engineers will perform Launch and Early Orbit Phase operations on the satellites once the satellite separates from the launch vehicle in space until it is safely positioned in its final orbit," the response said. "The TC&C is designed to support near-continuous launch cycles starting in September 2026."

The SDA is refurbishing an existing building at the base and expects the Test and Checkout Center to be fully operational by 2026, the Air Force said. When completed, the 25,000-square-foot facility will house two large operations floors, command and control operations floors, mission planning space and administrative office space.

The approximately $12.8 million project is on schedule, the Air Force said.

But changes in funding and project significance do, at times, occur. For example, that recent announcement by Bloomberg that noted concerns about the Sentinel program.

Considering the importance of military bases in North Dakota communities, the state's federal delegates "are always working and fighting to get the funding that we feel is important to the country and, obviously, to Grand Forks and Minot Air Force bases," Hoeven said.

He said the host communities need to focus on supporting the installations.

"At the end of the day, the role of the community is a support role," he said, noting that military leaders are paying attention.

That continues in Grand Forks, said Barry Wilfahrt, president and CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce.

"Work to retain the base is ongoing," he said. "That hasn't changed since the day we got the base in the 1950s."

He believes the Air Force appreciates Grand Forks "because we support our airmen and airwomen."

"Probably the most important thing for the community to know is that it does not go unnoticed (by military leaders)," he said. Service members "feel like they are part of the community when they are here. Grand Forks does that exceptionally well."

And while the bases in North Dakota seem more secure in 2023 and beyond than they did just a few years ago, Hoeven believes "we can't take missions for granted, particularly when you are talking about new generations of systems that are being developed, what they're going to look like, when they are going to be funded and where they are going to go."

Hoeven made that comment in an interview with the Herald on Dec. 5. Nine days later, Bloomberg published its report about the cost overruns and the future of the Sentinel program. It did not specifically mention Minot Air Force Base, but the mission and the base — and therefore the community — are linked nonetheless.

In a report last month on the website of the Minot Air Force Base newspaper, under a byline of the Minot Area Economic Development Corp., the EDC's president outlined the importance of the Sentinel mission. It was written after a contingent from Minot and elsewhere in the state visited Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

"Minot will be the third and last Air Force base to receive Sentinel and will be operating the Minuteman III ICBM until the new weapon system is in place," Brekka Kramer, president and CEO of Minot Area Chamber EDC, said in the report. "This (is) a major modernization project we need to support at all levels and see all the way through."

Kramer was called several times by the Herald to discuss her community's relationship with Minot Air Force Base and the recent Bloomberg report about the Sentinel program. She did not return three messages.