NASA plans to enter into two to four Space Act Agreements with companies to support the initial design of their proposed commercial space stations in low Earth orbit as part of the Commercial LEO Development (CLD) program, SpaceNews reported Tuesday.

The agency intends to award Space Act Agreements worth approximately $300 million to $400 million combined by the fourth quarter of 2021 to help companies transition the design of their proposed orbital facilities to the preliminary design review phase from fiscal years 2022 through 2025.

The CLD program’s second phase is expected to kick off in 2026 and would include the certification of commercial space stations by NASA and procurement of services.

NASA is expected to release a draft announcement of proposals in April and the final version in May 2021.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has revealed a strategy to bolster the agency's financial and service performance over the next 10 years.

USPS said Tuesday its “Delivering for America” plan aims to achieve performance progress while keeping the six-day mail delivery system and augmenting the seven-day package delivery service.

This effort seeks to generate $24 billion in net revenue from delivery services and enable a $40 billion investment in vehicle, facility and workforce improvements.

Louis DeJoy, postmaster general and CEO at USPS, said the plan will require investments, cost reduction efforts and various strategies that would help the service keep up with future challenges.

The plan would also involve regulatory and legislative changes related to USPS' pricing, health benefits and self-help initiatives.

“The Board challenged Postal management to devise a plan that was firmly rooted in our public service mission to bind the nation together,” said Ron Bloom, chairman of USPS' board of governors. 

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is slated to conduct a two-day virtual event from April 13th to 14th to discuss a new rapid and agile procurement vehicle to industry and academia. 

Marcella Cantu, Directed Energy Technology Experimentation Research program manager at AFRL, said in a statement published Tuesday DETER is a new contracting vehicle that will allow organizations to work with the laboratory's energy directorate in nine topic areas.

Cantu added the event is a part of AFRL's efforts to implement directed energy concepts and weapon system options into various operational domains.

AFRL will accommodate industry partners on the first day while academic institutions are free to join the following day. Interested attendees have until April 7 to register for the virtual event.

Gerald Caron, an official at the State Department, said the Trusted Internet Connections 3.0 (TIC 3.0) guidance enables agencies to drive zero-trust implementation while benefiting from flexible security requirements, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

Caron, who serves as director of enterprise network management at the State Department’s Bureau of Information Resources, said at a prior webinar that TIC 3.0 allows agencies to move away from TIC 2.0’s “prescriptive” security guidelines.

He noted that the guide’s updated version focuses on identifying use cases for the more flexible guidelines in line with agencies’ business needs, architectures and modernization goals. Determining where the TIC 3.0 guidelines fit is also key to streamlining data management for cloud environments, according to Caron.

“I think how edge computing will have the biggest impact is how it integrates, how it fits into that overall plan that you want to accomplish in that architecture, and how it interacts with the other tools,” he said. “So looking at the bigger picture is really important.”

Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr., chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, said the service branch might need sixth-generation fighter jets as part of its future fleet, National Defense Magazine reported Tuesday. 

Brown recently told reporters that the Air Force may require a Next-Generation Air Dominance platform along with fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft like the F-35.

Brown, who leads a study on the service’s future fleet to inform fiscal year 2023 budget decisions, noted that his office is also looking into quantifying the amount of unmanned and manned aircraft in the Air Force fighter squadron.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is continuing efforts under its Skyborg “loyal wingman” program that seeks to utilize unmanned platforms for teaming operations with manned aircraft, according to the publication.

Boeing, which is bidding its concept for the Skyborg program, concluded an initial test flight for its Loyal Wingman aircraft intended for the Australian government earlier this month.

Brown noted that AFRL is “making pretty good strides” with the Skyborg program. The Air Force expects to start adding drones to its fleet by 2023.

Michael Brown, director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), said the federal government must bolster investments in research and development to keep pace with industry as well as adversaries like China, C4ISRnet reported Tuesday.

Brown said at a National Defense Industrial Association event that the private sector has “moved ahead quite dramatically” in technological development and that DIU is partnering with nontraditional contractors to help achieve military dominance.

He added that R&D efforts driven by federal funding provide benefits such as openness to risk-taking and longer-term investments.

“So if we want access to the leading technology for our military, we’ve got to be accessing the commercial world, and we’ve got to learn to be a fast follower,” said Brown.

Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said at the same event that federal funding for R&D has its payoffs. Langevin, who serves as chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s cyber, innovative technologies and information systems subcommittee, cited the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) COVID-19 research platform that supported U.S. vaccine development efforts.

“Defense-funded basic, early-stage and applied research helps us maintain our competitive edge on the battlefield, but also improves [civilians’] lives,” he noted.