David Koch, chief of research and development at the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), said DLA will use artificial intelligence to determine an item's demand in supply chain activities, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

Koch said at the Federal Drive show that AI has the potential to help the agency predict warfighters' future demand for items that are currently low-demand.

The future demand of currently high-demand items are easier to predict compared to low-demand items. Koch said AI technology may help DLA reduce the prediction gap between high-demand and low-demand items.

The Department of Defense's Joint AI Center (JAIC) will help DLA harness the technology to forecast item demands. The logistics agency also eyes using AI to manage supply chain risks.

The General Services Administration (GSA) held a virtual event to foster discussion on the federal fleet of service vehicles, with topics that tackle the fleet's electrification.

The FedFleet 2021 event ran from June 7th to 10th with the participation of over 2.200 professionals in the areas of automotive and fleet management, GSA said Thursday.

GSA is working to electrify its fleet, which currently consists of 600,000 non-tactical vehicles in total. The agency has so far implemented 455 charging stations at U.S. federal buildings, as the fleet's electric vehicle infrastructure continues to develop.

Katy Kale, acting GSA administrator and a 2021 Wash100 Award winner, delivered the event's closing remarks.

“GSA is embracing this opportunity to do our part to help make America the global leader in electric vehicle fleet production and adoption,” said Kale. “And we are keeping equity at the center of our work. We want everyone to have access to the benefits and opportunities that come with electrifying the federal fleet including good-paying jobs, improved air quality, and better quality of life.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has introduced a program with the goal to produce an interference filter system for wideband active electronically scanned arrays (AESA) used in military radar, communications and electronic warfare platforms.

DARPA said Thursday that the COmpact Front-end Filters at the ElEment (COFFEE) level program will support the agency’s 5G and beyond communications investment effort under its five-year, $1.5 billion Electronics Resurgence Initiative.

The agency is eyeing a new radio frequency filtering technology class for AESA, which takes on a matrix of tiny antennas with individual transmitters and receivers that enable the electronic steering of radio waves in different directions.

Benjamin Griffin, a program manager in DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office, said that although wideband AESA technology has compelling applications, high-bandwidth receivers in this technology could be prone to electronic jamming due to its dynamic range limits.

“COFFEE aims to develop filters that are on the analog front-end, making the array more robust and resistant to interference before digital processing on the back-end,” Griffin added.

The agency is scheduled to host a Proposers Day on June 17 to discuss its COFFEE initiative and hinted at a broad agency announcement coming soon on the SAM contracting opportunities website.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will hold a proposers day webinar on July 9th to provide information on the Morphogenic Interfaces program that seeks to enhance the persistence and performance of electrochemical systems that protect and power critical military hardware by addressing microscopic irregularities occurring at the interfaces of such systems.

The Morphogenic Interfaces program (MINT) “is focused on developing novel interface materials that can exploit local gradients to consistently form and reform at the interface,” Vishnu Sundaresan, MINT program manager at DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office,” said in a statement published Thursday.

The program has two application-centric focus areas and the first focuses on solid/solid charge transfer interfaces for solid-state batteries. Solid/liquid and solid/vapor interfaces for corrosion-resistant coatings and alloys will be the second focus area.

“Through this program, I want to spur the scientific community to exploit the mathematical framework offered by morphogenesis models to understand the evolution of morphology in solid/solid, solid/liquid, and solid/vapor interfaces, and extend this understanding to build better solid-state batteries, corrosion-resistant coatings and alloys,” said Sundaresan.

DARPA anticipates releasing a broad agency announcement for the MINT program in June, according to a notice posted Thursday on the SAM website.

NASA has selected through the Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) call for proposals three payload suites to support scientific investigations on the lunar surface.

The Lunar Vertex, Farside Seismic Suite (FSS) and Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite (LITMS) payloads will be delivered to the moon through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program as part of the Artemis lunar exploration efforts, the space agency said Friday.

“With each new PRISM selection, we will build on our capabilities to enable bigger and better science and prove technology which will help pave the way for returning astronauts to the Moon through Artemis,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA’s science mission directorate. 

David Blewett of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory will lead the Lunar Vertex joint lander and rover payload suite that is headed to Reiner Gamma, also known as lunar swirl.

Mark Panning of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will oversee the FSS payload, while Robert Grimm of the Southwest Research Institute will lead the LITMS payload. FSS and LITMS payload suites are both headed to Schrodinger basin, an impact crater on the far side of the moon.

The FSS package will bring two seismometers to investigate tectonic activity on the lunar surface. The LITMS payload suite is composed of the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder and the Lunar Instrumentation for Thermal Exploration with Rapidity pneumatic drill that will help study the electrical conductivity and heat flow of the lunar interior in the basin.

NASA and the CLPS office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will work together to award task orders to facilitate the delivery of the payloads to the lunar surface in the 2024 timeframe.

Chris Inglis, the Biden administration’s nominee for the role of national cyber director, and Jen Easterly, the president’s pick to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), both described ransomware as a “scourge” that poses a threat to national security and suggested ways on how to protect critical infrastructure during a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, CyberScoop reported.

