The U.S. Air Force’s 574th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron has installed a 3D-printed, titanium-based component onto an F-22 Raptor jet during depot maintenance operations at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, the USAF said Thursday. The additive manufactured bracket doesn’t corrode and will replace an aluminum part in the cockpit’s kick panel assembly.

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Robert Lewin, director of the 574th AMXS, said that F-22 personnel has faced difficulties on the availability of additional components due to its small fleet size. The new component, built layer by layer through a laser-driven powder bed fusion procedure, can be ordered and delivered for installation within three days.

“Once we get to the more complicated parts, the result could be a 60-70 day reduction in flow time for aircraft to be here for maintenance,” Lewin noted.

The Air Force said it’s partnered with industry on the additive manufacturing effort and expects to incorporate five more 3D-printed metallic parts on the F-22.

The Transportation Security Administration failed to properly inform Congress about how it buys security-related technologies despite a mandate to justify acquisitions worth over $30M before awarding a contract. In a report published Thursday, the Government Accountability Office said TSA is required to detail security-related technology acquisitions to Congress under the Transportation Security Acquisition Reform Act. 

However, the agency has been providing limited information to lawmakers since 2014 and only delivered its first full report in August 2018. 

“TSA has not effectively communicated internally its implementation decisions for what constitutes an SRT under TSARA,” GAO said. 

TSA also failed to issue a guidance on which acquired technologies are considered an SRT, which could impact how the agency applies policies in future acquisitions under TSARA, GAO said.  

To address reporting concerns, GAO recommends that TSA revise its policies to include reporting on tasks, delivery orders and services related to SRT. The agency agreed with the recommendation. In July, TSA provided $1.4B for the acquisition of security technologies and associated services. 

The Government Accountability Office found the Department of Defense’s nine cross-functional teams have created to resolve issues in the DoD’s business processes have yet to implement 104 out of 135 reform efforts, GAO said Thursday.

Pentagon officials noted that the department was not able to fulfill four of nine of the teams’ funding requests in fiscal year 2018 due to a lack of resources. The officials added that around $6.7B is needed to implement the team’s initiatives from FYs 2018 through 2024.

According to GAO, the DoD has not developed a strategy to identify and prioritize available funding to implement the  reforms. The government watchdog recommends the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief Management Officer to establish a funding identification and prioritization process to execute the teams’ reform efforts.

The GAO report ensures the DoD’s compliance with section 911 of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, have reintroduced a bill to secure the energy grid via government-industry engineering efforts. The Securing Energy Infrastructure Act would establish government-industry partnerships eliminating software vulnerabilities that create openings for cyber attacks, King’s office said Thursday.

The reintroduction intends to address the bill’s failure to pass the House before the 115th Congress’ end, despite the legislation unanimously passing the Senate in December. The legislation would create a two-year pilot program to study concealed security threats, and direct the secretary of energy to report results to Congress.

The bill would also task a group to assess National Laboratories’ proposed technologies, and form a national cyber strategy protecting the energy grid from potential attacks.

“Our bipartisan bill has broad support, as evidenced by its passage in the Senate last December, and I hope the new Congress will take swift action on it so we can proactively protect our country’s critical infrastructure from cyberattacks,” said King.

The White House and the Department of Defense have issued a new policy framework to protect U.S. forces and allies from missile threats posed by rogue states and other potential adversaries, U.S. Strategic Command reported Thursday.

President Donald Trump released the 2019 Missile Defense Review with Vice President Mike Pence and Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Thursday at the Pentagon.

The document assesses the threats posed to the U.S. and its allies by North Korea, Iran, Russia and China as they develop capabilities such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons.

The MDR framework calls for the development and deployment of missile defenses to keep ahead of projected missile threats; use of nuclear deterrence to address ICBM capabilities of Russia and China; and pursuit of new missile defense technologies and concepts to address the evolving threats.

The review recommends several initiatives to build up the capability of the Ground-Based, Mid-Course Defense system. These include the addition of 20 more deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska; development of a new kill vehicle for the GBI; and deployment of missile tracking and discrimination sensors in Hawaii and Alaska.

Other efforts suggested in the document to address regional offensive threats include the development of mobile missile defense capabilities to facilitate response to evolving conflicts; interoperability between missile defenses of U.S. forces and allies; and the need to build up regional missile defense posture by fielding Aegis, Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems.
 

President Trump has signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 into law that will provide compensation for wages lost, work performed or leave used by federal workers as their agencies closed on Dec. 22, the White House said Wednesday. The bill also allows selected employees to use leave during a lapse in appropriations.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., author of the bill, said the decision guarantees pay to hundreds of thousands of workers affected by the shutdown. However, he still calls for the Trump administration to reopen the government, highlighting the back pay will not provide a permanent relief to employees. 

“Let’s reopen the government and get them all back to work so American taxpayers can receive the services they need and are paying for,” Cardin said. “This needless shutdown is having a painful effect on hundreds of thousands of workers, their families and their communities.”

Affected federal employees will be paid once the administration ends the shutdown.

The Government Accountability Office concluded in a report that the General Services Administration and the White House lack the effort to ensure identity security in federal facilities, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

GAO noted in a report that it identified several issues on the physical access control systems that GSA and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget control. These systems work to manage identity information of federal agency workers. Issues found in PACS include cost, lack of procurement clarity and technology integration difficulty with legacy systems.

GAO recommends OMB’s director establish a baseline to guide the progress of meeting PACS requirements, and monitor corresponding developments.

The U.S. Navy plans to deploy two different hull designs to replace the service’s auxiliary ships that are about to be phased out, USNI News reported Wednesday.

Last year, the Navy sought industry input on a common design to succeed its sealift ships, command-and-control ship, hospital ship, aviation logistics ship and submarine tender as part of the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform program.

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During a Surface Navy Association event on Wednesday, Capt. Scot Searles, strategic and theater sealift program manager at the Navy’s program executive office for ships, said early feedback suggests the use of volume-centric and people-centric hull designs to address the program’s five mission areas. He added that the Navy will also commence service-life extension operations and procure used auxiliary ships if necessary.

The Navy has repeatedly extended production lines for the General Dynamics-built Expeditionary Seabase and the Austal USA-built Expeditionary Fast Transport. Both firms said their vessels have enough space and flexibility to accommodate various missions, including medical activities.