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DOD Expects Zero Trust Implementation in Weapon Systems by 2035
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DOD Expects Zero Trust Implementation in Weapon Systems by 2035

The Department of Defense is aiming to implement zero trust in weapons systems in 2035. At a recent event, Randy Resnick, director of the Zero Trust Office within the Pentagon’s Chief Information Office and a Wash100 Award winner, said the DOD will work with vendors to ensure that present and future critical systems are protected.

The official admitted that building zero trust in tanks, aircraft and ships will not be easy. He added that effort may even take 10 years or more.

However, he noted that although Congress mandated zero trust in weapon systems, it may not make sense for all platforms to adopt the security framework.

“We need to start thinking and talking about how can we put elements of zero trust in it, and whether or not it even makes sense,” he commented.

“The spirit of wanting to do some more things to control those systems is there. We’re open-minded,” he added

Zero Trust in Operational Technology

Resnick also set a soft deadline of 2030 for zero trust implementation on all operational technology systems at the Pentagon.

In November, the official announced that his office would focus on OT in response to growing adversarial cyberthreats to critical infrastructure.

The Zero Trust Office is working on an official guidance for implementing zero trust for OT. Resnick revealed that the guide will be published by October or even a little sooner depending on the feedback his office. The guide, he shared, will be distributed across the Pentagon within the coming weeks.

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NASA Issues RFI for Commercial LEO Space Destinations Ahead of ISS Retirement
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NASA Issues RFI for Commercial LEO Space Destinations Ahead of ISS Retirement

NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, or JSC, has started seeking industry input for the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination Contract, or CLDC.

According to the request for information notice posted on SAM.gov Wednesday, the JSC is soliciting feedback from potential contractors for the development of new LEO space destinations and supporting systems, including in-orbit destination, docking vehicles, supporting launch vehicles and ground systems.

NASA Preparing for ISS Retirement

Through the Commercial LEO Development Program, or CLDP, JSC is leading efforts to prepare for the eventual retirement of the International Space Station, or ISS, by the close of the decade. NASA intends to transition from the ISS to commercially-owed LEO space destinations to ensure a continuous U.S. presence in space.

The program will utilize a multi-phase approach to drive the transition. Phase 1 aims to accelerate the development of commercial orbital platforms and capabilities, with NASA already awarding the Space Act Agreements to several companies. Under the SAAs, the Commercial Destinations Free Flyer agreements were awarded to Blue Origin and Starlab Space, while the Collaborations to Commercial Space Capabilities agreements were also allocated to Blue Origin, as well as Northrop Grumman, Sierra Space, SpaceX, Special Aerospace Service, Think Orbital and Vast Space. Axiom Space was awarded the Commercial Destination ISS contract for further Commercial LEO Destination, or CLD, development tasks.

Phase 2 is still in development as NASA refines the requirements for CLD capabilities, designed to support NASA and international astronauts and spaceflight participants and ensure their safety in LEO while aboard a commercially owned space station.

Interested vendors can submit their responses by April 23.

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ODNI Issues RFP for Intelligence Community Data Consortium
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ODNI Issues RFP for Intelligence Community Data Consortium

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the Office of the Open Source Intelligence Executive, or OSIE, has started soliciting industry feedback for potential approaches to managing a commercial data consortium in response to challenges to the Intelligence Community Data Consortium, or ICDC.

ICDC Challenges

According to the request for proposal issued on SAM.gov Tuesday, the IC is faced with challenges regarding commercial data acquisition duplication and commercial data replication and storage. The IC’s current acquisition method for commercially available information, or CAI, often results in duplicate purchases of the same data for various agencies. The data is copied and stored on various systems, resulting in increased costs.

Streamlining Access to Commercially Available Information

ODNI is seeking potential contractors capable of providing consortium data acquisition and management and software creation to address these issues. This unified commercial data acquisition approach aims to streamline access to CAI and avoid duplicate purchases and unnecessary expenses. In addition, this approach can potentially reduce overall data storage.

