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  December 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Here’s why the Valkyrie drone couldn’t translate between F-35 and F-22 jets during a recent test

  Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, the U.S. Air Force embarked on a hotly anticipated test: Could it use a semiautonomous drone, in this case a Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie equipped with a special payload, to stealthily translate and send data between F-35 and F-22 fighter jets? Air Force leaders still think the answer is “yes,” but because of technical issues encountered during the test, proof that the concept works is still months away. During the Dec. 9 demonstration at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, the Valkyrie was outfitted with gatewayONE, a system capable of translating information from the F-35′s Multifunctional Advanced Data Link and the F-22′s Intra-Flight Data Link into a format that can be understood by other aircraft, all while maintaining a low probability of enemy forces intercepting that data. But “shortly after takeoff, the communications payloads lost connectivity,” leaving nine out of 18 test objectives incomplete, the Air Force said in a news release. Early feedback from the test team indicates that, during the rocket-assisted takeoff of the Valkyrie, some of the gatewayONE hardware came loose from where it was mated to the drone, said Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper. “We think we had a connector that came loose during it because the gateway itself was fine when the Valkyrie landed. So [it's] a thing we've learned from and we'll fix next time,” he told reporters Dec. 18 during a Defense Writers Group roundtable. “Next time we get out, flying in the next on-ramp, we'll probably check those soldering points more than one time.” Despite the setbacks, the Air Force still clocked in a number of wins during the exercise. Because the service had a second, land-based version of gatewayONE, it was able to use that system to pass targeting cues from an F-35 to an F-22 and exchange other data between the two aircraft. GatewayONE also pushed data that usually is confined to operations centers on the ground to the F-35 and F-22, while allowing those aircraft to send precise location data back through the translating system to the operations center. Although the Valkyrie couldn't transmit data between the F-22 and F-35, it still safety demonstrated that it could fly semiautonomously in operations with the two stealth jets for the first time ever. Aside from the inclusion of the XQ-58A, it's unclear how the Dec. 9 demonstration differs from ground tests of a similar system during the first Advanced Battle Management System on-ramp exercise in 2019. During that demo, the Air Force rigged together a number of radio systems built by F-35 and F-22 prime contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman with antennas from Honeywell, and the aircraft flew over the test stand, exchanging data, officials said. As early as 2015, Northrop has touted its Freedom 550 radio as a translator for the F-35 and F-22, but it is unknown whether the technology is part of the gatewayONE system. The Air Force did not respond to questions from Defense News seeking more information about gatewayONE, such as a request to identify the manufacturer. During a phone call with reporters on Dec. 16, Air Force Chief Architect Preston Dunlap said the next opportunity for the service to experiment with the gatewayONE payload onboard Valkyrie is during the Advanced Battle Management System experiment slated for May 2021. Using a low-cost, expendable drone like the XQ-58 to transmit data between platforms is a contrast from the Air Force's usual approach for solving communications challenges among its assets, Dunlap said. Usually, as new data links or waveforms are developed, aircraft must be retrofitted with new radios and apertures — an expensive and time-consuming process that often leaves platforms out of the loop. “It's obvious to me that it's not a winning strategy and is a real estate problem on some of these platforms, but then it's a lost opportunity because when you have diversity of pathways, you have greater assurance,” he said. By creating a small, modular payload like gatewayONE that can be carried by a number of manned and unmanned aircraft, the Air Force will have more options for getting data into the cockpits of all of its planes. “The real big win — and we heard this from the pilots themselves — is being able to push information into their cockpits so that they have access to it in a way that is operationally relevant and useful to them,” Dunlap said. “It's not all the data they would want, but it has opened a door that's amazing. So we've got to keep pushing the technology.” The Dec. 9 test was carried out by personnel from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and the 46th Test Squadron from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/12/18/heres-why-the-valkyrie-drone-couldnt-translate-between-an-f-35-and-f-22-during-a-recent-test/

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  February 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR, Security

  The largest cyber exercise you’ve never heard of

