Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, has said the Defense Department will also adopt NSCS’ continuous evaluation platform to perform periodic background investigations on employees at the executive branch in addition to its own CE system, Federal News Radio reported Friday.

The move comes as DoD prepares to assume control of the vetting process for 75 percent of security clearances from the Office of Personnel Management and the National Background Investigations Bureau.

NSCS that operates under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is set to field by fall 2018 a CE system designed to screen approximately 10 databases for potential threat signs among employees with security clearances.

“If an agency out there, say the Department of Education or Forest Service or Interior wants to run their individuals through our databases, they can,” Evanina told the station in an interview.

“We will provide that service and provide them back any hits that we have.”

Evanina noted that the Office of Management and Budget is currently assessing an NCSC-developed directive on best practices related to continuous evaluation.

He added that his office will initially screen employees with top-secret clearances and then vet holders of secret clearances using its CE system.

Acting U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy has said that the Army would take at least two years to identify a new battlefield communications network that will replace the service branch’s existing systems, Breaking Defense reported Friday.

McCarthy told reporters Wednesday that the Army has formed a Cross-Functional Team to reboot its network architecture and provide recommendations in 2019 to influence the 2020 budget request.

He advised the network-focused CFT and seven other CFTs addressing various Army priorities to “take every opportunity” to assess and buy commercial off-the-shelf technologies.

As part of a new strategy, the Army plans to immediately stop programs that would not be able to withstand cyber and electronic attacks on a mobile battlefield as well as fix systems that can be updated to survive such conditions.

The Army ultimately aims to migrate to a coherent network architecture, the report said.

The military branch decided to stop the procurement of its current Warfighter Integrated Network – Tactical program in fiscal year 2018 because the battlefield communications system does not meet future warfighting requirements.

Congress will authorize the Defense Department secretary to raise the number of ground-based interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Fort Greely in Alaska by up to 28 in an effort to counter missile threats posed by Iran and North Korea, Defense News reported Friday.

The fiscal 2018 defense policy bill’s congressional conference report would also direct the DoD secretary to create a draft plan for future GBI capacity at any location determined in the ballistic missile defense review that is set to be released by the end of the year.

The report noted that existing missile fields could accommodate 104 GBIs and that the Pentagon should carry out construction work to ensure that existing missile fields can support additional interceptors.

DoD should submit within 90 days of the review’s release a report on alternatives to boost the capability of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense platform and meet infrastructure needs to raise the number of GBIs across the country, the conference report added.

The U.S. Army has developed networked acoustic emission sensors designed to scan an H-60 Black Hawk for airframe damage.

The Army said Thursday, Researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center have developed a technology that can instantly notify flight crew on structural damage upon occurrence.

The effort began around 2015 with the ARL’s studies on rotorcraft airframe health monitoring.

“Future Army airframe structures are required to be lighter, safer and ultra-reliable,” said Mulugeta Haile, research aerospace engineer at the ARL.

“To achieve these the Army must adopt a combined strategy of implementing advanced structural design methods, improved structural materials and integrated damage sensing and risk prediction capabilities,” he added.

Haile also stated that they chose acoustic emission because other methods including ultrasonic and radiography still require an external energy source which may affect other systems within the aircraft.

Haile, along with a team consisting of Jaret Riddick, Nathaniel Bordick and other ARL partners, worked together to clarify the the mechanisms of the full-scale damage detection system that employs signal distortion control parameters, acquisition timing control and 3-D printed sensor capsules.

The Army currently makes use of the phase maintenance paradigm method for aircraft sustainment.

The phase maintenance paradigm requires scheduled inspection and maintenance, making the method costly and inefficient.

The Army’s new damage detection technology may cut maintenance costs and enable repairs to commence upon demand.