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McAlester Army Ammunition Plant Unveils Modernized Air Defense Facility
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McAlester Army Ammunition Plant Unveils Modernized Air Defense Facility

The McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, a.k.a. MCAAP, has announced the opening of a new modernized facility intended to strengthen the air defense capabilities of the U.S. military.

The Army said Sunday the Theater Readiness Monitoring Facility, dubbed TRMF, was officially opened on Feb. 20 as part of the ongoing commitment to protect the future through innovation, collaboration and service to global security.

TRMF Activities

TRMF will be instrumental in the testing, recertification, assembly and repair of the HAWK missile system. Since the new facility was opened, MCAAP has managed to inspect and service 2,751 HAWK missiles, including 825 missiles from six countries outside the United States.

The modernized facility also aims to make sure that the HAWK missile system remains effective in future air defense operations. It is capable of testing and restoring missiles that have been inactive for more than three decades.

The Oklahoma-based ammunition plant’s Mobile Ammunition Renovation Inspection Demilitarization team has contributed valuable support to TRMF by going on international deployments for the HAWK program.

Aside from the HAWK missile system, the new facility also supports the Aviation and Missile Command, Security Assistance Management Directorate and Non-Standard Missile Systems.

“Getting this TRMF established has truly been a major undertaking with many challenges, and we wouldn’t be here today without the hard work and help of many different organizations,” said Kendall Prather, missile technical specialist.

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Peraton to Provide USPTO With Advanced Storage Infrastructure
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Peraton to Provide USPTO With Advanced Storage Infrastructure

Peraton has received a $52 million contract from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to provide storage infrastructure managed services.

The agreement will deliver to the USPTO data storage solutions, enabling the agency to establish secure, resilient, accessible, robust, expandable and recoverable information, Peraton said Monday. The required services ensure that the USPTO will continue to operate efficiently.

Advancing USPTO’s Mission

Amy Rall, president of citizen security and public services sector at Peraton, noted that the contract will provide expertise to advance USPTO’s critical work and ensure that U.S. innovators will continue to thrive in the international landscape.

“We are incredibly excited to support the USPTO’s mission in advancing U.S. innovation and promoting stronger intellectual property protection worldwide,” she added.

Storage Infrastructure Uses & Results

The contract requires Peraton to develop, operate and maintain a storage infrastructure that USPTO will use to promote innovation, protect intellectual property and advance U.S. businesses’ global competitiveness. A Peraton team will help the agency manage its storage networks and provide hardware, software, security, analysis, design, development, testing, implementation and operational support services.

The collaborative effort is also meant to guarantee that USPTO storage infrastructure will operate using the latest technology while maintaining predictable costs and streamlined budgeting.

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Leonel Garciga on Army’s Unified Network Operations Initiative
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Leonel Garciga on Army’s Unified Network Operations Initiative

Leonel Garciga, the U.S. Army’s chief information officer and a 2025 Wash100 Award recipient, said the military branch’s Unified Network Operations, or UNO, initiative will enable the service to gain better visibility into its technology stack and reduce the number of duplicative applications, Federal News Network reported Friday.

“Unifying the network is that very first step to being able to see ourselves and operationalize the network in a way that lets us take action that historically you would only have in pockets across the army. Now we’ve got that at an enterprise level,” Garciga said on FNN’s Ask the CIO.

“I think the bigger thing strategically that as an Army we’re working is we’ve been on this unified network plan for a while. It’s this idea of really taking and centralizing services and delivering them very differently to the force versus distributed services across the service,” the two-time Wash100 awardee added.

UNO Is Driving 2 Things

The Army CIO noted that the UNO initiative is driving two things at the service branch: enabling the service to change its tactics, techniques and protocols, and providing an opportunity to end some legacy platforms.

“Two things are happening: We have got to change our tactics, techniques and protocols (TTPs), which UNO is driving a lot of that. I think the bigger thing is we’re very quickly finding where we have opportunities not to just optimize our delivery model, but where we have opportunities to sunset some legacy capabilities and really rethink organizationally how we deliver and that’s where we’re finding the most of the bang for the buck,” he explained.

Supporting Cyber Analysts Through Network Consolidation

Garciga stated that the network consolidation effort across the Army is helping cybersecurity analysts to address issues in real time.

“I think on the cybersecurity side, the visibility at scale of endpoints, and being able to make informed decisions on risk is really important,” the career civil servant noted. “That’s what the unified network is bringing. It’s bringing those metrics now and making them visible across the enterprise so we can have a very open conversation on the risks that we’re going to take, and also of where we need to take action immediately.”

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White House Seeks to Promote Foreign Investment While Protecting Nat’l Security
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White House Seeks to Promote Foreign Investment While Protecting Nat’l Security

President Donald Trump has signed a memorandum to foster foreign investment while safeguarding U.S. national security interests from threats posed by China and other foreign adversaries.

