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Air Force Seeks Industry Partners to Conduct Airworthiness Assessments; Jorge Gonzalez Comments
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Air Force Seeks Industry Partners to Conduct Airworthiness Assessments; Jorge Gonzalez Comments


AirplaneThe U.S. Air Force wants to forge cooperative research and development agreements with companies to perform airworthiness assessments on non-Defense Department military type aircraft.

The goal is to better understand the state of civil aviation and provide independent review of the safety of aviation products to industry, the Air Force said Monday.

Under a CRADA, the military branch and a private sector partner will collaborate to define a set of evaluation benchmark and perform an independent compliance assessment to produce a comprehensive risk analysis document.

”These partnerships will help our military maintain its technical superiority while supporting a robust defense industry base,” said Jorge Gonzalez, the Air Force’s technical airworthiness authority.

The service branch noted its newly established Non-Defense Military Aircraft Office will carry out CRADAs with industry partners on a first-come, first-serve basis and the standard period of performance will run for two years.

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Senate Office of Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper Seeks New IT Branch Manager
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Senate Office of Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper Seeks New IT Branch Manager


partnershipThe Senate’s Office of Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper is searching for a new information technology branch manager to plan, organize and manage a major IT or telecommunications branch within the SAA.

A job notice posted Friday says the selected candidate will plan, define and prioritize the work of several units, direct and manage professional and technical staff, assist the formulation of department strategic and tactical plans and participate in Senate strategic planning efforts.

The IT branch manager will develop monitoring budgets, branch policies and procedures in conjunction with other department management, metrics to measure cybersecurity program effectiveness and a training/certification program for information assurance staff.

The selected applicant will also act as the chief of information assurance to lead the IA staff that will work to proactively identify, detect, react and recover from advanced cyber threats.

Interested respondents may submit applications along with other requirements until August 26.

The Office of Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper was established to act as protocol and chief law enforcement officer and principal administrative manager for support services in the Senate.

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Frank Kendall Observes ARL’s Tech Development Efforts Under Third Offset Strategy
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Frank Kendall Observes ARL’s Tech Development Efforts Under Third Offset Strategy


U.S. Army photo
U.S. Army photo

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall met with scientists and engineers at the Army Research Laboratory to observe technologies that ARL currently develops under the Defense Department‘s Third Offset Strategy to pursue new autonomous and artificial intelligence platforms.

The U.S. Army said Friday Kendall inspected projects the ARL views as in line with the Third Offset Strategy.

Kendall also discussed DoD’s efforts to update acquisition practices and investment strategies to support the future force and learned about ARL’s Open Campus Initiative that aims to foster collaboration between the laboratory and organizations in academia, industry and government on research projects to support the Army.

Army neuroscientist Jean Vettel demonstrated a system that works to facilitate teaming functions between humans and computers on activities such as target identification, the Army noted.

Vettel’s team develops the human-machine collaboration technology using funds from the Autonomy Research Pilot Initiative of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Researchers also presented ground and air robotics that aim to explore new environments, share intelligence and support manned-unmanned interfaces.

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Gen. Mark Milley to Discuss THAAD Missile Defense System With Chinese Military
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Gen. Mark Milley to Discuss THAAD Missile Defense System With Chinese Military


Mark Milley
Mark Milley

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has visited Beijing to brief the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Gordon Lubold writes Milley is scheduled Tuesday to meet Gen. Li Zuocheng, head of PLA’s ground forces, and his personnel to assure PLA that the plan to field the THAAD system in South Korea aims to protect the latter country and the U.S. from North Korea’s ballistic missile threats.

The meeting between Milley and Li comes amid the Chinese government’s concerns that the THAAD platform could undermine China’s nuclear deterrent, Lubold reports.

The U.S. and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Lockheed Martin-built THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear missile tests.

The THAAD system is designed to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missile threats within and outside the atmosphere through the use of a kinetic energy-based interceptor fired from a truck-mounted launcher.

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GAO Recommends Air Force to Revise Guidance for Reserve Personnel Assessment
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GAO Recommends Air Force to Revise Guidance for Reserve Personnel Assessment


Northrop-Grumman-B-2-aircraftThe Government Accountability Office has called on the U.S. Air Force to change guidance for the frequency of personnel requirements assessment in Reserve Component headquarters.

GAO said Friday it analyzed the trends in full-time support roles at Army and Air Force Reserve Components’ headquarters and in four states since fiscal year 2013 and examined how the Defense Department assessed personnel requirements for those headquarters since FY 2013.

Auditors found that authorized full-time support positions at those headquarters decreased in total number from 7,407 to 5,041 positions between fiscal years 2013 and the current 2016.

GAO also noticed an increase in the total number of authorized full-time support positions for the National Guards in Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey and Texas over the same period.

According to GAO, the Air Force lacked assessments for its Air National Guard headquarters and the Office of the Director for the Air National Guard since November 2013.

“As the Air Force considers revising its guidance, it has an opportunity to clarify the frequency with which its organizations should conduct these assessments,” GAO said.

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Marine Corps to Hold Mobile App Design Contest; Col. Kyle Dewar Comments
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Marine Corps to Hold Mobile App Design Contest; Col. Kyle Dewar Comments


mobile appThe U.S. Marine Corps will launch a competition that seeks to encourage Marines to develop mobile phone applications that can help them monitor their quality of life, physical fitness and warfighting capacity, Marine Corps Times reported Friday.

