STAFF: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Major Annabelle Monroe from the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, and in just a few moments, the Honorable Kristyn Jones, performing the duties of Under Secretary of the Air Force; and Major General Mike Greiner, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Budget, will be presenting the Department of the Air Force Fiscal Year 2025 President's Budget overview briefing.

If you were unable to pick up a packet earlier in the day, we have some of those. So, please let us know and we'll make sure you have a packet. And then following the briefing, Honorable Jones and General Greiner will take your questions.

We don't have anybody on the line, so we don't need questions from the line. But when possible we ask, in the interest of time, you limit it to one question and then one follows up question. Without further ado, the Honorable Kristyn Jones.

PTDO UNDER SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE KRISTYN JONES: Good afternoon. I'm Kristyn Jones, here today performing the duties of Undersecretary of the Air Force. I also serve as the Assistant Secretary for Financial Management and Comptroller. I'm joined by Major General Mike Greiner, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Budget. Thank you for joining us.

Next slide please.

During this presentation of the Department of the Air Force's Fiscal Year 2025 President's Budget Request, I will provide the strategic backdrop for our budgetary decisions, outline the overview of the Department's request and present the Air and Space capabilities required to support the National Defense Strategy. Major General Greiner will highlight the appropriation-level details.

Next slide please.

The National Defense Strategy identifies the People's Republic of China as the pacing challenge and most consequential strategic competitor for the Department. It also recognizes the acute threat of Russia and its continued aggression, and the persistent threats posed by North Korea, Iran and violent extremist organizations.

The Department of the Air Force FY25 President's Budget Request is guided around this framework. It funds essential nuclear modernization, preserves previous years substantial advances and operational imperatives, focuses on foundational accounts to support the readiness of our force and ensures an executable budget year.

The Air Force's core functions remain unchanged: air superiority, global strike, rapid global mobility, command and control, and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance.

The Space Force's efforts reflect its indispensable support that underpins all other joint operations. And since Space has become a contested domain, the Space Force is continuing its transformation into a warfighting service to secure our interests in, from and to Space.

These efforts are guided by the three-overarching Department of Defense priorities -- defending the nation, taking care of people, and succeeding through teamwork.

Next slide please.

Defending the nation requires constant vigilance in all domains. The DAF supports this priority through investments in Air and Space superiority, global strike and readiness. The ability to compete, deter, and if necessary win, future high-end conflicts require a force that is right sized, capable, sustainable and recognizing the Fiscal Responsibility Act spending caps affordable, and can operate across the entire continuum of mission sets.

To that end, this budget request sustains the modernization momentum of the operational imperatives while taking measured risk in the near term, safeguarding necessary investments in readiness, which is a top priority of the Department.

We preserve funds supporting our readiness enablers such as weapons systems sustainment and our flying hour program. For the Air Force, our FY25 budget request procures 42 F-35, 18 F-15EXs and requests multiyear procurement for the JASSM, LRASM and AARGM ammunitions -- to enhance our competitive capabilities and maintain air domain lethality and precision attack.

Nuclear modernization remains a top priority, foundational to integrated deterrence, and requires capitalizing the ICBM and bomber legs of the triad. The nuclear program, our ICBM replacement Sentinel, is continuing in development. The B-21 Raider is executing its flight test campaign and was recently approved for low-rate initial production.

For the Space Force, we are investing $4.7 billion to feel the proliferated multi-orbit missile warning architecture. Operating across different orbits and utilizing a variety of sensor technologies, this capability limits and adversaries' ability to act against U.S. interest without our knowledge, and support decision-making at the tactical, operational and strategic levels, providing critical information in real time.

Next slide.

The DAF is committed to attracting and retaining the best Airmen and Guardians in the world. We've continued to break down barriers to service and make progress, thanks to Congress' significant support, increasing economic security for our Airmen and Guardians through cost-of-living adjustments to basic pay, BAH, BAS and a basic needs allowance.

And through the passage of the Space Force Personnel Management Act, this landmark piece of legislation will enable us to build the first truly modern personnel management system in the armed forces. And we believe it will allow us to better align service requirements with member intent.

