Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center under the Air Force Materiel Command, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as chief of the Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center.

President Obama also nominated Maj. Gen. Robert McMurry, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, to succeed Thompson as AFLCMC chief, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday.

AFSPC’s Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB in California oversees the development, acquisition, sustainment and deployment of military satellite constellations and other space systems of the Defense Department.

Thompson served as program executive officer for tankers at AFLCMC’s tanker directorate before he took the AFLCMC commander position in October 2014.

The 32-year Air Force veteran has held the roles of deputy PEO for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, commander of the 303rd aeronautical systems wing and PEO for strategic systems at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

His previous positions at the office of the assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition include chief of the acquisition management and policy branch and executive officer within the directorate of global power programs.

Thompson is a recipient of Defense Superior Service Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal and Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters.

President Barack Obama has recommended that Kelly Aeschbach, chief of staff for the Naval Information Forces, be promoted from the rank of captain to rear admiral (lower half) in the U.S. Navy, the Defense Department announced Friday.

The Pentagon renamed Navy Information Dominance Forces as Naval Information Forces earlier this year in a move to reflect the adoption of the “information warfare” concept.

Aeschbach previously worked as commanding officer of Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia.

She also held positions at the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific; Tactical Training Group Pacific; Naval Personnel Command; U.S. Naval Forces Europe; U.S. Special Operations Command; Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance.

Her operational assignments include stints in Alaska, Japan, the Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf.

Jamie Morin, director of cost assessment and program evaluation at the Defense Department, has described $85 billion as a low cost estimate for the replacement platform of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles in an interview with Breaking Defense posted Thursday.

Sydney Freedberg writes Morin said CAPE provided both low and high estimates for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program in an acquisition memorandum to Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall.

DoD’s current $85 billion estimate is 37 percent higher than the U.S. Air Force’s $62 billion figure.

Morin told Breaking Defense it was difficult to estimate the cost of a new ICBM since Minuteman was last updated in 1970 and the MX Peacekeeper ICBM lacked records due to an acquisition reform movement in the 1990s.

The CAPE director noted the Air Force showed restraint in its requirements for GBSD which could help keep the program’s cost and schedule manageable.

Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, U.S. Air Force Materiel Command leader, highlighted her emphasis on cyber resiliency and hardening functions at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference Wednesday.

The Cyber Resiliency Steering Group led by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, AFMC and Air Force Space Command has developed a Air Force Cyber Campaign Plan that covers seven lines of attack.

“The focus of this group was to take a look and understand first of all what was the threat and what … should we do in order to ensure that our weapons systems were secure from this cyber threat,” said Pawlikowski.

The plan aims to cover mission thread analysis, development of cyber resiliency tools and expertise, security, intelligence, use and protection of current resources to identify and address the cause of cyber vulnerabilities.

The Defense Department established the Cyber Resiliency Steering Group in a push to build up cyber resiliency of weapons systems.