NASA has set up a test version of an interim cryogenic propulsion stage with a stand at the space agency’s Huntsville, Alabama-based Marshall Space Flight Center in preparation for the hardware’s tests.

The ICPS was developed based on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as a hardware components for the Space Launch System rocket and is designed to boost the Orion spacecraft during spaceflight in 2018, NASA said Friday.

NASA will stack the ICPS with three other test items and two simulators that compose SLS’ upper portion before the test series with 50 cases begins in early 2017.

“The installation of the ICPS is another big step in getting ready for the test series, which will ensure that the hardware can endure the incredible stresses of launch,” said Steve Creech, deputy manager of the spacecraft and payload integration and evolution office at Marshall.

“In addition to testing, work is underway on flight pieces of the upper part of the rocket, including the ICPS,” added Creech.

Boeing and its United Launch Alliance joint venture with Lockheed Martin designed and built the ICPS hardware, which measures 29 feet tall and 16.8 feet in diameter without the engine.

The ICPS sits alongside other hardware pieces already installed in the Marshall stand such as the core stage simulator and the launch vehicle stage adapter.

The Congressional Budget Office has said the increasing costs of weapon systems, operation and maintenance as well as military compensation have become “internal pressures” within the Defense Department’s budget and have “exacerbated” the discrepancy between DoD’s Future Years Defense Program and spending caps in the Budget Control Act.

CBO said in a report released Wednesday the average development and procurement costs for weapon systems are between 20 percent and 30 percent higher than the Pentagon’s initial estimates.

David Mosher, assistant director for national security at CBO, presented the report at the Professional Services Council’s 2016 Vision Federal Market Forecast Conference.

CBO also predicts the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding plan for 2016 to cost more than the service branch’s estimates and would fail to reach its inventory goal for some types of vessels.

The report showed that military personnel costs posted a 46 percent increase in DoD’s inflation-adjusted base budget between FY 2000 and FY 2014, while operation and maintenance spending saw a 34 percent increase and acquisition costs recorded a 25 percent rise over the 14-year period.

According to the report, annual increases in uniformed personnel’s basic pay surpassed by more than 5 percent the percentage increase in the employment cost index from 2001 through 2010.

Basic housing allowance accounted for 24 percent of $44.6 billion in total growth in military personnel costs from 2000 to 2014, followed by basic pay at 18 percent and Tricare for Life Accrual program at 16 percent, according to the congressional budget watchdog.

The U.S. Air Force has decided to conduct the military branch’s F-16 pilot training mission at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico temporarily in an effort to address a shortage of fighter pilots, Air Force Times reported Thursday.

Kent Miller writes the service branch began to relocate up to 45 fighting Falcons and 800 training and support staff airmen from Hill Air Force Base in Utah due to limited space there.

Air Force Undersecretary Lisa Disbrow announced the military service’s decision to set up the squadrons at Holloman in August and the branch plans to finalize a permanent solution in the spring or summer of 2017, Air Force Times reports.

The military branch also considers other bases such as the Luke Air Force Base and Tucson Air National Guard Base in Arizona, and Kelly Field Annex at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, the report says.

The Air Force plans to set up three full F-35 squadrons at the Hill base by 2019 with a total of 78 aircraft as pilots and crews at the base have been training on the fifth-generation fighter aircraft for a few years already, according to the report.

Naval Research Chief and Rear Adm. Mat Winter met with scientists and researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Nov. 8 on a scheduled visit to the institution’s facilities.

Winter addressed the top science and technology priorities of the U.S. Navy and learned about work done by NRL employees, the organization said Wednesday.

“There’s only one Naval Research Laboratory and you should be proud about that, proud about the identity, proud about the history — more than 90 years you stand on the shoulders of incredible giants across all the disciplines, and your successors will be standing on your shoulders,” Winter said.

“Admiral Winter has been very supportive of our efforts here at the lab and his support has really paid off for us over the last couple of years,” said Capt. Mark Bruington, NRL’s commanding officer.