Friday, April 19, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
This Thursday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on unmanned systems, DARPA's efforts to reduce U.S. dependency on China for rare earth metals, the Army budget and more.
We start off with news on unmanned systems:
Navy launches Mideast-based task force to focus on unmanned and AI
The Navy's 5th Fleet launched a task force today designed to integrate unmanned systems and artificial intelligence.
Scaled Composites unveils unmanned Model 437 aircraft concept
PALMDALE, CA -- Northrop Grumman subsidiary Scaled Composites has unveiled a new concept for the Model 437, an unmanned aircraft that officials hope could have a future as part of a broader family of systems or serve as a candidate for the Air Force's Skyborg program.
Gilday 'not yet satisfied' with Navy's pace of work on unmanned systems
The Navy will be setting up an unmanned task force over the next few months to accelerate its development of unmanned systems.
Northrop demonstrates JADC2-enabling long-range datalink
PALMDALE, CA -- Northrop Grumman announced today it has demonstrated a data link to enable long-range command and control, a feature company officials say could boost the Defense Department's efforts to connect sensors from across the services into a single network.
The latest on DARPA's efforts to reduce U.S. dependency on China for rare earth metals:
DARPA launches new rare earth project to reduce reliance on China
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a new biomining-related project aimed at extracting rare earth elements and reducing U.S. dependence on China, the global leader in rare earth metals.
The Army's top civilian spoke this week about her service's budget outlook:
Wormuth: More hard choices to come in FY-23 budget
The Army expects another year of low or no growth in its topline for the fiscal year 2023 budget request, and cuts could come to some of the service's modernization priorities and key enablers, according to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.
Some Space Force news:
Space Force, Lockheed confident in Next-Gen OPIR risk-mitigation strategy
Despite continued concerns from Congress and government watchdog agencies about schedule risk on the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared system -- the Space Force's largest development program -- service and industry officials are confident in their risk-mitigation strategy and say recent design milestones indicate the program is on track to deliver on time.
Space Force COMSATCOM office still crafting new acquisition strategy
The Space Force's Commercial Satellite Communications Office is "socializing" a new acquisition framework for buying and delivering COMSATCOM services to military users but does not have a solid timeline for when the long-anticipated strategy will be approved.
A new reprogramming memo shifts over $1 billion among various accounts to pay to re-settle Afghan refugees:
Pentagon transfers $1B to re-settle Afghan refugees
The Defense Department is shifting more than $1 billion to help resettle Afghan refugees who were evacuated following the U.S. military withdrawal and the collapse of the government in Kabul.
Last but by no means least, some cyber defense news from our colleagues at Inside Cybersecurity:
DCMA provides details on CMMC scoping, lessons learned
The Defense Contract Management Agency's process to conduct assessments for the Pentagon's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program is adapting to meet the needs of stakeholders, according to Defense Department official John Ellis who provided an overview to Inside Cybersecurity on lessons learned in recent months.