  For years, the first time the Department of Defense's cyber forces faced high-end digital attacks was not in practice or in a classroom, but in actual operations. For the cyber teams that focused on offense, a playbook developed from years of National Security Agency operations guided their work. But on the defensive side, standards and processes needed to be created from scratch meaning, in part, there was a lack of uniformity and little tradecraft to follow. Because cyber leaders had focused on staffing, training opportunities for defensive cyber operators had been sparse. To help solve that problem, the Department of Defense is expected to award a contract worth roughly $1 billion later this year for a global cyber training environment. But in the meantime, some units across the joint force have gone so far as to create their own small-scale training events and exercises to keep their forces' skill sets sharp. Perhaps the best example of these efforts are the 567th Cyberspace Operations Group's “Hunt Event,” which has quickly grown to become one of the largest cyber exercises across the department. The bi-monthly exercise pits teams against each other in a competition for the coveted Goblet of Cyber trophy and bragging rights. The group aims to better train defensive hunters, improve defensive tactics, techniques and procedures and develop defensive tradecraft. “The point of this was that we didn't really have a good range space to play on that had an active and live adversary so we could, in theory, replay traffic and we could go in and generate some easy kill, low hanging fruit signatures for detection,” Capt. Reid Hottel, training flight commander at the 837th Cyber Operations Squadron, told Fifth Domain. “If we are supposed to be the primary counter to advanced persistent threats, the way that we were training was not like how we were fighting.” The exercises started roughly a year ago to teach operators how to hunt on networks. It's now evolved to where participants also work on leadership skills and build custom exploits on a large range with multiple stakeholders. In addition to the Air Force CPTs — the defensive cyber teams each service provides to U.S. Cyber Command — members from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and Mission Defense Teams, specialized defensive cyber teams that will protect critical Air Force missions and local installations, also take part. At the most recent exercise in January, a representative from NASA participated. Now, the exercises have become so popular Hottel said other services are interested in participating in the future. This includes a Marine Corps CPT at Scott Air Force Base. Building better leaders and hunters To be the best, cyber leaders recognized their teams would have to beat the best and that meant training against the world's most advanced cyber threats. Some other forms of training — such as the popular capture the flag game, which involve teams trying to find “flags” such as files or scripts inside a network — are not always the most realistic form of training. “When we were fighting, we're up against advanced adversaries. We're up against adversaries that are using tactics, techniques and procedures that are just above and beyond what simple little [scripts] ... we were using in the past,” Hottel said. “This hunt exercise allows us to do that, whereas in the past, particularly in other flag exercises, we are not training at the APT level. We [were] training at the script kiddie kind of level and here we're training at a much higher difficulty, which stretches and grows our operators into being true hunters.” He added that the exercises are also helping develop tradecraft. “That's one thing that nobody really teaches, there's no commercial course that you can go buy that teaches tradecraft, that teaches the military away, that teaches the way that we use to find the APT, which in theory, should be ever evolving because our adversary is as well,” Hottel said. “These exercises have been really eye-opening to provide tradecraft development, to become hunters, to understand what it means to be a cyber protection team.” The exercise has evolved to include custom exploits, custom root kits, custom attacks and zero-day exploits within a real-world mission where in some cases hunters don't have any indictors of compromise that exist in the public domain. This means that there is no public reporting available on the exploits or tactics the adversary is using. Participants can hone their skills, by actively hunting on a network in order to find anomalies that could lead to trouble. “As hunters,” he said, “we don't necessarily have singular methodology, we don't necessarily have a unique way that we can go about finding advanced threats mostly because we haven't really been training like that.” The training is also helpful for new mission defense teams, which are just being officially resourced within the Air Force around local installations. By having those teams sit next to CPTs, who are using generally the same tools, they can learn about tradecraft and what to look for at the local level. During the most recent exercise, officials said it was the first time they intentionally tried to trip up participants. Organizers created fake attack chains to see how the players scoped an investigation into a network and deducted points for the amount of time they wasted following that lead. This technique helps teach teams how to scope investigations without going down “rabbit holes,” and not adequately planning, Lt. Christopher Trusnik, chief of training at the 835th Cyberspace Operations Squadron, told Fifth Domain. Beyond the technical hunting, this approach helped team leader to flex leadership muscles. “It was more of teaching that leadership technique of you plan for this, how do you investigate quickly and how do you triage your investigation,” Trusnik, whose unit ran the January exercise, said. Hottel explained that following this most recent event, teams focused on leadership and organization. At one point, someone on his team previously had been coached on what they needed to include such as specific indictors that might