In fiscal year 2024, active-duty Air Force and Space Force are on track to meet recruiting goals, exceeding numbers from the last several years. The Reserves and Air National Guard recruiting are trending upward with the Reserves expected to reach 98 percent of its goal and then Air National Guard exceeding FY23 by 12 percent.

To improve our ability to attract the best possible talent from all backgrounds and geographic regions, the DAF has opened our bases to local communities showcasing the value of service to the public. We're back on track to meet our recruiting goals in part because of the bonuses and incentive pays we offered last year.

Now in FY25, we are investing $1.6 billion to recruit and retain Airmen and Guardians. And funding $1.1 billion in bonuses and retention programs for 118,000 critical positions.

To maintain our talent, the DAF is focused on quality-of-life improvement for Airmen and Guardians, investing $1.5 billion for mission facilities, family housing, dormitories and childcare centers to ensure they have the resources required to thrive.

The Department remains focused on truly taking care of our people at every level. This includes timely implementation of the Independent Review Commission's recommendations and programs, expanding victim care and support for victims of sexual assault.

Additionally, we're preparing Airmen and Guardians for the challenges of Great Power Competition by building mental health skills and positive command climates.

This includes $451 million in the FY25 budget request for interpersonal and self-directed Violence Prevention and Response to include initiatives focused on resilience and well-being. We are also increasing the presence of embedded mental health personnel in line units to prepare for contingency operations.

Next slide please.

In line with Secretary Austin's priority of succeeding through teamwork, we are working diligently with our sister services, other government organizations, commercial industry, and allies and partners across the spectrum of operations.

These partnerships are a center of gravity for national security, and are critical to achieving our objectives and ensuring integrated deterrence. As an example, we're providing $538 million to sustain agile combat employment to set the theater, establish distributed command and control, and train Mission Ready Airmen.

These efforts set conditions to achieve the joint warfighting concept scheme of maneuver. And we are working with allies and partners to integrate these approaches into joint exercises and training.

The Space Force is partnering with a variety of government agencies to unify efforts for mutual benefit in Space, including $6.2 billion in commercial space launches. And expanding the space data network, the backbone of C3BM to deliver resilient space-based capabilities to the joint force.

Additionally, the FY25 budget devotes $4.4 billion developing disaggregated satellite communications constellations, capable of operating through contested and degraded environments.

Finally, we are investing $3.4 billion in the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems. This includes $600 million for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, CCA, which alongside work with the Navy leverages a consortium of nearly 30 industry partners with expertise in air vehicles, mission systems, autonomy and software development.

This funding supports accelerated development, testing and fielding of platforms to increase joint ports lethality and survivability at an affordable cost.

Next slide.

In the following chart, you'll see two sets of numbers with the FY24 budget request on the left and the FY25 President's Budget Request on the right. The stacked columns here highlight the Department's budget request consisting of the Air Force and Space Force budgets.

Looking at the bar chart for FY25 excluding the $45.1 billion in non-blue funding, the Department of the Air Force is requesting $217.5 billion. This is a 2.4 billion or 1.1 percent increase over the '24 President's Budget Request.

The Air Force's budget of $188.1 billion is a $3 billion or 1.6 percent increase over the '24 request. And the Space Force's budget of $29.4 billion is a $0.6 billion or 2 percent decrease from the '24 request.

On the right side of the slide, the upper pie chart breaks out the Air Force baseline and the Space Force baseline by appropriation. The next slides will detail our efforts with a look at the appropriation for the department's budget requests.

Now I'll turn it over to Major General Greiner to cover the overall top line for the Department of the Air Force and our appropriation level details.

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY (BUDGET) MAJOR GENERAL MIKE A. GREINER: Thank you, Madam Secretary. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

On each appropriations slide, you will see a similar format. The funding tables show the overall department budget requests and additional details for both the Air Force and the Space Force. You will also see key budgetary changes between fiscal year '24 and fiscal year '25.

