Lawmakers Chide Navy for Continued Physiological Episodes
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Two House Armed Services Committee lawmakers chided the Navy last week for failing to disclose details of a January failure of the environmental control system of an E/A-18G Growler that dropped cockpit temperature to 30 degrees below zero, reports Navy Times. The Navy and Air Force continue to struggle with an array of dangerous cockpit oxygen loss and pressure changes, collectively referred to as Physiological Episodes.
The Fifth Domain warns that 3-D printing, increasingly integrated into military labs, are as hackable and vulnerable to cyberattacks as an average laptop or connected printer.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is blocking President Donald Trump‘s pick to be the intelligence community’s top lawyer, Jason Klitenic, until he receives “fulsome responses to questions” he has about efforts to “hamstring the whistleblower protection program in the intelligence community,” reports The Hill.
Democrats are holding up Trump’s veterans health care plan, reports The Washington Post, saying the bill would diminish congressional oversight of the VA, goes too far in outsourcing care, and fails to address some of the agency’s biggest problems.
The Royal Australian Air Force declares initial operating capability for six of the 12 Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft currently under contract at Edinburgh in South Australia, reports Jane’s 360. Three more aircraft are currently going through the approval process for a final fleet of 15.
Navy says double-wall fix to Hawaiian Red Hill fuel tanks could cost billions, reports Navy Times. The costs are part of an agreement entered into by the Navy, Defense Logistics Agency, US Environmental Protection Agency, and state Department of Health to upgrade the underground tanks.
The Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons lab hopes to have a direct energy weapon that can produce an effect like a haunted walkie-talkie or the biblical burning bush within three years. Defense One has video with audio.
Recruiting and retention challenges leave the Navy short 11,000 sailors in the near term and about 50,000 sailors short of the estimated force needed to crew a 355-ship fleet. Despite additional manpower funding, the service is near its lowest end strength in almost a decade, reports USNI.
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review recommends, and the commander of US Strategic Command “strongly agrees,” two new “low-yield” nuclear weapons should be procured for the Navy, reports Defense News.
Washington Technology remains bullish on the 2018 acquisition and merger market in the government contracting industry.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a set of recommendations to combat efforts by hostile states to interfere with US elections. The recommendations cover six areas, reports FCW, and include guidance on deterrence, information sharing, securing election systems, and providing assistance to states.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen locates another sunken wreck from the Pacific battles of the Second World War, the USS Juneau. The vessel was stuck, in November 1942, by two Japanese torpedoes during the Battle of Guadalcanal, killing 687 men including the five famed Sullivan brothers. The Juneau was discovered nearly 3 miles beneath the surface, report Navy Times. Earlier this month, Allen located the Lexington, which became the namesake of Lexington Park, MD, after it went down in the Coral Sea in 1942.
The US Senate voted 55-44 to scuttle a measure to extract the US military from the Yemen civil war and rein in what proponents argued were unchecked presidential powers. Their efforts may yet lead to congressional action on the Yemen question and a new authorization of the use of military force. Defense News reports that a bipartisan group of senators, of various ideological backgrounds, introduced a joint resolution last month to invoke the War Powers Act to overrule the president and withdraw troops from a conflict they believe is unauthorized.
