Lloyd Austin, secretary of the Department of Defense a 2023 Wash100 inductee, said a U.S. fighter jet of U.S. Northern Command took down a high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to China off the coast of South Carolina in response to President Joe Biden’s order.

“The balloon, which was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above U.S. territorial waters,” Austin said in a statement published Saturday.

The U.S. defense secretary shared that the government of Canada helped track and analyze the balloon through North American Aerospace Defense Command and supported the action to take down the balloon.

DOD News reported an F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia brought down the balloon after firing an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile from an altitude of 58,000 feet.

First detected on Jan. 28, the balloon travelled across Alaska and Canada before it reentered the U.S. airspace via Idaho.

A senior defense official said the surveillance balloon’s recovery will enable U.S. analysts to analyze sensitive equipment from China.

On Thursday, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, DOD press secretary, issued a statement informing the public that the U.S. government was closely monitoring the balloon.

The Alliance for Digital Innovation has called on the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration to prioritize several measures as the two agencies update the policy governing the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program and related FedRAMP guidance.

ADI said in a Wednesday letter that OMB and GSA should encourage real risk management from authorizing officials at agencies, incentivize agencies to fund new cloud services and related platforms and direct all new security compliance programs to build in reciprocity with FedRAMP.

Other recommendations offered by the trade association are promoting governance, consistency and objectivity across the technical review process; establishing a federal secure cloud advisory committee; instituting transparency in the reporting process; and addressing the barriers to facilitate the entry of small cloud businesses into the federal marketplace.

“The recent authorizing legislation provides the framework to reimagine FedRAMP in a way that keeps up with constantly accelerating demand and flexes to meet agency needs,” ADI wrote in the letter.

The trade group said government should work with commercial industry to come up with a policy that “encourages agencies to make risk-based decisions based on security threats and not perceived oversight.”

The letter was addressed to OMB Director Shalanda Young and GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan.

The Department of Defense and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration have launched a new prize competition aimed at advancing 5G adoption to drive the creation of an open network ecosystem.

DOD said Thursday the 2023 5G Challenge: Advanced Interoperability seeks to evaluate the potential use of open radio access network systems in future military base communications infrastructure modernization endeavors.

Open RAN systems will reportedly play a key role in the Pentagon’s efforts to upgrade communication networks at its facilities in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2023.

The multi-vendor 5G Challenge will provide up to $7 million in cash and prizes for companies that offer combined central unit and distributed unit and radio unit network subsystems.

Interested parties have until March 1 to apply for the competition.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., wrote a letter to President Joe Biden Thursday saying Congress should not consider the sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Turkey until the country ratifies the accession protocols for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

“Failure to ratify the protocols or present a timeline for ratification threatens the Alliance’s unity at a key moment in history, as Russia continues its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Shaheen and Tillis wrote in the letter.

According to the letter, Turkey signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding with Sweden and Finland in June 2022 detailing agreements on initiatives the two Nordic countries should carry out to address Turkey’s security concerns as a precondition to join the transatlantic alliance.

Despite the efforts of Finland and Sweden to meet the conditions, Turkey has not approved the NATO accession protocols for the two countries and has not committed to a timeline for consideration of the ratification, the senators noted.

“We urge you to continue to engage with the U.S. Ambassador to Turkiye, the U.S. Mission to NATO and with our allies, including Sweden and Finland, to encourage Turkiye to act swiftly in support of transatlantic unity and ratify Sweden and Finland’s accession protocols to the NATO Alliance,” the lawmakers wrote.

Shaheen and Tillis are co-chairs of the Senate NATO Observer Group.

Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, press secretary at the Department of Defense, issued a statement Thursday informing the public that the U.S. government has observed a high-altitude surveillance balloon in the airspace over the continental U.S.

The government, including North American Aerospace Defense Command, is closely monitoring the balloon, which Ryder said does not pose a physical or military threat to civilians on the ground.

The press secretary noted that this is not the first time such an activity has been tracked and that the government “acted immediately” to prevent the collection of sensitive information.

A senior defense official said the U.S. intelligence community believes the surveillance balloon belongs to China and that the government has communicated with Chinese officials to discuss the matter via multiple channels, according to DOD News.

Putting out the balloon through the use of kinetic force, the official noted, might put civilians at risk.

“Currently, we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collective collection perspective,” the official said. “But we are taking steps, nevertheless, to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information.”