The U.S. Navy has set a commissioning ceremony for LCS 17, the littoral combat ship to be named USS Indianapolis on Oct. 26 in Burns Harbor, Ind. Jill Donnelly, the wife of former Sen. Joe Donnelly, will order the activation of the LCS as the vessel’s sponsor, the Navy said Thursday.

“The future USS Indianapolis honors more than a city, it pays tribute to the legacy of those who served during the final days of World War II on board USS Indianapolis (CA-35),” said Richard Spencer, secretary at the Navy. 

The future USS Indianapolis is the fourth ship named after the capital of Indiana and is designed to conduct mine countermeasures, surface and anti-submarine warfare missions. The ship is slated to be stationed at Naval Station Mayport following the ceremony.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is working on modernizing its systems and fortifying software security at the supply chain level, Federal Times reported Friday. Adrian Monza, chief of the Department of Homeland Security component’s cyber defense branch, told the publication that USCIS is launching “very significant” modernization efforts and that other agencies must be able to defend their networks against threats to financial databases. 

“It’s only a matter of time until someone gets the bright idea and says, ‘Hey this is a great way into government systems as well,’” he said. “And, so, focusing on identifying that supply chain and securing it is really a focus for us.”

Previously, the U.S. Air Force conducted a series of penetration tests to address vulnerabilities in the service branch’s systems that were in place over the past four years.

Penny Mordaunt, U.K. secretary of state for defense, said the U.K. government will send eight individuals to the U.S. in the next 18 months to support the Combined Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, SpaceNews reported Thursday. She announced at the Air and Space Power Conference 2019 in London that the British government will also team up with the U.S. on the Operation Olympic Defender, a program launched by U.S. Strategic Command in 2013 to build up deterrence against adversaries in space.

Mordaunt said the U.K. government plans to make a $34M investment to launch a constellation of small satellites in support of a transatlantic collaboration – Team Artemis – that hopes to conduct research into small satellites and their wider role in military operations. The report said the U.K. air force has partnered with Virgin Orbit to provide launch services for the small satellite program.

The General Services Administration and National Archives and Records Administration officially unveiled a market research tool to help agencies identify electronic records management platforms that meet their requirements, Nextgov reported Thursday.

The ERM tool provides information on contractors for 11 record types, including desktop applications, electronic messages, cloud, databases and digital media. The two agencies have also announced the launch of a new special item number – SIN 51 600 – for ERM products and services under GSA’s Schedule 36.

“SIN 51 600 provides a comprehensive capability to solve the complex challenges posed by the movement, manipulation, archiving, security, and management of electronic records,” according to GSA’s Discovery website. “This SIN also includes any ancillary supplies and/or services necessary to provide a total electronic records management solution.”

The House passed a bill on Wednesday directing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to accelerate its efforts to implement automation for GEOINT activities and report progress on such programs, C4ISRnet reported Friday.

The bill requires NGA to brief the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence on its strategy to deploy automated capabilities to enable staff to rapidly process imaging data and conduct related data analyses. NGA must also establish a plan for hiring software engineers, mathematicians and data scientists to support the effort.

According to a report from the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence, the agency is failing at providing “adequate resources to integrate new automation techniques which have resulted in years of research into the issue, but limited operation gains during day-to-day imagery processing.” The House and Senate are yet to reconcile differences between their versions of the bill.

Gen. David Goldfein, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, said adopting a multi-domain operations approach that connects air, ground, maritime, space, information and cyber assets in an integrated system to detect and counter threats “will change the character of modern warfare,” the Air Force reported Thursday. 

“Where we are going is using dominance in one domain or many, blending a few capabilities or many, to produce multiple dilemmas for our adversaries in a way that will overwhelm them,” Goldfein said Thursday in his speech at the Air and Space Power Conference 2019 in London.

“Victory in combat will depend less on individual capabilities and more on the integrated strengths of a connected network of weapons, sensors and analytic tools. This is important because as air component commanders of the world, we are uniquely positioned to integrate capabilities and we are often the ones who must pull it all together,” he added.

Goldfein noted about the initiatives the service branch has implemented to advance the MDO concept, such as establishing a new officer career field and a “shadow” operations center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

Sens. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., have announced the Senate Armed Services Committee’s intention to conduct an early nomination hearing for David Norquist, a 2019 Wash100 Award recipient and President Trump’s pick for deputy secretary of defense. SASC said Thursday that it will host the nomination hearing on Wednesday, July 24 to provide advice and consent. Norquist currently holds the role on an acting basis. 

“The Deputy Secretary of Defense is the number-two civilian role at the Pentagon, so it’s incredibly important to receive a formal nomination and confirm the nominee quickly,” said Inhofe who chairs the committee.

The committee normally administers voting seven days after nominations, but have decided to accelerate the process due to the role’s significance. He added that the committee must strictly examine received nominations despite the urgency.

Reps. Jim Baird, R-Ind., Haley Stevens, D-Mich., and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., introduced a bill to support small business research and development programs. The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Act would require the Small Business Association to annually report to Congress on SBIR and STTR programs, Baird’s office said Wednesday. The bill would also task the Department of Defense to foster technological innovation across these programs with a focus on manufacturing and cybersecurity.

“The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Act will make these programs even stronger by increasing accountability, prioritizing cybersecurity and promoting diversity among grant award recipients,” said Stevens, who chairs the House’s Research and Technology Subcommittee.

Vice Adm. Scott Buschman, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Atlantic area, has said the service is still looking to repair its facilities damaged by three hurricanes two years ago, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Buschman noted that Coast Guard facilities in the Virgin Islands, South and North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas are yet to fully recover from the impact of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. He added the Coast Guard wants to reconstruct its damaged bases by hardening or elevating them to avoid water and weather-related damages.

“We are looking at making sure that wherever we rebuild a facility that we can rebuild the resiliency standard so they can survive future storm that might impact that area,” he said.

The Coast Guard is also working on deploying unmanned aerial systems for disaster response and modernizing the service’s information technology infrastructure.