The Insider

The Navy will host an industry day next week to provide further information on an unmanned aircraft system that would perform maritime search and rescue missions.

The industry day will take place on Jan. 26, according to a request for information updated yesterday.

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division AIRWorks “intends to accelerate the identification and evaluation of unmanned aircraft systems capable of performing wide-area Maritime Search and Rescue missions from a surface vessel,” according to the RFI.

The program is interested in systems that can perform at long ranges for extended periods while relaying information back to the host vessel, according to the RFI.

“More specifically, AIRWorks is interested in locating personnel adrift, downed airliners (finding debris, oil slicks, beacons), ships in distress, or other incidents at sea, through a variety of technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Electro-optic, infrared, Full Motion Video, Maritime Wide-Area Search, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and Electronic Sensing),” the RFI states.

The Navy is seeking an unmanned aircraft that can relay data back to Command and Control in a potentially comms-denied environment, according to the RFI.

This summer, NAWCAD will host an at-sea technology demonstration, which will be “part of a multi-phased merit-based selection process for the potential award of an Other Transaction prototype,” according to the Navy.

The Navy is also seeking industry input on a UAS capable of vertical takeoff and landing that would support a variety of expeditionary operations.

President Biden has nominated Franklin Parker to become assistant Navy secretary for manpower and reserve affairs.

Parker was appointed for this position in 2015 under the Obama administration and served until 2017.

Parker is currently working as a senior counsel in intelligence solutions for BAE Systems.

The Air Force is planning to gather industry partners for a May meeting to bolster collaboration between business and government in hypersonics-related independent research and development, a recent notice shows.

The Hypersonics IR&D Technology Interchange Meeting, slated for May 23-27 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, will bring together defense officials across a number of agencies “with active roles in hypersonics" science and technology to provide feedback on industry’s potential research investments and other presented material, according to the notice.

Those interested in participating are directed to submit up to five IR&D abstracts and corporate investments by mid-February, with an evaluation of those abstracts completed the following month, according to a schedule accompanying the notice. Companies in April will then be notified which abstracts are selected for the meeting, and those chosen would need to submit briefings to the Air Force’s IR&D team in early May.

During the meeting, which the notice says is “intended to foster mutual awareness, increase collaboration, and identify alignment between industry’s independent research investments and DAF hypersonics-related science and technology needs,” company presenters will receive input on the “relevance and criticality” of their material.

The planned event comes as the Defense Department works to up the speed of hypersonic testing while decreasing associated costs. Meanwhile, at the Air Force level, where Secretary Frank Kendall has expressed his dissatisfaction with the service’s pace on hypersonics development, he this week cautioned against “mirror-imaging the potential threats” from China in the hypersonics realm, noting the U.S. doesn’t “have the same targets that they’re worried about.”

“We have to think about what’s most cost effective for us,” Kendall said during an online Center for a New American Security event yesterday. “And while I do think there is a role for hypersonics in that mix, and I think we should continue with and proceed with developing and fielding appropriate hypersonics, I think we have to look very carefully at the targets that we’re interested in and at the most cost-effective way to deal with that. And I think that’s still very much an open question for me.”

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has released a request for proposals from interested parties who could provide a one-time, unclassified report on the demographics of the Chinese army and the personnel challenges associated with recruitment and retention.

The commission, established by Congress in 2000 to monitor the national security implications of the bilateral economic relationship between the United States and China, wants the report to address several key questions, according to the RFP.

For example, what do Chinese leaders assess to be the most significant shortfalls in personnel quality? Also, what types of education or expertise does China most prize in its recruits, and how successfully is it recruiting citizens with that background?

The commission also wants an update on what portion of Chinese servicemembers are conscripted into compulsory service, rather than being voluntarily recruited.

Responses to the RFP are due Feb. 10.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said China is the Pentagon’s “pacing challenge” and, like the previous administration, has placed the nation at the center of his upcoming National Defense Strategy.

Dan Ostrosky has been hired to be Peraton's senior vice president and chief procurement officer, the company announced this week.

In this role, Ostrosky will be responsible "for all aspects of the procurement organization including supply chain operations, strategic sourcing, and subcontractor management," according to a Peraton statement. "He will also lead the implementation of Peraton's multiyear procurement strategy that is designed to significantly reduce complexity and drive supply chain efficiencies."

Ostrosky will report to Jim Winner, Peraton's executive vice president and chief legal officer.

