The U.S. Marine Corps plans to deploy 15,000 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles after the platform has achieved initial operating capability status, Military .com said Thursday.

Manufactured by Oshkosh Defense, JLTV platforms are built to protect warfighters and allow command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capacities during operations. USMC initially planned to field 9,000 vehicles prior to its evaluation of the program. Additionally, the service branch seeks to use the vehicle to replace its High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle fleet.

“We subsequently completed the evaluation and presented the information to the commandant, at which time he concurred with replacing the remainder of the light fleet with JLTVs,” the Marine Corps cited in a statement.

The Air Force Research Laboratory unveiled a 12-week initiative to allow companies to offer space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance offerings to potential customers, National Defense reported Thursday.

The Catalyst Space Accelerator program is seeking to bridge subject matter experts and the U.S. military with eight small businesses to validate if their technologies will address clients’ needs. Additionally, the participants may showcase their services through a demonstration day in September.

KiMar Gartman, a program director at AFRL, said the initiative may help the participants secure contracts, federal grants or transaction authority agreements. AFRL will select the participants through various sources including conventions and social media websites.

“We try to bring in the Army, the Navy [and] other Air Force units that would have interest in the technology,” said Gartman.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is implementing a new file exchange system to enable Department of Defense users to securely exchange unclassified data on an enterprise level. DISA said Thursday that the open-source DoD Secure Access File Exchange will succeed the Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center’s SAFE service slated to retire this month.

DoD SAFE updates its AMRDEC predecessor’s file transfer capacity from 2 gigabytes to 8 gigabytes and covers data such as personally identifiable information, protected health information and “for official use only” files within the Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network. DoD SAFE also allows users to access files for seven days and send a maximum of 25 files at the same time.

In addition, the file transfer service limits data exchange initiation activities to authenticated holders of the Common Access Card. The DoD chief information officer is expected to complete the SAFE effort in six months.

Douglas Glenn, assistant deputy chief financial officer at the Department of Defense, told FCW in an interview published Thursday that DoD plans to take one step at a time to complete and pass its next financial audit.

“So we just chip away at the NFRs [notices of findings and recommendations], which will lead to reducing the material weaknesses, which will lead to more clean opinions and we’ll get there,” Glenn said.

He mentioned that DoD has seen a positive return on investment and realized cost savings in regard to the use of robotics and how the Pentagon plans to apply automation at the Fourth Estate level.

“We’d love to get into accelerating the de-obligation process and contract close out,” Glenn said. “So if we could deploy some robots to accelerate that closeout process, lift some of the burden off the contracting officers, it would be a win-win across the government.”

President Trump is talking with advisers regarding the administration’s potential purchase of Greenland for resources and geopolitical reasons, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. A fraction of Trump’s advisers support the idea as a beneficial economic move, while some disagree with the president.

Some government officials say the autonomous Danish territory holds benefits to U.S. national security. The U.S. has access to Denmark-based military facilities such as Thule Air Base due to an old treaty between the two countries. However, Greenland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Twitter that the territory is not for sale, but open for business with regard to tourism and resources.

The president’s idea of purchasing Greenland comes before his Denmark visit scheduled for next month.

Dan Coats, departing director of national intelligence and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, is calling on Congress to reauthorize provisions under the USA Freedom Act of 2015 which is slated to expire in December, The Hill reported Thursday. Coats wrote to the Senate judiciary and intelligence committees seeking permanent reauthorization for the act’s provisions which include the authority to wiretap calls and obtain business records for national security purposes. 

Coats’ letter comes after the National Security Agency suspended the White House’s phone surveillance program focused on obtaining data related to potential terrorist plots. NSA announced its recommendation to terminate the program in April. According to Coats, the government should exercise its authority to restart the surveillance effort as needed.

“However, as technology changes, our adversaries’ tradecraft and communications habits will continue to evolve and adapt,” he said. “In light of this dynamic environment, the Administration supports reauthorization of this provision as well.”