LCS Test Ships. The U.S. Navy says the first four Littoral Combat Ships (LCS 1-4) will become test ships so they can focus on supporting the development and rapid deployment of new weapons and delivery systems, without disrupting operations. The ships will remain available to deploy “on a limited basis” if needed, the Navy says.
SpaceX Probe. SpaceX continues to look into why a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on a Florida launch pad Sept. 1. “Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation,” tweets SpaceX founder Elon Musk. “Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.” In a separate tweet, Musk says SpaceX is “particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else.” The explosion destroyed the launch vehicle and the commercial communication satellite it was supposed to loft into space.
STRATCOM Leader. Gen. John Hyten, who has led Air Force Space Command for the past two years and was previously its vice commander, has been nominated by President Obama to succeed Adm. Cecil Haney as commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), the Pentagon said late Sept. 9. “Armed with 35 years of strong managerial experience, deep technical expertise and visionary leadership,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter says, “Gen. Hyten is the perfect choice to lead this critical command in the years to come, as the men and women of STRATCOM carry out missions essential to our national defense — including sustaining nuclear deterrence through a safe, secure and effective triad; helping defend our networks and deter malicious actors in cyberspace; and preparing for the possibility of a conflict that extends into space.”
LCS-8 Commissioning. The U.S. Navy’s eighth LCS, the USS Montgomery (LCS-8), was scheduled to formally begin active service at a Sept. 10 commissioning ceremony in Mobile, Ala. Austal USA built the Independence-variant ship in Mobile. Named after Montgomery, Ala., the state capital, the ship will be based in San Diego and perform mine, anti-submarine and surface warfare.
Bluefin Demo. General Dynamics says its Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle launched multiple Bluefin SandShark micro-autonomous underwater vehicles at last month’s Annual Naval Technology Exercise in Newport, R.I. The SandSharks surfaced, functioned on their own and communicated with a Blackwing unmanned aerial vehicle, the company says.
New Hire. Polaris Industries says that John M. Olson is the new vice president and general manager for Polaris Defense. In his new role, Olson leads and develops the long term strategy for the organization and is tasked with building it into a top supplier of innovative customer solutions to the Department of Defense and other government agencies. Olson previously Sierra Nevada Corporation, where as vice president of Space Systems business he was responsible for space-exploration systems, including the Dream Chaser reusable spacecraft. He has 28 years’ experience in public service with the Defense Department, Air Force, NASA and the White House. He is also a veteran with active service in multiple conflicts, including overseas and wartime support during conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia/Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
Trigger Time. Army researchers are working to stimulate arm and hand muscles with vibrations to help soldiers become steadier, more accurate marksmen. Research is in its early phases but scientists suggest the effort could lead to devices that can be built into weapons to enhance trigger control and improve marksmanship. An artificial trigger is fitted with a device to measure a test subject’s trigger pull and a “mini-vibrator” attached to the subject’s wrist. Then a wire so thin it causes no pain or bleeding is inserted into the shooter’s arm that detects and charts muscle activity on a computer screen. “Something like this might be built into the handgrip of a weapon that may apply stimulation to the human that they can’t feel, but increases their steadiness and probability of hitting a target,” says lead researcher Michael Tenan. “Once we understand it, once we know how it’s working, we can try to adapt it into future weapons and leverage it to enhance performance.”
JLTV. Oshkosh Defense will showcase its Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) at the Dynamic Vehicle Demonstration (DVD) on Sept. 7-8, in Bedfordshire, U.K. The British army is interested in buying a quantity of the vehicles once production for the U.S. military is underway. “The JLTV program presents an opportunity for U.S. allies to provide their troops with the world’s most capable light tactical vehicle – at an affordable cost,” says John Bryant, Oshkosh Corporation senior vice president and president of Oshkosh Defense. “During the U.S. JLTV competition, Oshkosh presented a solution for vehicles, C4ISR integration, kits and trailers that achieved the highest ratings for performance and value throughout an exhaustive, multi-year testing and evaluation effort. From a technical performance, cost and operational capability standpoint, JLTV is the overall best value on the market for light tactical vehicles.” Jointly sponsored by the British Army Headquarters and the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), DVD is a forum for industry and Ministry of Defencs personnel involved in the Land Equipment sector to advance ideas about the current and future capabilities needed for defense operations. Oshkosh Defense leadership will be available to discuss the Oshkosh JLTV, and the company’s portfolio of vehicles, technologies and integration capabilities.
