Patriot Test. A newly upgraded Patriot air and missile defense system provided by Raytheon recently showed that it can destroy cruise missiles and aircraft with different kinds of interceptors, the company says. During a July 8 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Patriot destroyed a cruise missile surrogate target with a Raytheon GEM-T interceptor. Minutes later, the system destroyed a fighter plane target with a PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptor, recently developed by Lockheed Martin. The upgraded Patriot is now ready for operational testing by the U.S. Army, according to Raytheon.
THAAD To Korea. The United States plans to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense battery to South Korea to protect against North Korean ballistic missiles, the Defense Department announced July 7. The U.S. and South Korean governments have been formally discussing such a move since February. The two governments “are working closely to ensure the swift deployment of THAAD and will develop specific operational procedures,” DoD says. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for THAAD, which is designed to shoot down missiles inside or outside the atmosphere in their final phase of flight.
House NDAA. The House on Friday voted to go to conference on the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill. Barron Youngblood, spokesman for House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), says meetings of conferees could begin as early as July 11. As lawmakers leave for their national conventions starting July 18, In a meeting with the Defense Writers Group, Smith says unofficial conference work will take place by staffers during the summer recess that lasts through Labor Day. One of the big conference issues will be hammering out the acquisition reform initiatives. Smith says he is initially opposed to SASC Chairman John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) proposal to divest the Pentagon’s acquisition, technology and logistics (AT&L) office, but that he wants to first hear McCain’s argument before deciding.
Defense Approps. Senate Democrats on July 8 successfully blocked a vote to move forward on the defense appropriations bill due to what Democrats call Republicans violating the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. In a letter, Democratic leadership accused Republican leadership of breaking the BBA agreement by inserting ideological poison pill riders into spending bills and failing to provide parity between military and non-military domestic spending. Democrats vow to obstruct progress on all spending bills until congressional Republicans publicly demonstrate their commitment to adhere to the framework of the BBA..
Asian Security. The U.S. Defense Department is “moving forward” on a five-year, $425-million initiative it announced last year to help Southeast Asian nations improve their maritime security in response to China’s increased assertiveness, according to Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. “In the initiative’s first year, we’re helping the Philippines enhance its national coast watch center and improving reconnaissance and maritime sensors; helping Vietnam train to develop future unmanned maritime capabilities; providing Indonesia and Malaysia with communications equipment and training; and working with Thailand on processing information at fusion centers,” says Denmark, who testified July 7 at a House hearing on South China Sea maritime disputes.
Canadian Subs. Lockheed Martin has received a $14.5 million contract to continue supporting the fire control system on the Canadian navy’s four Victoria-class submarines and land-based team trainers, the company said July 5. Under the new contract, Lockheed Martin will incorporate additional system integrations including modernized, layer-based displays, support of advanced sonar processing upgrades, remote control and image display of the search and attack periscopes, precision electronic navigation, and a deeper integration to electronic support measure systems. The work will be done at Lockheed Martin facilities in Manassas, Va., and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and via field service support at Canadian forces bases Halifax and Esquimalt.
Troops To Poland. After meeting with the president of Poland, President Barack Obama announced that a battalion of 1,000 soldiers will be stationed in Poland to further bolster NATO’s defense and deterrence posture against Russian saber rattling. “As the alliance prepares to enhance our forward presence in Central and Eastern Europe, I can announce that the United States will be the lead nation for the U.S. — for the NATO enhanced presence here in Poland,” Obama says at a press conference at the ongoing NATO Summit in Warsaw. The unit will deploy on a rotational basis to serve shoulder-to-shoulder with Polish soldiers, Obama says. In addition, when a new U.S. armored brigade combat team begins rotating through Europe early next year, its headquarters will be in Poland, Obama announces. “Poland is going to be seeing an increase in NATO and American personnel and the most modern, capable military equipment, because we will meet our Article 5 obligations to our common defense,” he says.
Recycled Material. Under a three-year contract signed in 2015, an Army contractor delivered 330 kilograms of germanium, a hard element used in integrated circuits that was recovered from discarded night vision devices. The Government Accountability Office lauded the Army effort as a sign of the savings possible by widening the recycling of precious metals and rare earth elements that are widely used in electronics. The Army’s effort might result in reclaiming as much as 10,000 kilograms of germanium over the life of the contract, saving $13.5 million. The Defense Logistics Agency is looking for similar savings from recovering gold, silver, platinum and rare elements like scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, praseodymium, europium and others.
Farnborough Delegation. The United States government will be well represented this week at the biannual Farnborough Air Show outside of London with a delegation headed by Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. The Pentagon will be sending Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendal, Navy Acquisition Chief Sean Stackley, and Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey. Senior military leaders from the U.S. European Command will also attend. The State Department’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Tina Kaidanow will also joint the delegation.
