The office of the inspector general at NASA has issued a report saying it estimates the costs of facility closures, delays and other challenges facing the space agency as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic to reach nearly $3 billion. OIG said Wednesday 30 major programs and projects accounted for about $1.6 billion of the estimated total cost impact.

The James Webb Space Telescope, Space Launch System (SLS) and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope represent 53 percent of the $1.6 billion estimated cost impact, while the Orion crew vehicle, Europa Clipper and Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) account for another 20 percent.

According to the report, the Roman Space Telescope, which has a life cycle cost of $3.9 billion, incurred $3 million in estimated costs in fiscal year 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Project officials estimate a cost impact of nearly $400 million for FY 2021 and beyond.

Program officials for SLS reported $8 million in cost impact for FY 2020. The program is expected to record $355 million in additional costs for FY 2021 through FY 2023, stemming from schedule adjustments, production issues and facility shutdown.

The pandemic cost the Orion program $5 million in FY 2020 and its future impact on the program could reach $141 million.

The Biden administration has unveiled a plan to invest $2 trillion in infrastructure projects and job creation initiatives as part of efforts to rebuild the U.S. economy and compete with China.

Under the American Jobs Plan, the government will invest about 1 percent of gross domestic product on an annual basis over eight years to upgrade the country’s infrastructure, strengthen manufacturing, advance research and development, support supply chains and solidify U.S. care infrastructure, the White House said Wednesday.

The plan includes an investment of $621 billion to upgrade roads, bridges, transit systems and other transportation infrastructure; $174 billion to support the electric vehicle market; $100 billion to expand broadband access; $111 billion to improve water infrastructure; and $100 million to modernize the electric grid and power generation sector.

The administration also proposed the Made in America Tax Plan that seeks to implement corporate tax changes to raise money and help pay for investments stipulated in the American Jobs Plan over the next 15 years.

The plan will increase the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, enact a 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations’ book income, eliminate tax preferences for fossil fuels and reform the tax code by removing tax incentives for foreign derived intangible income, among other measures.

The General Services Administration (GSA) expects to conclude the third phase of its Multiple Award Schedule consolidation effort by the end of 2021, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

GSA announced the completion of the second phase of MAS consolidation in August 2020 and now wants vendors holding multiple contracts to submit plans by the end of the year on how to merge those contracts into one per unique entity identifier as part of the effort's final phase.

“The rest of this year we’ll be focused on moving companies that have multiple contracts to one [contracting officer], so that you guys can establish your plans for any of these small businesses that do have multiple contracts,” Stephanie Shutt, director of the MAS program management office, said Wednesday during an ACT-IAC event.

Shutt said MAS consolidation is a “foundational” effort and one of the four elements of GSA’s Federal Marketplace Strategy that seeks to streamline the acquisition process.

In November 2018, GSA announced plans to combine 24 schedules into a single procurement vehicle to simplify the buying process for customer agencies.

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The Department of Defense's Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) and National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) have agreed to create a joint annual program meant to encourage smaller contractors to participate more in the the national technology and industrial base.

The partnership aims to drive collaborations between startup accelerators and incubators, commercial entities, academic institutions and nonprofit organizations to bring emerging technology to the department, DOD said Wednesday.

OSBP Director Farooq Mitha said the two organizations will develop initiatives that align with President Biden's Build Back Better recovery plan and create innovation opportunities for domestic manufacturing and small companies.

Both organization have a shared goal of accelerating the transition of technology concepts into the procurement and operational phases.

NSIN is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and facilitate collaborative efforts across the nontraditional contracting space to help DOD address real-world challenges.

The U.S. Army tested the most advanced modernized radios, tactical cell phones and network gear with a whole brigade for two weeks in March at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk. The exercise culminated from three years of work to build a modernized network that incorporates real-time soldier feedback while in the field.

“I think this is all about speed and range. You start getting after what we want to do for decisive operations, decisive decision-making. We want to get after sensor-to-shooter. How do we do that quickly at speed, how do we extend the range…I think this fundamentally is a game-changer and allowing this airborne unit to be able to extend across those areas of speed and range,” commented Brig. Gen. Robert Collins, program executive officer for command, control, communications-tactical. 

The gear is a part of the Army's Integrated Tactical Network (ITN). The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, tested the equipment as part of the network's capability set 2021. The gear included radios, tactical cell phones and new waveforms that pinpoint soldier locations along with cross-domain systems that allow communication with units and coalition partners. 