The pie chart in the top right corner highlights the relative respective appropriations portion of the total budget. The Department's Fiscal Year '25 RDT&E budget request is $56.4 billion, a $1 billion increase over the Fiscal Year '24 requested position.

This growth showcases the Department's commitment to making the investments necessary to implement the National Defense Strategy. The Air Force's RDT&E Fiscal Year '25 budget request is $37.7 billion or 1.5 billion or 4.1 percent increase over the Fiscal Year '24 requested position.

This budget request provides $3.7 billion for the Sentinel Program, continuing development efforts to ensuring our land based nuclear force's ability to hold global targets at risk.

It provides $2.7 billion for the B-21 Raider program, the cornerstone of the Department's conventional and nuclear capable deep strike force, as well as $623 million for the long-range standoff weapon program.

The Air Force continues to invest in air superiority modernization with the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems. This budget requests adds $815 million for continued technology maturation, risk reduction activities and hardware prototyping efforts. NGAD will provide survivability, lethality and interoperability while integrating future capabilities including uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

On the next slide -- we will look at the Space Force's RDT&E request.

Next slide please.

The Space Force's RDT&E Fiscal Year '25 budget request, which account for 63 percent of the Space Force's total budget, is $18.7 billion, represented a $500 million or 2.6 percent decrease from the Fiscal Year '24 requested position.

This budget request continues to implement resilient architectures and embodies an integrated deterrence approach to strengthening Space Force's ability to operate in a highly contested environment.

Our Fiscal Year '25 budget request continues to modernize the SATCOM enterprise, both strategic and tactical capabilities. This request adds $413 million for the Evolved Strategic SATCOM program providing global secure jam resistant and survivable SATCOM for Presidential and National Command authorities.

This request also has $237 million to begin to Protected Technical SATCOM Global Program. PTSG will disaggregate the X and Ka-band capabilities on separate satellites in geostationary earth orbit.

Additionally, an increase of $267 million in funding is requested for missile warning, missile tracking capabilities, continuing to build out a proliferated architecture across low and medium Earth orbits to detect and track advanced missile launch signatures.

The Space Development Agency's tranche one efforts are focused on launching 28 LEO space vehicles beginning in Fiscal Year '25, while Space Systems Command continues their work integrating and testing nine MEO space vehicles for EPIC plan launches in the Fiscal Year '26 and '27 timeframe.

Finally, the budget requests add $111 billion for Space Domain Awareness systems, which include new network sensors and improved information integration capabilities across the Space Surveillance Network. And provide $1.7 billion for the Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space architecture, a resilient military sensing and data transport layer in low Earth orbit, delivering key capabilities for clothing -- closing long-reach kill chains at speed and at scale.

Next, let's review the highlights of the procurement portfolio.

The Department continues to invest in advanced capabilities ensuring that our systems provide a warfighting edge over those of potential adversaries. The Fiscal Year '25 procurement request is $33.3 billion, a $2.1 billion or 5.9 percent increase from the Fiscal Year '24 requested position.

For the Air Force, a budget request provides $5.9 billion to procure 42 F-35s, which is six less than the plan for in the Fiscal Year '24 budget requests in Fiscal Year '25.

Additionally, we request $1.8 billion to procure 18 F-15EXs, six less than planned for in the Fiscal Year '24 budget requests and Fiscal Year '25. This budget request continues to make gains in the Air Force's global strike core function adding $353 million to the B21 Raider program.

The request also highlights our focus on procuring those critical ammunitions necessary to win in a high-end conflict, continuing the multi-year procurement strategy requested in the fiscal year '24 budget, to achieve synergies and producing 550 JASSM ER, 115 LRASM and 128 AARGM-ER missile.

Our ability to operate in, from and to Space effectively requires assured access, being first to field new warfighting capabilities and the ability to reconstitute them if necessary.

Driven by mission requirements, $2.2 billion is requested to support the procurement of a total of 11 launches, seven national security space launches, and four Space Development Agency launches in Fiscal Year '25 compared to 15 total launches in Fiscal Year '24.

