The U.S. Navy kicked off a series of full ship shock trials on Friday to determine whether its Ford-class aircraft carrier could withstand harsh conditions that may arise in a battle mission.

USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) completed its first scheduled explosive event in the Atlantic Ocean and the Navy plans to use test data in shock hardness assessment, the Navy said Friday.

The FSST phase follows 18 months of the vessel's post-delivery testing period that saw crew members perform improvement and maintenance work onboard.

CVN 78, the lead ship of the Navy's Ford-class, is scheduled to enter a six-month planned incremental availability before the carrier reaches the operational employment stage.

Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding division delivered CVN 78 to the Navy on May 31, 2017.

The branch conducts shock trials of its surface ships to comply with Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Instruction 9072.2 under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016.

U.S. Air Force and Army personnel are participating in a five-day virtual training program to practice operational contract support tasks for large-scale military operations.

The 2021 Joint Forces Contracting Exercise (JFCE-21) is intended to prepare servicemen in performing joint regional contracting work and to revalidate their ability to obtain commercial goods or services for multidomain missions, the Air Force said Thursday.

"Meeting the challenges we’ll face in the next conflict will require an understanding of how the other service incorporates contracting into operational planning and execution," said Air Force Lt. Col. Peter O'Neill, deputy director of the exercise.

Army Lt. Col. Marlon Elbelau, the lead planner for the event, pointed out that JFCE-21 going virtual opens the doors for training in various locations while reducing expenses for travel, venue and support staff.

However, Elbelau conceded that being online reduces the real-time collaboration opportunity between units, limits networking and relationship building between servicemen and presents the risk of network issues.

JFCE-21 builds on the Operational Contract Support Joint Exercise series, which was canceled after the 2018 edition due to budget constraints.

NASA has unveiled a comprehensive initiative to reform processes that may hinder underserved and underrepresented groups from pursuing contracting opportunities at the space agency.

Wednesday's announcement of Mission Equity comes after the agency issued a request for information on how it could open up more procurement and grant programs to people of color.

The RFI notice states that the agency will conduct research and use technology to support the implementation of President Biden’s Executive Order No. 13985, titled “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

Agency officials intend to provide further details of the public input collection effort at a June 29th virtual meeting and set a July 12 deadline for feedback submission.

“The agency’s new Mission Equity is a bold and necessary challenge for NASA to ensure our programs are accessible to all Americans and, especially, those living in historically underserved communities across the country,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has concluded operations of a nearly two-year-old spacecraft designed to serve as a testbed for various science experiments. 

The Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX) spacecraft ended its service life on May 31st after 706 days of activities on orbit, AFRL said Thursday. A SpaceX-made Falcon Heavy rocket sent DSX to space in 2019 for the Department of Defense's (DOD) Space Test Program.

DSX's total service life exceeded AFRL's initial expectation by almost a year. Michael Starks, who now leads DSX’s primary mission, said the spacecraft accommodated more than 1,300 experiments.

“This is a huge contribution to understanding how the space environment affects our spacecraft and how we can protect against it – it was a mission that only AFRL could do," he said.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has released a document to help organizations protect call processing systems from cyber threats. The report, titled “Deploying Secure Unified Communications/Voice and Video over IP Systems,” provides guidance on the security of Voice and Video over Internet Protocol (VVoIP) and Unified Communications (UC) systems.

Workplaces use VVoIP and UC systems to facilitate messaging, video conferencing and voice communications. NSA advises organizations to divide networks, limit device access, apply security patches as needed, encrypt media traffic and assess the security of devices before linking with networks.

The report also informs readers about the risks that may threaten VVoIP and UC systems if security measures are not applied. NSA also produced a smaller cybersecurity information sheet to complement the report and teach organizations steps to secure VVoIP and UC systems.