Japan is establishing its own space force as part of the country’s air force, The National Insterest reported Tuesday.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the new space domain mission unit will begin operations in April as part of the country’s air self-defense force and would collaborate with the U.S. Space Force.

Abe told parliament the country needs to build up capability in space and cyber space amid threats posed by China and Russia.

In December, President Trump authorized the creation of the Space Force as the sixth service branch by signing the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

The Space Development Agency plans to launch the first batch of dozens of satellites by fiscal year 2022 to provide initial capabilities and have a thousand satellites by FY 2026 in low-Earth orbit as part of its proposed National Defense Space Architecture, C4ISRNET reported Tuesday.

“We have a completely different model for doing space acquisitions than the department has historically done. We’re going to fly new tranches every two years. Tranche 0 is the prototype for Tranche 1, which is the prototype for Tranche 2, etc.,” SDA Director Derek Tournear told reporters Tuesday at a media roundtable. “We’re taking technology that is available to fly within 18-24 months, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do for each of the tranches.”

Tournear said the agency expects to have enough orbiting satellites by FY 2024 to provide regional persistence. “The satellites are designed to last for five years, so you won’t replace all of the satellites on those two year tranches, but you’ll add new capabilities and then the satellites will be replenished basically in two and a half tranche cycles,” he added.

The space architecture is composed of seven layers: transport; battle management; tracking; custody; navigation; deterrence; and support layers. SDA expects to release solicitations for the transport and tracking layers this spring with plans to award contracts by the summer of 2020.

SDA issued a broad agency announcement Tuesday asking industry to submit executive summaries and proposals for novel concepts and capabilities in support of the NDSA.

The State Department has launched a new hub that helps employees and diplomats make decisions based on analyzed data.

The Center for Analytics offers tools that allow State Department employees to tackle a range of diplomatic challenges such as case prioritization and resource management, the department said Friday.

A chief data officer leads CfA’s operations in support of congressional efforts, 5G security forecasts, threat tracking and foreign policy.

The center’s establishment is part of the department’s plan to lead data analytics in the federal government and use the technology in support of foreign policy.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is looking for input on “desirable characteristics” of data repositories to be used for information collated from federally funded research.

OSTP said in a Federal Register notice posted Friday that it aims to help federal agencies identify suitable features for government and nongovernment-operated systems designed to locate, manage and share research data.

According to OSTP, all data repositories for federally funded research must promote equal access and use a common format. Repositories must also have features for restricted access, privacy, download control, data retention and breach response.

OSTP noted that it intends to “reduce the burden for researchers” and “inform coordinated agency action” for research data storage as part of the effort.

Interested parties may submit feedback through March 6.

Lockheed Martin has updated a ground system designed for command-and-control operations supporting the U.S. Air Force’s GPS III navigation satellites, C4ISRnet reported Saturday.

The Air Force tasked Lockheed to update the ground segment to ensure interim control of GPS III satellites until Raytheon completes the Next Generation Operational Control System by 2021. The Lockheed-built ground segment includes contingency operations updates that verify the first GPS III satellite for operational use by military and civilian entities.

Capt. Ryan Thompson, assistant director of sustainment at the 2nd Space Operations Squadron, said the updated segment enabled the unit to “control the new satellite without a next-generation operational control system.”

Lockheed currently manages the second GPS III satellite, which was launched to orbit in August 2019. The company is slated to launch the third satellite later this year.

Officials from the U.S. and Chinese governments are planning to set a discussion meeting on civil space matters this year, Space News reported Monday. The next U.S.-China Civil Space Dialogue is planned for March and would follow the event's last iteration in 2017.

Matthew Rydin, press secretary and senior communications advisor at NASA, told SpaceNews the State Department is working on a list of topics that hold mutual interest between the two countries.  The State Department will co-chair the dialogue, as NASA does not have the authority to bilaterally engage with China state officials.

NASA's representation in the meeting would traditionally rely upon the space agency's associate administrator for international and interagency relations or the officer's deputy counterpart, Rydin noted.