Jeff Gossel, the senior intelligence engineer at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center’s Space and Missile Analysis Group, has said that China may have positioned a satellite on the far side of the moon for nefarious purposes, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

In May, the China National Space Administration launched the Queqiao satellite towards Earth-Moon Lagrange point 2, roughly 59,000 miles on the flipside of the moon, ahead of the Chang’e 4 robotic lunar rover mission planned for December.

Since the landing site for Chang’e 4 is located on the side of the moon constantly facing away from the Earth, a relay satellite is needed on that same side to allow human operators to control the rover.

The Queqiao satellite entered halo orbit around L2 this June.

Speaking at a recent Air Force Association event, Gossel speculated that the Queqiao satellite could give the Chinese military the ability to send attack spacecraft around the moon to outflank U.S. space assets in geosynchronous Earth orbit.

“You could fly some sort of a weapon around the moon and it comes back… and we would never know because there is nothing watching in that direction,” Gossel said.

Jeffrey Gossel, the senior intelligence engineer at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center’s Space and Missile Analysis Group, has said that officials need to pay more attention to the space-based surveillance assets of adversarial nations, Space News reported Wednesday.

Speaking at a recent Mitchell Institute event, Gossel noted that U.S. policymakers are much too preoccupied with armaments that competitor countries like Russia or China could use to shoot down American satellites.

Gossel pointed out that “it’s not those weapons that are as important as what our enemies have on orbit,” noting that such spacecraft already allow potential opponents to monitor U.S. activities and develop possible countermeasures.

Gossel proposed that the U.S. learn all it can about these information-gathering satellites and sensors to develop strategies that would render them ineffective.

“From an intelligence perspective we have to concentrate more on those things, not on the guns they’re shooting,” Gossel said.

The General Services Administration has initiated a new pilot program intended to get more firms to sell products and services on the agency’s eBuy federal marketplace.

The one-year program would publicly disclose associated, post-award request-for-quote information on FedBizOpps in a move to increase eBuy’s transparency, the GSA said Wednesday.

“Providing more transparency into how the federal government buys products and services will help contractors and our agency customers make more informed decisions when considering GSA contracts,” said Emily Murphy, GSA administrator.

GSA contracting officers will create test groups to provide data for analysis under the pilot program.

FedBizOpps users may enter “eBuyPilot” on the website’s search box to navigate RFQ notices released for the pilot through October 9, 2019.

James Geurts, assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy for research, development and acquisition, has said the service is working towards meeting Defense Secretary James Mattis’ readiness target for fighter planes, USNI News reported Wednesday.

Mattis recently called on the Navy and U.S. Air Force to increase the mission capability rate of F-35, F-22, F-16 and F-18 jets to 80 percent starting in fiscal 2019.

Geurts announced during the National Defense Industrial Association’s Expeditionary Warfare Conference that Vice Adm. DeWolfe Miller, commander of the Naval Air Forces, will lead the Navy in reaching Mattis’ readiness goal for F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-18C Hornet aircraft fleets.

Miller plans to leverage maintenance and management practices from the commercial aviation sector to continue expanding the service’s mission-ready fighter aircraft and meet Mattis’ readiness goal, according to Naval Air Forces Spokesman Cmdr. Ron Flanders.

Geurts added that the Navy and Marines Corps are considering the impact of future contracting processes on maintaining aircraft platforms, as well as the elimination of legacy planes to focus on sustaining newer models.

The F-35 joint program office aims to complete necessary modifications to the F-35 aircraft to remain on track for initial operational test and evaluation in November, Defense News reported Thursday.

Air Force Col. Varun Puri, test director for the F-35 JPO, noted on Sept. 14 that the Pentagon needs to rapidly pass test points and accept risks if it wants to conclude operational assessments for the fighter jet by July 2019, despite a two-month delay.

The F-35 JPO recently announced that a majority of the Lockheed Martin-built fighter jets are ready for mission deployment after being inspected for a faulty fuel tube.

Pratt & Whitney is working on purchasing additional parts to clear the remaining F-35 planes for operational flight in the coming weeks.

The Joint Strike Fighter Operational Test Team also aims to avoid or at least reduce repeated tests to meet the July 2019 deadline and lessen potential causes for flight cancellations.

Puri added that the IOT&E process could be initiated in as late as Sept. 2019, which poses as a risk because the F-35 JPO has not determined if its needs additional funding if tests are further delayed.

The U.S. Navy will begin developing a modern unmanned surface vehicle that can host mine hunting, sweeping and neutralization payloads on littoral combat ships, USNI News reported Wednesday.

The effort comes after the Defense Department permitted the service to replace its aging Avenger-class MCM vessel and MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters with a new USV that can also accommodate surveillance, counter piracy and anti-submarine warfare systems.

The Navy is currently testing Raytheon’s AN/AQS-20C towed sonar on Textron Systems‘ Common USV as part of the MCM modernization initiative, according to Pete Small, program manager for unmanned maritime systems at the Naval Sea Systems Command.

Small said during the National Defense Industrial Association’s Expeditionary Warfare Conference that Raytheon is expected to ship 10 sonars to the service in early 2019 for integration on the new MCM warship.

The LCS MCM package will also involve procuring CUSVs to tow the Unmanned Influence Sweep System, which will produce signals to detonate sound-activated mines.

NAVSEA aims to participate in a competitive acquisition program for the MCM USV in early 2020.

President Donald Trump has said he projects the defense budget to be $700B for fiscal 2020, Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday.

The figure reflects a drop of more than 2 percent from the $716B National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019 that Trump signed in August.

The president said the increase in the defense budget for FY 2019 seeks to support the procurement of new submarines and ships as part of the country’s military rebuilding efforts.

He also signed in September an appropriations package that would allocate $674B in FY 2019 funds for the Pentagon.

Trump on Wednesday directed his Cabinet secretaries to implement a 5 percent cut in their proposed budgets for the next fiscal year.
 

The Commerce Department has begun to solicit public comments on draft practices in the proposed Federal Data Strategy that seeks to meet one of the cross-agency priority goals in the President’s Management Agenda.

A Federal Register notice published Wednesday says the working groups have classified into five objectives the proposed practices in the strategy, which aims to leverage data as a “strategic asset” in order to advance transparency and facilitate oversight.

Those objectives include data security and protection; management of data as a strategic asset; and efficient use of data assets.

The department will accept comments on the proposed practices through Nov. 16 and plans to issue another request for input in January 2019 to seek feedback on a year-one plan for the strategy’s implementation.

The Federal Data Strategy will guide agencies in data collection and management and inform actions for program data, mission-support information, statistical data and other data assets, according to the notice.
 

The General Services Administration plans to implement robotic process automation at the agency to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs, FedScoop reported Tuesday.

GSA Administrator Emily Murphy described the initiative during the 2018 Imagine Nation ELC conference, noting that the adoption of RPA is meant to supplement the agency’s data-driven efficiency efforts that resulted in $900M worth of savings in fiscal year 2017.

Murphy, a 2018 Wash 100 awardee, said that adopting RPA “in and of itself will save 10,000 hours of work a week” and would give the GSA “that ability to reskill the workforce to high-value work.”

The RPA initiative aligns with the President’s Management Agenda, which the White House promulgated earlier this year.

The PMA calls on federal agencies to transition “time, effort and funding” from the performance of repetitive administrative and compliance tasks “toward accomplishing mission outcomes” through various strategies including the use of tools like automation.

The GSA seeks to roll out RPA within the year.