Fiscal Year '25 will mark the first year of the NSSL Phase Three Launch Service procurement. The Phase 3 (dual-lane) approach grows the number of launch service providers while ensuring high reliability for critical national security missions. Finally, the budget adds $527 million to procure to GPS III Follow On space vehicles in Fiscal Year '25.

Now let's look at the request for operation and maintenance. Next slide please.

Operation and maintenance is the largest appropriation, making up 37 percent or $80.8 billion of the overall Department's budget requests. O&M funds daily operations critical to sustaining readiness, building resiliency and enhancing our warfighting posture.

The $2.3 billion or 2.9 percent growth over our Fiscal Year request '24 requests is largely driven by additional investments in people, weapon systems sustainment and flying hours.

The Fiscal Year '25 request continues to prioritize the Department's most resilient resource: its people. Our budget request adds two point -- or sorry, $251 million to fully fund a 2 percent civilian pay raise, maintain support to family programs, funding $490 million for Child Development Centers and youth programs, provides $380 million for continued implementation of the Independent Review Commission's recommendations for violence, sexual assault and suicide prevention and response, and targets $300 million for 29 unaccompanied dormitory and $50 million for Child Development Center FSRM projects.

The Air Force's weapon systems sustainment requirements continue to grow due to both aging legacy platforms and the acquisition of newer more complex weapon systems. In Fiscal Year '25, the Air Force adds $872 million to this portfolio, maintaining the funding for 87 percent of our requirements.

The Fiscal Year '25 Space Force O&M budget request increases to $5.2 billion, including $1.4 billion to support weapons system sustainment at 81 percent of the requirement maintaining 52 weapon systems.

We also add $42 million for defensive cyber operations providing the capability to prevent key Space Force mission systems and infrastructure. The budget request also provides $114 million to enhance the operational test and training infrastructure, a key readiness investment that enables high-end testing and training providing both Blue and Aggressor Force training environments across the National Space Test and Training complex.

And finally, it dedicates $29 million towards Space Force of the Future infrastructure initiatives.

Next, I'll provide an overview of the military appropriations request.

The Department of the Air Force's Fiscal Year '25 Military Personnel request is $42.9 billion and 800 -- and $800 million or 1.9 percent increase over the Fiscal Year '24 requests.

The total military and strength requested for the Fiscal Year '25 is 504,500 members, which closely aligns to end strength levels authorized in the Fiscal Year '24 NDAA. Our request resource is a 4.5 percent military pay raise for Airmen and Guardians.

Additionally to strengthen economic security for servicemembers and their families, the requests add $40 million to provide for a basic needs allowance, income eligibility threshold increase.

Included in this request is $1.1 billion for Air Force bonuses supporting critically manned career fields, including $327 million in Aviation Retention programs and $21 million for cyber retention programs.

This funding represents an investment in Airmen and Guardians that supports a strategy of attracting and retaining high-quality recruits, building on an improved Fiscal Year '24 recruiting environment.

The Space Force Military Personnel Appropriation request supports growing end strength to 9,800 Guardians, an increase of 400. The budget requests also fund $25 million for Space Force selective retention bonuses and initial enlistment bonuses, a 450 percent increase over the Fiscal Year '24 budget request.

Finally, let's turn to the Military Construction and Military Family Housing appropriation. Next slide please.

We thank Congress for passing the FY24 Military Construction Appropriations Bill. This legislation provides a total of $4.5 billion for Department of the Air Force MILCON and military family housing projects and operations -- $786 million above the Fiscal Year '24 budget requests.

The Fiscal Year '25 budget requests resources 40 MILCON projects in 18 states and six overseas locations including $1.4 billion for 24 weapons system beddown projects across 17 installations.

This budget request continues to foster the Department's commitment to take care of the force and their families, while also focusing on investments for modern weapons system beddowns and critical infrastructure investments, deliver an increase for global warfighting capabilities.

This budget request, $110 million for our European Defense Initiative Project at Karup, Denmark; and $228 million for two Indo-Pacific projects at Yap Airfield, Micronesia and Kadena Air Base, Japan.