The agency intends to award one or multiple prototype Other Transaction Agreements, or OTA, to small businesses or nontraditional defense contractors. Traditional defense companies can participate if they involve a nontraditional contractor or provide a one-third cost share.

Interested vendors have until April 28 to send in their responses.

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CIA Leveraging Digital Transformation Tools in HUMINT Missions
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CIA Leveraging Digital Transformation Tools in HUMINT Missions

One of the United States’ most secretive agencies is using digital transformation tools such as AI and human-machine teaming as it tries to solve the nation’s toughest national security problems.

Since the CIA established the Directorate of Digital Innovation, or DDI, in 2015, the agency has increasingly encouraged entwining digital technology into its core human intelligence, or HUMINT, mission, where intelligence is obtained from human sources. Juliane Gallina, the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation, said every DDI mission is guided by human-machine teaming, which starts with data and is improved with AI before being put to use by CIA agents.

“It is important to remember that CIA is not only a HUMINT-focused organization, but we also serve as the functional manager for [open source intelligence, a.k.a. OSINT] for the intelligence community,” Gallina said.

Who Is Juliane Gallina?

Gallina is the latest keynote speaker to be added to the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Digital Transformation Summit, which will take place on April 24 at the Hilton McLean in McLean, Virginia. CIA officials rarely speak in public, making this a phenomenal opportunity to network with Gallina and hear what the CIA has in store for digital transformation in 2025. Tickets are selling fast. Don’t miss out!

How Does the CIA Use AI?

The CIA expects AI to help officers make sense of an overwhelming amount of information by triaging data faster than any human could alone, while gaining more insights from a mixture of OSINT and clandestine intelligence collection. CIA officers can now triage information in a fraction of the weeks or months it previously took by leveraging the latest in AI technologies and data science to help sort, and make sense of, all the information.

“Failure to harness AI and develop robust human-machine teaming will diminish our ability to generate insight, give advantage to adversaries more advanced in their use of AI and challenge our relevancy,” Gallina said.

Lakshmi Raman, the CIA’s chief AI officer, said in an agency podcast that the CIA is incorporating large language models, or LLMs, in generative AI to help the agency’s open source mission. The CIA is also considering the workforce that will be using generative AI features. The agency, Raman said, has a cohort of data scientists, analytic methodologies, AI professionals and engineers that are helping the CIA ensure its data is AI ready, that it can train and run an AI model and that the agency is incorporating AI into the applications it regularly uses.

“We think it’s the human-machine teaming that is going to get us where we need to go,” Raman said. “We need the benefits and the computational ability that a model can provide to our already incredibly experienced analysts who have really strong tradecraft to help them move … further down the field.”

Why the CIA Created the DDI

The DDI was established to help the CIA respond to its growing need to understand, utilize and respond to emerging digital technologies. The DDI combines the agency’s missions of cyber collection and security, OSINT, IT, data and others. The agency views these technologies as increasingly required for its success in a world of ubiquitous sensing, increasing cyber threats and the exponential growth in data.

One of the DDI’s key functions is to connect the proper subject matter and digital and technical experts across the CIA so the agency can adapt to future and emerging threats in the digital realm. The CIA said on October 9 that the DDI houses the most current version of many former offices that separately focused on technology, HUMINT or clandestine operations, under one roof. This brought together these once disparate disciplines into a single CIA approach for the modern digital environment.

The DDI now has a “Digital C-Suite” comprised of all of the CIA’s senior digital officers, including the CIO, chief data officer and chief information security officer. This transition permits these offices to have a better impact on all the IT work happening across the agency.

Juliane Gallina is among an eye-popping lineup of federal government IT experts who are speaking at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Digital Transformation Summit on April 24. This is a great chance to learn about business opportunities for government contractors in digital transformation amidst this environment of unprecedented change. Sign up now!

