March 29, 2024

’22 Budget Will ‘Shrink’ the Fleet

Gilday

CNO ADM Mike Gilday told Congress this week that flat or declining Navy budgets ‘will definitely shrink’ the fleet, reports USNI. The Navy has for years been building toward a goal of 355 ships, but only has enough money for 300 vessels with its current budget.

Cyber Chief: Mission Force Needs to Grow

Cyber

GEN Paul Nakasone, head of the US Cyber Command, hinted last week at a House subcommittee hearing that he believes his cyber force could soon see a growth in personnel.

DoD Uses COVID Funds for Small-Drone Contracts

DoD’s innovation arm has issued $13.4 million in small-drone support contracts using COVID-19 funds, awarding contracts to five companies to help with “situational awareness, improve human-machine teaming, and provide engineering support.”

Do Your Tweets Have the Right Stuff?

Right Stuff

NASA’s Wallops Island flight facility wants to know if you have the right stuff to be among 50 social media users selected to help document their April 17 rocket launch. You have until Monday, Feb. 18, 2019 to apply.

DoD Sets Sights on Low-Ball Bids

low-ball bids

The Pentagon is looking for ways to end low-ball bids for development project from contractors banking on collecting other DoD funds later.

Runway Project Moves Pax Testing to Wallops for Summer

F-35's Gun Pod Trials Completed

A detachment from Naval Air Station Patuxent River will operate from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility this summer. The F-35 Lightning II Pax River Integrated Test Force will conduct flight test operations at Wallops with two F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing variants and two F-35C carrier variants from mid-June to mid-July while NAS Pax is implementing a runway intersection construction project.

Move to Put Drones at Wallops Gains New Support

MQ-4C Triton

The Accomack County, VA, joins lobbying efforts to locate the Navy still-under-development MQ-4C Triton drone program at the Wallops Flight Facility. Two other sites under consideration are in Jacksonville, FL, and Key West, FL.

Wallops Hopes to Land East Coast Drone Hub

drone

Virginia wants to establish a facility for drone testing at the Wallops Flight Facility. Officials say the permanent duty station would provide 400 jobs. It is in competition with Key West Naval Air Station and Mayport Naval Air Station in Florida.

DoD Inviting Hackers to Attack, Locate Holes

hackers

Possible financial reward to hackers for breaking into the DoD and telling the Pentagon how they did it.

Gene Splicing Listed as WMD Threat

gene splicing

James Clapper, US director of national intelligence, includes gene editing as a weapon of mass destruction threat in the annual worldwide threat assessment report.