Creating ‘Fast Track’ Process

According to a White House fact sheet published Friday, the national security presidential memorandum, or NSPM, titled America First Investment Policy will establish a “fast track” process to promote greater investment from specific allies and partners while setting appropriate security conditions that prevent investors from partnering with foreign adversaries in advanced technology areas.

The Trump administration will also accelerate environmental reviews for any investment over $1 billion.

Leveraging CFIUS

The U.S. government will use the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, and other legal instructions to restrict Chinese investments in U.S. technology, critical infrastructure, energy, healthcare, agriculture, raw materials and other strategic sectors.

The current administration will bolster the authority of CFIUS over “greenfield” investments, safeguard U.S. farmland and real estate near sensitive facilities and limit access of foreign adversaries to U.S. talent and operations with sensitive technologies.

New Restrictions on Outbound Investments

The U.S. government will consider new or expanded restrictions on the country’s outbound investment to China in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, aerospace, biotechnology and other sensitive technologies to stop U.S. funds from supporting the East Asian country’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy.

According to the memo, the Office of Science and Technology Policy will regularly review and update the covered sectors.

Other Measures

Under the NSPM, the government will encourage passive investments from all foreign individuals to support businesses while protecting national security.

The administration will audit foreign companies on U.S. exchanges and assess their ownership structures to protect U.S. investors’ savings. It will also ensure that foreign adversary businesses are ineligible for pension plan contributions.

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Space Systems Command Officials Share Insights on FMS Cases
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Space Systems Command Officials Share Insights on FMS Cases

Space Systems Command officials discussed SSC’s preparation as it anticipates an increase in space-focused foreign military sales, or FMS, cases during the command’s inaugural FMS Enterprise Kick-Off conference held Feb. 12 at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California.

Consolidated Approach

The command said Friday Maj. Simone Zacharias, chief of foreign military sales with SSC’s International Affairs Office, mentioned the command’s efforts to create a consolidated approach in preparation for upcoming FMS cases.

“Now, we’re establishing a consolidated approach because we have FMS cases coming in for complex weapon systems, complex satellite systems across all of the different mission areas,” Zacharias said at the conference. “In the past, if you were involved with acquiring GPS user equipment, then you likely had exposure to FMS, but the vast majority of the space acquisition community has not been involved with foreign military sales.”

FMS Cases in Billions

Deidra Eberhardt, SES director of SSC’s Atlas business innovation organization, said the command expects a rapid rise in workload as it anticipates billions of dollars’ worth of FMS cases.

“The dollar value for the cases we’re anticipating is in the billions, and that translates into more acquisitions for our current programs,” Eberhardt stated. “Our workload will increase exponentially, based on the funding coming in from partnerships.”

Sharing Space Technology With Allies

During the conference, Zacharias talked about the country’s willingness to share its space technology with allies.

“Space capability has been our crown jewel, that we’ve kept extremely classified for the better part of our history. Now we’re understanding that in order for the U.S. to be more lethal, we have to release enabling space technology and bring our allies and partners with us into the joint fight,” she said. “We’re willing to release space capability in a much more rapid and much larger capacity now than ever before.”

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GAO Releases Draft Report on VA EHR Modernization Efforts
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GAO Releases Draft Report on VA EHR Modernization Efforts

Surveys carried out in 2024 show continued user dissatisfaction with the modernized electronic health record system the Department of Veterans Affairs has been working to roll out since 2020, according to a draft report the Government Accountability Office made public Friday.

Prevailing EHR Issues

According to the report, the percentage of respondents strongly disagreeing that the new EHR enabled efficiency has gone down from 66 percent in 2022 but remains a considerable 44 percent in 2024, a major, persisting issue that the VA needs to address.

Other prevailing issues include nearly 2,000 complex configuration changes that have been requested but not yet resolved; the lack of an updated total life cycle cost estimate reflecting many EHRM changes and delays; and an integrated master schedule that has also yet to be updated.

Action on Recommendations Needed

GAO has offered the VA a total of 15 recommendations over several previously-issued reports to address the issues but 14 have not yet been implemented. The draft report adds three more recommendations, covering cost estimation, schedule and system metrics.

The implementation of the recommendations “is critical to reducing EHR risks and delivering a quality system within cost and schedule expectations,” the draft report said.

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Forge Institute Launches Atomic Anvil Program
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Forge Institute Launches Atomic Anvil Program

Forge Institute has unveiled a new program that grows collaboration among researchers, entrepreneurs and non-traditional entities with Department of Defense mission partners to enhance national security.

Boosting National Security

The company said the Atomic Anvil program aims to accelerate the process of advancing technologies, overcoming significant technological challenges and deploying these innovations to address critical national security challenges.

The program prioritizes essential defense areas such as advanced manufacturing, photonics, directed energy, mobility systems, drone and counter-drone technologies. It also focuses on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, direct fires, critical minerals and supply chain.