Additionally, this request continues to focus on addressing unaccompanied housing needs by resourcing $158 million for dormitory projects at Joint Base Langley-Eustis and the medical education and trading campus at Joint Base San Antonio.

Also, included in our request is $40 million in MILCON funding for Child Development Center at Mountain Home Air Force Base. Finally, $222 million is included in our request for housing improvement projects that Yokota Air Base and Ramstein Air Base.

MILCON and Military Family Housing are the final budget appropriations as of my portion of today's rollout. And I'll turn the briefing back to Secretary Jones for final thoughts. Thank you.

MS. JONES: Thank you, General Greiner.

We're facing challenging times with acute and persistent threats and adversaries like Russia and China who are working diligently to undermine our competitive advantages.

Our FY25 budget request is informed by these threats, and is designed to support the National Defense Strategy and Secretary Austin's priorities by taking care of our people, maintaining near-term readiness, and investing in the technologies and capabilities necessary to secure our competitive advantage in the long run.

We're in a race for technological superiority that we expect to last several decades. The battlespace is increasing, decision space is shrinking, the pace is accelerating, and we're competing with adversaries who are very serious about preparing for potential conflict -- and none of them operate under a CR.

We've been in a current CR for five months. And since 2011, have spent nearly five years operating under a CR. And the most devastating impact is the time we lose standing still while our adversaries accelerate forward. That is time we cannot afford to lose.

We cannot fight with one hand tied behind our back. And we cannot properly compete in this era of Great Power Competition with only a partial deck.

I urge lawmakers to quickly pass all remaining FY24 appropriations bills and approve our FY25 budget request on time. That is the best way our lawmakers can serve our department, our service members and our families. Thank you.

And now, General Greiner and I will open the floor for questions.

STAFF: Lee, go ahead with the question.

Q: Lee (inaudible). What was your decision to not fund ARRW production? And what do you hope to learn from testing in Fiscal Year 2024?

MS. JONES: Do you want to take that? 

GEN. GREINER: So, you're right. We don't have any additional funding in '25. There is so -- one remaining, one remaining test and we'll see when that happens.

All I can tell you is that we continue to learn from that. We have funded HACM, I think $517 million total in that for '25. And so, we continue to move forward with -- you know hypersonics are important piece of the portfolio, so we continue to fund HACM. But right now, there's no additional funding in FY25 for ARRW going forward.

STAFF: Thank you. Stephen Losey?

Q: Hi, Stephen Losey, Defense News. The Air Force has repeatedly said that it needs 72 fighters per year to modernize its fleet, reduce the overall age of the fleet, either stay you got -- you don't have that. You got (safety ?) in there.

How much is it going to set your modernization, age reduction efforts back? And are you concerned that retraining of 72 at some point in the future beyond '25 might be out of reach?

MS. JONES: For the F-15EXs, we are reducing the total program to 98. So, that is a change that is almost exclusively due to fiscal constraints. The F-35 story is different. We want the planes that we want. And the TR-3 Block 4 capabilities have been delayed.

So, our approach is to minimize the impact of that by procuring fewer of those in the first years of the FYDP. And then as you'll see from our more detailed budget exhibits that we start to come back toward the end of the FYDP, hopefully, with all those capabilities that we need in place.

STAFF: Tara? 

Q: Hi. Thank you both. Tara Copp, The Associated Press. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the real-life impacts of having a CR for five months this year and some of the previous years, the compounding effect of that particularly on your ability to get flight hours to your crews, maintenance hours. And if you end up with a yearlong CR, what happens?

MS. JONES: So, we have lots of details. General Greiner wants to go into some of the details. All of the operational imperatives that the DAF has worked so hard to do the analysis and determine what capabilities we need are basically on hold during a CR -- 89 new starts as one example.

National Security Space launches dropped from 10 to three. These are things that some of you have heard us say a number of times, that MILCON projects delayed, ammunition ramp-ups delayed. So, we have a long list of what we've been having to adjust to so far.

