The Defense Department intends to shut down the F-35 program office and have each service branch oversee their own offices for the fighter jet program, Defense News reported Tuesday.

Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, wrote a letter to Congress outlining nine near-term actions that seek to advance the establishment of F-35 program offices specific to the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, including the appointment of service deputies and development of a plan for the implementation of fleet management offices.

“In order to effectively integrate and sustain the F-35 in the joint force, the military departments must have more direct ownership of the F-35 program and leverage organic capabilities, processes and infrastructure,” Lord, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, noted in the March 27 letter initially obtained by Inside Defense.

DoD intends for the Air Force to manage an F-35A office and for the Navy and Marine Corps to oversee the F-35B/C offices, according to the letter.

Cmdr. Patrick Evans, a spokesman for DoD, told the publication that the Pentagon plans to set up a plan to move F-35 management to service-run offices over the next year and execute such a transition through three phases.

The U.S. Air Force is sending five CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to a military air base in Tokyo earlier than previously anticipated.

U.S. Forces Japan said Tuesday the CV-22 units, built by Bell-Boeing, will arrive at Yokota Air Base later this week as part of the branch’s efforts to help address regional security concerns within the Pacific Command’s area of responsibility and comply with the 2018 National Defense Strategy.

USAF originally planned to deploy the aircraft to the installation sometime in 2020.

Ospreys will also support training around the region in the coming months and disaster response efforts.

The branch plans to send more training support personnel there and an additional five aircraft as part of a phased-basing effort, USFJ noted.

CV-22 integrates a helicopter’s vertical flight capacity with the range and speed of a fixed-wing plane.

The Defense Department has chosen 24 multidisciplinary research projects to receive a total of $169 million in funds under a grant program for U.S. universities.

DoD said Monday the research teams will perform work under the 2018 Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative over a five-year period, subject to research progress and funding availability.

“MURI supports research by funding teams of investigators that include more than one traditional science and engineering discipline in order to accelerate the research progress,” said Dale Ormond, principal director for research in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

Ormond added that the program also aids the education and training of graduate students in “cutting-edge” research areas.

The respective research offices of the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy solicited proposals across 24 topic areas relevant to the U.S. military, receiving 436 responses in total.

A panel of DoD experts selected the 24 research proposals, which could involve 64 U.S. academic institutions.

Australia funded research teams to partner with two U.S. MURI teams as part of an effort to boost alliances and increase collaborations.

Previous MURI initiatives included the fabrication of nanoscale and microscale structures; the use of vision algorithms with sensors to build low-power, low-latency and compact vision systems; and the development of fully optical data control and switching systems, among others.

The Defense Logistics Agency and the U.S. Transportation Command launched on Feb. 12 a follow-on contract to the Defense Transportation Coordination Initiative.

DLA said Monday the launch of the Defense Freight Transportation Services contract came six years after the agency’s distribution division and headquarters transportation policy started to work with Transcom to draft the performance work statement and move the contract to the source selection process.

Sherri Troup, head of distribution transportation operations at DLA, noted about the changes in the DFTS contract.

“All eligible freight not covered under other contracts is included as well as visibility of pricing, which are both features not included in the previous contract,” Troup said.

DLA and the Defense Contract Management Agency have become the primary users of the DFTS contract, which also offers a three-tier pricing strategy and tracking of key performance indicators.

DTCI was introduced in 2008 to allow commercial third-party vendors to coordinate and manage transportation requirements in order to facilitate shipments across the Defense Department.

The U.S. Army has assembled two Security Force Assistance Brigades and requested funds to establish an additional three SFABs next fiscal year, Stars and Stripes reported Sunday.

Each unit will perform the bulk of Defense Department missions to advise, train and assist partner forces who conduct traditional ground operations.

“There will always be a need to help build allied or partnered forces, so the SFABs can take on that mission, which is far better than us doing it with our combat brigade soldiers,” Army Secretary Mark Esper, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, was quoted as saying by Stars and Stripes.

Esper told the publication that forming new units will allow 58 of the service branch’s brigade combat teams to focus on combat readiness efforts.

The first SAFB has started passing on its lessons learned in training Afghan troops to the second SAFB, which the Army deployed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina in January.