General David Goldfein, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, discussed the hypersonic weapons program and sixth-generation combat aircraft in an interview Friday with National Defense Magazine.

According to Gen. Goldfein, the Air Force is making progress on fielding an operational hypersonic weapon, a weapon that moves at five times the speed of sound, because of the “804 authorities,” an interim approach approved by the U.S. Congress which supports rapid prototyping and rapid fielding of technology within five years of approval.

“It’s going to go through design reviews in ‘20, testing in ‘21 and we’re supposed to reach IOC in ‘22,” he said about the hypersonic conventional strike weapon program.

In addition to hypersonic weapons, the Air Force Chief of Staff also commented on the subject of sixth-generation combat aircraft. Because it will be required to have high-level defensive and offensive capabilities, Gen Goldfein envisions a sixth-generation fighter that will be comprised of multiple platforms, or a “family of systems,” which will fulfill multiple mission requirements.

“I just tell you that I’m not locked into sixth-generation as being a single platform,” he said. “I think it actually limits our thinking if we go down that path.”

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) announced that he will not run for re-election in 2020 “in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security.” Hurd, a 2019 Wash100 Award recipient, wrote in an editorial published Thursday about the “generational challenges” facing the U.S., including the geopolitical competition with China, the increasing incidents of cyber attacks and competition for leadership in the field of artificial intelligence.

“It was never my intention to stay in Congress forever, but I will stay involved in politics to grow a Republican Party that looks like America,” he noted. “I will keep fighting to ensure the country I love excels during what will be a time of unprecedented technological change. I will keep fighting to make certain we successfully meet these generational challenges head on.”

Hurd is a three-term congressman and a former CIA officer.

The U.S. Army kicked off discussions with the Space Development Agency to help provide ground forces access to satellites in the low-Earth orbit, SpaceNews reported Sunday. Ferrari, who most recently served as director of program analysis and evaluation at the Army, said that the SDA will play a lead role in serving as a space systems architect and establishing standards to facilitate the delivery of broadband communications and other LEO-based services to all service branches.

“What’s interesting to the Army about SDA is that they’re talking about building a satellite from the ground up,” John Ferrari, a retired Army major general, told the publication. “For the Army that’s important.” He also noted that the Army requires higher capacity communications platforms. “We’re not betting the farm on LEO. Maybe the business case doesn’t close, but we’re excited because it does offer a missing piece of the puzzle: assured connectivity at lower cost.”

On July 23, the SDA held its first industry day and informed contractors on a plan to come up with a “national security space architecture” using cloud computing, commercial sensors and LEO satellites.

The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are looking to fill director and deputy director positions to manage a $10 billion joint effort to migrate electronic health records to a cloud environment, Fedscoop reported Friday.

The two senior officials will oversee the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization Program Office responsible for the 10-year effort to transfer the medical data of service members and veterans to the Cerner-developed Millennium platform.

The director and deputy will report to DoD and VA officials and be based in Roslyn, Va. Previously, VA announced that it has transferred over 78 billion records to the Cerner cloud.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that a total of $1.7B in fiscal 2019 funds will be distributed to government agencies, private institutions and nonprofit organizations to support preparedness programs nationwide. From that amount, $2.1B will be divided between six DHS competitive preparedness grant programs, the DHS said Friday.

Meanwhile, as previously announced in May, over $1.3B will be assigned to non-competitive grants. The grants are intended to support high-risk areas in the country.

A portion of the funds will be allocated to preparedness programs connected to 31 heavily-populated urban areas through the Urban Area Security Initiative. Preparedness programs enable citizens to handle both natural disasters and terrorist attacks. The DHS has provided over $51B in funding to preparedness programs since 2002.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released a draft guide for incorporating cybersecurity into an internet-of-things network. NIST said Thursday that the “Core Cybersecurity Feature Baseline for Securable IoT Devices” guide provides recommendations on security features that organizations may implement for network-capable devices used in a range of applications such as manufacturing, health care and home use. 

“It is aimed at a technical audience, but we hope to help consumers as well as manufacturers,” said Mike Fagan, a computer scientist at NIST and the guide’s co-author. 

The draft guide includes security recommendations covering device identification and configuration, data protection, interface access, software and firmware updates and cybersecurity event logging. NIST will conduct a workshop on Aug. 13 and accept public feedback on the guide until Sept. 30. 

The Federal Communications Commission unveiled an optional authorization process for small commercial satellite systems with certain characteristics. Operators of satellites that have a wet mass of not more than 396.8 pounds and are built to remain in orbit for a short time period will be eligible to skip the licesing process, FCC said Thursday.

The optional process, which falls under Part 25 of agency regulations, will also apply to smallsats designed to have low space debris and spectrum interference risks. FCC also introduced an application fee category for companies that want to obtain a license or enter the smallsat market in the U.S.

The commission said such systems work to support research, communications, remote sensing and scientific missions.