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Assessment in Progress to Determine Changes Needed to Meet Military TacISR Needs, Says NSpC’s Chirag Parikh
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Assessment in Progress to Determine Changes Needed to Meet Military TacISR Needs, Says NSpC’s Chirag Parikh

According to National Space Council Executive Secretary Chirag Parikh, officials are in the process of analyzing the issues surrounding the tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements of combatant commands, how such requirements are not being met and how to best address such shortcomings, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.

Department of the Air Force and U.S. Space Force officials said in 2023 that the need of field commanders for the speedy delivery of tactical ISR remained unfulfilled and so argued for the establishment of a budget that would allow USSF to procure commercial satellite products, including TacISR.

The Space Force’s push for commercial ISR procurement powers has been seen by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as a potential encroachment into its role. The ongoing needs analysis, which Parikh described as an “analytically driven process,” is part of broader efforts to resolve the Space Force-NGA dispute.

Commenting on the assessment, Parikh said during the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s annual GEOINT conference on May 8 that there is a need to “better quantify the anecdotes and the challenges” being put forward by combatant commands and the Space Force while noting that the NGA may very well need to make changes to keep up with the modern battlespace.

And while it remains unclear what changes have to be made, Parikh expressed confidence that “something is going to change along the way.”

DOE to Invest $160M in Microelectronics Research & Development Projects
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DOE to Invest $160M in Microelectronics Research & Development Projects

The Department of Energy will invest $160 million over four years in research projects led by national laboratories to advance microelectronics development to support energy innovation in the U.S.

DOE said Wednesday the research investment initiative will implement the Microelectronics Research for Energy Innovation Act and support the establishment of Microelectronics Science Research Centers focused on energy efficiency and extreme environments.

The department is seeking research proposals in four research areas: new or improved materials, surface processing and control, chemistry, synthesis and fabrication; advanced computing paradigms and architectures; integrated sensing, edge computing and communication; and processing in extreme environments, radiation, radiation transport and materials interaction.

The funding opportunity is open to DOE’s national laboratories and other institutions to act as subcontractors.

“This funding will ensure our labs are all in on the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole of government effort to drive the future of innovation in chips and deliver the highly efficient computing capabilities we need to power frontier AI for many years to come,” said Geraldine Richmond, undersecretary for science and innovation in DOE.

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68 Software Companies Sign CISA’s Secure by Design Pledge; Jen Easterly Quoted
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68 Software Companies Sign CISA’s Secure by Design Pledge; Jen Easterly Quoted

Sixty-eight software manufacturers worldwide have participated in a pledge by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to produce software products and services designed with security protections.

CISA said Wednesday members of the Secure by Design pledge must work on achieving goals such as using multi-factor authentication, minimizing the use of default passwords, reducing vulnerability classes and increasing the installation of security patches by customers.

The companies must publish a vulnerability disclosure policy to authorize the public to test their products for potential vulnerabilities and allow for public disclosure of identified software weaknesses.

In addition, pledge members must include accurate Common Weakness Enumeration and Common Platform Enumeration fields in their products’ Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures records.

“More secure software is our best hope to protect against the seemingly never-ending scourge of cyberattacks facing our nation. I am glad to see leading software manufacturers recognize this by joining us at CISA to build a future that is more secure by design,” said Jen Easterly, director of CISA.

“I applaud the companies who have already signed our pledge for their leadership and call on all software manufacturers to take the pledge and join us in creating a world where technology is safe and secure right out of the box,” the 2024 Wash100 Award recipient said.

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GSA Names New Chair, Members to Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee
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GSA Names New Chair, Members to Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee

The General Services Administration has appointed a new chair and three new members to a federal panel that advises the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, effective May 15.

Lawrence Hale, deputy assistant commissioner within the Office of Information Technology Category Management for GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, will serve as chair of the Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee, GSA said Wednesday.

In this capacity, Hale will serve as a liaison and as a spokesperson for committee work products in addition to his oversight responsibilities.

