The SDA said Thursday the contracts and agreements are funded under the Systems, Technologies, and Emerging Capabilities broad agency announcement.
The selected companies will conduct 90-day feasibility studies focused on engineering, analyses and technical trades to support space vehicle de-orbit services for the PWSA. The studies are ongoing and are expected to be done by December, with the final report to be delivered by the end of 2024.
The companies selected by the SDA include:
Arkisys
Impulse Space
Quantum Space
Sierra Space
SpaceWorks Enterprises
Starfish Space
The SDA is exploring potential commercial alternatives for assisted disposal services, despite having current disposal plans capable of handling hundreds of space vehicles to be deployed in low-Earth orbit starting with Tranche 1.
The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have collaborated with counterparts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom in developing a cybersecurity technical report and guidance to mitigate the Microsoft Active Directory platform’s vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks.
The 80-page report lists and describes the 17 techniques malicious actors commonly use to target AD, as well as recommends mitigation strategies against the cyber threats.
One of the cyberattack tactics that the report identified involves password spraying, which seeks authentication through a single or multiple passwords deployed on AD targets. As one security control to help deter password spraying, the guidance suggests long passwords with a minimum of 30 characters for local administrator and service accounts.
Microsoft launched AD in 1999 and became the most popular authentication and authorization platform in enterprise information technology networks worldwide.
Dave Luber, NSA cybersecurity director, noted that many networks of the Department of Defense and the defense industrial base rely on AD and are attractive cyberattack targets.
“Taking steps to properly defend AD from these common and advanced techniques will detect and prevent adversary activities and protect sensitive data from determined malicious cyber actors,” he said.
The NSA recently published a cybersecurity advisory, in coordination with the FBI, the U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force and international allies, to alert on China-linked threat actors who hacked into internet-connected devices to create a botnet and execute malicious online activity.
According to the RFI released on SAM.gov Wednesday, the HPC has to be ruggedized or designed to endure harsh conditions. The system, which will be installed in the centerline avionics bay under the midsection of the fuselage, should also be ready to use and can be deployed with minimal logistics, training and support.
The PMA-266 also requires a cross-domain-solution and a high assurance internet protocol encryptor in conjunction with the HPC that may be placed inside or outside the system’s enclosure.
The HPC has to meet the requirements to secure an authorization to operate at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level.
Interested parties have until Nov. 24 to submit their responses to the RFI.
The Department of Defense has started acccepting insights on a proposed rule that seeks to make good on a Government Accountability Office recommendation regarding DOD-funded fundamental research.
According to a Federal Register notice published Thursday, GAO recommended that the Pentagon initiate steps to increase public access to results and data of federally-funded research.
The proposed rule, which was introduced as an amendment to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, would require contractors to submit final peer-reviewed manuscripts to the Defense Technical Information Center’s publicly accessible repository.
The policy would also direct vendors that secured research and development contracts to implement and maintain a data management plan throughout the contract’s duration.
Vice President Kamala Harris is embarking on her first trip to the southwest border as the Democratic nominee for president Friday evening, where she is expected to reiterate her call for the addition of thousands of new federal officers and agents to the region.
Her proposal, however, is likely to butt up against a reality that has plagued each of the last three administrations: it is exceedingly difficult to hire those personnel.
Harris is expected to criticize former President Trump for his role in spiking a bipartisan agreement earlier this year, a significant portion of which focused on adding staff to key border agencies. The legislation would have supported more than 4,300 asylum officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection personnel—including both Border Patrol agents and customs officers—1,200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, 100 immigration judges and support staff and additional USCIS staff.
Ahead of her speech Friday, the Harris campaign released an ad that promised the vice president has a plan to “hire thousands more border agents.” The campaign did not respond to requests for clarification, but the pledge appeared to go far beyond the Border Patrol hiring included in the failed bipartisan bill.
Source: Kamala Harris YouTube page
Just this week, however, the Government Accountability Office released a report that found Customs and Border Protection—including its Office of Field Operations, Border Patrol and Air and Marine Operations—has mostly failed to boost its workforce in recent years despite funding and presidential promises to do so. CBP has found some success in hiring personnel more quickly and bringing on more employees each year, but it has failed to keep pace with attrition in key areas.