And those impacts carry forward into FY25. We assumed that we would have those dollars at the beginning of the year and be able to execute those programs throughout all of '24, and now we're halfway into the year without those.

But do you want to go into some of the additional details with a year long CR?

GEN. GREINER: Yeah, just a couple other examples, perhaps. On the OEM side, it makes it really challenging, we're trying to thread that needle making sure we don't burn too fast, should we have to implement some sort of a reduced funding level either at 25 -- 23 levels or 23 minus 1 percent. And so, you know, trying to make sure that we continue to fly the hours, we need to not delay any weapons, any aircraft or anything into our depots. So that's a little bit challenging. Same with the FSRM projects, we're having to slow a few of those down. Because I need to make sure that I have the headroom it's about a $5 billion cut to (inaudible) account, if we actually had to implement this in '24.

I would tell you one of the challenges with planning for FY '25 with an extended CR. I'll give an example in the munitions lane. So, if you requested last year, we had requested multiyear procurements. And so, we don't know how that's going to land, especially since the both chambers of the House have kind of given us a different view on what that's going to look like on the marks. And I don't know where that's going to land, we basically have moved forward with a multiyear -- assuming that we're going to get that multiyear procurement availability. There's about a billion dollars that was in the '24 budget that moved economic order quantity funding to the left. But if that doesn't come through, if at the end of the day, the cost report doesn't allow for us to do that, then the numbers that I just talked about, those plans are going to probably change, because I won't have had it invested the funds that I needed in '24, in order to move out quickly and continue that ramp in '25.

So that's just gives you a couple examples of some of the things we continue to work through with a long term CR.

Q: OK. Shelley Mesch. Would you talk about what Counter UAS funding looks like in this budget? Is there anything in any network procurement?

GEN. GREINER: There is. There's about $25 million in Counter UAS, specifically, in '25. I can't give you -- I don't have the details, we can probably track that down, but as to what that goes after. But there's about $25 million in there for the Air Force, or Counter UAS.

Q: And then I also wanted to ask how does the FYDP for this year change compared to what you had planned when you thought you were going to get more funding for this year? Has it changed the years much?

MS. JONES: I would say one of the biggest concerns that we have for the out years is our weapons system sustainment. We had to add about a billion dollars between weapons system sustainment and flying hours just to keep those even with '24. Given the caps that we have in the top line that we have, for the out years, we do see a continued decline in those accounts. So that's something that we're looking at as we're planning for '26. How can we ramp back our readiness without too negatively impacting the modernization programs that we have? So, trying to find the right balance in the years?

STAFF: Thanks (inaudible). Mikayla?

Q: Hi, (inaudible). Thanks for your time. Back to hypersonics. I was hoping if you could maybe just detail what that $517 million for HACM will cover for this year. And then also, the requests this year is slightly less than $507 million that was predicted for fiscal year for this year last budget cycle. So, can you provide any rationale as to why there is that slight decrease in all or is the budget (inaudible)?

GEN. GREINER: So, for HACM, I'll have to go back and double check the numbers because I'm tracking an increase of about $135 million. So let me take that. Let me take that question to double check because we're showing an actual increase in the HACM line for.

QUESTIONS: (Inaudible) last year.

GEN. GREINER: OK. Yeah, I'll have to go back. And I'll have to go back and get the details on what's changed across there. Thanks.

Q: And then -- I'm sorry. But what is part of the 517 million fund this year? Just further development?

GEN. GREINER: Yeah, just all development, just of course (inaudible). Yup, thanks.

STAFF: Michael?

Q: Hi. Michael Morrow. Following up on the trim to the fighter buy, that have any impact on plan divestments, since you weren't able to buy as many fighters to replace some of those aircraft that you want to retire?

MS. JONES: So, for the most part, our divestments were planned, because we need to start moving the funding into the modernization programs. I'd have to look and see if there were any changes at all. But I would say if there were they were very minor. We do have some divestments that are prohibited by congressional language. And we are in line with all of those. And so, in general, we're doing what we need to do to keep our current force available while shifting as much funding as we can to the next generation.

