Here's What You Need to Know: The U-2 uses its ability to fly at an extremely high altitude as its primary defense.

In 2020, the United States Air Force’s F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter underwent a major computer and software upgrade as part of the Tech Refresh 3 program. These updates included addressing issues with its supposedly “state-of-the-art” ALIS logistical system, which was intended to streamline reporting and implement predictive maintenance on the cutting edge stealth aircraft.

Modern aircraft are designed for such updates, but last month the Air Force provided a software upgrade to an aircraft that was flying well before the development of the modern personal computer.

On Sept. 22, 2020, the U-2 Federal Laboratory successfully leveraged the Kubernetes open-source container-orchestration system for automating computer application deployment to update the software on a U-2 Dragon Lady aircraft from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base. This marked the first time Kubernetes had flown on an operational major weapon system for the Department of Defense (DoD).

Kubernetes was originally designed by Google and the software is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Its container-centric management environment orchestrates computing, networking, and storage on behalf of user workloads and allows for the deployment of complex microservice-based applications with complete automation. This upgrade will allow military weapon systems to pool available on-board computing power to meet advanced system and software needs on-demand.

“The successful combination of the U-2’s legacy computer system with the modern Kubernetes software was a critical milestone for the development of software containerization on existing Air Force weapon systems,” said Nicolas Chaillan, Air Force chief software officer.

The U-2 Federal Laboratory is a 15 U.S.C. compliant organization that was established specifically to develop the new software for the aircraft and to allow it to be tested in a safe environment. The lab, which was developed and approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish the 20th Laboratory Accreditation Program in the federal government, also works closely with the 9th Reconnaissance Wing.

The 9th RW is the only unit that operates the thirty-three U-2s currently in the Air Force’s fleet.

“I’m incredibly proud of the U-2 Federal Lab and our Recce Town Airmen that made flying Kubernetes on the U-2 possible,” said Col. Heather Fox, 9th Reconnaissance Wing commander.

“This is a milestone achievement that paves the way for rapid experimentation as we continuously work to bring the future faster and increase battlespace awareness for our Airmen,” she added. “The integration of Kubernetes onto the U-2 capitalizes on the aircraft’s high altitude line of sight and makes it even more survivable in a contested environment. We look forward to working with other platforms across the DoD to export this incredible capability.”

Flying High and Long

The Lockheed Martin U-2 was developed in the early Cold War and took its first flight in 1955. In April, the Air Force announced that it had awarded the defense contractor with a $50 million contract to update the systems on the U-2.

The Avionics Tech Refresh was part of a broader effort to expand the capabilities of the reconnaissance aircraft. This isn’t exactly trying to plug a modern computer into a 1950s plane, however, as all of the U-2s in service were built in the 1980s—but even that has presented some challenges. Lockheed Martin has anticipated that those U-2 upgrades will be implemented by early 2022.

The U-2 is a single-jet, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that is capable of flying at an altitude of more than twenty-one thousand meters. It is also a completely unarmed aircraft and uses its ability to fly at an extremely high altitude as its primary defense, and even after more than six decades in service the U-2 continues to fly high to provide that eye in the sky for the U.S. intelligence community.

In August 2020, China accused the United States of sending a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft to the so-called “no-fly zone” over a Chinese live-fire military drill in the Bohai Sea, the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea. Beijing maintained that the People’s Liberation Army had declared the region a no-fly zone and called the U.S. flight “naked provocation,” after the spy planed entered the airspace.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared in October 2020.

Image: U.S. Air Force photo