• The Defense Department generally escaped the effects of Friday’s global internet problems. That’s according to Gen. C.Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum that the botched Crowdstrike update didn’t impact DoD operations, but that it’s a reminder that the department needs to be ready to respond to cyber incidents.
  (Aspen Security Forum - YouTube)
• A worldwide IT outage on Friday struck multiple government agencies. The Social Security Administration plans to reopen field offices on Monday after a global IT outage forced SSA to close all local operations Friday. The outage is linked to a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also warned some callers to expect long wait times due to the outage. The White House is convening agencies to better understand the impacts of the incident across government.
  (Crowdstrike outage: SSA shutters offices, other agency impacts - Federal News Network)
• The governmentwide Technology Modernization Fund is awarding more money to agency AI projects. The TMF is giving $10 million to the National Institute of Standards and Technology to support the growth of its recently launched AI Safety Institute. The TMF board also granted nearly $4 million to the Energy Department to modernize its critical nuclear emergency response infrastructure.
  (Technology Modernization Fund announces investments in nuclear safety and AI governance - General Services Administration)
• The Army’s new memo on generative artificial intelligence provides guidance for developers, system owners, users, and commands on how to use GenAI tools. The document instructs system owners and developers to ensure that users can easily determine if their systems rely on GenAI and have the option of accepting or rejecting Gen AI-generated outputs. The guidance encourages the commands to use Gen AI tools and puts the onus on them to identify their GenAI developers, system owners and users to mitigate risk when introducing AI tools into their workflows. The guidance is effective immediately. The Pentagon’s chief information officer office will review this guidance annually.
  (Army’s memo on GenAI setting guardrails around technology - Army Publishing Directorate (APD))
• Higher pay rates could be coming soon for some blue-collar federal employees. A proposal to reform the Federal Wage System is entering the early stages of the government’s rulemaking process. The pay system was first created to improve pay rates of nearly 200,000 blue-collar feds. But now decades after its creation, three-quarters of the pay system’s localities have fallen out of step with the private sector. Proposed regulations to fix the issue by re-mapping the Federal Wage System are expected to be published to the Federal Register this October.
  (Blue-collar federal pay reform heading toward rulemaking process - Federal News Network)
• Federal employees can now donate their unused annual leave to feds impacted by Hurricane Beryl. The Office of Personnel Management program lets feds offer any leave hours that they haven’t used, to those who may need additional time off during emergencies. Launching the program for Hurricane Beryl is the most recent instance, but OPM’s use of the emergency leave transfer program has grown in recent years. In 2023, there were seven emergencies that led to OPM initiating a new leave transfer opportunity.
  (Emergency leave transfer for feds affected by Hurricane Beryl - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Defense Innovation Board said the Pentagon continues to overclassify information. The advisory board wants the Pentagon to revisit the issue of classification when working with allies and partners. Board members said the Pentagon defaults to no foreign dissemination protocols. The Defense Department even failed to develop processes for communicating controlled unclassified information in an environment where information sharing is important from the earliest stages of projects.
  (Defense Innovation Board wants DoD to address overclassification - Defense Department)
• A longtime intelligence official is taking the reins at the National Counterterrorism Center. Brett Holmgren has been named acting director of the NCTC. He replaces Christine Abizaid, who had served as NCTC director for the past three years. Holmgren previously served at the State Department as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. He spearheaded a new digital modernization strategy at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Holmgren started out his career as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
  (DNI Haines thanks NCTC Director Christy Abizaid, welcomes acting Director Brett Holmgren - Office of the Director of National Intelligence)

The post Though the Defense Department managed to go unscathed through the Crowdstrike outage, it remains on the alert first appeared on Federal News Network.

Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the Guard Bureau, will retire at the beginning of August and Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville, who was the vice chief, has already retired. Lt. Gen. Jon Jensen, who is chief of the Army Guard but has been serving as acting vice chief, will also retire in early August.

The lack of progress on the nominations has become a source of concern to the bureau, which oversees the training and oversight of the Guard and Reserve forces who deploy on federal duty for overseas combat and to protect the homeland. The Guard chief is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and serves as a key link to the adjutant generals who command the state Guard units across the country and its territories.

As an example, Guard troops from a number of states were called to Washington, D.C. to help secure the city after rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. They also, in their state active duty status, routinely respond to hurricanes, fires and other disasters, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the retirements loom, the National Guard Association of the United States sent a letter to the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, president of the association, said Friday that they are “shocked and disappointed in the process” and the fact that the White House hasn’t gotten nominations to the Senate.

He said that with the busy months ahead, having other officers serving temporarily in acting positions isn’t as effective as having a confirmed leaders in the job. In some cases, he said, they don’t have all the same authorities as those who are confirmed.

“A key part of having our chief on the Joint Chiefs is that direct line right to the secretary of defense. And that’s one of the benefits of having him in that room and in those discussions,” said McGinn.

The administration, he said, has known for several years that all four leaders – the chief, vice chief, Air Guard director and Army Guard director — would all be retiring this summer. The prospect has forced the bureau to juggle people around to cover the jobs, while nominations languish.

In March, the nomination of Maj. Gen. Duke Pirak to become the next Air Guard director was sent to the Senate to replace Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh. Early last month, Loh retired, and Pirak has been serving as the acting director.

Just last week, the Senate received the nomination of Maj. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs, currently the adjutant general in Arkansas, to be the next director of the Army Guard, to replace Jensen.

No hearings or votes have been scheduled for either Stubbs or Pirak.

Meanwhile, the nominations for the top two slots — the chief and vice chief of the Guard – have not yet left the White House.

“Delays in the confirmation process can lead to gaps in leadership, disrupting operational continuity and potentially compromising our military’s ability to respond swiftly and effectively to emerging threats,” wrote McGinn in the letter to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, and the ranking Republican, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

According to officials, the Pentagon has recommended Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven Nordhaus as the next chief, and Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Jarrard as the vice chief. But their names haven’t been sent to the Senate. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel movements.

Nordhaus is currently the commander of 1st Air Force and the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) continental U.S. region, which provides and controls airspace surveillance and activities for the U.S.

Jarrard has been serving as the director of operations for the Guard bureau.

Officials said that if Pirak is confirmed in the next week or two, he would likely serve as acting chief.

The post Nominations for National Guard leaders languish, triggering concerns as top officers retire first appeared on Federal News Network.

The chief information officer’s office also failed to conduct annual reviews of the strategy in 2020 and 2021 due to leadership and personnel turnover and deciding whether to update or issue a new version of the strategy.

The DoD CIO developed the digital modernization strategy in 2019 to satisfy the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requirements to develop a strategic plan for managing information resources. The policy requires federal agencies to outline their information resource goals, align them with organizational priorities, ensure those goals are “specific, verifiable and measurable” and conduct annual review of their plans.

“Our goal of the audit was to determine whether the DoD developed and maintained its [digital modernization strategy] in accordance with those OMB requirements,” Drew Pullion, DoD OIG program director, told Federal News Network.