Josh Krueger, chief information security officer of Project Hosts, and Kayla Underkoffler, lead security technologist of HackerOne, will fill vacant seats on the committee. Krueger will serve through July 9, 2026, while Underkoffler’s term will run through May 14, 2025.

Carlton Harris, senior vice president of End to End Solutions, will join FSCAC as a new member and serve a three-year term that will end on May 14, 2027.

Michael Vacirca, a senior engineering manager at Google, has been reappointed for a full three-year term after serving for one year on the federal panel. His term will end on May 14, 2027.

In February 2023, GSA formed FSCAC in compliance with the FedRAMP Authorization Act of 2022, which is under the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2023. The committee helps agencies advance the acquisition, authorization, security and use of cloud computing platforms and services in support of their missions.

FSCAC will hold an open meeting on May 20, Monday, to discuss its next priorities.

ODNI Releases Policy Framework for Using Sensitive Public Information; Avril Haines Quoted
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ODNI Releases Policy Framework for Using Sensitive Public Information; Avril Haines Quoted

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released a policy framework outlining general principles governing the access, collection, processing and use of commercially available information, or CAI, across the intelligence community.

The framework highlights the potential impact on privacy and civil liberties of the collection and use of CAI by intelligence agencies and establishes that such activity should comply with applicable laws and be authorized to support a validated mission, ODNI said Wednesday.

“In keeping with my commitment to share as much as possible about the IC’s activities, we are sharing this framework which provides effective governance for the IC’s handling of CAI while also protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” said Avril Haines, director of national intelligence and a 2024 Wash100 awardee.

According to the framework, intelligence agencies must assess the integrity and quality of CAI they access or collect, consider the protection of privacy and civil liberties when gathering public information, undertake reasonable efforts to determine original CAI sources and apply to CAI appropriate safeguards tailored to protect the sensitivity of the information.

The intelligence community must also prevent the discriminatory use of CAI against certain ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation.

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Lloyd Austin: FY 2025 Budget Request Aligned to DOD’s Strategy
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Lloyd Austin: FY 2025 Budget Request Aligned to DOD’s Strategy

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appeared before Senate lawmakers on Wednesday to testify about the Department of Defense’s budget request of $850 billion for fiscal year 2025, Defense News reported.

Although he acknowledged that debt ceiling caps hamper DOD’s modernization goals, he noted that the requested budget is aligned to the department’s strategy.

“We made tough but responsible decisions that prioritize near-term readiness, modernization of the joint force and support for our troops and their families,” Austin, a three-time Wash100 awardee, told the  Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee.

“Our approach dials back some of the near-term modernization for programs not set to come on line until the 2030s,” he added.

Talks over the debt ceiling caps emerged during the hearing as top senators on the subcommittee called for a higher defense topline for FY 2025.

“If we’re going to invest in future technologies, this number has to be bigger,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. “The military services and combatant commands are telling us they’re having unfunded priorities in excess of $20 billion. The price of fuel is much higher. Our military is engaged in operations around the world.”

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DCMA Unveils Contract Administration Management System for Report Delivery
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DCMA Unveils Contract Administration Management System for Report Delivery

The Defense Contract Management Agency has launched the new Contract Administration Management System, or CAMS, to replace a web-based reporting and analytic tool called Cognos.

The Contractor Effectiveness Capability and Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office made up the CAMS team that developed the new tool for on-time delivery report in collaboration with functional subject matter experts from DCMA’s Technical Directorate and other operational units, the agency said Monday.

The CAMS report is developed for automating contractor on-time delivery data analysis to streamline the process. In addition to reportedly being intuitive, it has customizable visuals and tables to enable users to pull information based on their specific requirements.

“By adding on-time delivery information and contractor effectiveness capabilities to CAMS, DCMA is taking a huge step forward in centralizing and standardizing our data, posturing ourselves for future automation,” said Craig Morgan, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at DCMA.

