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Lawmakers cut $1 billion from Space Force’s 2024 budget request
updated March 22
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees early on March 21 unveiled a long-awaited fiscal year 2024 compromise spending package for government agencies, including $825 billion for the Defense Department.
The House and Senate are expected to vote on the measure March 22 to avert a partial government shutdown. The compromise bill was delivered almost halfway through the 2024 fiscal year that began in October.
The $825 billion defense spending bill is less than the $842 billion the Biden administration requested. The U.S. Space Force is getting approximately $29 billion — or about $1 billion less than the $30 billion request.
Appropriators reduced the Space Force’s procurement request from $4.6 billion to $4 billion, and the RDT&E account (for research, development, testing and engineering) from $19 billion to $18.6 billion.
However, compared to the enacted fiscal year 2023 budget that Congress passed in December 2022 — appropriating $26.3 billion for the Space Force — the fiscal year 2024 appropriation represents a roughly $2.7 billion increase.
The 2024 funding for the Space Force reflects recommendations made by the Senate Appropriations Committee in its markup of the defense bill last summer.
While compromise 2024 bill was less than DoD requests, it boosts some space launch accounts:
It cuts $45 million from the $2 billion budget for National Security Space Launch services but adds $80 million to the NSSL research and development account.
It increases funding for the Tactically Responsive Space program from $30 million to $50 million.
A big winner in the 2024 defense bill is the Defense Innovation Unit, an organization established in 2015 in Silicon Valley to serve as a bridge between the Department of Defense and the commercial tech sector.
DIU gets an increase of $842 million in the 2024 budget. The agency identifies promising technologies with potential military applications and streamlines the often-bureaucratic acquisition process. Several DIU projects have focused on space technologies including space launch, on-orbit services and satellite communications.
Appropriators said the additional funding is justified given the importance of DIU in bringing innovation into the Defense Department.
https://spacenews.com/lawmakers-cut-1-billion-from-space-forces-2024-budget/
https://www.starcom.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3713839/delta-26-holds-inaugural-cyber-spartan-challenge-on-the-nsttc-c/
Delta 26 Holds Inaugural Cyber Spartan Challenge on the NSTTC-C
March 21, 2024
Understanding the critical interdependence between cyber and space operations, where each domain mutually reinforces the other, is key to modern warfare. Cyber serves as a backbone for space operations, ensuring its seamless execution, while space technologies enhance the scope and capabilities of cyber operations.
In line with this integrated approach, Delta 26, utilizing the National Space Test and Training Complex - Cyber (NSTTC-C), hosted its inaugural Cyber Spartan Challenge 24-1, from Jan. 23-26 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla.
This event brought together 41 cyber operators from all six active Delta 26 cyber squadrons, including the 660th Network Operations Squadron (NOS), 661st Cyber Operations Squadron (COS), 662d Cyber Squadron (CYS), 663rd CYS, and 664th CYS, supported by Delta 6’s 645th CYS, along with two NSTTC-C Range Control Officers (RCOs) from the 11th Delta Operations Squadron (DOS)/S9.
With an emphasis on operational readiness, the Delta 26-led challenge focused on defending National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) space mission systems, denying adversary operational advantage, and providing options to hold hostile forces at risk.
During the Cyber Spartan 24-1, the squadrons executed defensive cyber operations across the simulated terrain while 11th DOS/S9’s range controllers upheld range environments meeting 100 percent of Delta 26’s desired learning objectives.
Delta 26’s Operations Support Division led the overall training event with deliverables to develop the event concept, scheme of maneuver, and specific training requirements.
Major Ryan Galaz served as the Exercise Coordinator while Tech. Sgt. James Dean and Sgt. Bryan Vasquez were evaluators. The cyber aggressor team included Capt. Jonathan Hemingway, Sgt. Andres Coronado, Sgt. Michael Sanders, and Sgt. Jason Donnelly.
According to Galaz, “Cyber Spartan 24-1 was carefully crafted to not only test the operational readiness of each squadron, but to also prepare the cyber defenders for their role in the Great Power Competition.”
11th DOS/S9 led the range delivery of the event with RCOs Tech. Sgt. Austin Livengood and Sgt. Kelton Gillespie. These RCOs maintained the NSTTC-C environment with several effective range authority calls, weighed requested range modifications or range issue fixes, and upheld desired training objectives.
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This two-part event tested the offensive and defensive skillsets of the Delta 26’s cyber operators. Each squadron fielded a two-person team to compete, and the winners were determined by a point accumulation across both parts of the series.
Phases of the event were carefully developed or selected to maximize its training value. The first part of the event was a simulated attack against the NRO that challenged each team’s ability to rapidly detect, identify, and report malicious cyber activity.
Competitors from the CYSs defended their key cyber terrain within the range environments. Injects replicated tactics and techniques utilized by NRO relevant Advanced Persistent Threats. Teams earned points based upon the timeliness and accuracy of their Network Activity Reports.
The second part of the event was a “Capture the Flag” style event hosted by Hack the Box. Competitors endured 18 challenges in four categories: Web Server, Hardware, Machine Exploitation, and Forensics. In the Forensics category, participants had to not only analyze malicious documents, files, and processes, but had an additional task to analyze a network capture of the Atlassian Confluence Vulnerability exploit.