DoD technology leaders identified four strategic goals to improve the department’s modernization efforts — innovating for competitive advantage, reforming cybersecurity policies and practices, adopting industry best practices and cultivating IT talent. The goals have corresponding objectives and tasks known as “strategy elements.”

While 77 strategy elements complied with OMB requirements, the Pentagon’s IG office found that 54 strategy elements lacked specificity and couldn’t be measured.

“These elements included language such as ‘modernize or strengthen’ various technologies or ‘enforce compliance’ with various policies. These are vague terms that do not provide much clarity or precision,” said Pullion.

One element of the strategy focuses on investing in and maintaining the infrastructure needed to ensure that DoD data is visible, accessible, trusted and interoperable. While the CIO office provided strategic-level documents to prove that they had addressed the strategy element, the documents showed a commitment to making data accessible rather than proving that the strategy element was completed.

“The strategy is not specific because the terms’ invest in’ and ‘maintain’ are not clear. They’re not precise. It lacks a quantifiable measure,” Pullion said.

“The second example I’ll give is the department’s plan to strengthen data center security. Again, the strategy element is not specific, ‘strengthen’ is not a clear or precise term and is not measurable in the sense that these are ongoing efforts.”

The IG office recommended that the CIO designate an official to oversee updates to the strategy — the CIO office addressed the recommendation even before the IG issued its final report by appointing the deputy chief experience officer to ensure the strategy meets OMB requirements.

The IG also wants the CIO office to develop a document outlining how it will address OMB requirements, including conducting an annual review of the strategy and addressing the performance gaps.

“CIO personnel agreed and stated that they plan to have that document completed by the end of August. I believe they plan to have all recommendations addressed by the end of this year,” Pullion said.

“During the audit we met with Leslie Beavers, the current acting CIO, and she was very supportive of our results and committed to improving the [digital modernization strategy]. We made 10 recommendations in the report that aim to improve the DMS but also our hope is that it creates an opportunity for the DoD to improve other strategic level documents and other business areas and OCIO personnel concurred or agreed with all 10 of our recommendations.”

The post Parts of DoD’s modernization strategy are vague, lack metrics first appeared on Federal News Network.

If the U.S. military winds up in a war that does damage to its equipment, in many cases, the repairs would have to be done stateside. Not only would that require long round trips, but many of the shipyards and depots that would be tasked with that work are overtaxed even in peacetime. That’s one reason DoD wants to move more of its maintenance operations overseas as part of what officials are calling the Regional Sustainment Framework.

It’s still very early days for the RSF, first published in May, and Defense officials have not yet estimated the full costs of what they say will be a “paradigm shift” in the way the military handles overseas logistics. But the key, according to Christopher Lowman, the assistant secretary of Defense for sustainment, is that the U.S. won’t do it alone.

Rather, he said, DoD wants to build an international maintenance “ecosystem” made up of trusted allies and U.S. and foreign vendors.

“This is just another mechanism for us to satisfy demand driven by normal use and wear and tear on the equipment, or, as we scale from competition through crisis and conflict, where we have battle damaged equipment,” he told reporters this week. “The intent here is to create those maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities and utilize them in competition, so that they’re also available to us to repair battle damaged equipment in conflict.”

Pilots to begin this year in Pacific

Although DoD has published very few details so far on how the new framework will operate, a provision in this year’s defense authorization bill will let the department get started with some initial experimentation. That law ordered the department to test and demonstrate “product support” capabilities in contested logistics environments, partnering with one or several other of the so-called “five eye” countries: Canada, the U.K, Australia and New Zealand.

Lowman said the initial work will start this year in Indo-Pacific Command, with follow-on experiments planned in Europe next year.

“INDOPACOM is the priority theater where our pacing threat resides, but it’s also the greatest contested logistics challenge, because of the long over-ocean lines of communication. So it really provides the most rationale to get sustainment capability into the theater in a distributed fashion and to regenerate readiness,” he said. “And there are capabilities that are emerging in [U.S. European Command] because of support to Ukraine and the amount of Western produced material that’s flowing in … We’re letting the combatant commander in EUCOM, the service component commanders and the NATO partnership shape those regional capabilities, their focus and their investment.”

Sustainment options for commanders

Conducting maintenance at forward locations certainly isn’t an entirely new idea. For example, the Navy has historically done scheduled maintenance on its overseas stationed ships in Japan, Spain and Bahrain. But a recent Government Accountability Office study found that out of 71 ships scheduled for those overseas maintenance periods, 50 took longer than planned.

However, Lowman said the idea behind RSF is to have many more options for commanders, including ones from allied nations.

“In the past, sustainment has historically been viewed as a national responsibility. National governments would sustain our forces in whatever theater we were operating in. This is really a recognition that sustainment can be performed through a coalition and a network of regional providers,” he said. “Each of those regional allies has industrial capability, maintenance, repair and overhaul capability, and a desire to support the work. This capitalizes on those capabilities in theater so that we’re not building U.S.-owned and operated capabilities — we’re taking advantage of what exists, making the appropriate changes to accommodate specific U.S. needs, and then utilizing that through a joint venture arrangement.”

One complication the department might face as it tries to change its maintenance paradigm is a longstanding federal law called the 50/50 rule. That provision requires each military service to conduct half of their depot-level maintenance at U.S. government-owned facilities, generally staffed by government employees – the so-called “organic industrial base.” Defense officials say they’ll have to keep close tabs on their maintenance workload distribution to make sure they continue to comply with that rule even as more work moves overseas.

A role for advanced manufacturing

And doing more work overseas is one thing. Getting spare parts to those new maintenance locations is another – especially in situations where they’re needed on very short notice.

So in parallel, Lowman said the department has efforts underway to make parts when and where they’re needed through advanced manufacturing techniques.

“It’s really an effort to take advantage of existing commercial technology, whether that’s additive manufacturing or subtractive manufacturing,” he said. “We’ve been after this, in coordination with the military services, for the last three years. But in [the Office of the Secretary of Defense], our intent is to enable the use of advanced manufacturing capability so that we don’t have to transport parts from the continental United States into the theater to repair equipment. What we’re doing is enabling that digital framework and network in order to transmit intellectual property to the point of manufacture, secure that intellectual property at the point of manufacture, and finally to ensure that the parts produced meet our standards so that they’re safe and suitable to operate.”

The post In ‘paradigm shift,’ DoD looks to move more equipment maintenance overseas first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Defense Innovation Board, an advisory group set up to bring Silicon Valley best practices into the military, is calling to reverse the congressionally mandated decision to reorganize the Pentagon’s acquisition shop.

The 2017 defense policy bill mandated the Pentagon to split the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics office into the offices of the acquisition and sustainment (A&S) and research and engineering (R&E).

The advisory board recommended that the Pentagon combine the offices again but instead of operating under the AT&L name, it would be called the office of the under secretary of defense for international integration and cooperation.

The reason the Pentagon needs to reorganize its acquisition shop yet again is because the department’s efforts to work with allies, industry partners and federal agencies are “too fragmented.”