“Over the last 10 years, CBP has frequently fallen short of its staffing targets for law enforcement positions, challenging the frontline workforce’s ability to fulfill the agency’s mission,” GAO said.
Border Patrol failed to reach its hiring goals from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2024 and its total onboard staff has decreased in each of those years. The number of authorized agents jumped from 19,000 to 22,000 in that period, but the actual number of agents employed has declined. The reduction came despite Border Patrol managing to double its average annual hires in recent years. President Biden has boasted the he secured funding for small increases in Border Patrol staffing during his presidency, though his requests for supplemental funds for more dramatic hiring surges have gone unfulfilled.
The number of customs officers climbed significantly from fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2020, but has leveled off since then and dropped off so far in the current fiscal year.
That followed CBP missing its agency-wide hiring goals from fiscal years 2013 through 2017. Trump shortly after taking office vowed to ramp up the border security workforce and his administration signed a contract worth up to $300 million to help it bring on 7,500 border personnel, but canceled it after it managed to hire just 15 employees. Lawmakers for years were forced to claw back money appropriated for CBP hiring after the agency failed to meet its targets.
CBP has taken many steps to improve its hiring processes, incentivize potential hires to apply and motivate current employees to stay, GAO said, though the efforts have led to mixed results. The agency saw applications for law enforcement positions decline from fiscal years 2018 to 2022, though it ticked up in fiscal 2023. It has invested in advertising—spending $43 million on ads for job openings in fiscal 2023—thousands of recruiting events per year and hiring and retention incentives. Border Patrol, for example, is offering $20,000 recruiting incentives, which can go up to $30,000 in certain locations.
Officials said negative opinions of law enforcement in general and CBP in particular, increased demands on the workforce, worse work-life balance, reduced physical fitness among the general population and the remote locations and extreme weather conditions in many areas their employees work all have contributed to the recruiting issues.
Joining CBP is an arduous, time-intensive process with 12 steps that include a medical, physical and polygraph examination. After hovering around just 25% for many years, CBP has managed to increase the applicant pass rate for the polygraph test to 40%. That success is in part due to the agency no longer deeming marijuana use within the prior two years disqualifying. It has reduced that window to 90 days and an admission of use no longer leads to an automatic rejection.
CBP has struggled with poor morale since 2005, GAO noted, and the situation has hardly improved despite a significant investment of resources. The agency was ranked 432 out of 459 federal subcomponents in the most recent Best Places to Work rankings, which the Partnership for Public Service maintains based on Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data. Attrition has accelerated over the last decade, with CBP officials pointing to competition with other law enforcement agencies, a lack of services in its remote locations and a poor work-life balance. It has offered retention and relocation bonuses on a limited basis and, in some cases, implemented special salary rates.
The bipartisan border bill, which came together after months of negotiations between the White House and senators on both sides of the aisle and which Harris is promising to bring over the finish line if elected president, included some additional provisions to ease hiring. USCIS and ICE would receive direct hire authority—allowing the agencies to bypass normal restrictions that slow down federal onboarding—while the former agency would have been able to boost pay for some workers. CBP would have allowed more applicants to bypass the polygraph exam, provided they previously passed one.
Trump has also vowed to ask more of the federal immigration workforce, including his promise to institute mass deportation of millions of undocumented U.S. residents, though he has not specified how significant of a hiring surge he would require.
Either candidate, should they push for more CBP personnel, would likely face additional headwinds. The agency told GAO it is preparing for a retirement wave in the coming years as a significant swath of its workforce becomes retirement eligible at once. It anticipates a particularly acute problem at Border Patrol, after its surge of 2007 hires becomes retirement eligible in 2027. CBP is already planning to mitigate the issue, including by establishing contingencies if it is unable to restock its rolls in a timely manner.
The defense chiefs of the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have announced the winning companies of the first AUKUSElectronic Warfare Challenge.
Launched in March, the competition aimed to identify electromagnetic spectrum solutions to give AUKUS nations a strategic advantage in targeting and defending against adversarial EW capabilities, the Defense Innovation Unit said Thursday.