Jeff Schogol writes that interested participants can submit codes for iOS and Android apps through the Marine Corps Mobile Application Competition.

“Marines know their jobs, they know their circumstances best,” Col. Kyle Dewar, enterprise data center technologist at the Marine Corps, was quoted as saying.

“If they’re able to develop an app to help improve their life or their job function, that’s a win-win for the Marine Corps,” Dewar added.

Daniel Corbin, the Marine Corps’ C4 chief technology adviser, said the service branch will announce approved proposals in November and honor winners during the Charleston Defense Contractors Association C5ISR Summit in December, according to the report.

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DHS’ Jeh Johnson Speaks at Middle Eastern Law Enforcement Officers Association Conference
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DHS’ Jeh Johnson Speaks at Middle Eastern Law Enforcement Officers Association Conference


Jeh Johnson
Jeh Johnson

Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has highlighted DHS’ commitment to help keep communities safe during a speech at the first annual conference of the Middle Eastern Law Enforcement Officers Association in Dearborn, Michigan.

MELOA comprises several department employees who aim to promote trust through community engagement, George Selim, director of DHS’ office for community partnerships, wrote in a blog article published Thursday

“It has been proven, time and again, that a law enforcement community, a police force, a law enforcement organization that looks like the community that they serve builds trust,” Johnson told his audience.

Selim noted that many Middle Eastern Americans serve as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Customs and Border Protection watch commanders, U.S. Coast Guard cadets, Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster recovery support personnel and Transportation Security Administration screen passengers.

He added MELOA’s membership has increased by 500 percent since January and the DHS office for community partnerships will continue to promote and build dialogue, understanding and partnerships in a push to safeguard the nation and its values.

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Federal News Radio: DISA Extends MilCloud 2.0 Contract Ceiling to $498M
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Federal News Radio: DISA Extends MilCloud 2.0 Contract Ceiling to $498M


cloudThe Defense Information Systems Agency has extended the contract ceiling for its milCloud 2.0 private cloud platform from $92 million to $498 million, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

John Hale, DISA’s cloud portfolio chief, said at a cloud summit in Washington that DISA opted to extend the milCloud 2.0 contract ceiling and performance period due to vendor comments and Defense Department directives on areas such as data center consolidation, Meredith Somers writes.

“With data center consolidation, we expect more workload to leverage the milCloud environment than we had originally anticipated,” said Hale, according to the report.

“The overall period was extended and the overall contract ceiling was extended to handle the additional workload.”

The request for proposals now indicates a three-year base period with follow-on awards and the solicitation will close on Aug. 22, the report said.

The original period of performance covers one base year and multiple one-year awards.

Somers reports that DISA plans to reach initial operating capability on milCloud 2.0 by April 2017.

The report said the on-premise commercial cloud platform is part of DoD’s overall cloud computing efforts, which also include traditional computing and off-premise commercial cloud service.

OMB, GSA to Collaborate on Govt-Wide Data Center Modernization Initiative
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OMB, GSA to Collaborate on Govt-Wide Data Center Modernization Initiative


DataCenterThe Office of Management and Budget has partnered with the General Services Administration’s Office of Government-wide Policy to help agencies implement strategies to consolidate and modernize their data centers.

OGP will serve as managing partner to help carry out the OMB’s Data Center Optimization Initiative as part of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act implementation, Dominic Sale, deputy associate administrator for information, integrity and access at GSA, wrote in a blog entry posted Wednesday.

OMB launched the three-year initiative in early August in efforts to reduce the footprint of data centers.

Sale noted federal agencies are required to develop and report on strategies to optimize data center facilities and migrate to cloud services under the initiative.

He added the initiative’s goal is to encourage federal data centers to provide services to other agencies, help customer agencies choose services through an internal federal marketplace for data center services and retire physical infrastructure in compliance with the President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget plan.

OGP and OMB seek to help the government innovate more than 10,000 data centers run by federal agencies, according to Sale.

CBO: No Sequestration Required for FY 2016 to Meet Budget Cap Requirements
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CBO: No Sequestration Required for FY 2016 to Meet Budget Cap Requirements


BudgetThe Congressional Budget Office has said sequestration is not required because appropriations for both defense and nondefense programs for fiscal year 2016 do not exceed the caps on discretionary budget authority.

CBO said in the August 2016 report that FY 2016 appropriations for defense and nondefense initiatives based on Office of Management and Budget estimates are respectively equivalent to the $606.9 billion and $543 billion adjusted caps for 2016.

CBO said adjustments to discretionary budget limits for 2016 reached a total of $83.3 billion and those adjustments to the cap include overseas contingency operations, disaster relief and program integrity initiatives such as Supplemental Security Income, disability insurance, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The report noted that caps set in the Budget Control Act of 2011 for both defense and nondefense programs will climb from $1.16 trillion in fiscal 2018 to $1.23 trillion in fiscal 2021.

The agency also predicts the overall cap on discretionary budget authority will decrease from $1.07 trillion in FY 2017 to approximately $1.064 trillion in FY 2018, and then grow to approximately $1.14 billion by FY 2021.

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