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Heather Wilson: Air Force to Restructure Space and Missile Systems Center
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Heather Wilson: Air Force to Restructure Space and Missile Systems Center


Heather Wilson: Air Force to Restructure Space and Missile Systems Center
Heather Wilson

The U.S. Air Force plans to reorganize the Space and Missile Systems Center by fall 2018 in order to speed up the acquisition process and eliminate silos among organizations, Defense News reported Thursday.

“It will have a production corps. It will have a development corps. It will have an architect,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters during a roundtable Tuesday at the Space Symposium in Colorado.

The report said the chief architect will oversee the synchronization of programs across SMC.

Wilson, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, said the reorganization aims to set up offices that focus on partnerships and innovation and added that the service expects the new center to achieve initial operating capability in October.

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Army, Marine Corps Plan Ground Force Modernization Efforts
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Army, Marine Corps Plan Ground Force Modernization Efforts


Army, Marine Corps Plan Ground Force Modernization EffortsU.S. Army and Marine Corps officials have said both service branches aim to prioritize modernization programs as part of efforts to help ground forces engage in complex security environments, DoD News reported Thursday.

Gen. John Murray, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, told members of the House House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces subcommittee Wednesday the branch plans to modernize equipment to address near-term readiness goals.

Murray added that focus areas include next generation combat vehicle, long-range precision fires and soldier lethality.

Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, commanding general for the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and deputy commandant for combat development and integration, told the subcommittee the branch plans to invest in information warfare, air defense command-and-control, mobility protection and force dynamics.

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Senate Passes Bill to Establish DHS Bug Bounty Program
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Senate Passes Bill to Establish DHS Bug Bounty Program


Senate Passes Bill to Establish DHS Bug Bounty ProgramThe Senate has voted unanimously in favor of a bill that would establish a bug bounty pilot program to strengthen cyber defense at the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D-N.H.) office said Wednesday the Hack DHS Act would offer payments for white-hat hackers to identify vulnerabilities in the department’s information technology network and data systems.

The bipartisan bill mandates that DHS launch an effort similar to the Defense Department‘s bug bounty program and requires background checks for participants.

DHS manages the security of .gov domains and U.S. critical infrastructure.

Hassan introduced the bill with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., serve as co-sponsors for the bill.

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Air Force, OPM, NBIB Establish Interview Hubs to Address Security Clearance Backlog
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Air Force, OPM, NBIB Establish Interview Hubs to Address Security Clearance Backlog


Air Force, OPM, NBIB Establish Interview Hubs to Address Security Clearance BacklogThe U.S. Air Force has begun to collaborate with the National Background Investigations Bureau and the Office of Personnel Management to expedite the security clearance process and help reduce the investigation backlog, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

Maj. Kathleen Atanasoff, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, said the service, OPM and NBIB have started to set up centralized hubs to facilitate security clearance interviews without requiring applicants to travel to Washington.

Atanasoff told the station the service and NBIB have established interview hubs at Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, Tidewater in Virginia and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio with plans to set up additional sites later this year.

“The NBIB is surging investigators to other Air Force bases with high caseloads, such as Hill Air Force Base in Utah, Warner Robins in Georgia and several bases in the surrounding Los Angeles area,” she added.

The report said the Air Force launched in May 2017 a process that aims to help NBIB identify investigations that need to be prioritized and immediately completed in order to meet mission-critical requirements.

 

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Navy to Activate USS Portland Amphibious Transport Dock
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Navy to Activate USS Portland Amphibious Transport Dock


Navy to Activate USS Portland Amphibious Transport Dock

The U.S. Navy has announced it will commission the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock to be named USS Portland at the Port of Portland in Oregon during a ceremony to occur on Saturday.

The Defense Department said Thursday Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan will provide the commisionning’s principal address.

Bonny Amos, wife of the U.S. Marine Corps‘ 35th commandant, will order the ship’s activation as USS Portland’s sponsor.

San Antonio-class ships are made to support over 800 marines, and accommodate aircraft such as the CH-53E Sea Stallion and MV-22 Osprey.

The 27th Navy LPD will be the third ship to carry the name of Portland, the largest city in Oregon.

The first USS Portland was a heavy cruiser that served in World War II operations concerning Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, Corregidor and Okinawa; while the second was a dock landing ship that supported Lebanon peacekeeping missions and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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NSA Selects 6 Labs for Security Research Initiative
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NSA Selects 6 Labs for Security Research Initiative


NSA Selects 6 Labs for Security Research InitiativeThe National Security Agency has awarded five-year contracts to six multidisciplinary laboratories at U.S. research institutions to support security research efforts and transition ideas to real-world application.

