Technology

NASA has given the signal to commence the final design and fabrication phase of a mission to study a certain asteroid. The Psyche Mission's approved Phase C will include the development of detailed mission plans and the conclusion of spacecraft assembly and testing, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Tuesday. 

The board of directors at AECOM approved the company's plan to separate its management services group as a new publicly traded company to primarily serve national government clients. AECOM said Monday that it expects to complete the spinoff in the second half of its 2020 fiscal year and retain John Vollmer, the segment's president and a 2019 Wash100 winner, along with the current management team in the leadership of the future independent company.

McConnell Air Force Base conducted a sortie with the KC-46 Pegasus to verify the aircraft's normal operation and functionality of air refueling systems. The U.S. Air Force's 344th Air Refueling Squadron refilled two F-16 Fighting Falcons four times with about 29,000 pounds of fuel offloaded during the flight, USAF's Team McChord said Thursday. 

The U.S. Air Force tested a prototype version of a hypersonic weapon aboard the B-52 Stratofortress aircraft on Wednesday at the Edwards Air Force Base. The aircraft held a sensor-only iteration of the AGM-183A Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon to collect external impact, vibration and handling data for the weapon and the B-52 unit, the Air Force said Thursday.

The U.S. Navy tested an existing 3D virtual training platform for the use of marines assigned to perform command, control, communications, computers and intelligence operations. Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic included the Multi-purpose Reconfigurable Training System in a new equipment training package designed for C4I across marines' communication systems and submarines, the Navy said Thursday.

The Social Security Administration will open the enrollment period for an electronic system developed to help permitted entities accept electronic consents. The Consent Based Social Security Number Verification tool works to validate if an SSN holder's information matches social security records, the agency said Friday.

The Nuclear Regulation Commission's Office of the Inspector General has released results of an audit on the agency's cybersecurity operations. NRC OIG said Tuesday that it found the agency generally provides assurance on the cybersecurity of nuclear power plant licensees across digital assets.

The Department of Energy intends to invest $32 million to help research projects through the rapid development of new materials for the next four years. DOE said Wednesday that it will use high-performance computing facilities to create open-source software applications to support the design of functional materials for electronics, data storage, renewable energy and quantum information science. 

The U.S. Air Force joined experts from the U.S. Navy, NASA, industry and academia to discuss on how to address physiological safety issues of T-6 on-board oxygen generating systems. USAF said Wednesday that it hopes to address the matter by accelerating procurement of new technologies, bolstering research efforts and applying research findings to procurement policy. The discussions took place at a conference in late May at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released a draft of best practices for the mitigation of software vulnerabilities. NIST said Tuesday that it recommends organizations using the agency's "secure software development framework" for the management of software development life cycles.