Tim Persons, chief scientist of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said GAO is working to digitally transform its operations through cloud-based analytics and artificial intelligence., Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

Persons said on the Federal Monthly Insights radio show that GAO needs modern computing and processing to assess and address the government's issues.

The agency has been working with the General Services Administration (GSA) to develop a refined cloud infrastructure over the past year, among other similar efforts.

GAO develops the infrastructure and other technologies at the agency's dedicated Innovation Lab, where Persons and his colleagues use a problem-based approach to develop applications.

Persons noted that the agency will only use AI and machine learning as supplements to human personnel, who will still serve as the center of operations.

The U.S. Air Force's AFWERX innovation program partnered with Kitty Hawk to test the Heaviside electric aircraft in an operational exercise last month.

AFWERX's Agility Prime program and Kitty Hawk, a company focused on electric flight transportation, demonstrated the aircraft's remote flight and automated capabilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Air Force Research Laboratory said Monday.

“This exercise produced important data that will bolster the program going forward,” said Lt. Col. Martin Salinas, who leads the mission design team at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center.

The Heaviside electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft demonstrated the ability to support evacuation, logistics and personnel recovery during the exercise.

California-based Kitty Hawk developed Heaviside, which is designed to fly at a maximum speed of 180 miles per hour.

Huntington Ingalls Industries and the U.S. Navy have released the first Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer designated to assume the new Flight III configuration. The ship launched from HII's Ingalls Shipbuilding division last Friday.

The future USS Jack H. Lucas, also known as DDG 125, will feature the new AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar, power generation updates and augmented cooling capacity, the Navy said Monday. 

“Flight III ships will provide cutting edge integrated air and missile defense capability to include significantly greater detection range and tracking capacity," said Capt. Seth Miller, program manager for the Arleigh Burke-class.

Four other ships from the same class, including the future USS Ted Stevens, are under construction at HII facilities. 

The Department of Energy (DOE) has unveiled an effort to accelerate the implementation of reliable clean energy by reducing clean hydrogen costs. DOE said Monday the first part of its Energy Earthshots initiative, titled Hydrogen Shot, aims to drive down clean hydrogen costs by 80 percent over a decade, from $5 per kilogram to $1 per kg.

The department expects this effort to address climate-related issues and help the U.S. government achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

“The Energy Earthshots are an all-hands-on-deck call for innovation, collaboration and acceleration of our clean energy economy by tackling the toughest remaining barriers to quickly deploy emerging clean energy technologies at scale,” said Jennifer Granholm, secretary of Energy.

The effort provides a framework that would guide how the U.S. would achieve the cost reduction goal. DOE also seeks information on greenhouse gases, environmental justice, hydrogen production and other specific topics related to hydrogen cost reduction. Interested parties may submit input through July 7th.

The airspace mission planning division at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts is developing a cloud-based application to support the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control vision.

USAF said Monday the tool will use a collaborative microservice-based platform, called the JMPS Open Mission System, and the Cloud One computing environment as part of a project to update the branch’s Joint Mission Planning System.

The service has used JMPS software in military aircraft operation, refueling and training since 2008.

Emily Coppin, program manager at Hanscom’s airspace mission planning division, said the team will apply a service-oriented architecture to automate the current system and manage user experience.

JMPS recorded 75 percent faster reporting rate during an October 2020 virtual demonstration with the branch’s CloudOne environment.

The team at Hanscom expects its JOMS architecture to be fully deployed in 2027.

Linda Burger, a director of a National Security Agency (NSA) office, has been elected as the Federal Laboratory Consortium's (FLC) executive board chair, responsible for driving the implementation of FLC initiatives meant to help consortium members and stakeholders.

Burger, NSA's Office of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA) director, will start her two-year term at the federal technology transfer organization in October, NSA said Monday.

According to the elected executive board chair, she will team up with other national laboratory leaders to advance understanding and application of the Federal Technology Transfer Act.

Burger has been working to increase T2 collaborations between NSA, which is a federal lab and an FLC member, and its external partners to implement T2 authorities to achieve the agency's mission goals. National-level engagement is one of the ORTA director's efforts to drive federal technology development.

The FLC, which was was organized in 1974, represents over 300 federal laboratories, agencies and research centers. The consortium was chartered by the T2 legislation.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) demonstrated a multilayer architecture designed to detect and counter small unmanned aerial systems in recent tests at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as part of DARPA’s Mobile Force Protection program.

The drone interceptor system zeroed in on UAS threats using an X-band radar during the demonstration, DARPA said Monday.

The radar senses UAS threats and pairs drone targets to interceptors via an automated decision engine linked to a command and control system that guides and launches fixed- and rotary-wing interceptors with two types of UAS countermeasures.

“Because we were focusing on protecting mobile assets, the program emphasized solutions with a small footprint in terms of size, weight, and power,” said MFP program manager Gregory Avicola at DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. “This also allows for more affordable systems and less operators.

Dynetics serves as the primary systems integrator on the MFP program, which seeks to develop an integrated platform of sensors, autonomy and mitigation systems to counter drone threats over military installations and protect mobile assets moving through potentially populated areas.

DARPA said it is collaborating with service branches to transition MFP program technologies into acquisition programs.

The second unmanned surface vessel, named NOMAD, of the Ghost Fleet Overlord program passed through the Panama Canal and completed its transit to the Pacific. The USV traveled 4,421 nautical miles from the Gulf Coast to the West Coast, moving autonomously 98 percent of the time, the Department of Defense said Monday.

DOD’s office of the secretary of defense strategic capabilities office and the U.S. Navy performed the second long-range autonomous transit with NOMAD. The Ghost Fleet Overlord program’s first vessel, dubbed RANGER, completed a similar trip in October 2020. Both vessels were in manual mode when they traversed the Panama Canal.

“This is another significant milestone for SCO’s Ghost Fleet Overlord program and supports the Navy’s Unmanned Campaign Framework by adding a second Overlord vessel to the West Coast,” said SCO Director Jay Dryer.

“The SCO Ghost Fleet Overlord program serves to inform Navy prototype efforts by integrating mature technologies to accelerate service priorities and is a key piece of the build a little, test a little, and learn a lot philosophy articulated in the Navy Unmanned Campaign Framework,” Dryer added.

Sailors from the Navy’s Surface Development Squadron One performed the remote mission for the NOMAD transit, which provided DOD and the service a chance to further test autonomous operations and vessel endurance, among others.

Two additional USV prototypes for the Ghost Fleet Overlord program are under construction and the Navy will use those to expand its experimentation and testing initiatives.

The program’s second phase that started in Sept. 2019 is expected to wrap up in early 2022. By that time, the Navy will oversee those vessels for further experimentation.