“We’ll be looking for either feedback to determine are the quantities about right or what adjustments should we make based on this large-scale force on force rotation, which we haven’t had the luxury of having in the past. Our decisions have been made without having this kind of feedback, so this will be important going forward,” added Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of the Army Network Cross-Functional Team.

The equipment received praise from the soldiers involved, including the individual soldier kit fielded by team leaders. The kit has a two-channel radio paired with a hardened cell phone attached to a soldier’s chest. These provide incredible situational awareness that provides a soldier's battlefield location and allows communications up and down ranks. 

Before this new equipment, if communications failed on the battlefield, there were few secondary options for warfighters. The successful testing of the ITN systems provides troops with many different paths of communications. “We’re trying to provide them much … more resilient capability,” concluded Gallagher. 

Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher will be the keynote speaker at the Potomac Officers Club’s upcoming 2021 JADO Forum. The Forum will be held on April 15th, if you are interested in attending the Forum please visit the Potomac Officers Club’s Event Page.

Researchers with the U.S. Army developed and demonstrated a method through which unmanned aircraft systems may autonomously land on unmanned ground vehicles. The team from Army Research Laboratory (ARL) aimed to demonstrate this landing approach without reliance on GPS systems, the Army said Tuesday.

“UAVs will need the ability to operate with no Soldier intervention, and a critical function is landing autonomously on static and moving ground vehicles, recharging, then taking off to perform new missions,” said Stephen Nogar, a researcher with ARL.

Nogar said GPS is easily disrupted, and therefore must not be relied on by unmanned aircraft.

The demonstration made use of low-cost sensors and computers, with no communication established between the custom-built rotary UAS and the Clearpath Warthog UGV. The ground vehicle had a fiducial marker that served as an identifier for the UAS to recognize.

Moving forward, the team will boost the landing's reliability and apply artificial intelligence that would allow the UAS to recognize the UGV without completely relying on the marker.

Interested vendors have until June 15th to submit proposals to the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation on research and development projects for homeland security technologies. 

BIRD is looking for projects that may lead to commercialization and enhance various applications such as unmanned aerial systems and first responder technologies as part of the 2021 Call for Proposals effort, a joint program between the  Israel Ministry of Public Security and the Department of Homeland Security, DHS said Tuesday.

The proposals are also required to include research and cooperative agreements between Israeli and U.S. companies.

"The BIRD [Homeland Security] program raises awareness of capability gaps within the global innovation ecosystem and helps build relationships between industry and homeland security organizations, both in Israel and the U.S.," said William Bryan, acting undersecretary for science and technology at DHS.

BIRD will accept executive summaries for all proposed projects until April 27th.

Jessica Maxwell, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense (DOD), said the Pentagon is assessing the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program to ensure that it is meeting goals without impeding industry participation, FedScoop reported Tuesday. Maxwell told the publication in a statement that the DOD routinely executes assessments at the early stages of major programs.

Robert Metzger, head of law firm Rogers Joseph O’Donnell's Washington, D.C. location, told FedScoop that it is “timely to consider” potential modifications to the CMMC initiative. Metzger noted that he expects the DOD review to address issues such as funding, staffing and the issuance of interim rules finalizing the program.

“It would not surprise me at all if the new administration would want to consider very carefully how best to get this objective achieved,” he added.

The Biden administration could look into potential changes to how the DOD coordinates with the CMMC Accreditation Body and the roles that third-party assessors must assume, according to Metzger.

NASA has studied how virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies can support exploration missions on Mars and the Moon.

The space agency said Tuesday that its Ames Research Center led three projects that tackled mix reality applications in volcanic environment studies, life-searching in space and operational design for scientific missions in austere environments.

Researchers involved presented their findings in a journal titled “Planetary and Space Science.”

"This represents the culmination of years of work from missions all over the Earth, doing the work of figuring out how we can effectively conduct science on other worlds," said Darlene Lim, the principal investigator of the Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains (BASALT) project.

BASALT's third and final deployment took place at Hawaii's Kilauea Caldera and Kilauea Iki regions, where Lim's team simulated exploration with conditions similar to those in Mars. The deployment aimed to demonstrate how astronauts would conduct biology, chemistry and geology studies on Mars, with the help of new technologies.

The second project, titled Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog (SUBSEA), deployed the Nautilus exploration vessel to the Pacific Ocean. The effort demonstrated geochemical modeling and other techniques to maximize an exploration's scientific yield.

The third project, known as Field Investigations to Enable Solar System Science and Exploration or FINESSE, looked into the similarities of Earth's volcanic land formation with the Moon and Mars. FINESSE's team conducted the study in Idaho and Canada.