“We’ve talked to a lot of different organizations to get this sense of how things are working today,”  DIB member Charles Phillips said during the meeting Wednesday. “The number one issue we found is that there’s no pathway for working with the DoD. If you’re coming from another country, no one knows how it works. There’s a lot of different certifications and requirements.”

The board recommends designating the undersecretary of defense for international industrial cooperation as the primary contact within the DoD for all issues related to international defense industrial cooperation.

“The USD(IIC) would address the common complaint among allies and partners that the DoD and federal interagency lack the necessary capacity, transparency and harmonization for effective international industrial base cooperation,” the DIB members’ recently released study says.

As for the proposed structure and responsibilities, there would be two assistant secretaries of defense for combined requirements development and international integration and interoperability. The ASD(CRD) would work with allies and partners during the initial stages of requirements development. Meanwhile, the ASD(II&I) would manage classification guidelines for allies and partners, ensure that technical standards and policies are consistent and that communications protocols and networks work together seamlessly across partner nations.

The office would work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy and Comptroller to align international defense industrial cooperation goals with the Defense Secretary’s force defense priorities. The office would also take over the international outreach and policy responsibilities currently held by OSD R&E.

“We make it hard to work well with the DoD. The compliance standards, things called [Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification] and [International Traffic in Arms Regulations], export controls — it sometimes takes years to get approval even for U.S. companies. And we automatically classify information — no foreign dissemination without any analysis beyond that,” Phillips said.

Speaking at the board meeting, Navy Capt. Colin Kane, who serves in the Pentagon’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, said they are not plugged into the research and engineering directorate within OSD well enough to be able to field urgent needs related to uncrewed systems.

“Since we separated OSD A&S from R&E, we aren’t seeing the ability to or effective means of communication to move in that effort. Combining those two organizations, there would be benefit and, I think, unity of effort that moves us in a direction that helps us to make those things more effective,” Kane said.

While the board members agreed that the new arrangement would address supply chain vulnerabilities and production limitations, the DIB is an advisory committee designed to provide independent advice to the Defense Secretary. The Pentagon would need to take it up with Congress in case it decides to pursue this reorganization.

The post DoD advisory board wants Pentagon to reorganize its acquisition shop first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Defense Department and Space Force (USSF) recently released aligned strategies that prioritize expanding commercial partnerships to enhance mission capabilities, resilience and operational advantage. The USSF Commercial Space Strategy (CSS) emphasizes leveraging industry innovation, prioritizing operational utility, feasibility, resilience and speed to fielding.

The CSS highlights the need for beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications (SATCOM) to support command and control, data transport and reach-back requirements for the Joint Force worldwide. Through commercial SATCOM partnerships, the USSF aims to enhance data transport, capacity, flexibility, reliability and resiliency to support multi-domain and joint mission operations. The CSS also acknowledges commercial space sector’s role as an accelerator, fostering innovation and helping reduce barriers to entry for new capabilities.

The DoD’s Commercial Space Integration Strategy (CSIS) recognizes the importance of leveraging all available tools to prioritize the resilience of the national security space architecture. It identifies 13 mission areas, including SATCOM as a hybrid mission area. The CSIS emphasizes the integration of government and commercial SATCOM systems, highlighting the need to make “commercial solutions integral — and not just supplementary — to national security space architectures.”

These strategies demonstrate the military’s commitment to embracing private sector partnerships and commercial innovations to enhance mission capabilities and resilience for modern military operations.

Collaborative, user-driven innovation

Ideal collaboration will drive a continuous loop in which industry invests, develops and demonstrates with federal agency end user requirements foremost in mind. Through continuous iteration, testing and customer feedback, commercial operators can deliver solutions that are proven, strong and resilient.

While shifts toward this type of development and adoption will face budget and acquisition challenges, the government is making meaningful progress through several rapid experimentation and development initiatives designed to accelerate creation of national security and warfighter operation capabilities.

While not a defense-focused initiative, NASA’s Communications Services Project is an example of embracing collaborative public-private partnership, helping create a market for new COMSATCOM solutions and services that could be replicated by government agencies. NASA is working with five commercial companies to develop and demonstrate COMSATCOM solutions for future launch and near-Earth communications. NASA recognized that commercial systems could meet their mission communications needs rather than investing heavily to replace its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet program has awarded several major industry contracts that explore the capabilities of commercial space constellations to connect military platforms with user terminals that can talk to multiple space broadband providers, including across different spectrum and orbits.

Last year, Space Systems Command announced the launch of the Commercial Space Office (COMSO) to pave pathways for collaboration in its “race to resilience” by 2026. Senior Materiel Leader Col. Richard Kniseley explained that “The goal of COMSO is to leverage the full force of this innovation with speed, cost efficiency and minimal duplication of effort to deliver efficient and sufficient commercial space capabilities to the warfighter.”

These innovative programs offer models for mutually beneficial public-private partnerships that USSF and other DoD components can leverage.

Building blocks for success 

The next phase of realizing this collaborative vision requires a strong, aligned partnership foundation. Implementing effective and scalable SATCOM hinges on engaging trusted commercial partners that are willing and able to deliver current and future solutions fully in sync with DoD operational and mission needs.

Looking ahead, four essential building blocks for successful SATCOM initiatives include:

1. Intentional innovation: Commercial industry continuously innovates advancements in satellite and ground networks, applied with the intent to meet operational and resilience needs. Trusted public-private partnerships should promote transparency to better understand mission requirements and enhance iterative SATCOM
2. Flexibility: Dynamic mission needs demand flexible technologies and service models from commercial providers. Additionally, greater agility in agency procurement can accelerate the adoption of new capabilities for warfighters.
3. Expertise: The commercial industry attracts top talent, and government customers can access this expertise without incurring recruitment and training costs. Managed services also deliver ongoing technology maintenance updates, shifting that responsibility to industry to conserve time and resources.
4. Commitment: Commercial SATCOM providers should immerse themselves in government partnerships to understand specific environments and requirements. This customer-focused approach ensures mission-aligned capabilities, solutions and services, executed with efficiency and efficacy.

President Kennedy’s famous 1962 speech emphasized the pursuit of difficult goals; more than 60 years on, developing advanced SATCOM capabilities remains a challenge. Space is hard, but strong commercial-government partnerships engendering trust and commitment will yield the solutions we need to reliably support space missions and protect our warfighters.

Sunil Pandit is vice president of strategy at Viasat Government.

The post Four essential elements of trustworthy public-private SATCOM partnership first appeared on Federal News Network.

Lockheed Martin recently won a settlement worth more than $130 million in a protest with the Air Force. The company completed a contract to update the big C5 transport places with new engines. But it also had to do thousands of repairs outside the scope of the contract, and that’s where the disagreements started. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin  got details from Haynes Boone procurement attorney Dan Ramish.

Interview transcript: 

Tom Temin  Apparently, the planes arrived to Lockheed from the Air Force in such neglected condition that Lockheed had to do a lot more than they originally contracted in order to get the things flyable and to meet the Air Force requirement that the planes come back out like new. Is that the gist of it?

