U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, a 2019 Wash100 winner, named a planned Arleigh Burke-class Flight III destroyer after a late Medal of Honor awardee and a hospital corpsman at the service branch.

The ship, named the USS William Charette and also known as DDG 130, will be built in Bath, Main at the Bath Iron Works operated by General Dynamics, the Navy said Monday. Charette was a veteran of the Korean War.

“Charette put himself at extreme risk during intense combat to render aid to Marines in need,” Spencer said. “His efforts saved lives and I am honored that his legacy will live on in the future USS William Charette.”

The 509-foot-long vessel will utilize defensive and offensive weapon platforms and is built to navigate at speeds of over 30 knots, support maritime warfare missions and conduct surface, subsurface and air battles.

The Wash100 award, now in its sixth year, recognizes the most influential executives in the GovCon industry as selected by the Executive Mosaic team in tandem with online nominations from the GovCon community. Representing the best of the private and public sector, the winners demonstrate superior leadership, innovation, reliability, achievement and vision.

Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2019 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2019.

Bob Kolasky, director of the Department of Homeland Security National Risk Management Center, confirmed that a new supply chain cybersecurity task force plans to release a series of recommendations this summer, FCW reported Monday.

Kolasky, who co-chairs the task force, noted there are five groups that supervise development of recommendations that will enable acquisition reforms for federal and industry operations. The task force is headed by DHS and includes representatives from industry, the executive branch, the contracting community and other relevant experts.

“I want to come back years from now and say these recommendations made a difference in supply chain risk management,” Kolasky said. 

The group will address priorities such as creating an inventory of federal supply chain activities, improving the government and private sector’s threat information exchange and establishing procurement regulations for authorized resellers and original equipment manufacturers.

Other initiatives include developing recommendations on certified bidders and manufacturers, establishing criteria for evaluation processes driven by risk-based decision making and collaborating with the Federal Acquisition Security Council.

Legislators from New Mexico sent a letter to Patrick Shanahan, the acting defense secretary, regarding the state’s interest in hosting the new Space Development Agency, Space News reported Monday.

The lawmakers are attempting to persuade Shanahan to select New Mexico as the new agency’s location. The department could work with the existing volume of space researchers in the state, the report noted.

“As you stand up the SDA, we urge you and other senior leaders to look to the state of New Mexico as a host for co-locating the agency headquarters and to be your lead entities for implementing the space research and development policies you directed,” the letter stated.

Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Tom Udall D-N.M., and Rep. Xochitl Torres Small D-N.M., are among those who signed the letter. Space research and technology organizations located in New Mexico include Spaceport America, SpaceBooster and Lunar Transportation Systems.

The U.S. Marine Corps is requesting $21.6 million to acquire MUX sea drones for fiscal year 2020, Marine Corps Times reported Tuesday.

Capt. Christopher Harrison, a spokesman for the service branch, noted that the funding will support technical concept maturation and experimentation efforts for the amphibious ship-launched drones ahead of an operational capability certification in FY26.

Other MUX initiatives covered by the funding include system architecture development and rapid prototyping of major components to serve as a basis for future production initiatives. Harrison added that the MUX can also serve as a cargo resupply vehicle and an airborne escort for other existing platforms.

Lawmakers previously pointed to USMC’s potential lack of capacity to operate larger drones, resulting in the MUX funding being reduced from $25 million. The Marine Corps has also requested for three MQ-9 Reaper drones in 2020 and an additional three for the following year.

Defense officials said the U.S. Navy is considering a plan to cancel the proposed service-life extensions for its oldest cruisers, the largest combatants in its naval fleet, Defense News reported Monday. The service wants to save money to procure more missiles and address the growing threats from Chinese and Russian anti-ship missiles.

The Navy eyes decommissioning the cruisers Bunker Hill, Mobile Bay, Antietam, Leyte Gulf, San Jacinto and Lake Champlain in 2021 and 2022, which officials said are difficult to maintain due to aging components. All the six ships will reach or be near the end of their 35-year service lives over the next three years.

However, the Navy would lack six ships to support its fleet of largest surface combatants if its ends the services of those cruisers by 2022. The Navy planned to buy a replacement large surface combatant first before retiring some of its aging cruisers, but the service branch previously decided to delay the acquisition until 2025.

“We’re early in the discussion of requirements on the large surface combatant. I’ve got to tell you, given kind of the discussion that’s happened already, the first question that we have to do is prove to ourselves that we need a large surface combatant,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson.

The Navy intends to issue its updated 30-year shipbuilding plan in the coming days, which will include details on the future of the cruisers.