be valuable to their mission partners to understand. At this exercise, they included those indicators. In another instance, one team member who had never run a hunt mission struggled at first. Hottel stepped in and with just a little guidance, the leader became more disciplined and was able to find things much better in the last three days. Benefits of cyberspace in training Training in cyberspace has benefits that other domains don't offer. For one, forces don't need a dedicated battlespace such as the Army's National Training Center or the range used at Nellis Air Force Base for the Air Force's Red Flag. With cyber, a custom range can be built and forces from all across the world can come in and participate. The range used for the hunt exercises stays up weeks after the formal event so individuals or teams can try their hand, though they obviously won't be eligible for the Goblet of Cyber trophy. All of this could change with the Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE). PCTE is a major program being run by the Army on behalf of Cyber Command and the joint force to provide a web-based cyber training environment where cyber warriors can remotely plug in around the world and conduct individual training, collective team training or even mission rehearsal — all of which does not exist on a large scale currently. Hottel said that his forces haven't been limited thus far without PCTE. Though, once the platform is online, they can upload the range they used for a competition and it can be accessed by anyone across the joint cyber mission force. Testing new concepts But in the meantime, smaller, unit level exercises like those run by the 567th allow forces to test concepts and learn from others. Unlike larger exercises that have requirements and stated objectives, smaller exercises can serve as a proving ground for staying sharp and pushing the envelope. This allows local units more control over what their personnel do but can also allow teams to test new concepts in a relatively risk-free environment. “Let's say that a national [cyber protection] team wants to test out ... whatever they're currently using because they feel like it would provide them an advantage so they want to test out something,” Hottel said. “We can throw that on the range as well and they can utilize an entirely defensive tool set. We're not trying to make people tool experts, we're trying to make them tradecraft, defensive hunters.” Hottel also said that personnel playing on the archived range can bring new ideas, which can then be tested during the next exercise. In some cases, they may come up with an idea on their own and bring it to the next exercise to see if it actually works. Ultimately, the event is designed to create better cyber warriors. “We're not trying to make people tool experts, we're trying to make them tradecraft, defensive hunters,” Hottel said. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/air-force/2020/02/21/the-largest-cyber-exercise-youve-never-heard-of/

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  July 6, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - July 02, 2020

  ARMY EA-Baker JV, Hunt Valley, Maryland, was awarded a $99,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in executing the Defense Logistics Agency Energy fuels infrastructure mission for fuel leak detection. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 2, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha, Nebraska, is the contracting activity (W9128F-20-D-0028). NCI Information System, Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $57,285,857 contract for information technology and audiovisual engineering and installation services. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of July 1, 2022. Fiscal 2020 procurement, defense-wide funds in the amount of $57,285,857 were obligated at the time of the award. The Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity. (W50NH9-20-F-0039). Don Jon Marine Co., Hillside, New Jersey, was awarded a $19,697,607 modification (P00004) to contract W912DS-19-C-0013 for dredging the Newark Bay main channel. Work will be performed in Newark, New Jersey, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 27, 2020. Fiscal 2018, 2019, and 2020 civil construction funds in the amount of $19,697,607 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity. LGC Global Inc.,* Detroit, Michigan, was awarded a $7,506,196 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a youth center annex at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Bids were solicited via the internet with 11 received. Work will be performed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, with an estimated completion date of July 16, 2021. Fiscal 2020 non-appropriated funds in the amount of $7,506,196 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity (W912DS-20-C-0016). AIR FORCE LinQuest Corp., Los Angeles, California, has been awarded a $76,637,171 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification (P00014) to contract FA8808-19-C-0006 for system engineering, integration and test support for programs with increased security requirements. The modification includes an eight-month base, valued at $11,165,983, and six year-long options. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed February 2027. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $400,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Total cumulative face value of the contract is $142,307,233. