The Government Accountability Office issued its latest priority recommendations to guide the Department of Defense in its ongoing and future acquisition, modernization and daily operations. 

In a report posted Monday the recommendations are intended to guide the DoD in acquisitions and contract management, military readiness, cybersecurity, infrastructures support, financial management and healthcare. The government watchdog provided 24 priority recommendations for the Pentagon, which also include preventing sexual harassment. 

In 2018, the DoD received 85 recommendations from GAO and implemented 17 on the list.

“Priority recommendations are open GAO recommendations that warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies,” the agency said. 

Implementation of such recommendations would help save money, address mismanagement and fraud and improve compliance of agencies, among other benefits. 

Fred Kennedy, director of the Space Development Agency, told SpaceNews in an interview published Monday about the agency’s plans to transform how the military builds and procures space systems.

“I wanted to call it the Space Disruption Agency,” he said. “How we do things in space has to change.”

Kennedy discussed his plans to come up with a next-generation space architecture by partnering with commercial vendors that would build and deploy hundreds or thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit in support of the Department of Defense across multiple mission areas.

“The first thing I’m going to do is refine my architecture by the end of this fiscal year,” Kennedy said. “I have an architecture in mind and it’s comprehensive. It’s not just one mission area.”

He mentioned the agency’s potential collaboration with the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, plans to develop LEO-based alternatives to conventional satellite networks in higher orbits and the agency’s role in the development of a space sensor layer to detect and monitor hypersonic weapons.

The agency plans to hire approximately 20 employees in 2019. Kennedy said he expects the agency to operate with about 112 military and government civilian personnel.

NASA is resuming cooperation with India’s space agency following a brief suspension due to New Delhi’s March 27 anti-satellite test of a ground-launched missile that destroyed a space satellite, SpaceNews reported Sunday. 

Al Condes, associate administrator for international and interagency relations at NASA, sent a letter on March 29 to K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, saying the U.S. was suspending its participation in the NASA-ISRO Human Space Flight Working Group. 

“It is NASA’s view that human spaceflight is simply incompatible with the purposeful creation of orbital debris generated by anti-satellite testing,” Condes said in the letter. However, just a week after announcing the suspension, NASA Administrator and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Jim Bridenstine sent a follow-up letter to Sivan saying the cooperation with ISRO would continue. 

“Based on guidance received from the White House, I look forward to continuing these groups in the future,” he wrote. 

Bridenstine has criticized India for the missile test. The official described the activity as a “terrible, terrible thing” that left debris that could hit and damage the International Space Station.

The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking information technology professionals to help the department with healthcare modernization efforts, FCW reported Friday. HHS partnered with the U.S. Digital Service to hire IT personnel to help with data management, data collection, customer support and analysis that will support acquisitions and policymaking.

Matt Cutts, administrator for the digital service, wrote in a Twitter post that the job posting is live for the first 100 applicants. He added that those who were not considered for the roles may be qualified for simliar positions. Cutts noted that the pilot program serves as “a new way to hire technical talent for federal roles”.

The initiative comes after the Office of Personnel Management issued a final rule last week to provide agency heads with direct-hire authority for IT and cyber roles.

The Defense Innovation Board released a report on Wednesday warning that China may be taking the lead in 5G implementation and that the Department of Defense must take action.

The report “The 5G Ecosystem: Risks and Opportunities for DoD” recommends that Defense and the Federal Communications Commission shift their focus from the mmWave spectrum to the sub-6 GHz spectrum to make way for a commercial 5G deployment.

The board recommended that the Pentagon focus on providing access to the the bands that China has been utilizing, particularly on the 3.2-3.6 GHz range. This will allow the U.S. to leverage hardware such as modems and chip sets intended to work in China, according to the board.

The report stated that DoD should encourage other agencies to provide incentives to industry that supports implementation of a common 5G network to host sub-6 connectivity.

“The shift from 4G to 5G will drastically impact the future of global communication networks and fundamentally change the environment in which DoD operates,” the report noted. “While DoD will feel the impact of 5G, the rollout itself will be driven by the U.S. commercial sector.”

According to the report, 5G can significantly support DoD decision-making processes, enterprise network operations and real-time system integration.