Before joining Peraton, Ostrosky was a strategic adviser to Banbury Private Capital, advising the firm on its investments in the aerospace, defense and industrial sectors. Prior to that, he was corporate vice president and chief procurement officer for Triumph Group.

This Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on the Army's Stryker brigades, the military's billion-dollar fuel bill and more.

Inside Defense recently interviewed Col. Samuel Edwards, the Army capability manager for Stryker brigades:

Infantry still the focus of up-gunned Stryker brigades

Dismounted infantry is the foundation of the Stryker brigade's fighting power, and that will not change as modernization programs make Stryker vehicles more lethal, according to the Army official responsible for coordinating the brigades' doctrine, training, personnel and materiel requirements.

A Pentagon spokesman told Inside Defense the military services have not yet determined how they will pay a $1.5 billion fuel bill, though doing so may require approval from Congress to shift existing funds:

DOD may need to reprogram funds to pay $1.5B fuel bill

Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord made news last week when he said historic inflation rates driven by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have left the U.S. military with an unexpected $1.5 billion fuel bill.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently directed officials to "really take a hard look at tactical level" intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance:

Space Force head expects GMTI analysis in 'late spring'

Defense officials plan to release an analysis of alternatives surrounding the now-declassified Ground Moving Target Indicator satellite program in late spring, the chief of space operations said today, as the Space Force gears up to focus on further force design work in the service’s third year.

The investment timeline for the Navy’s unmanned systems portfolio remains dependent on the passage of the fiscal year 2022 defense spending bill:

Navy, industry want more clarity from Congress to ensure unmanned development

The Navy and its industry partners say ongoing congressional dysfunction is making it harder for the service to plot a path forward to increase its number of unmanned systems and invest in other emerging technologies.

Sikorsky-Boeing's Defiant X is competing against Bell’s V-280 Valor for the Army's Black Hawk replacement helicopter effort:

Defiant helicopter demonstrates Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft capabilities

A Sikorsky-Boeing helicopter vying to replace the UH-60 Blackhawk successfully completed Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft mission profile test flights, the companies announced Tuesday.

Last but by no means least, some cyber defense news from our colleagues at Inside Cybersecurity:

Biden signs memo extending cyber EO requirements to national security systems

President Biden is extending requirements in a major 2021 cybersecurity executive order to national security systems, in a memorandum signed today.

MISI, a Maryland-based accelerator focused on cybersecurity, is starting a new program to help small businesses prepare for the latest changes to the Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.

The “DOD Supply Chain Cybersecurity CMMC 2.0 and Cyber Resilience Mission Accelerator Program” will help small businesses in Maryland, Georgia, Florida and Virginia get up to speed on version 2.0 of the department’s CMMC program. The MISI program also includes assistance on “cyber compliance and resilience,” according to a MISI release.

MISI said it will offer “highly cost effective virtual coaching, subscriptions to its award winning MSOC security operations center powered by Elastic and periodic red team assessments of the subscribed networks.” MISI receives funding from DOD’s Office of Small Business Programs to help businesses prepare for CMMC under its Project Spectrum initiative.

The new program “prioritizes DOD supply chain manufacturers not part of a current Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program (MEP) but also will support other DOD supply chain small and medium sized businesses,” MISI said. The program is focused on compliance for level one of the CMMC program.

“To be accepted into the program candidate companies must meet certain criteria such as dedicating one resource in the company for a minimum of 2 hours a week” and “have the capabilities needed to support cyber threat data collection in support of the MSOC SIEM and includes a limited subscription to MISI’s JENSIE cyber threat, compliance and red team cloud based platform,” MISI said.

“Companies accepted into the program will be required to pay a discounted one year subscription fee and agree to achieve a better than 80% cyber compliance readiness score within the first seven months of their tenure in the program,” MISI said. The contractor is limiting program participation to 60 companies.

Meanwhile, Microsoft provided guidance to help companies prepare for CMMC in a recent blog post.

“To prepare for CMMC 2.0 we recommend you continue to align your security program to NIST SP 800-171 as well as getting executive buy-in early: proper planning will be vital to achieving CMMC 2.0 in a reasonable timeframe,” Microsoft’s Jason Orcutt wrote in the Jan. 11 posting.

Orcutt urges companies to “[l]everage technology to centralize the process of assessing and providing continuous monitoring of compliance” with CMMC and provides details on Microsoft’s solutions to help businesses achieve this objective.

The posting also has details on how Microsoft can help companies protect controlled unclassified information and logging data.