Teams earned points by completing the challenges, with their value directly corresponding to its difficulty.
Cyber Spartan 24-1 executed various attacks and exploits that utilized more than a dozen different techniques from the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.
“The goal of the event was two-fold: to challenge an operator’s ability to operate in a contested environment and to test their ability to adapt to an adversary’s evolving tactics in a time-constrained environment,” said Galaz. “Future events will increase the complexity and scale of the attacks to close the gap between the Defensive and Offensive operators.”
Tech. Sgt. Roland Averitt and Tech. Sgt. Houston Smith, both from the 661st COS, were victorious after two days of defending their enclaves against an aggressive adversary and working through various complex challenges.
Judges also selected Averitt as the overall Top Performer and Coronado earned the “most aggressive” aggressor honor.
Upon conclusion of the event, each team developed lessons learned in which Delta 26 will utilize for future training events and exercises to increase the knowledge and capability of each operator.
“This cyber exercise signifies a step forward in achieving SPAFORGEN objectives but also highlights the delivery of NSTTC-C to meet critical NRO and STARCOM Lines of Effort,” Galaz said. “The successful execution of this event delivered force preparedness capabilities to meet the challenges of the Space Force's unique and dynamic cyber landscape.”
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UFO truthers converge on Chuck Schumer’s NYC office to celebrate humankind’s ‘ET moment’
March 21, 2024, 6:47 p.m. ET
UFO truthers declared humankind’s “ET moment” as they rallied outside US Sen. Chuck Schumer’s New York City office on Thursday to celebrate efforts to prove the phenomena aren’t a hoax.
Believers landed on Third Avenue outside the Democratic Senate leader’s office saying they were over the moon over his efforts to push UFO disclosure legislation through Capitol Hill last year as many attendees recounted their own stories of run-ins with the unexplained.
“It’s an extraordinary moment. Humanity is entering its ET moment,” said 74-year-old Dr. Jim Garrison, a director at the UFO advocacy group New Paradigm Institute.
“The extraterrestrial phenomenon is real,” he told The Post. “That’s what is so important about Schumer’s leadership.”
Garrison and his cohorts were referring to Schumer’s outspoken advocacy for 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which sought to compel the government to reveal whatever information it may have on unexplained aerial phenomenon — and whether or not it has aliens locked away beneath Los Alamos or Area 51.
“This legislation will be discussed by historians in a thousand years because it’s the first moment where the most closely guarded secret in history is beginning to see the light of day, officially,” Harrison said.
“Sen. Schumer is a serious person, he’s the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, he wouldn’t be talking about trash retrievals and non-human intelligence unless he had a pretty good idea it’s true,” said Kevin Wright, a columnist for the Roswell Daily Record and founder of a DC-based UAP advocacy firm.
“There’s something that has been here since at least the 1940s, since the time of Roswell, and people have a right to know what’s here and interacting with us and whether this is a national security issue,” he added.
Others present ranged from the pragmatic to a Queens resident who claimed to have regular visitations at home in Howard Beach.
“I have triangular motherships and a scattered fleet of UFOs that follow me around the world,” said 75-year-old actor Julio Barriere.
He said the craft have followed him around the world for about 20 years, and that they even communicated with him using lasers, telepathy, and at least once with clouds shaped something like waving hand.
Asked why they chose him, Barriere said: “I’m their leader.”
Nick Curto, 80, a retired ad-man from Yorktown, recalled conducting a séance of sorts near the ancient Egyptian obelisk Cleopatra’s Needle behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park about eight years go.
“With love and peace we were trying to contact ETs with meditation,” he said, recounting how after about an hour a triangular craft with green lights appeared and stopped above them before moving on.
“It stopped, in other words it knew we were there, it heard our call,” he said. “About 15 people were there with me, fellow ufologists, who had cameras and recording equipment. We were so stunned that nobody thought to photograph.”
Bruce Davis, 40, of Rockaway Park, said he spent about 10 minutes with “a body of light” that was “very intelligent” in his Orlando apartment one night in 2020. May 3, specifically.
“It was amazing. It was a body of white light with this rainbow shimmer and it seemed to open up a little bit so rays of rainbow light emerged,” he said.
“Even though I asked it questions and it didn’t communicate with me, when I asked to touch it, it stayed still and an arc shot out, hit my fingertip, felt like an intense painless vibration through my finger — then it disappeared. I’ve had questions ever since.”
Jose Baizan, 41, a Queens resident originally from Mexico, traded in the shirt and tie he normally wears to his midtown finance job for a tinfoil hat and a call for democratic unity on the UAP matter.
“I took the day off to be here because this is very important. This will decide what sort of world we live in.” said Baizan, who was a skeptic until UAP accounts began to emerge across the heights of government and the military in recent years.
Characterizing himself as part of the “disclosure movement,” Baizan said that no matter the true nature of UAPs no government should be allowed to keep potentially sensitive information in the dark.
“That’s not democratic. We the people should decide what’s best for us,” he said. “Not just for the American people but the world in general, because this is a global phenomenon. No country has a right to dictate the agenda for the world.”
https://nypost.com/2024/03/21/us-news/ufo-truthers-turn-out-in-nyc-to-spread-awareness-trade-stories-thank-chuck-schumer-humanity-entering-its-et-moment/