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The National Background Investigations Bureau is still running despite the partial government shutdown’s effects on the Office of Personnel Management, Nextgov reported Wednesday.
The bureau continues to run on funds that customer agencies pay for investigation work. The NBIB has managed to cut a backlog of 725,000Â investigations down to 600,000 between April and the end of 2018.
An official said the bureau intends to reduce the backlog to 300,000 this spring, the report noted.
The U.S. Navy has announced the installation of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford‘s first advanced weapons elevator, the service branch said Wednesday. Its newest carrier received the AWE on Dec. 21 after engineers from Huntington Ingalls Industries completed certification and testing activities.
AWE units of Ford-class aircraft carriers use electromagnetic, linear synchronous motors to perform elevation, unlike those in Nimitz-class carriers that rely on cables. The new AWE is designed to carry up to 24K pounds of artillery at a speed of 150 feet-per-minute, allowing for faster elevation compared to Nimitz-class carriers.
The ship is undergoing post-shakedown availability procedures at HII’s facility in Newport News, Va. Engineers will install the 10 remaining AWE units before the ship’s PSA completion slated for July.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will reintroduce the Space Frontier Act that failed to pass the House in 2018 in an effort for Congress to approve commercial space regulatory reform and extend NASA’s control of the International Space Station, SpaceNews reported Wednesday.
In July, Cruz introduced the bill and received Senate approval in December. However, House lawmakers denied the legislation a day after it passed the upper chamber, with the majority of Democrats following the objections raised by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
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Cruz cited the “intense partisan discord†in Congress affected the decisions of the House lawmakers. He highlights the conflict between the House Science Committee and the House Transportation Committee over commercial space issues. But the Senator plans to propose the bill again for the new Congress, saying he hopes to work “very closely with the incoming chairman in the House†to seek approval.
The Space Frontier Act would extend NASA’s authorization to operate the International Space Station from 2024 to 2030.
Adm. Bill Moran, the U.S. Navy’s vice chief of naval operations, said at a Surface Navy Association event in Arlington, Va., that data ownership issues hamper efforts to implement emerging technology, National Defense reported Wednesday.
Moran noted the Navy is lagging when it comes to artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts because the service is being denied access to its own data. He added that the Navy respects proprietary data ownership, but its sophisticated weapons systems need to obtain the relevant data in order to leverage AI tools to drive predictive maintenance functions.
“My message to them — if they are listening — is ‘you don’t own that data. The Navy owns that data.’ Contractors work with us. That data is our data,†Moran said.
President Trump has signed memosfor federal funds to bolster the Department of Defense‘s munition supply chain, Defense News reported Wednesday.
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The funds would support American manufacturers of bomb components as part of a $250M investment under the Defense Production Act. The investment supports a bigger federal plan to address market weaknesses within the military’s supply.
“There will be many more of these to come to address gaps and vulnerabilities in the defense-industrial base,†Peter Navarro, director of the White House Office of Trade and Industrial Policy, told Defense News in an interview.
He added that the funds are intended to modernize manufacturing processes.
The U.S. Air Force unveiled a new special warfare technical integration support facility in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., tasked with speeding up the integration of new technologies and updating existing communication equipment for special operations. The Col. John T. Carney Center of Excellence opened during a ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony on Friday, the service said Wednesday.
Brig. Gen. William Holt, Air Force Special Operations Command special assistant to the commander, said the 25,000-square-foot facility aims to reduce the military’s development timeline from concepts to operational implementation through rapid response integration.Â
“It will bring together a diverse group of professionals with different backgrounds to collaborate, develop, test, field and operationalize concepts to maintain our competitive edge,†Holt said.
The Army said rapid integration accelerates special tactics operators’ response to the U.S. Special Operations Command’s call to support tactical air-to-ground integration and conduct global access, precision strike, personnel recovery and battlefield surgery operations.
The Department of Energy intends to award $45M in funding for chemical and materials research supporting the emerging quantum information science domain, DOE said Wednesday. The department expects the multidisciplinary QIS field to spearhead efforts involving information processing, next-generation computing, sensing applications and related innovative technology.
The program’s first track will focus on the development of new systems and materials for QIS efforts, while the second will revolve around using quantum computing to address chemical and materials research issues. The QIS project is open to nonprofit organizations, universities and national laboratories which may form teams or apply as single investigators.
DOE’s Basic Energy Sciences program under the Office of Science plans to allocate $15M to QIS projects in fiscal year 2019. The department is accepting pre-applications through Feb. 13, and final applications by May 3.
The National Security Agency’s office of inspector general has released a semi-annual report to Congress of its independent oversight work carried out from April 1, 2018 to Sept. 30, 2018.
NSA Inspector General Robert Storch wrote in the report that his office issued 21 oversight memoranda and reports during the six-month period and offered 620 recommendations to help the agency address the identified deficiencies.
Storch said his office’s work to probe claims of fraud, waste, misconduct and abuse resulted in 118 inquiries and 30 investigations and disciplinary action imposed on 24 agency employees.
During the period, the OIG closed 88 inquiries and 30 investigations, leading to the potential recovery of $261K from employees and contractors.
The OIG’s technology and cybersecurity branch conducted an assessment to determine whether NSA assigns individuals to fill System Security Plan-related roles for 10 operational systems and found that several of the examined platforms run without one or more required security personnel.
“As a result, the agency does not have reasonable assurance that some systems have requisite security oversight,†according to the report.
President Donald Trump and the Department of Defense plan to release on Thursday a document that lays out the administration’s missile defense strategy, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The Missile Defense Review comes as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea pursue development work on ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles that could pose a threat to U.S. forces and allies in Asia and Europe.
“We are expanding the scope of what we’re postured to defend against,†a senior administration official told reporters in a call Wednesday.
Sources told the publication the review aims to encourage the development of technology prototypes that could be assessed beyond the standard procurement process to accelerate deployment and set up a third U.S. site to counter possible attacks with ground-based missile interceptors.
The document will recommend ways on how the U.S. could help forces and allies protect themselves from regional missile threats, according to the report.
John Rood, defense undersecretary for policy; Michael Griffin, defense undersecretary for research and engineering; and Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of the Missile Defense Agency; will hold a press briefing on the review on Thursday at the Pentagon.
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During the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th annual Defense Research & Development Summit on Tuesday, Jim Garrettson, founder and CEO of Executive Mosaic, made the following announcement:
https://youtu.be/NGVivpBzicE
The Wash100 recognizes the most influential and impactful executives of consequence at the intersection of government and industry. This year’s winners were selected by both the leadership team at Executive Mosaic and nominations received from top executives in the GovCon sector.
Click here to see the press release, which features the complete list of 2019 Wash100 winners.
Please visit the Wash100 website to submit 10 votes for the executives of consequence you believe will have the most significant impact in the coming year.