Capitol Hill. Congress is getting back into rhythm after a nearly two-month summer break. It is addressing a healthy stack of business, including the fiscal 2017 defense budget. Other legislative business includes service reprogramming requests that for the Army could increase funding for readiness and modernization programs and slowing or stopping the troop drawdown. Very little time is left for Congress to act before the current fiscal year ends Oct. 1. Expect either a 3- or 6-month continuing resolution rather than any sort of compromise on an actual appropriations bill.
Army Labs. A new report on government laboratory management and leadership says the Army Research Laboratory is at a “critical turning point” in its evolution. “There are tremendous opportunities, but it will take innovative ideas and much hard work to realize the future potential of the laboratory,” the report says. Created in 1992 from a consolidation of several disparate research efforts, ARL focuses on keeping one step ahead of perceived emerging threats. The report urges an increased emphasis on professional development of employees, establishment of a collaborative business model and focus on a “shared vision of the future technical landscape,” according to a synopsis published by the Association of the U.S. Army.
Marine Radars. The Marine Corps is ordering another nine AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) low rate initial production (LRIP) expeditionary air-defense radars. The nine additional systems and all subsequent G/ATOR systems incorporate advanced Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology, providing the Marine Corps with nearly $2 million in life cycle cost savings per system, Northrop Grumman says. GaN technology also provides a number of performance benefits including lower input power needs, higher efficiency and higher output power. This higher output power can substantially increase threat detection and tracking ranges for all four G/ATOR mission capabilities: air surveillance, weapon cueing, counter-fire target acquisition and air traffic control. Northrop Grumman is already on contract to provide six G/ATOR LRIP systems, the first of which will be delivered in February 2017. “There are no other GaN ground-based active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars in production today,” says Roshan Roeder, director of mission solutions for Northrop Grumman. “G/ATOR is the first DoD ground-based AESA system to incorporate GaN in a production program. We proposed this technology as a cost savings measure for the government and funded risk reduction internally to ensure a seamless insertion into the G/ATOR system. We are continuing to look at future technology insertions to continue providing the best capability out there to our warfighters at an affordable cost.”
Beowulf. BAE Systems’ Beowulf all-terrain utility vehicle will make its North American debut Sept. 10 at the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS) symposium in Baltimore, Maryland. Beowulf is an unarmored variant of the company’s BvS10 combat vehicle and is designed to be the successor to the harsh-terrain tested BV206, which are deployed by the Army Alaska, the Marine Corps, several Army National Guard units and numerous countries worldwide. Beowulf is capable of climbing 45-degree slopes, swimming through water, and traversing snow and soft and hard terrains in even the most extreme weather conditions. It has a payload capacity of 8 tons and built in-flexibility that allows for special role cabins to carry a combination of personnel and cargo. The new tracked vehicle is designed for military and civilian applications in difficult-to-reach areas, including for disaster response and relief efforts, as well as search and rescue missions.
… Venerable History. Designed in the 1970s, the BV206 is in service with dozens of countries and is known by the U.S. military as the Small Unit Support Vehicle (SUSV), or “susvee. It is currently in operations with U.S. Army Alaska, the Marine Corps, and Army National Guard units in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The BvS10 Beowulf is a new version of the BV families of vehicles produced by Hägglunds operation in Sweden, which includes the legacy BV206 and the BvS10 (Viking for the U.K.). The Beowulf version features improved capabilities outlined in the attached docs. The BV 206 is in service with the USMC and Army National Guard.
U.S., U.K. Cyber MoU. The United States and the United Kingdom signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cyber that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter calls “first of its kind.” Carter says the MoU allows the two nations to share more information and carry out vital research and development (R&D) together to advance both nations’ offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. “This agreement sends a clear message to our adversaries that the two nations who partnered together decades ago to crack German codes are going to be doing more together again,” Carter says Sept. 7 in London during a press conference with his U.K. counterpart Michael Fallon.
Election Comfort. Despite Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and concerns they have hacked voter databases in at least two states, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson believes it would be unlikely that cyber attackers could change vote counts to sway elections. “It would be very difficult through any sort of cyber intrusion to alter the ballot count, simply because it is so decentralized and so vast,” he says at a forum hosted by The Atlantic. “You’ve got state governments and local governments, county governments involved in the election process.” Johnson says DHS is still concerned about cyber intrusions into state election systems “generally” and is offering assistance about cyber hygiene, best practices, incident response and information sharing.
Pay Up. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) wrote the Government Accountability Office last Thursday asking for an opinion on whether the Office of Personnel Management violated the Antideficiency Act when it failed to pay cyber security firm CyTech Services after deploying the companies software following a product demonstration. Chaffetz says in the Sept. 7 letter, released in conjunction with his committee’s report slamming OPM for failing to take steps to mitigate or prevent a massive data breach of the agency, that CyTech deployed its software in April 2105 at the “government’s verbal request” to 1,000 endpoints but was never paid. He also says the company provided incident response services and installed hardware but wasn’t paid for any of this by OPM.
