Western analysts and officials say the U.S. is struggling to quickly deploy sufficient equipment for Ukraine to effectively counter the threat posed by the Iran-built Shahed-136 drone that Russia has fielded to attack civilian infrastructure, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded a contract to L3Harris Technologies to supply 14 Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment to help Ukraine ground forces fight hostile drones.

According to the report, the first four VAMPIRE units are set to be delivered to Ukraine by mid-2023 and the rest will be ready by the end of the year, highlighting the challenge of supplying enough technologies to the Eastern European country.

Richard Ast, director of unmanned systems technology at DOD’s research and engineering directorate, said at a conference in December that his office was turning to industry to help develop platforms that could counter unmanned systems, particularly autonomous drones being fielded in large numbers.

Companies such as the Netherlands-based Robin Radar Systems and Utah-based Fortem Technologies are reportedly developing their capabilities so that they may counter Iran-made drones as the Russia-Ukraine war approaches its first anniversary.

Bill Haraka, vice president of defense and security at Robin Radar, said the company is working to improve the capability of its sensors to detect Shahed-136 and other larger drones.

Fortem CEO Jon Gruen also revealed that the company has made improvements to its DroneHunter system to help address the threat posed by Iranian drones.

The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing to require passenger and cargo aircraft to install technologies to prevent 5G networks from disrupting air traffic monitoring and navigation, Reuters reported Monday.

In a notice issued Monday, FAA said that plane carriers must have 5G C-Band-tolerant radio altimeters or filters approved by the agency by Feb. 1, 2024, amid increasing incidents of inaccurate data reporting by aircraft navigation equipment at U.S. airports.

FAA implemented in December 2021 a directive that bans cargo and passenger flight operations near 5G wireless transmitters if they do not have the agency’s authorization. To give airlines time to retrofit their vessels against interference, Verizon and AT&T volunteered to postpone “some usage” of their C-Band 5G service until July 2023, according to Reuters.

The new directive would require radio altimeters as well as revisions to flight manuals, to indicate that non-retrofitted planes are prohibited from making low-visibility landings.

Trade group Airlines for America responded that the U.S. government should take into consideration that global supply chain delays are making it difficult for companies to complete their upgrades.

Aaron Weis, chief information officer at the Department of the Navy, issued a campaign plan for fiscal year 2023 in December that lists concentrations to achieve the objectives of the Information Superiority Vision.

The FY 2023 set of objectives has six focus areas to help meet ISV goals: optimization of the DON Information Environment for cloud; adoption of enterprise services; implementation of zero trust; use of data to fuel force readiness; Cyber Ready; and Cattle Drive, the Navy said Monday.

To advance the first focus area, DON will continuously deliver IE as code, diversify transport and modernize application and data hosting environments.

For the Cattle Drive initiative, the department intends to advance IT modernization through the realignment of resources and removal of obsolete systems and applications. 

Weis, a three-time Wash100 awardee, said implementing the campaign plan is a “team sport.”

“Successful execution of the FY 23 campaign plan requires active involvement from champions across the DON,” he added.

The General Services Administration is working to update the schedule catalog and plans to host industry days in the next few months to get insights on how to advance the effort, Federal News Network reported Friday.

Erv Koehler, assistant commissioner of the office of general supplies and services at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said the catalog should be based on a market basket at the item level.

“If I can get a smaller catalog that is easier for me to manage and easier for you upload and manage too, then I have to be faster on the modifications side,” he told FNN in an interview. “I want to use the order level materials authority to allow orders to process without being on schedule.”

Koehler noted that he is trying to employ existing authorities to make that happen and that he is open to other suggestions.

GSA also aims to reduce the number of listed products in the catalog as part of efforts to enhance E-Buy and the GSA Advantage.

“There’s a lot of things out there that we need to manage better. We realize there’s a little bit of risk associated with that, so we’re going to go through the analytics side of it and once we get the code cracked, we’ll be moving out [to whittle down the number of products in the catalog],” Koehler said.

He also talked about the efforts GSA has initiated to modify schedule contracts and adjust prices to keep up with inflationary changes.