The DIU, Australia’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator and the U.K.’s Defence and Security Accelerator held the challenge to advance AUKUS Pillar II, which seeks to develop new EW technologies to bolster global security.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles and UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey revealed the competition during their recent meeting in London.
Austin, a three-time Wash100 Award recipient, identified the U.S. winner as Distributed Spectrum, which received $150,000 for its radio frequency sensing platform, which provides real-time intelligence on adversary activity.
According to Distributed Spectrum CEO Alex Wulff, the contest inspired the development and deployment of an attritable sensing capability to monitor the Indo-Pacific region.
The tech competition attracted 173 companies from across the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, highlighting the AUKUS countries’ strong defense innovation bases.
On Oct. 10, the GovCon International Summit brings together government and industry speakers from across the globe to discuss how international partnerships, coalition warfare and emerging technologies are reshaping the defense landscape. Register now to attend the event!
State and tribal governments will receive more than $1.5 billion in federal funds to combat the opioid crisis, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced Thursday.
The announcement comes as nationwide overdose rates dipped for the first time since 2020, dropping 10% from April 2023 to April 2024, according to federal data. It’s a welcome sign of progress to federal, state and local governments.
“This [data] tells us that we must remain focused on addressing the overdose epidemic and saving lives, and we must continue to build a village that supports individuals struggling with substance use disorder and their families,” said Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, SAMHSA administrator and assistant secretary for mental health and substance use at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on a call with reporters Thursday.
While the reasons for the decline of drug-related deaths is hard to pinpoint, public health experts have pointed to governments’ efforts to increase the availability of medications to treat substance use disorders and overdoses, public health initiatives like treatment programs and increased outreach, and awareness efforts to educate the public on the dangers of drugs like opioids.
Most of the new federal funds—$1.49 billion—will support states’ mitigation efforts like increasing residents’ access to medications for opioid use disorder through, for example, mobile clinics or telehealth services. The remaining funds are allocated for tribal governments and technical assistance for grant recipients to carry out their opioid response programs.
Many of the awardees focus on teens and young adults. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, will use $29 million in federal funds for substance use preventative messaging and education initiatives targeting teens and young adults, building its opioid response workforce development efforts and offering those seeking treatment services like childcare and transportation, according to the SAMHSA grant dashboard. The department aims to service more than 6,300 people through September 2029.
States can also use funds to expand or improve their addiction prevention, treatment and recovery strategies, such as installing public health vending machines or distributing naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medicine.
Having naloxone available in public settings like schools or government housing facilities is a significant part of addressing the opioid crisis, Delphin-Rittmon said, to ensure people who use opioids or who are around others using the substance have quick access to the life-saving medicine. She pointed to Michigan’s syringe service program, which distributed nearly 69,000 naloxone units and fentanyl test strips in fiscal year 2022 with the help of state opioid program grants. As a result, Delphin-Rittmon said the state saw at least 2,241 overdose reversals statewide.
Under the grant program, tribal programs will receive $63 million to mitigate opioid overdoses and substance use disorders. The funds will also help increase tribes’ access to medications for opioid use disorders and support addiction prevention and treatment.
Tribal communities have higher rates of overdose deaths than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. In 2022, non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native people died from overdoses at more than five times the rate of other Americans.
In Tulare County, California, the Tule River Indian Health Center is planning to use $250 million in federal funds over the next five years to hire a Tule River tribal member with lived experience with opioid use disorders to work as a peer recovery specialist in the community. The specialist, according to the SAMHSA grant announcement, will serve as a mentor to support individuals through their treatment and recovery journeys.
The health center will also use the grant funds to hire a substance abuse counselor who will assess clients’ eligibility for substance use disorder medications, develop treatment plans and provide counseling services.
An additional $18.5 million will support training and technical assistance services. For the next three years, the Opioid Response Network will help grant awardees improve community outreach efforts, address stigma among opioid response workers and explore evidence-based strategies to reduce opioid use and overdoses, among other efforts.
The funds will be distributed through SAMHSA’s tribal opioid response program and state opioid response programs, which launched in 2018. Between September 2021 and September 2022, the grants helped more than 177,000 people receive treatment for an opioid use disorder and another 480,000 people receive recovery support services, according to a SAMHSA statement.