Merger Approval. The Justice Department on Sept. 7 approved OSI Systems acquisition of one of its competitors in the security detection market, American Science and Engineering, and the deal was expected to close on Sept. 9. OSI Systems in June said it had agreed to acquire AS&E for $269 million in cash in a deal that expands its product and service portfolio domestically and globally.
Mail Monitoring. Three Republican senators have introduced a bill requiring electronic security data be attached to all packages entering the country to help stop dangerous synthetic drugs from being shipped to drug traffickers in the United States. The Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention Act, introduced by Sens. Rob Portman (Ohio), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), would also better equip U.S. intelligence agencies to target and stop packages with weapons, biohazards, and other illegal or counterfeit materials coming into the country through the U.S. Postal Service, says the bipartisan coalition Americans for Securing All Packages.
Painter To France Cyber Meeting. Christopher Painter, U.S. Coordinator for Cyber Issues at the State Department, led a delegation of U.S. officials to Paris, France from Sept. 8-9 to discuss bilateral cooperation on a range of cyber issues of mutual importance, building upon the existing U.S.-France security relationship. The delegation includes representatives from the National Security Council, the FBI, the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Departments of State, Commerce, Homeland Security, Justice, and Defense.
…Also Lithuania. Painter will then lead a delegation of U.S. officials to Vilnius, Lithuania from Sept. 13-14 to attend the third annual High Level Nordic-Baltic and USA Cybersecurity Roundtable. The delegation includes representatives from the Departments of State, Commerce, and Defense. The roundtable is meant to build on commitments made in the 2013 U.S.-Baltic Presidential Summit and discussion in the previous roundtable meetings held in Tallinn, Estonia in 2014 and Helsinki, Finland in 2015.
U.K. Cyber Event. BAE Systems, Her Majesty’s Government Communications Centre (HMGCC), and Cyber Security Challenge UK last week hosted a United Kingdom national cyber forensics competition. The event is hosted at BAE’s London office and includes a simulated investigation replicating emerging cyber threats for smartphones and tablets. Candidates act at government contractors investigating a mock high profile attack on a fictional secure payment app website. Competitors are chosen through a series of national online qualifying rounds. BAE, HMGCC, and several cybersecurity organizations monitor and judge the candidates to see if they demonstrate the skills required to join their organizations. High performers are invited to fast track technical interview stages with host companies. The competition was founded in 2010.
Law Firm Hires Cyber Partner. International law firm Goodwin hired Karen Neuman, former Department of Homeland Security Chief Privacy Officer, as partner and privacy lead of the firm’s privacy and cybersecurity practices. Previously, Neuman was a founding partner of a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, heading its privacy practice. At Goodwin, Neuman will advise clients on a range of data privacy and protection matters.
Tech Group Hire. The IT Alliance for the Public Sector (ITAPS), a division of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), hired Jonathan Clifford as its director of national security. Clifford previously served as a senior policy adviser to Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) for the lawmaker’s work on the House Armed Services Committee and House Permanent Committee on Intelligence, where LoBiondo is chair of the subcommittee on the CIA. Earlier, Clifford served as a legislative aide to Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.). ITAPS advocates for procurement policies and practices as part of ITI, which itself advocates for technology companies.
IT Contract. The U.S. Army awarded Calibre Systems Inc. a $9.4 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with options for operating and support management information system technical support services. The Army initially solicited bids on the internet and received one. Work will be performed at Ft. Belvoir, Va., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 22, 2020. The contracting activity is the Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
XTAR Move. XTAR, LLC, a privately-owned satellite operate of X-band services to U.S. and allied government users, is relocating its headquarters within Northern Virginia to expand its office space while being accessible to the Washington, D.C., area. The company’s former office is at 2551 Dulles View Drive in Herndon, Va., while the new office will be at 43777 Central Station Drive in Ashburn, Va. The location has office and retail space and is located at a future stop of the Metro system’s Silver Line. The new headquarters is also about 6 miles from Dulles International Airport.
OSIRIS-Rex Launch. The NASA OSIRIS-Rex, built by Lockheed Martin, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. at 7:05 p.m. ET on Sept. 8 on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 411 rocket. The spacecraft is on a seven-year voyage to study the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, collect at least 2.1 ounces of surface material in 2018, and bring a sample of it back to Earth in 2023 – the first NASA mission to sample an asteroid. The spacecraft’s full name is the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. Analysis of the return material is meant to give insight into the earliest stages of the formation and evolution of the solar system.