The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the Trump administration’s proposal to establish a Space Force as part of the panel’s fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the Hill reported Thursday.

The $750 billion NDAA earmarks $72.4 million to establish the new military branch to operate under the U.S. Air Force and mandates the appointment of a Space Force commander. The commander will concurrently serve as head of the U.S. Space Command until separate commander roles for the two entities are created following a one-year period.

According to senior committee aides, the Senate panel advanced the Space Force proposal because of the military branch’s goals to consolidate government operations, establish the space warfighting domain and address acquisition issues. 

“Our strategy will set the Space Force up for success now and in the future, minimizing bureaucracy in the force,” said the committee’s chairman Jim Inhiofe, R-Okla., in a statement.

Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and 2019 Wash100 awardee, said CISA’s volunteer border patrol work will not affect operations during a Georgetown University Law Center conference, Cyberscoop reported Wednesday. 

Ten of the Department of Homeland Security agency’s almost 3,500 employees have volunteered for temporary deployment at the southern border and an additional 10 will join the group. The move comes after Matt Travis, deputy director of CISA, sent an e-mail to CISA employees asking them to spend 30 to 45 days at the border to address “an ongoing surge in migrants”. 

Krebs noted that a maximum of 33 CISA volunteers must be sent to the border and only one to two of the already deployed volunteers are responsible for cybersecurity.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has introduced a suite of platforms to help managers, leaders and employees optimize federal agency workplaces. The Accelerating the Gears of Transformation kit is comprised of resources and guides in line with workforce development, OPM said Wednesday. 

Some of the tools within the suite include a group of steps for workforce transition, a reskill toolkit for human resource personnel and a decision-making playbook for leaders. In addition, the office intends to use the resource kit to modernize government and HR capabilities.

“The technology and workforce needs in the Federal workplace are changing rapidly, which means we have to change our thinking around talent management,” said Margaret Weichert, acting director at OPM. “Federal agencies will have greater capacity to redeploy workers, through reskilling efforts, to meet their most pressing, mission-critical needs,” added Weichert.

The U.S. Navy has created a squadron to help the military service experiment with surface warfighting systems and integrate unmanned surface vessels into the fleet, DVIDS reported Wednesday. Surface Development Squadron ONE, which the Navy re-designated from Zumwalt Squadron ONE, will coordinate USV requirements and develop material and technical tools to address tactical challenges for the service branch.

Capt. Henry Adams will lead SURFDEVRON ONE to accelerate the development and delivery of new technology to the surface force. Naval Base San Diego will serve as the new unit’s headquarters. Specifically, the squadron will manage and maintain medium to large USVs such as the Sea Hunter and Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer ships.

Vice Adm. Richard Brown, commander of Naval Surface Force, announced the formation of SURFDEVRON ONE at a ceremony held Wednesday.

Analysts from the U.S. Air Force see to it that bad data must undergo evaluation with senior leadership before fixing, Fedscoop reported Wednesday. Frank Konieczny, USAF chief technology officer, said the service branch is working to keep data flaws uncensored. Data flaws may include obsolete formatting, typos and incorrect or incomplete input.

“We want the seniors to actually see the bad data so that they yell at people to get it fixed,” Konieczny said at a recent event of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. He also said his team is working to segregate accurate data and faulty data via meta-tagging to allow for systematic use of both data types. 

A NASA official said the space agency has transformed its cybersecurity posture since it implemented the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program in 2016, Nextgov reported Wednesday. 

CDM “has tremendously helped NASA not only implement certain tools across the agency, but it’s also helped change and it is changing the culture and the discussion around cybersecurity overall,” Willie Crenshaw, program executive for CDM and risk management at NASA, said Wednesday at an FCW-hosted event. 

Crenshaw mentioned how CDM helped improve its cyber response efforts and identify its assets. “We know more now than we did three years ago about what’s on NASA’s network,” he added.