Dan Ramish  Well, Tom, part of the issue was that the planes weren’t required to come back like new. So, the contract wasn’t really repair contract, the contract was intended to modernize the C5 transport aircraft and to kind of get them online a greater percentage of the time and have them be more reliable. But, as part of this, there was a line item that provided for Lockheed to provide repair services to fix legacy issues that were either necessary for them to be able to make the upgrades or that affected the safety of flight for the aircraft. So, pretty limited types of repairs that were expected under the contract, but that wasn’t the way it played out in principle. Now, there’s always going to be some amount of additional legacy repairs of issues. It’s hard to predict exactly what types of repairs, what’s going to wear out on different aircraft. And there was testimony in this case about that issue, that aircraft fly different and unique missions in different environments. And, so, you never know exactly what’s going to wear out when. So, there’s a built-in flexibility for what the contract called “over and above work.” The problem was that there was so much over and above work, that it kind of affected the overall performance of the contract. And the work that Lockheed was really supposed to be doing, modernizing the aircraft.

Tom Temin  Right. So, the over and above was provided for, but maybe the Air Force vastly underestimated how much beyond the scope repairs would need to be made, in other words.

Dan Ramish  I think that was part of it, Tom. The other part of it was that DCMA imposed a higher standard than was supposed to be applicable under the contract. DCMA required a like-new standard. After a few aircraft had been modernized, they started having a more zealous inspection routine that looked at things that didn’t go to whether the modernization could be performed on the aircraft or whether it was safe to fly. So they were looking at things like foreign object debris, and requiring all of that to be removed, which didn’t affect the safety or the ability to make the upgrades and they’re requiring Lockheed to fix other technical issues that weren’t really necessary.

Tom Temin  If say, the engines were put in and the thing flew safely, they might have complained to the Air Force, well, you didn’t reupholster the copilot seat, which was split. I’m making that one up.

Dan Ramish  Yes, issues that would be extraneous. Yes, things like that, that were not really essential. And the contract only expected there would be essential repairs. So, the interesting thing about this, and this comes up a lot in government contract disputes, is that Lockheed was actually paid for the extra repairs that it performed under the contract. There was a mechanism in the contract for them to be paid the direct cost of performing the repairs. The problem was that it wasn’t just that they had to perform these repairs, but that there were so many legacy repair issues that they had to re-sequence the actual work that they were supposed to be doing and move personnel around. Some of the legacy repair issues were difficult to perform, and so they took some of their best mechanics who should have been working on the upgrade to the aircraft to have them instead deal with the legacy repair issues. And they changed the sequence of performing the repair work so that they could deal with all the extra repairs that DCMA was requiring.

Tom Temin  We’re speaking with Dan Ramish, a procurement attorney with Haynes Boone. Probably some of the mechanics might have encountered parts of their grandfathers had installed on this plane, because I think the first one was delivered, like, in 1969, you know, during the Nixon administration to the to the Air Force, and they’re still flying.

Dan Ramish  Well, yes.

Tom Temin  So, the dispute then arose in what Lockheed felt it had to lay out for allowable repairs, but it was just more than the Air Force felt it should pay and so Lockheed sued for that money.

Dan Ramish  Yes, Lockheed brought a claim for the loss of productivity and disruption caused by having so, so many extra repairs that DCMA was requiring. And during the performance of the contract, Lockheed and the Air Force tried to address these issues. You know, they brought in an Air Force onsite representative who was helpful in speeding up decisions, whether repairs needed to be made, and they introduced a new government advisory team that reviewed the repairs to make sure that they were really essential. And those measures helped, but there was still a significant volume of repairs above what should have been expected under the contract.

Tom Temin  Got it. So, for example, if putting in a new engine, and you found that the part that the engine hangs on was cracked? Well, that’s something you could reasonably expect Lockheed to say, yep, this has got to be fixed. But sounds like there were things inside and away from the modernizing parts that they fixed at the Air Force’s urging, that then didn’t get paid fully for the, as you say, the inconvenience and the out of sequencing that it caused, which is a real cost in a production situation.

Dan Ramish  Absolutely. So, to give you a sense, in the decision, they noted that Lockheed expected over and above work to be 3% of the initial production unit, and they experienced two and a half times that amount. So we’re talking about massive excessive increases in the amount of legacy repairs. So, they did bring this claim. They filed the claim with the contracting officer and then appealed to the Armed Services Board of contract appeals. And what did that board of appeals find? The Armed Services Board ruled in favor of Lockheed on its disruption claim and sustained the appeal and awarded the $131 million that Lockheed was seeking. And the board looked at the disruption claims. So, Lockheed, as I said, was paid for the direct repairs. And it was arguing that its fixed price work to modernize the aircraft cost more because of legacy repairs. And Lockheed brought out an expert. What they argued was that the first few aircraft didn’t involve that much over and above work. But then DCMA started using this heightened standard of like new, and that really kicked up the number of legacy repairs. And so what they did was they used a methodology that’s referred to as the measured mile approach, and said, listen, we can’t prove the amount of extra cost with each individual repair that the government ordered here. We need to look at all of the costs, and we’re going to use as a baseline, the first few aircraft where the government was being reasonable, and the repairs were kind of in line with what they’d experienced on other contracts. And they compared that against later aircraft, where DCMA was applying this higher standard and said, well, the reason these other aircraft cost so much more was because the additional legacy repairs were being required and affected the sequence of the work.

Tom Temin  It’s almost a case of if you have a kitchen done by a contractor, it’s while you’re here, can you add this and that effect that the Air Force was imposing?

Dan Ramish  Yes, historically, this is a challenging kind of claim to prove. As you can imagine, because there’s a preference if you can to identify the specific costs that increases rather than looking at the total cost, a version of a modified total cost claim. But Lockheed was able to do it here. And their expert actually compared the learning curve for the first few aircraft to the learning curve to the later aircraft that were affected, and kind of had an unusual approach to proving those damages. But ultimately, the Board found that methodology to be appropriate and was persuaded by Lockheed’s case.

Tom Temin  So, in other words, the later planes of the 49 that were fixed are actually nicer than the first ones that are fixed. But the Air Force had to pay for the difference.

Dan Ramish  Yes, they involved fixing a bunch of additional auxiliary issues that weren’t really necessary under the contract. Because of the volume of those extra repairs to those legacy issues that weren’t needed, the board was persuaded that that caused Lockheed to incur all these extra costs.

Tom Temin  Right. So, the lesson for the government here is keep your requirements straight and stick to them, and don’t have this kind of creep in scope while you’re underway, because you’ll end up paying for it.

Dan Ramish  That’s right. Ultimately, the government and the taxpayer had to pay for the extra work. And if they had stuck with the repairs that were actually essential, that, of course, would have saved money. There are also litigation lessons for the government here. The government’s defenses really were technical defenses. Many of them had been raised earlier in the litigation. They argued again that Lockheed’s claim was subject to the statute of limitations and that Lockheed had released its claims in a previous modification. And the board said, we’ve already ruled on these issues, you haven’t raised any new arguments, but the government seemed to really be counting on that in order to win and didn’t put on its own expert or its own evidence to refute Lockheed’s account of the extra costs that it incurred.

