The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completely decommissioned the nuclear reactor aboard the MH-1A Sturgis ship.

USACE’s Baltimore-based Radiological Center of Expertise conducted the decommissioning together with Galveston District personnel over the last three years in an effort to remove and dispose of the reactor, USACE said Friday.

The team took out over 1.5 million pounds of radioactive material and recycled over 600,000 pounds of lead.

“We were committed to ensuring the safety of the public and our crews and I’m proud to say we completed our decommissioning work with no evidence of radioactive material, lead or increased radiation exposure from the Sturgis being documented outside of the reactor containment area at any point during the project,” said Brenda Barber project manager at USACE’s Baltimore district.

Among the decommissioning’s challenges was the removal of the reactor pressure vessel that stores fuel and serves as Sturgis’ main source of radioactivity.

“Its removal was a significant milestone for the decommissioning effort and meant we had successfully and safely removed the vast majority of the radioactivity from the Sturgis,” Barber said regarding the RPV.

With the RPV taken out, only two percent of radioactivity remained in the ship’s primary shield tank and reactor containment vessel.

The team finished decommissioning the remaining radioactive components in March and proceeded to complete radiological surveys needed to confirm that Sturgis is free from radioactivity.

Named after U.S. Army Gen. Samuel Sturgis, the ship was the service branch’s sole floating nuclear vessel.

House lawmakers have unanimously passed a bill that authorizes an office within the Department of Homeland Security to leverage necessary tools to counter biological and chemical threats from evolving weapons of mass destruction.

The Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 2018 would assign the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office to handle operations to protect the U.S. from WMD threats, the department said Wednesday.

“The United States faces rising danger from terrorist groups and rogue nation states who could use weapons of mass destruction to harm Americans,” said DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

The DHS established CWMD in 2017 to consolidate efforts in preventing terrorists from using weapons of mass destruction against U.S citizens and interests.

President Trump appointed James McDonnell, former director of the DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, in May 2018 to lead CWMD.

Michael Griffin, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Defense Department, has said the Digital Engineering Strategy will help federal agencies implement digital engineering practices in weapons systems development by the end of 2018.

Griffin noted that the recently released document provides an advanced way of creating defense systems, as well as focuses on rapidly fielding technologies to win future battles, DoD said Thursday.

The strategy’s introduction explains that the DoD is modernizing its engineering strategies to allow the U.S. to maintain its position in technological advancements.

Philomena Zimmerman, deputy director of engineering tools and environments at the DoD, explained that digital engineering leverages models and computer resources to design, analyze, prototype and test concepts.

She added that the modern approach provides a streamlined development process, which can reduce errors and save time and costs.

Zimmerman also said that digital engineering can be used to counter cyber issues, terrorism and the technologies of adversaries.

NASA has confirmed Jody Singer, a 33-year agency veteran, as the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center .

The space agency said Friday Singer will oversee the installation’s civil service and contractor workforce and annual budget of $2.8B.

She recently served as Marshall’s acting director when Todd May retired from the agency in July.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Singer’s management experience in the past three decades will help Marshall launch missions returning and staying in the Moon.

The new Marshall director previously worked for the Space Shuttle Program for 25 years, administering the production and performance of the shuttle’s propulsion elements.

Singer also held deputy roles for the Ares program and the introduction of the Space Launch System.

U.S. Cyber Command seeks a $175M procurement budget increase and sunset date extension in order to implement multiyear contracting efforts, FCW reported Thursday.

Stephen Schanberger, acquisition executive of Cybercom, said at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit held Sept. 6 in Washington, D.C., the command’s spending limit is $75 million and its budget authority is in effect through fiscal year 2021.

“Congress would like us to show that we actually can use our authority the way it’s supposed to be and start to stand on the backbone of what it takes to be a contracting organization,” Schanberger added.

The report noted Cybercom awarded only one contract during FY 2017 and awarded $40M in contracts so far this fiscal year.

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has released a memo that lays out the Defense Department’s plan to establish by 2020 a new “space force” that would serve as the country’s sixth service branch, SpaceNews reported Thursday.

John Rood, defense undersecretary for policy, will work with the Joint Staff, military services’ secretaries and DoD’s legislative office to come up with a legislative proposal for the new space force for submission to the Office of Management and Budget by Dec. 1, according to a copy of the Monday memo obtained by the publication.

Shanahan directed Rood to provide a “space governance committee” with an interim report by Oct. 1 and the Pentagon comptroller to draft a proposed budget for the new service by Oct. 15 for inclusion in the funding request for fiscal 2020.

The report said the memo also covers DoD’s action plans for the establishment of a unified space command, space operations forces and a space development agency.
 

The General Services Administration plans to announce within the next two weeks a second agency that will lead new centers of excellence  to accelerate information technology modernization efforts across the government, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

Kelly Olson, acting director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Service, said that GSA will start to conduct an in-house application process for employees who want to support the CoE project.

The Agriculture Department serves as the first “lighthouse” agency of the initial five CoEs.

“Something that we’ve learned at USDA and will be the same for everywhere we go, is you cannot go in somewhere and just drop technology down and move on to the next. There’s been a focus on reskilling the workforce, changing management, managing through culture and expectations,” Olson said Thursday at a breakfast event hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association  Bethesda’s chapter.

She added that GSA seeks to incorporate some of the best practices from the department into the next host agency.

GSA selected four companies in March to provide IT support services at the USDA-hosted CoEs and released in July requests for quotes for the second phase of the effort.

Alan Thomas, commissioner of the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service, has said the board that oversees the Technology Modernization Fund plans to award the next round of funding for information technology upgrades at agencies amid uncertainty in budget allocation for TMF in fiscal 2019, Federal Times reported Thursday.

“We did not take into account whether we were going to get another tranche of money in there,” Thomas, a member of the Technology Modernization Board, said Thursday at an Association for Federal Information Resource Management event.

“One of the key things that we’re looking at for projects is the ability to pay back, so there’s a revolving fund.”

The departments of Agriculture, Energy and Housing and Urban Development received $45M in combined funds in June as part of the initial funding awards under TMF.

The House Appropriations Committee passed a bill in July that would add $150M in fiscal 2019 funds to TMF but some Senate lawmakers said they would like to see some results before they obligate more money for the fund, the report added.
 

Conference members of both chambers of Congress have reached a compromise to combine the $674B defense spending bill with a measure that would appropriate fiscal 2019 funds for the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Education, Defense News reported Thursday.

“The Defense and Labor-HHS bills account for the lion’s share of discretionary spending,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

The conference report on the “minibus” measure includes a continuing resolution that aims to prevent a government shutdown by funding other federal agencies through Dec. 7 to give lawmakers time to negotiate other appropriations bills.

USA Today reported that the House on Thursday voted 377-20 to approve a package of bills that would allocate fiscal 2019 funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs, military construction, energy and water infrastructure and legislative branch.

The package is now headed to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature, the report added.