He added that the expansion of the agency’s contract administration capabilities is intended to provide “flexibility and enhanced acquisition decision-making.”

CAMS updates include better workload visualization options like filtering capabilities and custom settings.

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Torch.AI Launches Firefly Platform to Support Satellite Data Collection for Defense & Intel Customers; Brian Weaver Quoted
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Torch.AI Launches Firefly Platform to Support Satellite Data Collection for Defense & Intel Customers; Brian Weaver Quoted

Torch.AI has released a new earth observation capability compatible with an existing mesh of satellites.

The Firefly platform is designed to help users collect information about the Earth’s surface, weather and daily events from hundreds of satellite sensors to support ground truth analysis activities, Torch.AI announced from Leawood, Kansas on Wednesday.

Brian Weaver, founder and CEO of Torch.AI, said Firefly will make it easier for clients to “access and rely on satellite sensor feeds as part of their broader analysis efforts” and advance the company’s goal of expanding “ways for which our customers can gather insights and act on widespread multi-modal data.”

This launch makes Firefly a standard module within Torch.AI’s HALO Autonomous Fusion platform, an in-memory vector analysis engine that generates real-time fusion of multi-modal data in a single computational environment.

Firefly can handle a wide array of observational demands, and serves as a high-fidelity data stream element within HALO. It is capable of evaluating land and ocean surfaces, topographies, air quality and trace gas measurements and carrying out day-to-night all weather ground surveillance.

With this information, defense and intelligence customers can track aircraft and vessel movements, search operations and logistics tasks, among other activities across the globe.

What makes this possible is the range of sensor arrays Firefly supports, including multi-spectral optical, atmosphere chemistry, radar altimeter, hyperspectral, synthetic aperture radar and many others. The platform is also infused with Torch.AI’s artificial intelligence technologies.

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Kathleen Hicks Directs DOD to Address Cyber Reciprocity Issues Via New Memo
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Kathleen Hicks Directs DOD to Address Cyber Reciprocity Issues Via New Memo

Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of the Department of Defense and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, has issued a memorandum aimed at addressing issues associated with cybersecurity reciprocity and the Risk Management Framework.

According to the memo signed by Hicks on May 2, DOD should streamline and speed up the delivery of capabilities to warfighters by “maintaining our cybersecurity standards and leveraging reciprocity between system owners and authorizing officials.”

The deputy defense secretary noted that she expects “testing re-use and reciprocity to be implemented except when the cybersecurity risk is too great.”

The document directs DOD components to raise any RMF policy and cybersecurity reciprocity implementation issues to the department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

DOD CIO John Sherman cited the memo during his keynote at a symposium on Wednesday, according to a report by DefenseScoop.

“This is coming from the deputy secretary on down that reciprocity should be a default,” Sherman, a 2024 Wash100 Award recipient, told the publication.

“It should be the first choice as opposed to having to redo all the due diligence again. We’re trying to strike a balance in maintaining our [risk management framework-driven] cybersecurity, but to make sure that we are able to move more quickly and not have to basically check everyone’s homework,” he added.

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NOAA Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Marine Operations Center in Rhode Island
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NOAA Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Marine Operations Center in Rhode Island

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently broke ground at the site of a new marine operations center at Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island.

Partially funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, the facility will host the Marine Operations Center-Atlantic and is expected to open in 2017, NOAA said Monday.

NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said the center will secure Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification and “will soon be the homeport for one of our newest, lower-emissions vessels, working towards the goal to minimize NOAA’s own impact on the environment.”

The center will include a pier able to accommodate four large vessels and feature space for ship repairs and parking, a floating dock for smaller vessels and a building for shoreside support.

New York-based construction and development company Skanska will build the facility under a $146.8 million contract awarded in December 2023.

The new base will support NOAA’s Atlantic fleet, which collects data necessary to protect marine life, understand climate change, manage commercial fisheries and produce nautical charts.

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