Congress OKs multimillion dollar NASIC lab expansion Published June 27, 2014 By Contributed story WRIGHT PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- The Air Force received final congressional approval to move ahead with a multimillion dollar foreign materiel exploitation laboratory addition at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) here. "We are very excited to move ahead with construction on an addition to our foreign materiel exploitation laboratory," said Col. Leah Lauderback, NASIC commander. "We would like to thank everyone who took the time to understand this pressing intelligence need and their efforts to make this project a reality." Foreign material exploitation is one of the many intelligence production missions at NASIC. FME analysts reverse-engineer foreign air, space and cyberspace-related military systems to help provide the U.S. with a better understanding of potential adversary capabilities. "FME at NASIC is about dissecting foreign air, space and cyberspace equipment that our U.S. forces might find on the battlefield in the future," said Lauderback. "This facility will give us an ability to continue this mission in the future as weapon systems become more and more advanced." The 58,000-square-foot facility will increase the center's technical capability to analyze a growing number of sensitive exploitation projects, address safety and security risks associated with the current facilities, and improve mission efficiency. Under 10 U.S. Code, Chapter 169, Section 2803, the Air Force requested Congress allow the department to reprogram unused money initially authorized for other military construction projects to build the NASIC addition as an emergency construction. Congress approved a total of $29.5M which includes all associated costs such as contracting fees and the actual facility construction.