TSA Misconduct. A new report by the Republican staff of the House Homeland Security Committee says that employee misconduct at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) grew nearly 29 percent from FY ’13 to FY ’15. Examples of misconduct included in the report are the hiring in 2015 of three prostitutes by Federal Air Marshals and using government funds to pay for hotel rooms, and senior agency officials transferring employees around the country in “retaliation for employees elevating security concerns.” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, says “TSA needs significant and lasting reforms to address its employee misconduct crisis,” adding that it is “alarming and unacceptable.”
IOT Award. The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has awarded Atlanta-based Ionic Security $119,000 to advance detection and monitoring for Internet of Things (IoT) systems security, the fifth award so far by DHS under its Silicon Valley Innovation Program that seeks non-traditional vendors to offer solutions to the homeland security mission. Ionic is proposing to apply a novel distributed data protection model to solve the authentication, detection and confidentiality challenges that impact distributed IoT devices and the company aims to improve the integrity of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems and industrial controls infrastructure as well as critical components deployed in the DHS network.
Cloud Cyber Contract. Fusion won a $1.3 million minimum three-year term contract to provide an undisclosed award-winning cybersecurity company with a fully integrated suite of advanced cloud solutions. The client has been specializing in advanced threat detection, analysis, and remediation efforts for over 20 years. Fusion was chosen because of its redundant and diverse cloud network, secure data centers, and built-in business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. It is to provide cloud voice services, dedicated internet access, a manager cloud network solution connecting three of the client’s sites, and a secure Data Center Service solution.
FAA Contract. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded Lockheed Martin a $344 million contract to develop and implement a NextGen technology, Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM), to improve the efficiency of departures and arrivals as well as aircraft movement on the ground. TFDM is set to replace the paper flight strips air traffic controllers currently use at most airports to share flight plans with electronic flight strips that “will enable faster and more informed tactical decisions,” the FAA says. TFDM will allow digital flight plans to share real time information including estimated arrivals, gate push-backs, routings, departures, and overall airport demand among air traffic controllers. Aircraft operators, and airports.
NJ Cyber Director. Mike Geraghty is named as the first director of the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communication Integration Cell (NJCCIC). Geraghty will manage day-to-day functions of the NJCCIC, the state’s main hub for cyber operations and resources and is located within the Regional Operations Intelligence Center. He will also serve as New Jersey’s Acting Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), temporarily replacing Dave Weinstein, who moved to be Chief Technology Officer for the state. Geraghty previously served as CISO of the Hudson’s Bay Company, CIO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Vice President of High Technology Investigations at Prudential Financial. He also earlier served with the N.J. State Police for 12 years, leading the formation and development of its High Technology Crimes Investigations Unit.
California Technology Appointments. California Gov (D) Jerry Brown appointed Amy Tong director of the California Department of Technology, where she serves as acting director since March when her predecessor, Carlos Ramos, left. Brown also appointed Zachary Townsend as the state’s first chief data officer at the California Government Operations Agency. Previously, Tong served as chief deputy director at the Office of Systems Integration and agency chief information officer (CIO) at the California Health and Human Services Agency from 2014 to 2016 and earlier in other senior leadership and IT positions in state government agencies.
Satellite Arrest. The FBI on July 7 arrested Gregory Justice, 49, of Culver City, Calif., on federal charges of economic espionage and violations of the Arms Export Control Act for alleged attempts to sell sensitive satellite information to whom he believed was a foreign intelligence agent. In addition to the proprietary nature of the information, the Justice Department alleges that the documents contained technical data covered by the U.S. Munitions List and, therefore, controlled for export from the U.S. under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). A FBI special agent posed as a representative of a Russian intelligence service during the investigation. Justice is alleged to have worked for a “cleared contractor” working on programs including Wideband Global Satcom (WGS), Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), Milstar Communications Satellite (MILSTAR) and GPS IIF. Boeing spokesman Todd Kelley says Justice works for the company.
L.A. Times GMD. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) responded to a July 6 Los Angeles Times story alleging it lied about test results from a January interceptor test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program. MDA spokesman Christopher Johnson says that the test met all of its primary and secondary objectives and the redesigned thrusters performed as designed. The objectives, he says, were to evaluate alternative divert thruster (ADT) performance and discrimination improvements. The Times story says the test was not a success, despite MDA and its contractors declaring so, as one of the thrusters malfunctioned, causing the interceptor to fly far off-course.
NASA Juno. NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, almost five years after launch, according to an agency statement. Over the next few months, Juno’s mission and science teams will perform final testing on the spacecraft’s subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection. Juno’s principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its suite of nine science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter’s intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere and observe the planet’s auroras. Lockheed Martin is Juno’s prime contractor.