Inglis said during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S. government and its allies should “remove the sanctuary [to ransomware criminals] and bring to bear consequences on those who hold us at risk.” 

He cited the importance of making critical systems defensible and how security personnel can mitigate threats through software patching, multifactor authentication, network segmentation, and other basic cyber practices.

Easterly mentioned CISA’s role in providing threat information and technical guidance and the need to make some standards mandatory to improve cyber protection of critical infrastructure. 

“There probably is some sort of role for making some of these standards mandatory, to include notification,” Easterly said. “I do think it’s important that if there’s a significant cyber incident, that critical infrastructure companies have to notify the federal government, in particular CISA. We have to be able to warn other potential victims.”

If you want to know more about the latest updates about the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, then check out Potomac Officers Club’s CMMC Forum coming up on June 16th. 

CMMC Accreditation Body Chairman Karlton Johnson will serve as the keynote speaker for the Forum to provide his overview and vision of the CMMC Rollout as well as the top priorities for the board and how industry feedback will help to improve the vision behind how the organization develops for the first 100 days.

To register for this virtual forum and view other upcoming events, visit the POC Events page.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have introduced a machine-readable standard that works to automate the preparation, authorization and reuse of commercial cloud offerings for the government sector. 

Version 1.0.0 of the Open Security Controls Assessment Language offers (OSCAL) a common programming format for agencies, cloud service providers and third-party assessors that participate in FedRAMP, according to a blog post published Tuesday.

The FedRAMP office expects OSCAL to help vendors prepare and review system security plans faster before they submit content to the government.

OSCAL is designed to also reduce the time it takes for agencies to evaluate security authorization packages and for third-party assessment organizations to report audit work on cloud offerings.

The language features updated stable versions of different models including the catalog and profile, system security plan, component definition, and assessment plans and results for monitoring activities.

OSCAL 1.0.0 also has modernized tools for the conversion of OSCAL, XML and JSON formats. The FedRAMP office first unveiled its project to automate the cloud authorization process in December 2019.

John Mitchell, president and CEO of electronics manufacturing industry association IPC, said the Department of Defense (DOD) should give careful consideration to small and medium-sized businesses seeking to comply with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program.

“The Pentagon needs to take into consideration that most SMBs do not have dedicated cybersecurity personnel to achieve the prerequisites, and while many commercial electronics manufacturers have considerable business with the defense community, they themselves do not consider themselves a defense contractor,” Mitchell said in a statement published Tuesday.

IPC surveyed 108 electronic manufacturers, suppliers and contract manufacturers between Feb. 25th and March 5th and found that 24 percent of respondents said the costs and burdens associated with CMMC compliance may force their companies to exit the U.S. defense market.

According to the survey, 32 percent of respondents said they expect to be ready to undergo a CMMC assessment in one to two years. The majority of the respondents said their companies are willing to spend at least $50,000 on CMMC readiness.

Leslie Weinstein, author of the IPC report on CMMC, said DOD can use existing industry certifications and standards to help reduce the costs and address uncertainties associated with CMMC compliance.

“The DoD recognizes a variety of respected, industry-driven certifications when it comes to hiring cybersecurity professionals,” said Weinstein. “Taking the same approach to certifying suppliers would allow companies to invest more in security than in redundant audits, and it would quickly create a pool of companies who are able to bid on DoD solicitations containing the CMMC DFARS clause. And importantly, it would prevent further erosion of the U.S. defense industrial base.”

If you want to know more about the latest updates about the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, then check out Potomac Officers Club’s CMMC Forum coming up on June 16th. 

CMMC Accreditation Body Chairman Karlton Johnson will serve as the keynote speaker for the Forum to provide his overview and vision of the CMMC Rollout as well as the top priorities for the board and how industry feedback will help to improve the vision behind how the organization develops for the first 100 days.

To register for this virtual forum and view other upcoming events, visit the POC Events page. 

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in its customary unfunded requirements list sent to Congress contains $889.94 million worth of projects and programs. INDOPACOM’s chief concern is more funding to develop a ballistic missile defense system for Guam. These lists are sent to Congress every year to help guide lawmakers as they decide what might require additional funding, DefenseNews reported on Tuesday.

INDOPACOM’s highest priority, a missile defense system for Guam would require $231.7 million in total. $77.2 million in procurement funding and $154.45 million in research and development.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is planning to use $78.3 million in its FY22 base budget to inspect systems that could support the defense of Guam. The money would support detailed threat and requirements analysis, systems engineering, trade studies and specification updates.

Possible defenses for Guam are from the Aegis Combat System ships and the Terminal High Altitude Defense System (THAAD). They “are all part of that architecture consideration today, and we’re working that hard so that we can come forward and tell you exactly what we’re going to do on Guam,” commented Vice Adm. Jon Hill, MDA’s director, said during a June 9th hearing with the Senate Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

"Basing on Guam is critical to America’s goal to project its offensive power and deter possible threats in the INDOPACOM theater and that means the U.S. military must protect the island," Hill explained. 

Creating a dedicated missile defense capability on Guam would free up Navy ships to return to maneuver forces.