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FAA Adds Sierra Space, Virgin Galactic to Space Launch & Reentry Tracking Tool; Timothy Arel Quoted
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FAA Adds Sierra Space, Virgin Galactic to Space Launch & Reentry Tracking Tool; Timothy Arel Quoted

The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it will receive space vehicle launch and reentry flight data from Virgin Galactic and Sierra Space through the Space Data Integrator platform.

FAA said Friday SDI is a tool that helps the agency safely manage air traffic during space operations and enhance situational awareness by receiving vehicle telemetry data from commercial space operators.

The two companies will join SpaceX in transmitting SDI data to the agency.

According to FAA, approximately 70 percent of commercial space operations in U.S. airspace have transmitted telemetry data to SDI since the platform’s launch in 2021.

“We’ve made significant progress in reducing how long airspace is closed for space operations, and the SDI tool is the foundation for future improvements to drive it down even more while also ensuring safety,” said Timothy Arel, chief operating officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization.

FAA noted that SDI enables the agency to respond to an anomaly and reopen airspace within three minutes following a launch or reentry mission.

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Rear Adm. Nancy Hann Selected to Serve as NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations
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Rear Adm. Nancy Hann Selected to Serve as NOAA Deputy Undersecretary of Operations

Rear Adm. Nancy Hann, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, or OMAO, and Commissioned Officer Corps, has been appointed to serve as the agency’s deputy undersecretary for operations.

She will be promoted to the rank of vice admiral and assume her new role in August, succeeding Benjamin Friedman, who is retiring from the position after eight years to join the SUNY Research Foundation as chief operating officer, NOAA said Friday.

Hann has held various leadership positions at NOAA, including as OMAO chief of staff, OMAO deputy director for operations, deputy director of the NOAA Corps and commanding officer of the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center.

NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said Hann is an “experienced and well-respected leader with an impressive resume of accomplishments” and he looks forward to working with her as a key member of his management team to advance NOAA’s mission.

Rear Adm. Chad Cary has been nominated to lead the NOAA Corps and OMAO, pending Senate confirmation.

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DTRA to Open New Facility on Kirtland Air Force Base
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DTRA to Open New Facility on Kirtland Air Force Base

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency will open a 76,000 sq. ft. multi-use building on Kirtland Air Force Base to house over 300 agency employees currently in Albuquerque and at Eglin AFB.

DTRA said its Albuquerque Office will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new facility on June 12 and the agency expects it to be fully operational in the second half of 2024.

The building has a seismic laboratory, meeting rooms, administrative offices and unclassified and classified work spaces and incorporates new Department of Defense high performance and sustainable building requirements.

It will support more than 300 DOD civil servants and uniformed service members, providing them with specialized research and development offices in one location.

“This will have a tangible impact on our DTRA teammates and missions,” said Gary Hook, chief of (R&D) Test and Assessment Department at DTRA. “We have some very unique testing facilities around here, we work very closely with the Department of Energy labs, the services and academia, and we’re excited to have a new, modern, secure and efficient place to carry out our mission.”

The facility was built by Hensel Phelps Construction, with initial design from Jacobs Engineering.

DOJ OIP Reports Government Hits Milestone in FOIA Implementation
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DOJ OIP Reports Government Hits Milestone in FOIA Implementation

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy has revealed that the government received approximately 1.2 million requests under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, during fiscal year 2023, a 29 percent increase from the number of requests received in the prior year.

OIP said in its Summary of Annual FOIA Reports for FY 2023 that the government collectively processed over 1 million requests, which is an increase of nearly 28 percent from FY 2022, and the total number of backlogged requests decreased by 2.84 percent to 200,843.

The departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Veterans Affairs and Defense and the National Archives and Records Administration received the vast majority, or 82 percent, of all government-wide FOIA requests made in FY 2023.

DHS received the highest number of requests with 580,205, followed by DOJ with 144,065, VA with 72,403, NARA with 66,064 and DOD with 55,731. Collectively, other agencies received 203,743 FOIA requests.

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DHA Director Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland Welcomes Staff of Newly Created R&D Organization
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DHA Director Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland Welcomes Staff of Newly Created R&D Organization

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, director of the Defense Health Agency, welcomed the employees of the newly established DHA Research and Development organization during an event at Fort Detrick in Maryland, DVIDS reported Thursday.

DHA Research and Development is led by Brig. Gen. Edward Bailey, who also oversees the agency’s Research and Engineering Directorate, and has more than 1,500 scientists, acquisition experts, program managers and support staff at offices and laboratories worldwide.

The newly created organization includes the Army’s Medical Research and Development Command, which was transferred to DHA in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act.

“You know how your mission set gets after improving health and building readiness or the capability of the force. Whether it’s what you do connecting with the FDA, or in product development, or fielding and equipping—all feeds into the National Defense Strategy. Which includes improving clinical readiness—work that supports combat care. If you think about what the technology you are developing is going to do for increasing frontline clinical capabilities, that’s critical to growing and increasing clinical readiness in a demonstrable way,” Crosland, a 2024 Wash100 awardee, told personnel of the new DHA organization.

DHA Research and Development also includes medical research labs conducting studies on military infectious diseases, military chemical and biological defense, combat casualty care and other biomedical research areas.