CIA Leveraging Digital Transformation Tools in HUMINT Missions
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Joseph Jewell Nominated as DOD Assistant Secretary
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Joseph Jewell Nominated as DOD Assistant Secretary

President Donald Trump has nominated Joseph Jewell, an aerospace engineer, to serve as an assistant secretary at the Department of Defense.

Congress received and referred Jewell’s nomination to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday.

If confirmed, he would succeed April Joy Ericcson, who served as assistant secretary of defense for science and technology during the Biden administration.

Joseph Jewell’s Career Background

Jewell is the John Bogdanoff associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University. He also serves as the director of the university’s HYPULSE wind tunnel facility, which supports hypersonic research and testing activities.

Prior to Purdue, the Caltech graduate served as a researcher focused on hypersonics technology at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The former Rhodes Scholar has a doctorate in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology.

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MITRE Responds to AI Action Plan RFI With 4 Recommendations
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MITRE Responds to AI Action Plan RFI With 4 Recommendations

MITRE has provided four recommendations in response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s request for information on the development of an artificial intelligence action plan, which will outline policy actions to sustain and improve U.S. superiority in AI.

The nonprofit company said Tuesday the four recommendation areas are accelerating AI innovation with public-private partnerships; lowering adoption barriers so that AI can be leveraged to transform industries; securing American AI; and building the American workforce to drive and harness AI innovation opportunities.

Accelerate AI Innovation With Public-Private Partnerships

To speed up AI innovation, MITRE said it believes it is essential to invest in large-scale compute and data resources that are key for training and deploying advanced AI models. 

According to the company, federal frontier labs could serve as a “cornerstone” of public-private partnerships in AI and should focus on three key areas: open science, defense and intelligence.

To further advance AI innovation, MITRE highlighted the need to collect high-quality datasets and implement mission engineering as a structured approach to address the gap between the mission demand perspective and the technology impact perspective.

RFI on AI Action Plan

On behalf of OSTP, the National Science Foundation solicited public feedback in early February to help inform the development of the AI action plan in accordance with an executive order signed by President Trump in late January.

OSTP sought responses that address AI-related policy topics, including data centers, hardware and chips, open source development, energy consumption and efficiency, model development, explainability and assurance of AI model outputs, and cybersecurity.

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MIT Books $12.2B Air Force Contract for Lincoln Lab R&D Center Operation
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MIT Books $12.2B Air Force Contract for Lincoln Lab R&D Center Operation

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received a $12.21 billion contract to operate a federally funded research and development center at the Lincoln Laboratory.

Contract Scope

The Department of Defense said Tuesday the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract supports research, development and rapid prototyping of advanced technology crucial for Department of Defense and national security needs.

Contract work will occur primarily at the Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. The project is expected to run through March 31, 2030.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center in Hanscom AFB will allocate an initial $400,000 from fiscal year 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds.

What Is a Federally Funded R&D Center?

A federally funded research and development center, or FFRDC, is an independent, not-for-profit entity that is sponsored by government agencies and serves as a strategic partner tasked with conducting R&D activities on various fields, including defense, energy, aviation, space, health and human services, and tax administration. It conducts scientific research, analysis, systems development and systems acquisition aimed at developing innovations addressing challenges faced by the government.

The DOD-sponsored MIT Lincoln Laboratory fulfills its FFRDC role by offering independent insights on vital issues, ensuring long-term proficiency, employing highly skilled talent, fostering strategic partnerships with sponsors and developing technologies. The Lincoln lab also provides extensive planning and concept development in specialized research areas.

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Rep. Walberg-led Bipartisan Bill to Boost 6G Telecommunications
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Rep. Walberg-led Bipartisan Bill to Boost 6G Telecommunications

A bipartisan group led by Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., has introduced a bill establishing a 6G Task Force to deliver a report on the adoption of advanced wireless communications technology.