STAFF: Thank you. Courtney?

Q: Yes. Space Force officials have talked a lot about the importance of commercial technologies and integrating these capabilities. How does the Fiscal '25 budget reflect that priority? What are some examples?

MS. JONES: So definitely the work with space domain awareness and launches, commercial launches is a big one. We're continuing to look for more areas to use commercial analytics. In terms of our missile warning, missile tracking and other capabilities. Do you have any other any other to say?

GEN. GREINER: Another big piece I would add is that about -- there's about $1.2 billion that go toward that goes towards Commercial SATCOM. So, a big piece in that lane as well. So, you know, well over $3 billion in just a couple areas as well.

Q: If I can ask, sort of along those lines, spaces, since man has been kind of pushing for there going to be a dedicated program line for space -- commercial space services. Is this included in this year's budget request?

GEN. GREINER: I do not know that. I'll have to take that question.

Q: OK.

GEN. GREINER: Thanks,

STAFF: Courtney?

Q: I just wanted to ask, so the Air Force is kind of remaining flat, there's 80,000 less active-duty personnel than last year that you saw -- that are being sought. Are there programs or career fields that are looked at that are being -- that could be cut or prioritized as a as a service is looking at sort of forcing needs, and looking at like tech (inaudible) and so forth?

GEN. GREINER: Right. So, I think -- I think it's important to note that the reduction that we saw between the '24 budget requests and '25 is not really a reduction of people. I mean, we had, we had probably overestimated what we thought we could grow to between '23 and '24. So this is really just a reduction of those funds. And as you see, we're almost -- almost within 500 total alignment with '24 NDAA.

With regards to specific puts and takes, we can give you a breakout on that. But again, most of those puts and takes are from legacy systems. So, think A-10 as an example, and then continuing to bring on F-35, KC-46 is, those types of things. So that's where you know, on the Air side, that's where most of those are going. What's a little bit different in on the Space Force side is last year, if we recall, from '23 to '24, we were moving our last mission over the JTAGS mission.

And so, this is our first year in Space Force where we will not actually move over any additional mission capabilities from other services. So, this is just a plan based on analysis, obviously, of what we think we need to execute the mission in the Space Force. And so, we think that growth of 400 is keeps us lean, keeps us agile, but also allows us to the right number there to get to have -- to get off that mission set. Thanks.

STAFF: Thanks Courtney. Tony?

Q: (Inaudible). You know, the arms control community is going to be looking through your budget to see if there's any Minuteman III sustainment runs because of the Nunn-McCurdy breach. Are there any and when would you start seeing Nunn-McCurdy additions, you know, '28, '29 or next year?

MS. JONES: Right. So, there is Minuteman sustainment through the (inaudible) so you will see the ability to continue Minuteman as a viable platform. As far as the Nunn-McCurdy impacts that process is ongoing. OSD is leading that we're cooperating with all of the analysis that's -- that's ongoing. The report is due back to Congress in July.

And so there won't be any impacts to the '25 budget. We fully funded '24 and '25 compared to the current requirements, but as the program re-looks requirements, possible re-phasing or other things like that, that will be done after the results are in -- in July and would impact next year's budget in the out years.

Q: (Inaudible) if possible, the Minuteman III funds after 2026 or '27 could be boosted up, beefed up to sustain the Minuteman III line if in fact Sentinel delays?

MS. JONES: Yes. I mean, what we'll be looking at risk reduction for the whole nuclear portfolio and there would certainly be things in that regard that we would be considering (inaudible).

STAFF: Thank you.

Q: (Inaudible) for this new satellite (spice ?) it ...

GEN. GREINER: Summer. Space (inaudible), yeah space (inaudible).

QUESTIONS: (Inaudible) cutting parts of it according to the (inaudible). Reduce -- reduce the Silent Barker program to remove replenishment third system delivery. In general, digital wire cutting it's -- it's a new program that just put up the first increments.