Previous grantees reported “less depression, less anxiety, fewer suicide attempts and increased abstinence from alcohol and drug use” among individuals served by state and tribal opioid response programs, Andrea Palm, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said Thursday. The grant-funded programs have helped people with substance use disorders obtain stable housing, build social connections and seek educational opportunities.
“We are so appreciative of the work being done around the country using [tribal and state opioid response] funds,” Delphin-Rittmon said. “Losing one life is too many.”
The Army has surpassed its 55,000 recruit goal for the fiscal year 2024 marking the first time in two years, MilitaryTimes reported Thursday.
The transformation of the Army’s recruiting efforts—including adding dedicated enlisted and warrant officer job positions, extending recruiter training by two weeks and using artificial intelligence to help organize prospective recruit data—ultimately helped the service meet its goal.
Christine Wormuth, secretary of the Army and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said, “Our goal was 55,000 new contracts and 5,000 young people in our delayed entry program. We exceeded that goal of 55,000 by a few hundred, and we put 11,000 young people into the delayed entry program, which is going to give our recruiters a really strong jumping-off point to start towards our recruiting target for next year.”
The Army is currently modernizing its facilitation of various commands. For instance, the service is adding a digital dashboard of crucial recruiting metrics and reportedly moving as many as 40 physical locations to alternative areas to garner recruit interest. The service has also introduced the Future Soldier Prep Course, a pre-basic training program that helps prospective recruits reach physical and academic standards within 90 days.
Although the service has reached its annual recruiting goal, Wormuth emphasized an estimated drop of 10 percent in the number of college-age recruits nationwide in 2026, which is a top concern.
“The headwinds that we’ve been facing are not going to stop blowing,” Wormuth said.
“I think we’re going to probably continue to see pretty low unemployment. We’re still going to see 60% go to college. It’s a more competitive labor market. So we’re going to have to kind of keep fighting hard for our new recruits,” Wormuth added.
The Army has pursued 55,000 new enlistment contracts this year and another 5,000 for the delayed entry program to ship to basic training. Wormuth said recruiters already have 11,000 individuals in the delayed entry program headed to training for fiscal year 2025.
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Thursday that veterans across the country who are enrolled in VA care can now receive virtual emergency assessments to determine the severity of medical afflictions.
The new tele-emergency care — or tele-EC — service is designed to connect retired servicemembers with clinical triage nurses, who can then evaluate their symptoms and determine if they require in-person aid.
“Veterans can get immediate, virtual triage with a VA medical provider who has direct access to their medical records,” VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said about the new service. “This avoids having to potentially drive to the nearest emergency department and wait to be evaluated, if appropriate.”
Veterans can access the tele-EC service by contacting VA Health Connect — which provides veterans 24/7 access to medical personnel for a variety of healthcare needs — or through the department’s VA Health Chat app.
In a press release, VA said the resource is not meant to replace hospital visits or physical healthcare checkups but noted that “for veterans in rural areas or those with mobility and transportation challenges, in-person immediate care can be difficult to access.”
VA said it decided to provide nationwide access to tele-EC after it piloted the service in recent months and found that it has “shown promise for veterans.”
The department said early use of the service provided support for 61,182 callers, with 59.4% of those veterans’ needs resolved without them needing to receive in-person urgent care.
The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development is seeking public input to inform a plan being developed to shape a whole-of-government research and development approach related to cyber-physical resilience of local, regional or national systems.
According to a request for information issued on Thursday, NITRD will accept responses until Oct. 26 to support the creation of the plan scheduled to be released in 2025.
The RFI cited a report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, titled Strategy for Cyber-Physical Resilience: Fortifying Our Critical Infrastructure for a Digital World, defining cyber-physical systems as technologies that rely on computing technologies for sensing, analysis, tracking, controls, connectivity, coordination and human-system interaction.
It also referred to the National Climate Resilience Framework defining resilience as the ability to prepare for threats and hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from adverse conditions and disruptions.
NITRD said respondents may provide alternate definitions if cyber-physical systems have a different meaning in their industry or field.
