Technology

Gabriel Mounce, director of the U.S. Space Force’s accelerator program, has said that the government must modernize its research and development practices to keep up with industry’s efforts to innovate in space programs. Mounce also serves as head of technology commercialization and economic development at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) hosted a virtual event where members of the defense industry and academia discussed a project that aims to bolster joint all-domain command and control. The Army's Project Convergence will leverage partnerships with industry, academia and joint force partners to exceed adversaries in terms of C2 performance. 

Congress has mandated Pentagon officials to submit quarterly reports that will brief the House and Senate defense committees on steps taken to advance the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) effort. The DoD must also provide a resource allocation report for CJADC2 and validate program requirements by April 21, 2021.

Microsoft has developed a new cloud service to protect agencies’ data that is classified as “top secret.” The company will continue to work with the US Government on accreditation for Azure Government Top Secret. “The broad range of services will meet the demand for greater agility in the classified space," said Tom Keane, corporate vice president of Azure Global.

The Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Networks (JFHQ-DoDIN) has improved at implementing its command-centric operational framework. “Operationalizing the secure, operate-and-defend mission area is at the heart of outmaneuvering adversaries in the cyber domain as we establish priorities for and direct network operations, security actions and unified defensive efforts across DoDIN,” deputy commander Brig. Gen. Paul Fredenburgh said.

NASA has identified its science priorities for the Artemis III mission, which have been included in a recent NASA report. “This report helps outline a path forward toward the compelling science we can now contemplate doing on the lunar surface in conjunction with human explorers,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

A team of Chinese scientists created a quantum computer prototype that can carry out computations 100T times faster than the world's fastest supercomputer and 10B times faster than Google’s 53-qubit quantum computer, China’s state-run news agency. The team said the technology could be applied in areas such as quantum chemistry, graph theory and machine learning.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) plans to provide in 2021 an updated Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program that could help reduce reporting requirements for agencies while helping them improve security. Judy Baltensperger said most of the pilot agencies have moved their infrastructure to the cloud and that data quality certification will likely be carried out by the summer of 2021.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has partnered with Wright State University, Ohio State University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to launch a six-year, $40 million project that seeks to support students from the minority sector.

The U.S. Army will soon implement the use of computer-aided iPad devices in emergency vehicles at Fort Bliss, through a partnership with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The military installation's emergency services department will deploy 45 of these devices across firefighting and police vehicles to support incident tracking, DISA said Thursday.