Tom Temin  And by the way, the project was completed several years ago, like 2018, actually, and so it shows that it’s never too late to try to recover your costs.

Dan Ramish  That’s right. Ultimately, it’s a difficult burden for the contractor to prove damages in these kinds of scenarios. And Lockheed here provides an example of how you can do it with an appropriate expert. And another thing that they did that was helpful to them here was that their expert backed out offs that were unrelated to the legacy repair issues, and that really helps the credibility of a contractor’s claim to show the board affirmatively that you’re pulling out things that the contractor could have been responsible for and are overclaiming.

Tom Temin  Dan Ramish is a procurement attorney with Haynes Boone. Thanks for that update.

Dan Ramish  Thanks, Tom.

Tom Temin  And we’ll post this interview at federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive. Hear the Federal Drive on your schedule, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

The post What happened when the Air Force neglected its biggest plane for too long first appeared on Federal News Network.

• It’s the season when feds tend to get reminders about the do's and don’ts of political activity. For Department of the Navy employees, that means mandatory training. In a message yesterday, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro ordered commanders to finish training all of their personnel on the Hatch Act and DoD’s official instruction on political activity no later than Sept. 15. The rules are different for various categories of employees — like active duty members, reservists, “less restricted” and “greater restricted” civilians. But there are some universal prohibitions — like using government resources for politicking, or doing anything that might imply government endorsement of a candidate.
  (Guidance on Political Activities of Department of the Navy Personnel - U.S. Navy )
• A new bill is trying to ease restrictions for federal applicants who have used marijuana in the past. If it’s enacted, a bill nicknamed the “DOOBIE” Act would mean agencies can’t deny a job or security clearance application only because of a candidate’s past marijuana use. There’s already guidance for agencies pushing similar policies, but Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who introduced the bill, says there’s still confusion on the topic. Some candidates are still hesitant to apply for a federal job or security clearance because they’re worried about past marijuana use. The Senate Homeland Security Committee is expected to consider the new legislation next week.
  (‘DOOBIE’ Act looks to ease security clearance restrictions on past marijuana use - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department is still finalizing new plans for its delayed background investigation system. The Pentagon expects to finalize a new schedule and cost estimate for the National Background Investigation Services system, or NBIS, within one month. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency oversees the new IT system. It was originally scheduled to be completed by 2019. But officials say the project has been beset by cost overruns, an unreliable schedule and an inadequate technical approach. Now, DCSA is just working to get the next-generation background investigation system on track over the next 18 months.
  (Troubled background investigation system still under review at Pentagon - Federal News Network)
• Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira is now expected to face a military court-martial, months after he pleaded guilty to federal charges for leaking highly classified military documents. Teixeira has admitted to illegally collecting some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and sharing them on the social media platform Discord. Military prosecutors say he will now face charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice. The Air Force said he'll be tried at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, though no trial date has been set. Teixeira’s lawyers have argued that a court-martial would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense.
  (Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira to face a military court-martial, Air Force says - Associated Press)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is weaning veterans off a traditional username and password to access their health and benefits records online. The VA said it will transition all veterans to use the government’s own identity verification service, Login.gov, or a commercial provider, ID.me, over the next year. VA said the transition will improve security, and impact about 3 million veterans and other beneficiaries. The VA said veterans will no longer be able to sign into its health portal with a username and password after Jan. 31 next year. Veterans will be able to access their data and manage their benefits once they create a new account.
  (VA begins transition to simpler online sign-in experience for veterans’ account access - Department of Veterans Affairs)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is telling lawmakers it’s looking at a nearly $15 billion shortfall. VA officials are projecting a $3 billion shortfall this year, and a nearly $12 billion shortfall in fiscal 2025. The department gets funding for its mandatory health and benefits programs a year in advance to avoid any disruption from a government shutdown. VA financial experts briefed the House VA Committee earlier this week. Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) said hiring accounts for some of the cost overruns. The VA planned to shed 10,000 positions next year. But Bost said the VA is now on track to add 22,000 full-time employees.
  (VA warns of historic $15B budget shortfall. House committee says more hiring ‘above all’ is driving up costs - Federal News Network )
• The Defense Department’s mental health program is often too slow to get in touch with service members transitioning to civilian life. Military members who may need mental health support typically don’t hear from DoD’s “inTransition” program until two or three months after they’ve separated from their service. A new report from the Government Accountability Office said those first few months are a particularly vulnerable time for transitioning members. GAO said the program should change its outreach methods, and create auto-contact options to reach at-risk members more quickly.
  (DoD and VA Health Care - Government Accountability Office)
• Kristyn Jones, who performed the duties of the Air Force under secretary for over a year, has officially retired from federal service. Jones has served as the assistant secretary for financial management and comptroller since 2022. During her time as under secretary, Jones helped launch a sweeping review of the service’s processes and organizational structures. Melissa Dalton stepped into her role as under secretary in May following her Senate confirmation.
  (Air Force Kristyn Jones officially retires from federal service - Linkedin)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has made some key leadership changes official. Jeff Greene is now CISA’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity. And Trent Frazier has been appointed assistant director for stakeholder engagement. Both had been serving in those roles in an acting capacity. Greene previously was at the Aspen Institute. He replaced Eric Goldstein, who left CISA’s top cyber job to join Capital One last month. Frazier joined CISA after serving in a variety of leadership roles throughout the Department of Homeland Security.
  (CISA announces key leadership appointments - Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)
• DISA’s program executive office for transport wants a more graceful transition plan from the industry. The Defense Information Systems Agency’s PEO for transport is essentially the internet for the Defense Department. As the office is working to adopt next-generation networking gear, it is seeking standards-based solutions from multiple vendors. Chris Paczkowski, the PEO transport director, said he wants to see more roadmaps from the industry.
  (DISA’s PEO transport wants ‘graceful transition plan’ from industry - Federal News Network)

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Teixeira admitted to illegally collecting some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and sharing them on the social media platform Discord. He is facing military charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice.

The U.S. Air Force said in a statement Wednesday that he will be tried at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts but no date has been set. An attorney for Teixeira didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

At a May hearing, military prosecutors said a court-martial is appropriate given that obeying orders is the “absolute core” of the military. But Teixeira’s lawyers argued that further action would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense.

Teixeira, who was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks.

Teixeira was arrested just over a year ago in the most consequential national security leak in years.

He pleaded guilty on March 4 to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under a deal with prosecutors that calls for him to serve at least 11 years in prison. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in that case in September.

Authorities in the criminal case said Teixeira first typed out classified documents he accessed and then began sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. The leak exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, including information about troop movements in Ukraine and the provision of supplies and equipment to Ukrainian troops. Teixeira also admitted to posting information about a U.S. adversary’s plans to harm U.S. forces serving overseas.

The stunning security breach raised alarm over America’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced President Joe Biden’s administration to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members it found had intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

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The Defense Information Systems Agency’s program executive office for transport provides the foundational infrastructure for the Defense Department’s networking — it oversees satellite communication gateways, integrates command and control systems and operates the transport for internet access points. 

