The U.S. Air Force secretary is assuming the responsibility of procuring commercial satellite communications services as part of the move to create a Space Force, Space News reported Monday.

The Space Force’s establishment would lead to the termination of the Air Force Space Command, which is responsible to acquire satcom services for the Department of Defense. The Pentagon’s proposal would have AFSPC’s personnel and duties transferred to the Space Force and U.S. Space Command.

In fiscal year 2018, Congress mandated AFSPC to assume satcom procurement duties from the Defense Information Systems Agency. The DoD will submit a proposal to Congress as part of its continued push to establish a Space Force.

Maj. Gen. Robert Skinner, commander of the 24th Air Force, wants to build a lethal workforce in the cyberspace, build more partnerships and promote enterprise information technology as a service to improve cyber capabilities for the service branch, Fifth Domain reported Monday.

In an interview with C4ISRNET, Skinner said his top priorities are a proficient force in cyberspace, faster acquisition, advanced tactics and leveraging partnerships. “If you have that then, in my eyes, we’re able to compete, deter and win as necessary in a domain, which isn’t just for cyber, it’s for the joint missions that we’ve been assigned,” he said.

The 24th Air Force commander said the service has launched a pilot with AT&T and Microsoft to assess infrastructures at bases and determine requirements for future IT initiatives. While discussing the Air Force’s strategy in the changing cyber arena, Skinner said the service is working on a “defense forward” approach focusing on persistent engagement with adversaries.

“It’s really saying where adversaries operate is where we want to operate,” he said. Skinner said the new authorities provided to the Air Force enables the service to improve the interagency process to share information and decision making. “Everyone has their say at the right place and based on the delegations from the White House down to the individual departments, it allows for them greater flexibility and agility,” the commander said. 

The Federal Communications Commission introduced a final rule to direct the agency’s chief information officer to play a “significant role” in developing FCC’s information technology capabilities. The FCC CIO will play a bigger role in IT oversight, management and governance; decision-making process for budgeting, multiyear and annual planning, programming and reports related to IT; and recruitment of IT personnel, according to the document.

The commission’s CIO will also work with budget officials and chief financial officer to specify and approve FCC’s IT budget consistent with the recommendations from the head of the Office of Management and Budget and provisions of appropriations measures.

FCC plans to publish the new policy on Tuesday in the Federal Register.
 

There is a lack of reliable data from the Pentagon to prove that the agency’s use of Other Transaction Authority to escalate development and acquisition of new technologies is effective, according to a new congressional analysis. The Congressional Research Service released its assessment report on Friday highlighting a “questionable reliability” of available data from the Department of Defense on how it manages OTA.

The think tank said the findings raised concerns that Congress wants to explore due to numerous risks, including diminished oversight and exemptions from laws and regulations that should protect the government and taxpayers. In fiscal year 2017, OTA deals covered $2.1B of DoD’s worth $320B contracts.

Looking at DoD’s previous OTA-based deals, CRS said the agency has failed to properly monitor and track data on the use of the authority, particularly how long it commonly takes to complete a transaction. The Pentagon “lacks authoritative data that can be used to assess OTA effectiveness,” CRS analysts said. The Army was the largest user of OTA among other service branches. The service released more than 66 percent of planned OTAs from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2017.

Congress expects the defense community to continue to expand the use of the transaction authority.

Russ Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said President Trump plans to propose a fiscal 2020 budget to fund defense and national security priorities without raising the spending caps. Vought wrote in a commentary posted Monday for RealClearPolitics that the proposed budget will designate additional defense resources as overseas contingency operations funds, which are not subject to the budget caps.

He noted that fiscal conservatives might not be in favor of expanding the use of OCO funds to prevent raising the budget caps but such a measure “remains the administration’s only fiscally responsible option in meeting national security needs while avoiding yet another increase to the spending caps.

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The president’s 2020 budget will meet the target of a 5 percent reduction to non-defense discretionary spending, by means of one of the largest spending reductions in history,” Vought wrote. “Within these constrained levels, agencies will still be able to provide investments in key national priorities.”

Vought said President Trump will submit his fiscal 2020 budget request to Congress in the coming weeks.

A top U.S. Navy official said that the service’s Arleigh Burke DDG-51 Flight III program remains on track following the completion of the final anti-missile test with the ship, USNI News reported Friday.

Navy program manager Capt. Casey Moton said construction of the ship is on schedule despite past delays due to a series of design changes to integrate the new Raytheon AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radar. Moton said the radar appeared effective during the last test of the anti-missile capability of the DDG-51.

The Navy already received 66 of the new ships, with the 67th destroyer expected to be delivered in late February. Ten more ships are under construction at shipyards of Ingalls Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works.

Aside from adjustments for the SPY-6 radar, the DDG-51 Flight III also had other modifications to install a new water mist system to replace the old halon gas fire extinguishers in engine spaces.