New Small Business Administration Rule to Prohibit SDVOSBs From Self-Certifying to Receive Prime, Subcontracts
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New Small Business Administration Rule to Prohibit SDVOSBs From Self-Certifying to Receive Prime, Subcontracts

The Small Business Administration has issued a direct final rule that requires service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses to register with the SBA Veteran Small Business Certification Program in order to receive prime or subcontracts that would be counted toward an agency’s or prime contractor’s SDVOSB participation targets.

The final rule, which goes into effect on Aug. 5, implements section 864 of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, according to an issuance posted Thursday on the Federal Register.

SDVOSBs not registered with the VetCert program but meet eligibility requirements were previously allowed to self-certify in order to receive prime or subcontracts that were not sole-source or SDVOSB set-asides but would be credited to the awarding agency’s or prime contractor’s SDVOSB participation goals.

Once the rule takes effect, SDVOSBs will have up to Dec. 22 to file an application for certification with SBA. While waiting on the SBA’s decision, applicants will be allowed to continue self-certifying to receive contracts.

Beyond Dec. 22, SDVOSBs that are not registered with VetCert or have not filed for certification will no longer be allowed to self-certify.

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JFHQ-DODIN Requests Information on Situational Awareness Visualization Tool
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JFHQ-DODIN Requests Information on Situational Awareness Visualization Tool

The Defense Information Systems Agency has begun seeking information on potential industry sources of visualization capabilities that can provide situational awareness of the Department of Defense Information Network, or DODIN, systems.

Joint Force Headquarters – DODIN is requesting industry feedback on a customizable visualization dashboard called the DODIN Risk and Situational Awareness Picture, or DRSAP, to enhance collaborative decision-making regarding the posture and resilience of the Pentagon’s information network environment, according to a notice posted Friday on SAM.gov.

DRSAP is expected to provide area of operation commanders and directors with operational- and executive-level visuals of their cyber terrain risk postures.

The visualization dashboard must be able to collect and aggregate network data and connect to existing Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture applications and Joint Cyber Command and Control platforms.

Responses are due July 9.

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Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey Nominated as Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6
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Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey Nominated as Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has announced the nomination of Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey for promotion to the rank of lieutenant general and to serve as the next deputy chief of staff, G-6, within the U.S. Army.

Austin, a three-time Wash100 awardee, disclosed Rey’s nomination by President Joe Biden in a general officer announcement published Friday.

Rey is the director of architecture, operations, networks and space within the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6.

Prior to this role, he was director of the network cross-functional team at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

If confirmed, Rey would succeed Lt. Gen. John Morrison, who assumed the deputy chief of staff position in August 2020, and serve as principal military adviser to the Army’s chief of staff and chief information officer for strategy, planning, network architecture and implementation of command, control, communications, cyber and networks for the service branch’s operations worldwide.

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Cloud Safe Task Force Proposes Initiative to Ensure Real-Time Monitoring of Cloud Cybersecurity
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Cloud Safe Task Force Proposes Initiative to Ensure Real-Time Monitoring of Cloud Cybersecurity

The Cloud Safe Task Force says U.S. government organizations responsible for national defense should collaborate with the country’s major cloud service providers, or CSPs, in order to enhance U.S. cybersecurity posture.

The task force made the recommendation following an April 8 meeting where it was noted that continued migration of U.S. data and systems to commercial cloud environments has reduced the government’s ability to monitor and respond to national cyber threats, MITRE said in a report released Wednesday.

The task force proposed the launch of the National Cloud Cyber Feed Initiative, which will work to facilitate information-sharing between government organizations like U.S. Cyber Command, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and CSPs like Google, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, which now possesses the technical capability to deliver information that would enable real-time cybersecurity monitoring.

The initiative’s objectives include the establishment of regular stakeholder dialogues regarding cloud security threats, incidents and best practices; the creation of a real-time view of CSP security measures that also compares their effectiveness; the establishment of a framework governing the responsibilities and authorities of the collaboration.

Further discussions need to take place regarding the initiative. Topics to pursue include what information would have to be shared, which organizations should provide it and which federal agencies should sponsor the effort.

The Cloud Safe Task Force is a collaboration between MITRE, the Cloud Security Alliance, the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center and the IT Acquisition Advisory Council.

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Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks Shares Thoughts on Warfighting Evolution
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Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks Shares Thoughts on Warfighting Evolution

War is constantly changing, and today, shifts are driven by “the accelerating pace of technology,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.

Offering land power as an example, Hicks, a 2024 Wash100 Award winner, told Army War College graduates that change will not bring an end to this element of warfighting, but transform how it looks, the Department of Defense reported on Friday.

She emphasized the importance of being a “change agent” as the United States responds to the challenges of the evolving geopolitical landscape.

According to Hicks, the war in Ukraine has shown that Russia is “an acute threat to the international system.” China, she said, is the pacing challenge for the U.S., and she expects this relationship to continue in the foreseeable future.

She also noted climate change and pandemics as “threat multipliers” that influence national security issues.

Hicks highlighted individuals “who are seizing opportunities to innovate every day — like using data and [artificial intelligence] to improve our decision advantage, leveraging commercial technologies to deliver capabilities to the warfighter at greater speed and scale, and crafting novel operational concepts for how to use those capabilities in ways that confound our competitors and achieve our missions in the battlespace.”

The military, she said, is just one part of deterrence.

“Today’s complex security challenges require whole-of-government solutions. In every region of the world, preserving and promoting peace demands that America also has a robust diplomatic corps, well-resourced development agencies, and a world-class intelligence community,” she explained.

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