The office works closely with DISA’s J9 hosting and compute directorate to ensure that the cloud access providers have the necessary network infrastructure to support reliable communication and data transport. It also helps the J6 endpoint services and global service center make sure that various locations are interconnected and can communicate seamlessly.

“We are like the electric company. No one knows about us until something goes wrong —  the same thing goes with the transport,” Chris Paczkowski, the PEO transport director, told Federal News Network at the AFCEA TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore in June.

Paczkowski’s office is essentially the internet for the department. This means that the office oversees a wide range of programs, each with its own goals and objectives, making it challenging for Paczkowski’s teams to manage those projects in a more integrated way. 

Paczkowski said the office is looking to standardize its teams to create more consistency across more than 50 projects the office manages. It is also moving toward more centralized contracts, particularly in areas such as cybersecurity. And as the Defense Department is moving toward adopting next-generation networking gear, the PEO transport is seeking standards-based solutions from multiple vendors. But DISA is dealing with a mountain of legacy equipment as new technology gets piled on top of it.

“We’re hoarders. If there is something that works — I’m going to use this until it doesn’t work anymore because I usually don’t have the dollars to keep trying to do the next greatest thing,” Paczkowski said. 

“As you go from one booth to the next, it’s something just a leapfrog better. If I did that all the time, I would be trying to shift over 350 different locations worldwide constantly. And we just can’t operate that way. We look for a capability that has lifespan standards and being able to work it. We have thousands of pieces of equipment. And just imagine if all the highways getting into Baltimore were going to get paved today. And so they shut it down just to do the paving, that’s no different than we have to say, ‘Hey, we have to upgrade our equipment, let’s take down this link to be able to do that.’ No, I’ve got a conference, I work at the hospital, fire depart, I need to be going to work. Trying to balance that is another reason why we have to find a capability that has that longevity and flexibility for us to be able to implement things in a parallel manner.”

To address the issue of mounting legacy equipment, Paczkowski said he wants to see more roadmaps and more “graceful transitions” from the industry.

“Everyone wants to sell something new and, and when this is done, then I get something else that’s newer — there isn’t really a graceful transition plan in those cases if it’s non standards-based,” Paczkowski said. 

In addition, Paczkowski said the components need to prioritize infrastructure upgrades even despite budget constraints, 

“If you have an iPhone 7 — no one does anymore — but we have a lot of iPhone 7s. We’re hoarders in the department. Well, now my app doesn’t really work, now we need to upgrade. Well, I don’t have money for a phone. Well, if that’s a priority, make sure that you need to be keeping up with your infrastructure. Because not just from a functionality perspective, with the legacy challenges their cyber components to it, there are vendors saying, Hey, I’m not supporting that anymore.’ So again, it is prioritization,” Paczkowski said.

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Derace Lauderdale |

The Office of Naval Research is developing an automated hiring portal to track its onboarding and offboarding processes, hoping to improve customer experience for both.

ONR, the Navy Department’s main science and technology organization, is constantly looking for new talents all over the world while having the largest total of PhDs in any federal agency, from trained scientists to research professionals.

For now, the customer experience for new hires is somewhere between good and very good, but ONR is still spending a lot of time looking into automation and areas where they can improve, said Curtis Pelzer, the organization’s chief information officer. He said ONR is looking at reducing the time it takes to onboard personnel and providing more information to leadership on why employees are leaving.

“In terms of our onboarding process, a lot of that process is manual. And when we identify a potential hiring candidate, a lot of that initial interaction also happens manually.  In terms of all the forms that they need to fill out to become a federal employee or transition from another federal agency, what we’re looking to do is allow them to provide all that information online, through what we’re calling a program or hiring portal. They log in, and they are able to see all the information that they need in terms of completing forms and being able to transmit those forms back to the hiring manager,” Pelzer said on Federal Monthly Insight — Customer Experience. “And, then, after the employee has been onboarded to the command, we’d be able to automate the entire lifecycle of that employee. So all those documents that were generated during the hiring process are made available to that employee.”

Information would also be automatically passed on to others in the organization who need to know about the onboarding process, including hiring managers, supervisors, and HR personnel, depending on their roles.

“The system would provide for the individual roles that are needed to make sure that the employee lifecycle is being met, and the things that the employee would need during their tenure. I speak of this in terms of lifecycle, because I believe that there’s a beginning, which is the onboarding process,” Pelzer said. “And then you look at the sustainment of that employee during their tenure, and you look at the offboarding process. That would entail, how do you recover those assets that have been provisioned for the employee? And then how do you successfully offboard that employee, making sure that they have everything that they need when they’re departing the organization?”

Other information in the portal could provide insights into why an employee decides to leave the agency might enhance the automated process in the future,

Prior to the development of the new automated portal, ONR has experienced issues automating processes due to their existing manual process. Originally, they would overlay new technology over the manual process — but would not receive the  level of efficiency they were expecting.

Artificial intelligence has also been a conversation at ONR, as they’re working on AI-enabled capabilities. Pelzer said the challenge is identifying what data will be allowed, and making sure the data remains secure, not putting anything at risk.

“We have been looking at using bots using robotic process automation to help streamline routine processes that we believe can be done better by a bot, or using an AI. And most certainly bring a level of efficiency to these processes like onboarding and offboarding of personnel and tracking personnel better,” Pelzer said. “When you look at our data and analytics program, we’re building AI-enabled capabilities every single day. These are taking systems that we’ve already built, and then layering that generative AI on top of that, to be able to better serve our workforce, to give them an additional capability that we previously didn’t have, prior to the advancement of AI.”

ONR is also looking at new ways to track metrics on how many personnel are onboarding and offboarding. Currently, they’re manually capturing these metrics. For Pelzer, looking at metrics provides insight when it comes to a call for resolution and meeting customer needs.

“One thing that’s the most gratifying in terms of customer satisfaction is the messages that I receive from the customer that say, ‘Hey, well done, your team has done something that I didn’t think was possible,’ or the response time, or the level of satisfaction the customer received. So, the metrics certainly give you insight into how well your team is performing. We look at the data, but having those notes that come in is really something that I look forward to,” Pelzer said.

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For the last three years, the General Services Administration’s Federal Systems Integration and Management Center has supported most of the lifecycle IT support for the Advana platform, including assisting with the acquisition and ongoing maintenance of the system.

But the platform, which was originally developed to support the comptroller’s office, has grown exponentially. Advana now houses everything from financial management to personnel, logistics and management data for roughly 100,000 users, so the existing management model provided by the GSA’s FedSIM service is no longer effective enough to meet the platform’s expanded requirements.

“Advana was like a victim of its own success — it scaled tremendously over the last few years. And that data infrastructure itself — we’re doing some internal upgrades — I think, will benefit from an overall look at the data engineering and kind of what the right solutions are for the back-end architecture,” Radha Plumb, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, said during the Center for Strategic and International Studies event on Monday.

“We are looking forward to going through that competitive process to see who’s interested in working with us on that.”

