A hypersonics research proposal from the Naval Research Laboratory has been selected by the Department of Defense to receive a $45 million grant under the DOD”s Applied Research for Advancement of Science and Technology Priorities program.

DOD said Wednesday that the NRL-run Naval Center for Space Technology pitched its “Surface Morphing and Adaptive Structures for Hypersonics” project to the DOD S&T Executive Committee as part of the ARAP competition.

“We appreciate the initiative, originality and collaborative effort that each team displayed in developing a high-quality proposal, especially during the pandemic,” said JihFen Lei, chair of ExCom and acting director of research and engineering for research and technology at DOD.

NCST’s winning proposal, which beat 16 other submissions reviewed by the panel, will explore materials and approaches to boost the performance of hypersonic weapons.

The three-year effort will see NRL lead a group composed of Air Force and Army research laboratories, the Missile Defense Agency and 20 academic entities.

Eighty government scientists and engineers and at least 20 new graduate students will support the initiative to help the department build defensive and offensive hypersonic platforms, DOD noted.

The department holds the ARAP award competition among its components every year to address technology and capability gaps within the defense enterprise.

Vaughn Noga, chief information officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has talked about EPA's goals of creating a cybersecurity-aware culture and decreasing hindrances to deployment and operation of new applications and systems. 

Speaking at Federal News Network's Federal Drive with Tom Temin segment, Noga cited the need to prioritize the agency's approach to fielding systems and getting them through the extract, transform and load process.

"[It is] a long way of saying we need to make it easier for our state agency stakeholders… And quite frankly, we need to reduce the barrier and the burden on our stakeholders, so they can be productive much quicker," he added.

To develop a cybersecurity-aware culture, Noga said EPA must educate its workforce on system requirements for defending against malicious cyber attacks.

“And part and parcel of that are working with them to understand what their role is in protecting the IT systems and the data and the assets of the EPA,” he continued.

Noga also discussed his office's efforts to ensure accessibility of data to inform the decision-making process. He cited how EPA moved paperless activities to digital to enable employees to work from anywhere.

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Michael Gilday has shared the U.S. Navy's plan of transferring the operations of its 13 satellites to the Space Force and assured that the process will be easy due to both military service branches' connection to Space Command, Military.com reported Wednesday.

Gilday made the remarks at a Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)-hosted virtual forum.

The CNO also talked about the Navy's decision to continue doing space-related work at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where space research offices, including the Space Science Division and the Naval Center for Space Technology, are located.

"The decision has been made to maintain our Navy capability within those labs and keep it in the Navy for the sole reason that … in a Navy research lab, there's a lot of cross-cutting work that goes on across a number of different disciplines," said Gilday.

The service branch also looks to provide the Space Force with more authority over NRL work through memorandums of agreement that are currently being developed.

The Leidos Partnership for Defense Health today announced it successfully delivered the MHS GENESIS electronic health record to an additional 10,000 clinicians and other providers as part of its most recent Wave deployment with locations in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

"We are gaining momentum and improved efficiency with each Wave deployment," said Liz Porter, Leidos Health Group president. "Our team continues to be impressed by the hard work and dedication demonstrated by the staff at each of these locations. They are the driving force behind our success to date."  

The Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (LPDH) developed MHS GENESIS, the Military Health System's new electronic health record, and has been providing program management and technical expertise to the Program Executive Office Defense Healthcare Management Systems (PEO DHMS) since 2015.

"The staff at these locations worked tirelessly to adopt a new electronic health record system, while continuing to battle a global pandemic," said Holly Joers, acting PEO DHMS. "We applaud their focus on the mission and partnership in this important transformation."   

The General Services Administration (GSA) has identified 22 federal employee-proposed projects that will be provided with phased funding under a Technology Transformation Services division-hosted investment program for enhancing technology uses in support of government priorities.

Some of the proposals under the 10x initiative are about enforcing climate and environmental justice and expanding minority-owned government contracting businesses, GSA said Tuesday.

10x's selection focuses on public trust and civic life; public lands and environment; and equity in delivery themes. Topics include public engagement in policymaking, environmental footprint monitoring for climate change effect mitigation, support for individuals reentering society and dissemination of civil rights information to the public.

“10x practices a unique approach for investing in government technology through a phased approach with iterative funding," said Dave Zvenyach, director of TTS. He added that the approach has led to the development and deployment of government-wide platforms. 

10x received and reviewed 250 proposals from employees at 34 agencies. The program is established in 2015 to solicit ideas from the federal workforce to help improve government services. 

Dave Zvenyach recently served as a keynote speaker during GovConWire Events' Modernizing Federal Acquisition Forum on April 15th. If you didn't have the chance to join GovConWire for the Forum to hear notable industry and federal leaders discuss the new modernization priorities, innovative solutions and future plans for acquisition, you can check out the event by clicking here. 

Liberty Defense Holdings has been licensed to commercialize a pair of screening systems sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

DHS said Tuesday that it funded the Shoe Scanner and the High Definition – Advanced Imaging Technology (HD-AIT), which are developed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

HD-AIT boosts the resolution and lessens the false alarms of screening processes, allowing for security checks that don't require subjects to take off light jackets. Shoe Scanner uses the same technology to see through footwear. This screening approach does not require subjects to take off their shoes.

“DHS S&T has invested in developing the next generation screening HD-AIT and shoe scanner that offer significant improvements to current systems,” said John Fortune, Screening-at-Speed program manager at DHS's Science and Technology Directorate.

Both technologies align with the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) requirements.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will help the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Defense (DOD) bolster research and development on wireless communications networks. 

NIST said Tuesday that it will take part in the Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems program that aims to further develop emerging network and computing technologies. The agency's Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL) will offer facilities to support research done under the RINGS program.

“The Communications Technology Laboratory knows the importance of investing in the ecosystem of innovation and we are excited to partner with NSF and the rest of the RINGS team to provide grantees access to our state-of-the-art testbeds,” said Marla Dowell, director of CTL.

RINGS will use a $40 million investment to finance collaborative research pursued by about 40 teams. Each participating team will receive a maximum of $1 million in awards effective for up to three years.

Interested parties may submit applications through July 29th.