The U.S. Air Force has begun tests on a Boeing-built aerial refueling tanker to validate the aircraft’s capacity to meet Federal Aviation Administration certification requirements.

The service branch said Tuesday the KC-46A will undergo tests at the Benefield Anechoic Facility within the Edwards Air Force Base in California to evaluate the platform’s compliance with Defense Department electromagnetic environmental effects requirements.

The tests will evaluate the system’s shield effectiveness, capacity to moderate emission and perform missions in radiated fields.

The report noted that the tests will also help ensure that the KC-46A does not experience performance degradation which may impact mission outcomes.

BAF houses the world’s largest anechoic chamber which can offer an environment for electronic warfare tests on most aircraft without interference from outside sources.

The test team at BAF include Boeing, the 418th Flight Test Squadron, the 772nd Test Squadron and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division.

Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, plans to retire in July after nearly four years in the job, The Hill reported Wednesday.

He was originally slated to leave DSCA in September 2016 but was asked by the agency to extend his tenure to oversee reform of the foreign military sales process, according to the report.

Rixey assumed his current position in September 2013 after he served as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy for international programs and director of the Navy’s international programs office.

He began his military career in 1978 through the Naval Academy Preparatory School and was appointed as a naval aviator in 1986.

His previous ashore assignments include roles such as vice commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command; deputy program executive officer at the air anti-submarine warfare and advanced sensors programs; and maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft program manager.

The Defense Department is investigating a successor to an aircraft platform the U.S. Air Force uses to transport the U.S. vice president and other high-level government officials, Defense One reported Tuesday.

President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal includes $6 million for the establishment of a project office that would identify possible replacement platforms for the C-32A Air Force Two, the report noted.

C-32A is a military variant of Boeing‘s 757 platform and designed to transport cabinet members, secretaries and other dignitaries to their intended destinations around the world.

The Air Force noted in the branch’s latest budget request that it wants its future transport aircraft to have greater communications, range and passenger space capacity than the current platform.

DoD also wants to replace the E-4B aircraft, nicknamed “doomsday plane,” which could function as a flying operations center to carry the defense secretary and president in the event of a nuclear war.

The Government Accountability Office has called on the Missile Defense Agency to address transparency issues with its cost estimates and test schedules related to the development of the Ballistic Missile Defense System.

GAO said in a report published Tuesday it made the recommendation due to lack of consistency and transparency with MDA’s cost estimates to back up its $1 billion budget request each year for BMDS tests.

MDA achieved some of its delivery and testing objectives for some BMDS components in fiscal year 2016, such as the completion of 10 test flights, implementation of five system level capabilities and updates to fielded interceptors, according to the report.

The congressional watchdog also found that MDA lacks sufficient insights from the Defense Department with regard to its acquisition strategies and design methods for several technological capabilities that MDA plans to integrate with BMDS.

GAO noted that MDA has spent approximately $123 billion on BMDS development since 2002 and plans to allocate another $37 billion to continue development work through FY 2021.

MDA conducted a live-fire test Tuesday to demonstrate its BMDS’ Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system component against an intercontinental ballistic missile target.

Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, has said the live-fire test of the U.S. ballistic missile defense platform seeks to demonstrate the country’s readiness to counter intercontinental ballistic missile threats from potential adversaries, DoD News reported Wednesday.

MDA conducted the test Tuesday in which the BMDS’ ground-based midcourse defense platform helped guide a land-based interceptor with an exoatmospheric kill vehicle to engage and destroy an ICBM target that took off from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Syring told reporters the developmental test sought to replicate an actual operational scenario and that the BMDS platform “performed exactly as designed” based on collected data.

“I was confident before the test that we had the capability to defeat any threat that [North Korea or Iran] would throw at us and I’m even more confident today, after seeing the intercept test yesterday, that we continue to be on that course,” Syring said.

He noted the interceptor used in the test is the same design that will support the deployment of 44 interceptors by the end of the year.

Syring said MDA intends to conduct the next intercept trial either by the fall of 2017 or later next year with a plan to test adversary ICBM weapons by 2023.