Moving away from the current acquisition approach and introducing more vendors into the process will allow the CDAO to create a “clear data infrastructure investment” in a more modular way.

“We are now looking at what the next journey for Advana looks like. How do we make sure we build the right back-end data architecture, the right enterprise-level analytics and we have the right acquisition strategy to make sure that it can launch into the future just as successfully as it has over the last several years?” said Plumb.

Recompeting the contract for Advana platform is part of the CDAO’s broader approach to scale data, analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities across the DoD dubbed Open DAGIR, short for Open Data and Applications Government-owned Interoperable Repositories.

Open DAGIR  has become a significant initiative for the CDAO as it represents a major shift in how the Defense Department procures and manages its digital infrastructure. The goal for this new approach is to create a more modular, multi-vendor ecosystem, which will increase competition and bring in diverse solutions to support DoD’s data systems.

“It’s clear we need these different interfaces, it’s clear we have a bunch of mature applications that need to be scaled. And it’s clear we need an open interoperable data architecture. How do we get all three of these at once? So that’s really what Open DAGIR is intended to get after — it breaks that procurement process into three big chunks,” said Plumb.

In May, the Defense Department awarded a $513 million contract to Palantir for its Maven Smart System prototype. The Maven Smart System, foundational to the Open DAGIR initiative, expanded to thousands of users from five combatant commands beginning in June. The CDAO is now focused on aligning the recompeting process for Advana with the Open DAGIR framework.

“We’re working to recompete [Advana] in the construct of Open DAGIR, which again means that we need to compete the data infrastructure, the enterprise applications, which will probably be more than one particular application set, and then this prototype pathway for analytic applications that need to be tested and evaluated on that Advana stack,” said Plumb.

The CDAO plans to host an Advana Insight Day early in September. The office will start seeking solicitations shortly after the event.

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The officers, designated as 420T, will focus on talent acquisition and retention, data analytics, labor market analysis and marketing. The service has long cast a wide net with its marketing campaigns, which is expensive and doesn’t reach any particular audience.

“The Army ultimately is a brand, just like any other company. And so we have to analyze the market out there. There are different types of reports that exist just for most companies to identify the type of demographic, what those people are into, what they’re interested in, what motivates them. And that’s the type of thing that we’re looking at diving deeper into within our assigned areas to ensure that we are marketing messaging the right way,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sasha Adams Gibson, one of the 420T graduates, told reporters Wednesday.

The 25 officers will arrive at their units at the end of summer and will stay in place for up to five years, which will provide consistent leadership and reduce the disruptions caused by frequent transitions since the service relies on involuntary tours to fill its recruiting ranks. Through strengthening their relationships with key stakeholders such as schools and community organizations and developing a deeper understanding of a particular geographical area and its demographics, the 420T warrant officers will ultimately serve as a conduit between their communities and Army leadership and allow the service to streamline its recruiting efforts.

“Most of our officers have never served in recruiting, which leads to a lot of transition. You can imagine, even this summer — lots of transition,” Col. Rick Frank, the Army Recruiting and Retention College commandant, told reporters. “As a former recruiting deputy commander and battalion commander, I see the value these new subject matter experts bring instantly to the team. 420T will advise their commanders by synchronizing market analytics, intelligence, expenditures, relationships and strategy with data-driven insights that ultimately help our recruiters continue to succeed.”

The officers went through a rigorous assessment and attribute-based selection process, which was informed by a job analysis of what the occupation will turn into in the future.

“This is the first time in our history where we have actually used an assessment process like this to select a conventional occupation in the Army. The one thing I would like to highlight about this process is it allowed us to really test eliminating bias in a process,” Col. Christine Rice, lead officer in charge of workforce redesign, said.

The Army plans to bring on two more cohorts – the second cohort of officers will go through the training later this year and the third cohort will start the training in 2025.

Phasing out involuntary recruiting tours and bringing on permanent talent acquisition specialists is only one way the service has been working to address its recruiting woes.

For nearly a decade, the Army has not been able to meet its recruitment targets but 2024 is shaping up to be a better year for the service partly due to the success of the future soldier prep course. The program that helps new recruits meet military standards and go into basic training has graduated  over 18,000 soldiers with a 95% success rate.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said she is “feeling a lot better” about recruiting this year, although she didn’t want to be overconfident.

Meanwhile, alarmed lawmakers, who have been putting pressure on DoD leaders to fix the recruitment crisis, are pushing through a number of measures in the 2025 defense policy bill in hopes of turning the tide.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, for example, has introduced an amendment that could improve access to high schools and colleges for military recruiters.  The committee also wants the DoD to establish a Military Entrance Processing Command processing pilot, which would accelerate medical record reviews.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan) just introduced the Military and Educational Data Integration Act, which would allow state and local schools to access information about students who enlist in the military, such as their score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the highest level of education obtained and the area of expertise or military occupational specialty.

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An academic course endorsed by the Defense Department and delivered by accelerator company, BMNT aims to help science and engineering students develop their ideas in two companies. It’s called Hacking for Defense. One resulting startup called Pharos aerospace hopes to help both defense and commercial satellite operators deal with space debris. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with former University of Chicago students, Victor Tyne and Brian Klein.

Interview transcript: 

Victor Tyne
We took the course the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, we were a team of students, a team of five students at the time. And we were interested in learning about what a dual use architecture was, and what it meant to do innovation in the defense space. And we did exactly that, we learned a lot about what that looks like. The correspond to a lot of different problems across a lot of different kinds of problem spaces. And we were actually sponsored by the Missile Defense Agency to tackle challenges to secure communication for missile defense systems. And we started pulling strings and thinking about what specific problem can be addressed, whether the one in the original problem statement or not. And we ended up realizing kind of the importance of satellite to ground communications for these kinds of systems, and thinking about what the threats were to that. We identified debris, specifically lethal non trackable debris in low Earth orbit, and then also just unidentified residence based objects, whether any satellite weapons or otherwise as a real threat to secure communication. So we started thinking about what are the gaps in current technology? And how can we address that.

Tom Temin
Sounds like you’re focused on the physical destruction or capability of debris, as opposed to jamming and signal interference, that type of thing.

Victor Tyne
problems that was more focused on the cybersecurity kind of problem, and we pivoted at some point in the course toward a real physical threat.

Tom Temin
What do you major in? What were you guys studying that you were interested in this particular area, Brian.

Brian Klein
Victor and myself have a physics background. So Victor is studying physics, I was a physics major at the University of Chicago in the past, and then latest degree is business, also have another MBA.

Tom Temin
Unlike I guess, some people of your generation, you have an interest in national defense and warfare and helping the country in that manner.

Victor Tyne
I think that I was one of the main motivations for taking the course. And it’s been really interesting going through this process and getting to talk to stakeholders and find out what the challenges they face are and why they’re interested in this kind of technology. I think it’s largely an interest in national defense. But it’s also an interest in just the common good of our planet, the ability to continue having secure satellite communications to continue providing GPS service, all these things that are threatened by things like small lethal non trackable debris, or any satellite weapons in low Earth orbit. So I think it’s a really important issue for National Security, but also just for the common good of how we do things in the 21st century.

