Inside the Army highlights

Some must-reads from this week's edition of Inside the Army:

1. An influential Army advisory panel is preparing an independent assessment of the service's realignment of its science and technology portfolio to recommend any further recalibration in response to evolving threats while sticking to the service's $2.4 billion annual S&T budget.

Full story: Panel readying study of Army's $2.4B S&T investment plan

2. The Army is inviting industry to get in on the ground floor of experimentation to develop more sophisticated systems to operate on the future tactical network.

Full story: Army pursuing satellites, more bandwidth for integrated tactical network

3. The latest defense policy bill agreed to by congressional authorizers doesn't alter the Pentagon's ability to award other transaction agreements, despite controversy surrounding a nearly $1 billion OTA made earlier this year.

Full story: Authorizers leave OTA untouched; DOD heeds 'warning shot'

4. Lawmakers have rolled back a Pentagon gambit to classify missile defense flight test plans by including a provision in the final version of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill explicitly requiring the Missile Defense Agency to annually make public a version of scheduled test events for the $180 billion Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Full story: Lawmakers override Pentagon on classifying missile defense test plans