The INSIDER daily digest -- Aug. 23, 2021

By Thomas Duffy / August 23, 2021 at 3:40 PM

This Monday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on cruise missile defense, a new Lockheed radar and cybersecurity certification.

We start off with news about cruise missile defense around the nation’s capital:

VanHerck: unfunded Elevated Radar ‘crucial’ to protecting U.S. leadership in DC from cruise missile strike

The head of the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command said he is eyeing a “crucial” new ground-based sensor to help defend Washington, DC, from long-range, high-speed, difficult-to-detect Russian cruise missiles that could be used to disrupt strategic decision-making -- or even decapitate U.S. leadership.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, who is also head of U.S. Northern Command, explained why he believes the Defense Department needs an additional $27.2 million in fiscal year 2022 beyond the Pentagon’s base budget request for an Elevated Radar project that he said would provide a “proof of concept” for the new sensor.

Lockheed is making improvements to one of its counterfire radars:

Lockheed to add digital architecture to Q-53

Lockheed Martin is developing an upgrade to the Q-53 counterfire target acquisition radar that will provide the system with a new digital backbone using components borrowed from the Sentinel A4.

Mark Mekker, Lockheed's director of Army radar programs, told Inside Defense in an August 10 interview this will be the first major upgrade to the system since the company finished building the Army’s production objective of 189 Q-53 radars. Lockheed won a three-year upgrade contract in July. 212450

And news from the world of cybersecurity:

CMMC final rule update could come this fall

The Defense Department in the fall could have a decision on the status of the implementation of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program’s final rule, the chief executive officer of the program’s accreditation body said today.

The Pentagon in September 2020 issued an interim final rule to implement CMMC and an internal review of the program was ordered in March.

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