Friday, April 19, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
This Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news from the fiscal year 2020 defense spending conference bill, plus a multiservice command and control effort and more.
We start off with a look at more of the details in the FY-20 defense appropriations conference bill:
Appropriators give Navy flexibility on FFG(X) parts sourcing, require domestic production in future
Congressional appropriators want to allow the Navy to source certain ship components from foreign vendors for the service's new frigate, but have set a time line for when those parts must be domestically produced.
Appropriators want Navy analysis on ship maintenance backlog
Congressional appropriators are directing the Navy to perform an evaluation of its ship maintenance backlog.
Spending bill launches Joint Hypersonics Transition Office with $100 million
The compromise fiscal year 2020 defense spending bill includes $100 million for the Pentagon to establish a Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, marking a win for Indiana lawmakers who have pushed for the office to oversee a university consortium tasked with accelerating the development of hypersonic technologies and systems.
Conferees propose cut to Air Force OCO flying hour funding, cite 'disturbing' $1.3B shift
Congressional appropriators claim the Air Force is making a habit of transferring large sums of Overseas Contingency Operations flying hour funding to pay for other OCO needs, writing in a report accompanying their compromise fiscal year 2020 defense spending bill that the service has shifted nearly $1.3 billion in the last two years.
Appropriators back plan for a new homeland defense interceptor, mandate independent review
House and Senate lawmakers are backing plans for a new Ground-based Interceptor by adding more than $100 million for homeland defense interceptor development in fiscal year 2020. At the same time, they are qualifying support offered in September by Senate appropriators for the Next Generation Interceptor program, imposing additional oversight on the proposed new-start project.
The Air Force is launching a new command and control effort in collaboration with the other services:
Air Force launches new 'DevOps' cycle with Army, Navy, USMC to incubate JADC2
The Air Force this week is spearheading a project with the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and industry entrepreneurs to emulate the kind of rapid software and hardware development pioneered by Silicon Valley start-ups in a bid to incubate Joint All Domain Command and Control -- an envisioned technical backbone to link sensors and shooters across air, land and sea.
Part of a Navy unmanned systems program has been canceled:
Navy cancels remaining MUX prize challenges
The Navy has canceled two prize challenges for its Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Expeditionary program so the service can re-evaluate requirements.
The Air Force wants to shorten the time it takes to develop satellites:
SMC developing strategy to reduce satellite fielding time lines by five years
LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, CA -- The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center is developing a strategy to cut in half the time it takes to field a new satellite through commonality, digital engineering and model-based systems engineering concepts.
Last but certainly not least, some big defense business news:
Leidos to buy Dynetics in $1.65 billion deal
Leidos said it has agreed to acquire privately owned and Huntsville, AL-based Dynetics for $1.65 billion in cash.