GEN. GREINER: Yeah. So Silent Barker is a kind of partnership with the NRO. So, I'll have to double check and see if there's something that's moving there. But we'll have to -- I'll have to get back to that answer.

STAFF: Thanks, Tony.

Q: (Inaudible).

STAFF: Chris, go ahead.

Q: All right. Chris Gordon, Air and Space Force magazine. In very simple terms, why is the Space Force budget going down? Is that because you haven't had any new missions trance for over? And what is the trend look like long term?

MS. JONES: So, with the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps across the Department, we needed to look at how to preserve the readiness of the force. Space Force is a little bit different in the sense that the OEM and the middle perch accounts are very small, so there really wasn't much to trade. So as the Department prioritizes across all services, we needed to make some puts and takes in some hard decisions. There was also the fiscal reality related to some of the execution of programs, the Space Force budget had been increasing quite a bit over the last couple of years and making sure that we weren't going to have any execution issues. And then just the launch schedule was down. And so that has some procurement savings.

Q: Then just coincidence or issues with contractors and getting these sometime?

MS. JONES: No, I mean, the only issue, as I mentioned earlier was due to the long CR, we've had a delay of the NSSL launches. But we expect if we get an appropriation here in the next couple of weeks that we would be back on track.

GEN. GREINER: Yeah. I think it's worth noting, too, when we procure launches. So, for example, if we procure launches in '24, those launches will actually take place for another 18, 24 months. Right. So, we still have time, as the Under Secretary mentioned, we've been able to procure eight of them in '24, we still need to do seven more to get us to where we need to be. But we think we still have runway left. If we get an appropriation bill here in the next couple of weeks that allow us to keep us on track there.

STAFF: Brian, go ahead.

Q: Right. The B-21 had increase, but it wasn't to what was expected about $300 million less than what last year's budget projected. Can you elaborate any of the thinking on that? And related, is there any funding doing for the Long Range Strike family and systems operational imperative?

GEN. GREINER: So, on the B-21, just a classification issue, I'm not going to be able to give you a whole lot of details on that. On the second -- can you repeat the second question, please?

Q: (inaudible) systems operational imperative, there was a few 100 million dollars in that budget last year ...

(CROSSTALK)

GEN. GREINER: I think we have a quick look here.

MS. JONES: Yeah, I know there's something in there. I was looking for the numbers.

GEN. GREINER: I'll take that one as well. I'll have the details on that.

STAFF: Thanks ...

GEN. GREINER: Thanks.

STAFF: Sandra?

Q: Thank you. Sandra Erwin of Space News. The Space Force funding 29.4 billion, does that include classified programs?

MS. JONES: It does include classified programs, it doesn't include programs that are in the pass through.

Q: So how much of the total is classified programs? Do you have a break -- the breakdown?

MS. JONES: I don’t think we can give that out, even. 

GEN. GREINER: No, I don't, yeah, I don't have -- I don't have a roll up of the classified piece of that. I don't.

STAFF: And then this will be our last question. Go Theresa.

Q: (Inaudible). Thank you for doing this today. My question was about the protected SATCOM mobile. Is this -- are these new payloads that you're procuring? Or are these new satellites under the Space Systems, Space Systems management?

GEN. GREINER: There'll be new space vehicles actually. Right. So, there'll be, yeah, those will be separate satellites for (inaudible). I think initially, right now our plan is for four space vehicles that could be changing -- it could change over time. But we're just getting started on the program.

Yeah, (inaudible).

STAFF: And then Audrey, since that was quick.

Q: OK. Yeah. Super quick on F-35. I just want to -- back to the fighter question. I just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. So, you're deferring the F-35 because of T-3 delays not because of funding constraints?

MS. JONES: It's both.

Q: It's both.

MS. JONES: Yeah, we haven't changed the total program of record. But given the fiscal constraints this year, as well as the delays and getting the capabilities that we need, we rephrase the program, but we haven't cut off the total numbers.

STAFF: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, ma'am, thank you, sir. That's all we have time for today.

If you have any follow up questions at all. Just let us know. Come see us afterwards. Thank you so much.