NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory transmitted new commands to a 15-year-old exploration rover on Mars and will continue doing so for weeks to come. The laboratory said Friday it intends to address the effects of Mars’ planet-wide dust storm on the Opportunity rover. The storm has caused the rover to cease transmitting following the last communication made on June 10, 2018.

“We have and will continue to use multiple techniques in our attempts to contact the rover,” said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at JPL.

The transmitted commands are designed to address possible damages and errors on the rover’s X-band radios and internal clock. The team in charge of the rover will consult with JPL’s Mars Program Office and the space agency’s headquarters if the recovery attempt does not produce the intended results.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan met with NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg and discussed the alliance’s operational progress and efforts to increase burden-sharing.  During the meeting at the Pentagon, Shanahan highlighted that NATO member nations in Europe have increased contributions to training local forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to deter the Islamic State group, the Department of Defense said Monday.

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The defense secretary also praised Stoltenberg for encouraging countries to provide equal shares for defense. Shanahan said NATO’s defense spending climbed to $41B as nations increased their budget by more than nine percent between 2016 and 2018. He added that NATO expects to reach nearly $100B in defense spending by 2020. The increase would allow the alliance to conduct larger exercises, improve mobility and expand infrastructure improvements and investments, the Pentagon said.  

Shanahan noted NATO is moving closer to its readiness initiative to build 30 battalions, 30 air squadrons and 30 warships that are ready for rapid deployment in 30 days or less.

The Congressional Budget Office has released a report that assesses the effects of the five-week partial government shutdown on the federal budget and economy.

CBO estimates that the partial shutdown resulted in the delay of federal discretionary spending worth approximately $18B for the procurement of goods and services, compensation and other government services, according to the report.

The agency projects that total net discretionary funding for shutdown-affected agencies reached $329B in fiscal 2019, which accounts for about 25 percent of the total federal discretionary funding.
The shutdown reduced real gross domestic product by $3B in the fourth quarter of 2018 and will lower GDP by $8B in the first quarter of 2019, according to CBO’s projections.

CBO’s report also cited other potential effects of the shutdown, including its effect on government hiring efforts.

“Funding lapses were probably beginning to reduce the credibility of the federal government as an employer and a contracting party, making it more difficult for federal agencies to attract and maintain a talented workforce and more expensive to enter into contracts with private firms,” according to the report.

Eric Trexler, vice president of global governments at Forcepoint, shared his views on the partial shutdown’s potential impact on early-career employees.

“The shutdown will likely have a long-lasting impact on an entire generation of early-career millennials and cause them to re-evaluate their motivations to serve their country,” he said.

“This will be particularly noticeable in cybersecurity as there is a significant workforce shortage and the private industry is ripe and ready for them with massive salary advantages.”

The government shutdown temporarily ended Friday, Jan. 25, after President Donald Trump signed a continuing resolution that would fund agencies through Feb. 15.
 

The Department of Defense intends to work with a group of contractors from Silicon Valley to share and handle the large volume of data the agency collects from its missions, C4ISRNet reported Sunday. Officials from the Defense Innovation Unit said sharing data across multiple contractors would help DoD avoid relying on a single system to store information, which may lead to issues on data usage rights. 

“It’s that if they make that data accessible to everyone, they lose a significant advantage over keeping the department locked into using their system, and they’re worried about being able to recoup their investment,” said Josh Marcuse, executive director on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board.

Marcuse believes allowing a single company to manage all data for DoD could lead to vendor lock requiring the agency to only work with the company that locked in the first contract and access potentially filtered data. 

“It makes it that much harder for the department to improve the quality of the products and services that it provides the war fighter,” Marcuse said. 

He suggested that DoD seek a new business model to enter multiple deals with different contractors and reduce concerns with data rights and vendor lock.

Lisa Hershman, acting chief management officer of the Department of Defense, said in an interview the department is on the track to reach $6B in savings for fiscal year 2019, ABC News reported Saturday. Hershman noted that the DoD’s streamlining efforts for its projects and business strategies has enabled the department to save $4.7B in 2017 and 2018.

The Pentagon expects to experience changes in key areas such as acquisitions, contracting, healthcare, information technology and the defense supply chain under Hershman’s tenure. According to the CMO, her office encourages the department’s agencies to make their own assessments and identify areas of improvement. One of the efforts that resulted in less tedious work for the DoD include the modernization of the Defense Travel Service used by the department’s civilians and military personnel.

The initiative reforming DoD’s internal operations follows the department’s first-ever audit which reviewed over 144 projects and pointed to certain areas that need to be refined.

Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said it could take weeks for the agency to become fully operational again, FCW reported Friday. Krebs noted the newly created DHS agency’s initial contingency plan can only aid operations for one to two weeks amid the shutdown which resulted in a lapse of funding.

According to a DHS official, much of CISA’s work covering threat intelligence, technical support and vulnerability assessments were halted during the shutdown. Krebs told CISA staff that it will prioritize the processing of personnel’s compensation as well as efforts such as election security assistance and cybersecurity programs once the shutdown ends. He added that the CISA heads consulted program managers and regional offices on steps to be taken regarding the agency’s three crucial programs that were impacted by the shutdown.

On Friday, the White House announced that it will reopen parts of the government that were continuing operations without funding on a temporary basis.

Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said the service branch may purchase a new variant of the F-15 aircraft if budget requirements are met, Defense News reported Saturday.

He told the news outlet that the potential variant, dubbed F-15X, will not use funds allotted for the F-35 program. The defense budget for fiscal year 2020, while still not finalized, has been proposed for $750M.

The Boeing-made F-15X would feature a new airframe and boosted capacities for radar, electronic warfare and missile count, the report noted.