NSA said Wednesday the awardees are small laboratories located at the Carnegie-Mellon University, International Computer Science Institute, North Carolina State University, University of Illinois-Champaign, Vanderbilt University and University of Kansas.

The lablets are part of the agency’s Science of Security and Privacy Initiative and the agency selected them after a competitive solicitation of proposals from approximately 300 universities nationwide.

Selection criteria include the scientific process of research projects; applicability to modern challenges; and capacity to expand a scientific community in the security and privacy areas.

Lablets will kick off 20 research projects that encompass challenges in cyber-physical systems, policy-governed secure collaboration, cybersecurity metrics, scalability and composability, resilient architecture, privacy and understanding and accounting for human behavior.

NSA launched its SoS Initiative in 2012 to promote security and privacy science as a research field and encourage researchers to develop new methodologies.

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Kevin Roney: SoSOA Program Needs to Focus on User-Centered Feature
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Kevin Roney: SoSOA Program Needs to Focus on User-Centered Feature


Kevin Roney: SoSOA Program Needs to Focus on User-Centered FeatureKevin Roney, principal data scientist at the Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology directorate, has said there is a need for the department’s analytics enhancing system to make its user-centered feature as its focal point.

DHS said Thursday Roney expects the System of Systems Operational Analytics program to sustain itself and provide an elaborate tutorial for future government employees to allot more time and effort in training workers in disparate information systems.

The U.S. Secret Service and Customs and Border Protection have started using the beta version of SoSOA to modify the computing capability and process of complex systems to help users make better decisions.

USSS, CBP and the National Protection and Programs Directorate will use the capability to monitor their operations, which includes how they leverage technology and their workforce.

“All of the current customers are very excited about SoSOA, because it attacks a problem they have not been able to address before. These groups are even eager to give S&T access to their information to help them achieve their goals,” Roney said.

DHS S&T aims to develop a small scale prototype of SoSOA at the end of 2018, which will possibly lead to more component operations beyond USSS, CBP and NPPD.

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Rep. Jim Bridenstine Confirmed as NASA Administrator
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Rep. Jim Bridenstine Confirmed as NASA Administrator


Rep. Jim Bridenstine Confirmed as NASA Administrator
Jim Bridenstine

The Senate voted 50-49 Thursday to confirm Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., as NASA administrator, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Bridenstine will replace Robert Lightfoot, who has been leading NASA as acting chief since January 2017 and is set to retire by the end of April after a nearly three-decade career at the space agency.

“I look forward to working with the outstanding team at NASA to achieve the president’s vision for American leadership in space,” Bridenstine said in a statement published Friday.

Bridenstine’s confirmation came a month after House lawmakers called on the upper chamber to expedite his appointment in order for NASA to have a permanent leader to decide on several space exploration programs.

He is a former naval aviator, a sponsor of the American Space Renaissance Act and former executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium in Oklahoma.

President Donald Trump nominated Bridenstine to the NASA chief role in September 2017.

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DoD to Consider Interoperability, Cost, Security in Cloud IT Procurement
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DoD to Consider Interoperability, Cost, Security in Cloud IT Procurement


DoD to Consider Interoperability, Cost, Security in Cloud IT ProcurementThe Defense Department is considering security, cost, interoperability and user friendliness as key factors in the procurement of a cloud-based information technology platform, DoD News reported Thursday.

Dana White, Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, told reporters Thursday the department will conduct a full and open competition for its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure acquisition effort.

“It is a single-award contract. It is not a sole-source contract, and it is not designed with a specific vendor or company in mind,” White added.

She noted the JEDI contract will have an initial two-year performance period and that DoD will re-examine the marketplace to decide what kinds of technology or service the department will acquire over the contract’s two option periods.

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Marines Use 3D Printing Tech for Vehicle Replacement Parts
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Marines Use 3D Printing Tech for Vehicle Replacement Parts


Marines Use 3D Printing Tech for Vehicle Replacement PartsThe U.S. Marine Corps has used an additive manufacturing process to produce replacement parts for a small unmanned ground vehicle and fighter aircraft.

USMC said Thursday that Combat Logistic Battalion 31 uses a three-dimensional printer technology as an alternative source for components when immediate action is required, such as an impending failure of a mechanical part, USMC said Thursday.

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 flew an F-35B aircraft fitted with a 3D-printed bumper produced by CLB-31.

The battalion also produced a camera lens cap for an iRobot 310 UGV of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit’s explosive ordnance disposal team.

Additive manufacturing approach replicates software-generated 3D models by breaking them down into layers to be reproduced with a printer.

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