Ellen Lord, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, announced the Air Force plans to award a new contract in June or July to procure additional F-35 fighter jets, Breaking Defense reported Friday. The service would enter into a Lot 12 deal to buy F-35A aircraft worth $89 million each. But Lord noted the price may go down for the next Low Rate of Initial Production lot. 

In September, the Air Force released $11.5 billion for Lot 11 acquisition of 141 aircraft. However, service officials expect to see some challenges in the upcoming aircraft deal as Turkey may leave the F-35 program due to conflicts with other participating nations. 

“We see a potential slowing down of some deliveries over the next two years,” Lord said. “Some potential cost impacts, but right now we believe we can minimize both of those and are working on refining them.”

Ankara houses an F-35 industrial base and the country planned to buy 100 F-35A aircraft. If the country leaves the program, the Air Force expects costs of the aircraft to increase for other countries. The U.S. F-35 program currently involves 14 buying countries.

Sens. Gary Peters and Ron Johnson unveiled a legislation to help the government validate technologies that may allow potential espionage risks, Fedscoop reported Friday.

The Supply Chain Counterintelligence Training Act seeks to train agencies in the detection of foreign cybersecurity threats in communications and information technology systems. The act will also require the Department of Homeland Security, the General Services Administration, Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to partner up in the development of the initiative.

“America’s adversaries use any means necessary to gain access to valuable and sensitive government information, including possibly inserting compromising code into products or enlisting untrustworthy IT support personnel to exploit government systems,” said Sen. Peters.

The act follows a prior announced bill intended to protect supply chain systems and U.S. technologies from possible theft. President Trump also signed a legislation to form an organization that will perform supply chain risk evaluation through the use of classified documents in 2018.

Sandra Hamilton, chief of contracts and acquisitions branch at the State Department, was named director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ information technology policy, strategy and planning division, G2Xchange ETC reported Friday. She has more than two decades of federal civilian service in the IT capital and strategic planning, contracting and procurement, budget planning and portfolio management areas.

Hamilton served as budget and acquisitions lead with the Department of Homeland Security, and as an analyst at the Defense Information Systems Agency and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Before joining the federal government, she spent seven years at the U.S. Marine Corps.

Cameron Naron, the Department of Transportation’s maritime administration director, said during the 2019 Sea-Air-Space event in National Harbor, Md. that the maritime industry is “unprepared for what comes next” in cybersecurity, USNI reported Friday. Naron noted in a panel discussion that the industry hasn’t seen adaptable regulations and established in-depth cybersecurity knowledge with each company having its own procedures for cyber training and operations. 

Kevin Tokarski, a MARAD official, said vessels need to be certified for both cybersecurity and maritime safety. The unit aims to buy used vessels “with eyes wide open” to update its aging ships, according to Tokarski.

“We don’t just want to be patching vulnerabilities; we want to be defending forward,” added Gregg Kendrick, executive director of the Marine Corps Cyber Command.

The National Background Investigations Bureau and Department of Defense are working on funding and systems modernization efforts ahead of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s start of operations in October, Federal News Network reported Friday.

According to NBIB Director Charlie Phalen, the bureau and DoD seek to establish a working capital fund for DCSA and update the Office of Personnel Management’s background investigation platform before the National Background Investigations Service system succeeds it by 2020. “We will make sure they are fully funded to get them through the transition and stay solvent throughout the beginnings,” he added.

Other efforts the two agencies are collaborating on include transferring NBIB contracts to DoD and resolving the security clearance backlog. Previously, the Trump Administration directed NBIB to transfer background investigation responsibilities to DCSA. The new Pentagon unit will include the NBIB, Defense Security Service, NBIS personnel and other employees under the DoD’s Consolidated Adjudications Facility and Insider Threat Management and Analysis Center.