Friday, April 19, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
A solid chunk of this Thursday INSIDER Daily Digest reflects coverage of the fiscal year 2023 defense authorization bill that House lawmakers passed today and is now headed for the Senate.
News from the bill on nuclear weapons provisions:
Defense policy bill would order more oversight of nuclear modernization programs
The Air Force will have to track the acquisitions of materials, technologies and components associated with the service's two top nuclear modernization programs, should the defense policy bill released Tuesday pass.
. . . plus multiyear contracts for weapon systems sent to Ukraine:
New defense bill grants multiyear authority for key DOD munitions aiding Ukraine, eyeing Taiwan
The House and Senate version of the fiscal year 2023 defense authorization bill would provide the Pentagon with new multiyear contracts for munitions deemed critical in the support of Ukraine and, possibly, to aid Taiwan in the event of a conflict with China.
. . . along with Army helicopter programs:
Conference defense policy bill includes increased authorized funding levels for Army's legacy aircraft programs
The compromise version of the fiscal year 2023 defense authorization bill provides for an additional $197 million for Chinook helicopter procurement, and an additional $57 million for Black Hawk helicopter procurement compared to the Army’s original budget request.
. . . and Navy shipbuilding programs:
Lawmakers agree to buy 11 ships and save 12 in final defense policy bill
Congress has authorized $32.6 billion for Navy shipbuilding in its annual defense policy bill, increasing the proposed shipbuilding budget by $4.7 billion, and makes a major adjustment to the service's ship decommissioning plans.
Turning to Joint All-Domain Command and Control, Inside Defense interviewed Air Force Maj. Gen. David Abba, the director of DOD's Special Access Program Central Office this week:
DOD leverages contractor access effort to enable industry integration of JADC2 solutions
The Pentagon is working to leverage an existing program that grants certain defense vendors broader access to sensitive military information as a way to boost companies’ internal efforts to integrate capabilities needed to achieve Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
The Pentagon yesterday evening announced a multibillion-dollar cloud computing contract:
Pentagon announces JWCC cloud contract awards
The Defense Department announced today that four vendors -- Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Oracle -- will be on contract for the military's up-to-$9-billion multicloud environment.
U.S. Central Command officials briefed the media yesterday on the organization's new counter-unmanned aerial system training tool:
CENTCOM focuses on counter-UAS innovation, experimentation
U.S. Central Command's technology chief hopes a new counter-unmanned aerial system training tool born out of an inaugural innovation competition will serve as a roadmap for elevating novel solutions in the integrated air defense landscape.
Last but by no means least, some cyber defense news from our colleagues at Inside Cybersecurity:
Defense industry survey finds lack of compliance with current Pentagon cyber standard
Defense contractors are having trouble complying with current cyber standards put in place in 2017, according to a recent industry survey, which puts a spotlight on the defense industrial base preparedness for the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.