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. SRC Inc., North Syracuse, New York, has been awarded a $7,458,946 follow-on task order for baseline support services under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract FA7037-17-D-0001 for the sensor beam program. The contractor will research, analyze, technically document and perform reviews on electromagnetic systems, events and signatures required by all services and other U.S. agencies. Work will be performed at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, and is expected to be completed Aug. 1, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $7,314,490 are being obligated at the time of award. Acquisition Management and Integration Center-Detachment 2, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the contracting activity. NAVY Huntington Ingalls Industries - Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a $36,566,645 cost-plus-fixed-fee option exercise modification to previously awarded contract N00024-20-C-2109 for engineering, technical, trade and program management support of industrial type work for operational and decommissioning submarines, submarines undergoing availabilities/conversion, special mission submersibles and submarine support facilities. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia (90%); Kings Bay, Georgia (3%), Bremerton, Washington (2%); Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (2%); Kittery, Maine (2%); and Groton, Connecticut (1%). This contract includes advanced submarine research and development, including studies to support the future development, production and sustainment phases of the platforms. Work is expected to be completed by September 2022. This contract was not competitively procured. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $5,461,081 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. L3 Technologies Inc. KEO, Northampton, Massachusetts, is awarded a $25,713,600 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for engineering and technical services for the design, development, testing, system support and production of submarine photonics masts. This contract includes options which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to $135,810,491. Work will be performed in Northampton, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed by June 2025. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $25,514,600; and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funding in the amount of $199,000 will be obligated at time of award. Funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-20-C-6249). Bristol General Contractors LLC, Anchorage, Alaska, is awarded a $22,974,412 firm-fixed-price contract for the Mission Training Complex at Shaw Air Force Base. Work will be performed in Sumter, South Carolina. The work to be performed provides for the construction of a small standard design mission training complex, to include the following: security access facility, tactical operations center pads, building information systems, energy monitoring and control system connection and intrusion detection system installation. Work is expected to be complete by May 2022. Fiscal 2018 military construction contract funds in the amount of $22,974,412 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of fiscal 2023. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website and four proposals were received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity (N69450-20-C-0040). R. A. Burch Construction Co. Inc.,* Ramona, California, is awarded an $8,359,504 firm-fixed-price task order (N62473-20-F-4857) under a multiple award construction contract for the design and construction to renovate Building F at Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI), Naval Base Coronado. The task order also contains one planned modification, which, if issued will increase cumulative task order value to $9,045,991. Work will be performed in San Diego, California. The work to be performed includes all services, labor, materials and equipment necessary to design and build critical infrastructure to support installation and renovation to Building F at NASNI. The project also includes interior improvements to create additional office space on the north side of the building, landscape improvements for the southern courtyard and provide exposed ceilings in the building. The planned modification, if issued, provide for furniture, fixtures and equipment. Work is expected to be completed by January 2022. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $8,359,504 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Five proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-15-D-2485). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY New Market Veterans,* New York, New York (SPE1C1-20-D-1296, $15,061,167); Big Apple Visual Group,* New York, New York (SPE1C1-20-D-1294, $14,604,768); and Hilo Enterprises,* McLean, Virginia (SPE1C1-20-D-1295, $13,235,571), have each been awarded a maximum firm-fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract under solicitation SPE1C1-20-R-0102 for surgical masks. These were competitive acquisitions with 98 offers received. They are five-month contracts with no option periods. Locations of performance are Virginia, New York, China, and Taiwan, with a Dec. 31, 2020, ordering period end date. Using customer is Health and Human Services. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Mercury Defense Systems Inc., Cypress, California, was awarded a $7,280,300 modification (P00006) to previously awarded contract HR0011-18-C-0133 for additional in-scope work on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency research project. Work will be performed in Cypress, California, with an expected completion date of October 2022. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $2,208,097 are being obligated at time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2246455/source/GovDelivery/