RTI International, sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, released a report stating that a nationwide GPS outage would result in a $1 billion per day impact in critical industries. The report, titled “Economic Benefits of the Global Positioning System (GPS),” also found that the economic impact of a GPS service loss would be 50 percent higher during the planting season in April and May due to the agriculture sector’s widespread deployment of GPS-based technologies.

A GPS outage would greatly impact location-based services as well as telecommunications and telematics operations such as fleet management and logistics, according to the report. In addition, the maritime sector would face losses totaling around $10 billion especially between the months of June and September.

“GPS is not just a service; it is also a platform for innovation. With the support of federal agencies, private enterprise has leveraged GPS to deliver value through precision agriculture, advanced logistics and route optimization, high-speed wireless services, and a host of other applications,” the report stated. 

RTI studied the impact of GPS technologies from 1984 to 2017 to industries such as telecommunications and telematics, precision agriculture, electricity, location-based services, maritime and mining, oil and gas, professional surveying and financial services.

A new House bill would require the Department of Defense to implement rapid acquisition pathways to speed up the updates to vulnerable weapons systems, FCW reported Monday.

The legislation added to the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act seeks to accelerate acquisition of new apps and integration into existing military systems. It covers software deals to run for one year or less and below $50 million. 

The NDAA would assign a project manager to oversee the rapid acquisitions. It also eliminates the need to issue formal proposals, allowing DoD to seek bids from industry through discussions, statements of qualifications and past performance data.

House lawmakers expect the bill to cut the process to award contracts to 90 days. If approved in Congress, DoD has until March 2020 to establish guidance on the rapid acquisition pathways. The Senate version of the defense bill also includes a similar proposal for rapid acquisition pathway.

The U.S. Navy anticipates additional orders for a Boeing-built maritime patrol aircraft designed to carry anti-submarine and surface warfare missions, Reuters reported Sunday. Boeing received 117 orders for the P-8A Poseidon aircraft and is expecting to land 21 more from the service branch.

“I think there’ll likely be additional U.S. orders and additional [foreign military sales] quantities in the next six to nine months,” said Capt. Tony Rossi, program manager for the P-8 aircraft at the Navy.

Rosssi added that Boeing extended production efforts for the aircraft through 2023 to accommodate international partners. He noted that increased Russian submarine activity had an effect on the demand for the P-8A. Based on the Boeing 737-800, the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft can hold harpoon anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, electronic support measures and other weapons.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office calls for new guidance on implementing alternative methods for knowledge-based verification to secure online applications for government benefits. The call comes amid concerns about the 2017 Equifax data breach that targeted personal data of people who applied online for benefits and services, GAO said in the report issued Friday.

In the same year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a guidance restricting agencies from using knowledge-based verification. However, some agencies raised concerns in implementing alternative methods due to problems with high costs, convenience and technological maturity.

“NIST’s guidance does not provide direction to agencies on how to successfully implement alternative identity-proofing methods with currently available technologies for all segments of the public,” GAO said. The watchdog report suggests that NIST update its guidance and assist agencies to adopt new and secure remote identity proofing processes.

The agencies covered by the guidance are the General Services Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Postal Service, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration. GAO said the agencies should also develop plans to strengthen identity proofing to better secure online applications. NIST, SSA, USPS and VA agreed with GAO’s recommendations, while CMS refused to follow the watchdog report.

The U.S. Army is looking to develop a tactical network to streamline integration operations between air and ground units during combat, C4ISRNET reported Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Brian Winski, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, told attendees at forum with industry in Nashville, Tenn. that the Army component must be able to communicate effectively over great distances and “violently and decisively exploit developing opportunities on the battlefield.” Other capabilities the network must include are the ability to link intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms and the capacity to launch kinetic and electronic fires over the horizon. 

Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, the Army’s network cross-functional team director, added that the service intends to deploy beyond-line-of sight satellite communications technology or alternative capabilities such as low-Earth orbit satellites to support “assured network transport in a contested environment”.

Aside from the tactical network, the Army also wants to field future vertical lift aircraft designed to collaborate with unmanned systems.

Fred Kennedy, director of Space Development Agency, wants to lease commercial services to support the agency’s proposed satellite network in low-Earth orbit, National Defense Magazine reported Friday. 

“I would be very happy to simply lease commercial services from these mega providers,” he said at a recent event of Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington, D.C. “There may be things we need to do with that network that will not quite translate to commercial market, but the more that I can leverage commercial, the better off we are.”

Kennedy announced his first priority at SDA would focus on placing a system of small, low-cost satellites in space by 2022, which will support the agency’s future systems. The agency hopes to begin on-orbit demonstrations in 2020. The director also wants to speed up the currently slow acquisition process and to cut costs of developing space assets. 

“Let’s move away from an exquisite approach that gets us capability in decades to something that might give us some less exquisite capability on the order of a year or two,” Kennedy said. 

Congress has yet to confirm funding for SDA. The Pentagon proposed $150 million for the new agency for fiscal year 2020.