Understanding the Potential of 6G Technology

Walberg said Monday he partnered with Doris Matsui, D-CA, and Rick Allen, R-GA, to introduce the Future Uses of Technology Upholding Reliable and Enhanced, or FUTURE, Networks Act, which aims to maintain U.S. leadership in wireless technology through the utilization of 6G networks.

Under the bipartisan bill, the Federal Communications Commission will create the task force, including representatives from government, industry and public interest groups. The task force will report on the following:

  • Role of standards-setting bodies in 6G technology
  • Potential applications for 6G technology
  • Possible threats, such as supply chain vulnerabilities and cyberattacks
  • Interagency coordination and deployment strategies

“Our economic and national security depend on the United States remaining the leader in wireless technology,” said Walberg. “I am proud to partner with Representatives Matsui and Allen to introduce this vital legislation, which brings stakeholders together to continue to strengthen our networks to protect them from cyberattacks, improve wireless security, and promote innovation. The FUTURE Networks Act will better prepare us for the future deployment of next-generation 6G networks,” he added.

“6G holds the potential to revolutionize connectivity, support smart transport and supercharge augmented reality applications for education, healthcare and manufacturing,” stated Matsui. “The race to 6G isn’t just about faster phones – it’s about national security, economic security and America’s standing on the international stage,” she added.

“By establishing a 6G Task Force, we can bring together America’s brightest industry leaders, stakeholders, and innovators to collaborate on the future deployment of 6G and strengthening our wireless networks,” remarked Allen.

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Former GSA Administrator on Government’s Procurement Consolidation Plan
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Former GSA Administrator on Government’s Procurement Consolidation Plan

The former head of the General Services Administration discussed the upcoming changes to the federal government’s procurement procedures under President Donald Trump. In an interview with Federal News Network, Emily Murphy, former GSA administrator and a three-time Wash100 Award winner, shared what she expects to happen as agencies begin to consolidate the purchase of common goods and services.

Over the Next 60 Days

Murphy predicts that, in the coming weeks, agencies will need to figure out which purchases can and cannot be consolidated. The Trump administration’s executive order on consolidation issued in March identifies 10 government-wide categories such as medical, construction, professional services and IT.

According to the government leader, there may be purchases that fall under the 10 categories but that agencies decide do not make sense to consolidate. She noted that agencies will also need to address questions related to personnel, funding and contracts. 

“Are the people going to move with the procurements? How about the funding for those people? Is it going to come along with them or is GSA going to retain a fee-based structure and charge for those procurements going forward,” she asked. “So and then contract writing systems. Which contract writing system are they going to use? How are you going to communicate things back and forth? How are the financial systems going to communicate with each other?”

Promoting Shared Systems

Murphy also discussed what she would do if she was still at GSA. She said she would go to the Office of Shared Services and Performance Improvement within the Office of Governmentwide Policy, which has done work on setting common standards for a contract writing system, and move agencies toward using a shared financial management service. 

The current senior fellow at the George Mason University Center for Government Contracting explained that many of the administration’s recent EOs advocate for shared services. Murphy revealed that she is particularly curious if payroll and human resource processes will also revert to shared services across federal agencies.

Murphy will join other government and government contracting leaders at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Digital Transformation Summit on April 24. Register for the in-person today!

Former GSA Administrator on Government's Procurement Consolidation Plan
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Manufacturers Request Nearly $9B in Loans From Office of Strategic Capital
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Manufacturers Request Nearly $9B in Loans From Office of Strategic Capital

The Department of Defense‘s Office of Strategic Capital has received $8.9 billion worth of requests for financing under an inaugural program that aims to bolster the domestic capability of the U.S. to manufacture technologies critical to economic and national security.

DOD said Tuesday that the program seeks to build up manufacturing across 31 technology categories using congressionally-appropriated funding.

Current Pool of Loan Applicants

The manufacturers comprising the current pool of applicants come from 38 states and are requesting financial support for various technology areas, including space, microelectronics and advanced materials.

The requested funds range from $10 million to $150 million. The total amount applied for exceeds the program’s current lending capacity of $984 million.

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