Tom Temin
So that’s the dual architecture idea that it serves both civil and military interests.

Victor Tyne
We’ve also found to a large degree, government agencies like the Space Force already doing a lot out of general public interest. And in addition to their National Security effort, that’s been really interesting to learn about and collaborate with.

Tom Temin
And what happened when you completed the course? You were selected for something. And there’s teams from several universities, what happens next? They liked your ideas, tell us about the process.

Brian Klein
Two things happened when we completed the course. The first was we were selected for the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge program. So that’s a major, maybe the biggest university accelerator in the country, if not the world, and that accelerator focuses on consumer applications. So we really got to phone our business and our idea from the lens of providing services to consumer companies, but we’re therapy imaging companies, that sort of thing through that program, which is really good ended up placing six out of over 80 teams in that. They liked us too apparently. The other side was we got into the H Rex program. So H 4x is a direct continuation of hacking for defense. And that program focuses much more strongly on dual use technology, on working with government, on learning how to not just do things the government way, but also making connections in the government. And that been a great compliment to us to the NBC focus on consumer sites. And now we’re getting to really learn about running a business not just focusing on consumer, but also focus on government clients.

Tom Temin
Yeah I guess if you can navigate government contracting, you can certainly solve the problem of space debris. I don’t know which one is more difficult to overcome. But in that regard, you mentioned Victor the idea of lethal non trackable. If it’s non trackable, I guess maybe give us a basic foundation on what some possible solutions to lethal debris might be if you can’t track it.

Victor Tyne
Lethal trackable debris is lethal, but currently non trackable. And there are workarounds and solutions to that. This debris is non trackable from the ground with ground radar, because there are limits on the ability to see things from such a distance. And with atmospheric interference. There’s been a big push toward imaging in space of debris tick track, to try to be be able to see what’s historically been lethal and non trackable. And our approach is to do this, but to an unprecedented level in a distributed way. So leveraging technology that’s on a lot of satellites, specifically cameras that a lot of satellites use for other purposes, to track when small pieces of debris enter their field of vision, analyze its position and velocity, get information about where it is and what it is, and record that and keep a database of all this debris. And the reason we’re able to do this on such a large scale is because we’re tapping into cameras that are already on orbit throughout low earth orbit, rather than trying to send up hundreds, if not thousands of new cameras to try to see what we currently can’t.

Tom Temin
Launching clouds of new satellites, just for that purpose, in a sense, increases the risk, because when you let out a cluster of satellites, they don’t all make it. And some of them might turn into the debris that you’re trying to track.

Victor Tyne
And it’s also a huge cost. And it would be extremely costly to launch a large number of satellites, especially with the technology required to do this.

Tom Temin
So it sounds like it’s essentially a software approach, then because the hardware is already in space. And it’s a matter of programming what those cameras are doing to do something else.

Victor Tyne
Exactly. A software problem and a data problem of aggregating data that is either not currently being saved or not currently being collected and making it useful.

Tom Temin
And by the way, is it always imagery within the human visual spectrum, or are there other areas of the spectrum where because these things are small and moving so fast, they can be detected other than visually?

Victor Tyne
That’s a great question. These pieces of debris can be detected with radar and lidar and other things outside of the optical regime. In fact, one of the main ways debris is currently tracked is from the ground with radar. The reason we’re working with optical sensing in space is because those are the cameras that are currently widely used. And they actually do a very good job of seeing what we want to see. And some of these other methods like LiDAR, for example, doesn’t do as well with the distances that we’re working with.

Tom Temin
And getting back to the business side of it, are you accompany yet? And do you have a plan to make a company that could actually sell this technology to the Pentagon, as well as to commercial operators in space.

Brian Klein
We are a company, were incorporated. And we are working on making those connections to not just the Pentagon and other agencies but also commercial providers to that a lot of discussions with providers on what would make the technology interesting for them what they need to be interested in. And now we’re going to be doing the same with government agencies to the ATREX program.

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Lawmakers have legislatively modeled Cyber Command after SOCOM, given how successful the combatant command has been in providing the DoD with specialized capabilities that the military services don’t have the capacity to deliver on their own.

Using the SOCOM model for CYBERCOM, however, hasn’t significantly improved cyber force mission readiness. CYBERCOM relies on the military services to provide digital personnel, which has led to readiness issues in the command since the services run their own recruitment and training systems and digital warriors tend to have inconsistent knowledge and experience when they are sent to CYBERCOM.

Given the challenges, lawmakers are resurfacing the argument for creating a separate cyber force — the idea that Pentagon officials have widely rejected.

“I understand that the Department of Defense is currently evaluating alternatives to generate cyber forces in ways that will address these readiness concerns. While I do not wish to preempt that analysis, I believe a range of options should be considered, including extending aspects of the U.S. Special Operations Command model to U.S. Cyber Command,” Sulmeyer, who currently serves as the Army principal cyber advisor, said.

“If confirmed, I would look forward to contributing to the decision-making process about new approaches to cyber force generation and to work with Congress in doing so.”

The Pentagon officially announced the creation of the office of assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy in March and President Joe Biden tapped Sulmeyer to lead the office.

During his nomination hearing Thursday, Sulmeyer said the DoD is utilizing Section 1535 of the 2024 defense policy bill to streamline policies and procedures, which will yield positive results for cyber mission force readiness.

The 2024 defense bill requires the DoD to ensure that service members are properly trained and in compliance with the standards required for their work roles prior to sending them to CYBERCOM. The legislation also requires the DOD to ensure that pay and the period of obligated service is uniform across the military departments for all cyber mission force related positions.

In addition, the bill requires the CYBERCOM commander to establish a pilot program that would contract cyber personnel to support critical work roles in the cyber mission force. The commander has three years to decide whether to extend, transition to a permanent program or terminate the pilot.

“I understand that the Department is presently undertaking the work required by section 1535, and if confirmed, I will make it a top priority to synchronize this effort with whatever results may come from the CYBERCOM 2.0 effort,” said Sulmeyer.

Last year, Congress directed CYBERCOM to assess the readiness of the military branches and their ability to provide forces to the command. The leadership has been thinking through what changes are necessary to build CYBERCOM 2.0. and DoD’s persistent readiness problems in the cyber mission forces is what’s ultimately driving the effort.

If confirmed, Sulmeyer said he would start with standardizing the enabling issues that contribute to cyber mission force readiness.

“I would begin with policies and processes highlighted in section 1535 of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act that, if standardized, can lead to improved service personnel readiness. I understand that the services often use different tracking databases and so using existing tools to gain Department of Defense-wide insights will be a key priority. If confirmed, I will work with U.S. Cyber Command and the services to refine the policies and processes for improving readiness within the Cyber Mission Force. ”

Meanwhile, lawmakers are getting more serious about the idea of a separate cyber force. The House recently passed its version of the 2025 defense policy bill with a provision that would require the Defense Department to commission an independent study on the feasibility of creating a separate branch for cyber. A similar provision made it into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense policy bill.

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