The initiative, launched in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Academic Partnership Engagement Experiment Partnership Intermediary Agreement with Parallax Advanced Research, intends to create a direct pathway for researchers, small businesses and startups to collaborate with the DOD. 

Participants of the Atomic Anvil program can engage in different ways. One is to attend Industry Days and workshops and to connect through funding opportunities. Another is to engage in mission-focused sprints, paid internships and hands-on work at cyber and artificial intelligence labs and technology assessments. The last area of engagement is to receive mentorship, attend the Defense 101 Course and join the Embers Xcelerator program.

Lee Watson, chairman and CEO of Forge Institute, stated, “Innovating at the speed of mission is imperative as we develop national security capabilities to outpace the adversary. Atomic Anvil is designed to rapidly connect, innovate and accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge solutions, ensuring our warfighters maintain the decisive advantage.” 

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NASA Installs New RS-25 Engine for Artemis Missions
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NASA Installs New RS-25 Engine for Artemis Missions

NASA has completed the installation of the first RS-25 engine, the first of 24 new flight engines intended for future Artemis program lunar missions starting with Artemis V.

The agency said Thursday the engine was installed on the Fred Haise Test Stand on Feb. 18 to prepare it for next month’s acceptance testing. The RS-25 engine was built by L3Harris, the primary contractor for NASA’s Space Launch Systems, or SLS, engines.

Hot Fire Test

The RS-25 engine will be evaluated by the NASA Stennis Space Center test team, which includes operators from NASA, L3Harris and Syncom Space Services, to see if it is ready for future lunar missions. The hot fire test involves exposing the engine to a full-duration, 500-second hot fire. The test mimics the actual launch where the engines fire for around 500 seconds and reach up to 111 percent power level when launching SLS into orbit with the Orion spacecraft onboard. Four RS-25 engines, with a combined thrust power of two million pounds, will be used to launch the SLS.

The engine has undergone two certification tests confirming the new engine production process and components passed all performance standards. An acceptance test will follow to assess its performance and ensure it meets safety requirements.

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Pavan Pidugu Sworn In as DOT Chief Information Officer
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Pavan Pidugu Sworn In as DOT Chief Information Officer

Pavan Pidugu was sworn in as the Department of Transportation’s new chief information officer.

DOT said Tuesday Pavan previously served as chief technology officer of its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, radically transforming how technology is developed and delivered at the agency.

Who Is Pavan Pidugu?

Prior to joining the Transportation Department, Pidugu spent more than a decade in the retail industry, focusing on technological innovations. At Walmart, he held the posts of leader of digital customer and omni-channel experience for international markets and senior manager for global strategy for point of sale, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He also spent almost three years at NCR as director of program delivery for retail solutions. In his nearly six years at Target, he served as senior project manager and worked on several projects, including enterprise integration for its pharmacy inventory management and corporate intranet solutions for eight business areas.

Marlow Business School recognized Pidugu for his impact on the technology landscape with its World 100 Technology Leaders 2024 award.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and finance from Sri Krishnadevaraya University, a master’s certificate in IT project management from the George Washington University School of Business, a master’s degree in operations management from the University of Arkansas and an executive master of science degree in executive technology management from Columbia University.

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Senate Confirms Kashyap Patel as FBI Director
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Senate Confirms Kashyap Patel as FBI Director

Senate has confirmed Kashyap Patel as director of the FBI. On Thursday, lawmakers voted 51-49 in favor of appointing Patel as head of the investigative agency, Senate.gov reported. 

All Democrats and two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, opposed Patel’s confirmation.

Who Is Kash Patel?

Patel is President Donald J. Trump’s second term choice for FBI director, replacing Christopher Wray who stepped down from the role in January. 

Patel previously served as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. As chief of staff, he led the executive staff in executing the secretary’s mission and provided counsel on the department’s operations. 

He also held the role of deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the Trump administration’s first term. In the role, he ensured the execution of the president’s top priorities such as eliminating ISIS and Al-Qa’ida and repatriating American hostages. 

Before his stint at the NSC, Patel was a national security adviser and senior counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was involved in investigations into Russia’s campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. 

Earlier in his career, he was a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice, where he prosecuted individuals with connections to ISIS and Al-Qa’ida. 

Patel earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond in Virginia and completed his law degree from the University College London Faculty of Laws in the United Kingdom. 

Patel’s Plan for the FBI

Patel previously heavily criticized the FBI and expressed his desire to implement changes within the investigative agency. 

In a September interview, he vowed to cease FBI operations at the J. Edgar Hoover Building and transform it into a “museum of the ‘deep state.” He added that the about 7,000 employees working in the Hoover building will be dispersed across the nation to “chase down criminals.” 

He also called for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to be reformed. FISA allows the FBI to surveil suspected spies and terrorists. 

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