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Faster, better, cheaper: lessons DoD could learn From NASA

As the Department of Defense continues to wrestle with the high costs and often slow pace of military technology and acquisition programs, it would do well to take a closer look at that other bastion of high-tech government programs: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA’s low-cost missions from yesteryear just might hold the secret to bringing the price tags of today’s Pentagon programs down to Earth.

In the 1990’s, NASA’s portfolio of Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) missions included some truly impressive accomplishments. Notable examples include the Mars Pathfinder mission, which put a rover on another planet for the first time ever. Pathfinder was developed in half the time and one fifteenth the cost of the earlier Viking mission to Mars and went on to explore Mars three times longer than its projected lifespan.

And then there was the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, which came in $78 million under budget and still collected 10 times more data about the asteroid Eros than expected. Despite not being designed as a lander, NEAR went on to land on its target– another first. The touch-down was so smooth and gentle, the spacecraft continued to broadcast from the surface of Eros for two full weeks.

Keep reading this article at: http://breakingdefense.com/2013/05/31/faster-better-cheaper-lessons-defense-could-learn-from-nasa/

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Pentagon: Acquisition reform key to strategic choices review

Improving the acquisition of weapons systems and platforms through cost-conscious strategies and more effective prototyping is a key part of the Defense Department’s ongoing Strategic Choices Review, Pentagon leaders told an audience May 23 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, D.C.

“Secretary Hagel asked me, working with Chairman Dempsey, to conduct a strategic choices and management review, to examine the choices that underlie our defense strategy, posture and investments, including all past assumptions and systems,” Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the audience. “Everything’s on the table: roles and missions, war planning, business practices, force structure, personnel and compensation, acquisition and modernization investment, how we operate, how we measure and maintain readiness.”

Carter mentioned the ongoing review, designed to assess Pentagon strategy in light of recent developments within the Pentagon’s Better Buying Power program — an acquisition-focused effort unveiled in 2010 to save money,  improve efficiency, incentivize industry, increase competition, and maximize productivity.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2013/05/24/pentagon-acquisition-reform-key-to-strategic-choices-review/ 

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Space acquisition no longer broken, getting better, says GAO

Less than five years ago, almost every major unclassified space program was grossly over budget and behind schedule.

The rock stars of rottenness were the weather satellite program known as NPOESS and the missile warning satellite program called SBIRS, but they were not alone. These problems ate at the soul of the Air Force and the space community, which had both been justifiably proud of the remarkable accomplishments they had wracked up during the first quarter century of the space age.

Now the Government Accountability Office — which most people in industry and many in the Pentagon will tell you never met a program it liked — has given its tentative stamp of approval to space acquisition with a report bearing this euphonious title: “DOD Is Overcoming Long-Standing Problems, but Faces Challenges to Ensuring Its Investments Are Optimized.” It sounds as if space acquisition is halfway out of the woods.

Here’s the nub of the GAO testimony delivered before House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee:

“For the portfolio of major satellite programs, new cost and schedule growth is not as widespread as it was in prior years, but DOD is still experiencing problems. For example, total program costs have increased approximately $180 million from a baseline of $4.1 billion for one of two satellite programs that are in the earlier phases of acquisition. Though satellite programs are not experiencing problems as widespread as in years past, ground control systems and user terminals in most of DOD’s major space system acquisitions are not optimally aligned, leading to underutilized satellites and limited capability provided to the warfighter.”

Keep reading this article at: http://defense.aol.com/2013/04/25/space-acquisition-no-longer-broken-getting-better-says-gao.

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SAM user uncovered GSA data compromise

A user of an online federal contracting registry found a way of bypassing security controls to see every contractor’s personal and proprietary data, prompting the government to alert registrants about possible fraud, according to the General Services Administration, the owner of the system.

IBM, which operates the registry, known as the System for Award Management, or SAM, failed to discover the issue.  GSA’s continuous monitoring program that tracks computer protections agencywide and Einstein, the Homeland Security Department’s intrusion prevention system, did not document a threat.  It is unknown whether a scammer spotted the defect first.

“A SAM user alerted us to the vulnerability,” GSA spokeswoman Jackeline Stewart told Nextgov. She did not identify the individual. The person described the problem to GSA on March 8 and the agency patched the system two days later.

GSA had awarded IBM a $74 million contract to build and maintain the tool for eight years, beginning in 2010. The agency this week said it would seek redress.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2013/03/contractor-site-user-uncovered-gsa-data-compromise/61973/?oref=nextgov_today_nl.

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Alaska native firm played role in failed medical review board software project

Work on a botched program to develop software for the Defense Medical Examination Review Board was performed by an Alaska native company, said Steven Davis, a spokesman for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. The command’s Atlantic center contracted with software engineering firm Barling Bay LLC to support development of a medical records system that has come under fire for failing so severely that responsibility for the work was transferred to the General Services Administration.

Barling Bay is a subsidiary of Three Saints LLC, a holding company headquartered in Anchorage. Under federal law, Alaska native firms receive preferential treatment in government contracts.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chairwoman of the contracting oversight panel for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, charged in a Dec. 7 letter to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert that SPAWAR’s management of the contract for service academy exams was “so inadequate that the General Services Administration had to assume responsibility.” The review board determines the medical qualification of more than 50,000 applicants annually for appointment to a U.S. service academy, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/health/2012/12/alaska-native-firm-played-role-failed-medical-review-board-software-project/60280/?oref=govexec_today_nl 

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