The House Armed Services Committee has approved a draft version of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act via a vote of 57 in favor and 1 against, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.

The FY2025 NDAA authorizes $883.7 billion overall for defense spending, with $849.8 billion going to the Department of Defense.

Highlights of the bill include funding for the construction of a second Virginia-class submarine; the acquisition of F-35 fighter jets, albeit 10 fewer than the DOD originally requested; and the acquisition of F-15EX fighters in fiscal year 2026.

The bill also contains provisions that call for the audit of an ongoing review of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program; empower Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration Frank Calvelli to sanction contractors that perform poorly; and require DOD officials to provide lawmakers clarification on the agency’s Replicator program.

The bill will now have to be voted on by the whole House of Representatives then reconciled with the version that the Senate will produce. The Senate’s committee-level markup of the FY2025 NDAA is expected to begin in June.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected six companies to mature their design concepts for a low-weight autonomous aircraft system with vertical landing and take-off and long endurance leap-ahead capabilities.

AeroVironment, Griffon Aerospace, Karem Aircraft, Method Aeronautics, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin‘s Sikorsky subsidiary will proceed to the next development phase of the AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY, or ANCILLARY, program, DARPA said Wednesday.

“Our performers are searching for innovative ways to increase payload weight and range/endurance of small, ship-launched UAS by means of novel configurations, propulsion, and controls while also removing the need for special infrastructure,” said Steve Komadina, DARPA program manager for ANCILLARY.

During the 10-month Phase Ib, the selected teams will refine their concept designs by reducing system risks and conducting component and configuration hover testing.

DARPA will downselect teams for the detailed design, fabrication and flight testing phase.

“While we anticipate this effort is most likely to support Navy and Marine missions, we have found other services are very interested in the capabilities this technology can bring to diverse missions, including logistics, strike, and special uses by the Army, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and Coast Guard,” Komadina said.

The Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office has expanded its leadership team with the appointment of four technology leaders as part of efforts to advance DOD’s adoption of AI, data and analytics.

Garrett Berntsen, most recently deputy chief data and AI officer at the State Department, will serve as deputy chief digital and AI officer for mission analytics, CDAO said Wednesday.

Eugene Kuznetsov, former command technology officer at Naval Special Warfare Command, will assume the role of DCDAO for enterprise platforms and services.

Jock Padgett, most recently chief technology officer at the U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps, will serve as DCDAO for advanced C2 acceleration efforts.

Christopher Skaluba, former director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, will join CDAO as an executive director.

Radha Plumb, DOD’s chief digital and AI officer, said she looks forward to working with the newly appointed leaders.

“As CDAO’s senior leadership team, we will collaborate to lead the development and oversight of policies and tools to enable the responsible adoption of data, analytics, and AI capabilities across the force, at scale and speed, to meet the warfighters emergent requirements,” Plumb added.

Collaboration between the U.S. military, government and civilian technology leaders is critical to protecting the nation from cyber threats, according to Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and commander of the joint headquarters for the Department of Defense’s Information Network.

In remarks at DefenseTalks 2024, Skinner, a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said the DOD is continuously asking its partners to help forces better understand the state of the cyber battlespace so they can perform their jobs without getting “bogged down with the technical complexities that some capabilities offer,” the Pentagon reported on Wednesday.

One of the most notable threats in the cyber domain is the People’s Republic of China, which Skinner said is “trying to get into our critical infrastructure … because they want to gain the strategic positional advantage.”

“I don’t think you can overstate the threat that we live in, in the cyber domain today. All you have to do is go look at open-source reporting,” he said.

As a combat support agency, DISA is focused on “the bad day,” or the start of armed conflict. This responsibility serves as the foundation for the recently released DISA Next strategy, which lays out four strategic imperatives for the agency, the first of which is operating and securing the agency’s portion of DODIN.

“The networks that we provide have to be ready. As we look at diversity of transport, there is not one mission that I know of that happens in the department of defense, that DISA is not underpinning — not one,” Skinner said.

The other three objectives are supporting strategic command, control and communications, modernizing the network and operationalizing data.

Skinner underscored that partnerships are critical in the information technology area.

“And … what sets us apart is our partnerships like these engagements, and partnerships that we [have] each and every day to enable [DOD] and the nation to be successful,” he stated.

Want to know more about how the U.S. government is approaching cyber? The Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Cyber Summit on June 8 will give you the opportunity to hear key public and private sector cyber experts share their insights on this important domain. To learn more and register to attend the event, click here.