The Department of Energy (DOE) has commenced efforts to design and build a new $75 million facility that would support clean energy research and implementation. The new Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL) will operate from the Richland, Washington-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), DOE said Wednesday.

“The Grid Storage Launchpad facility will bring together researchers and industry from around the country to modernize and add flexibility to the power grid, advance storage technologies and boost use of clean energy,” said Jennifer Granholm, secretary of energy.

GSL will house collaborative and multidisciplinary research, tests of energy storage systems and accelerated technology development. Thirty laboratories will compose the facility’s research workspace, including testing chambers.

PNNL will select a contractor for GSL’s design and build, as DOE expects construction activities to start later this year. The department also anticipates the future facility to be ready for operations by 2025.

The House Armed Services Committee has formed a task force that will work with the Department of Defense (DOD) to identify critical supplies and address potential vulnerabilities in the supply chain, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

The Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force falls under the leadership of Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and will run for three months.

Slotkin said in a prior press call that she expects the task force to address issues related to critical supplies such as personal protective equipment, semiconductors and advanced battery components.

Slotkin and Gallagher noted that the task force’s work will build on ideas from the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI). 

Gallagher added that risks in the supply chain also result from an “extreme geographic concentration” of manufacturing activities in China, particularly on 5G technologies.

Amentum announced a new partnership with UiPath on Thursday. The agreement stipulates that the companies will work jointly to extend the benefits of robotic process automation (RPA) adopted by many federal agencies to mission-oriented customers in Amentum’s portfolio of national significance programs.

“With this new partnership, Amentum is well-positioned to change the paradigm, taking process automation out of the back office and giving it a new mission orientation,” remarked Jill Bruning, president of Amentum and former Wash100 Award recipient.

The partnership will focus on delivering multiple automation aspects to the companies’ clients. Such elements include mission support, sustainment, operations, maintenance, threat mitigation, assurance, supply chain and logistics.

Amentum’s products apply to various domains and accentuate its advanced analytics software by providing robust processes and a technology platform to develop software bots that automate routine, repetitive business processes.

UiPath is a RPA software company founded in 2005. Its RPA services pair well with Amentum’s advanced analytics products. RPA software produced by this partnership aims to automate low-value work so staff can devote more time to crucial non-automated business elements.

The partnership also complements Amentum’s recent launch of the Center of Excellence for Advanced Process Automation. The Center was a significant step in maturing the company’s automation offerings.

Amentum is a global technology and engineering services partner with over 34,000 employees in all 50 U.S. states and 105 foreign countries. It supports critical national significance programs in the defense, security, intelligence, energy and environmental sectors.

“Our partnership with UiPath will help our mission-critical customers achieve the benefits of automation and provide trusted support throughout their digital transformation journeys,” concluded Bruning.

Bob Kolasky, assistant director of the National Risk Management Center (NRMC), said the key to 5G implementation is having software security tools to isolate sources of risk and prevent subsequent vulnerabilities, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) official said that isolating elements will make networks easier to handle and enable tech teams to “deal with issues as they emerge.”

Thyagarajan Nandagopal, acting deputy division director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate within the National Science Foundation (NSF), said that implementing 5G will require concurrent operations with LTE-driven 4G networks.

He noted that the rolling out of next-generation equipment will enable customers to transition out of LTE and into a 5G network over time.

Ryan Vega, the lead for diffusion of excellence at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Center for Innovation, noted that testing and evaluating emerging technologies like 5G for the benefit of patients and clinicians will serve as a key focus area for the department this fiscal year.

He added that he expects to see more prevalent usage of connected devices in homes as well as acute care.

Lt. Gen. Laura Potter, the U.S. Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, G-2, said her office focuses on four priorities and those are people, readiness, modernization and allies and partners, National Defense reported Wednesday.

She said the service is advancing the “people” priority by identifying the skills future intelligence analysts should possess and looking for ways to help them excel in artificial intelligence and machine learning areas.

“If you think of the volumes of data that we have to analyze, the speed with which we will have to analyze it, and the way we have to synchronize for high-end conflict, we really need to look at what those analysts’ skills look like,” Potter said Wednesday during an Association of the United States Army-hosted webinar. 

When it comes to readiness, Potter said the Army is pursuing the regionally aligned readiness and modernization model or ReARMM.

“Army ReARMM will inform intelligence ReARMM, and that will help us steer the level at which we modernize the entire force and ensure that we've got units capable of supporting each one of the theaters,” Potter said. 

The Potomac Officers Club will hold its 3rd Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 30 to foster discussions on how to advance AI technology at speed and how private-public partnerships are key to maintaining the competitive advantage within the tech race. To register for this virtual summit and view other upcoming events, visit the Potomac Officers Club Events page.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) should set new expected dates of completion for tasks in the third phase of its organizational plan that are past their planned completion dates and prioritize tasks that are key to mission effectiveness.

GAO made the recommendation after it found that CISA had concluded only 37 of 97 planned phase three tasks by mid-February and that 42 of those unfinished tasks were past their planned dates of completion, including the release of a memo that outlines incident management roles across CISA and finalization of mission-critical functions of divisions within the agency, according to a report published Wednesday.

“Until it establishes updated milestones and an overall deadline for its efforts, and expeditiously carries out these plans, CISA will be hindered in meeting the goals of its organizational transformation initiative. This in turn may impair the agency's ability to identify and respond to incidents, such as the cyberattack discovered in December 2020 that caused widespread damage,” the GAO report reads.

CISA’s organizational transformation initiative has three phases and the congressional watchdog found that the agency within the Department of Homeland Security completed the first two of the phases that led to the consolidation of multiple centers for incident response and creation of a new organization chart, among others. The third phase is focused on implementing CISA’s planned organizational changes.

GAO also recommended that CISA establish an overall deadline to complete its organizational plan, develop a strategy for workforce planning and devise plans to develop outcome-oriented performance measures to assess whether the agency’s efforts meet the goals of its organizational transformation initiative.

The Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology (DHS S&T) directorate has released 23 topics for a broad agency announcement (LRBAA) that seeks to gather proposals on novel approaches that may address DHS’ operational needs.

DHS said Tuesday that it aims to build prototypes, test and mature various technologies for homeland security usage through the LRBAA.

The topics are divided into six research and development areas such as managing incidents, protecting from terrorist attacks, preventing terrorism and securing borders, aviation and cyberspace.

“Unlike a traditional acquisition solicitation or even a conventional broad agency announcement, the LRBAA covers a wide range of DHS R&D needs with broad topics to facilitate the ability to partner on unique and creative solutions,” said Dusty Lang, LRBAA program manager at DHS S&T.

The topics are:

• Advanced Computing Technologies
• Air Based Technologies
• Biometric Technologies for Extending, Augmenting, or Improving DHS Identity and Verification Capabilities
• Countering Unmanned Aircraft Systems
• Data Analytics
• Detection Canine Technologies
• Distributed Denial of Service Defense
• Enhanced Contact and Non-Contact Trace Explosives Sampling and Detection
• GMD and Nuclear EMP Critical Infrastructure Risk
• Low-Cost Tactical Communication Devices for Information Sharing in Remote Environments
• Maritime Domain Awareness Technologies
• Mobile Security & Resiliency R&D
• Non-Invasive, Minimally Disruptive Sensors and Systems
• Predictive Analytics
• Prevention, Diagnosis and Mitigation of Transboundary Agricultural Pests and Diseases
• Resilient Position, Navigation, and Timing
• Screening at Speed
• Screening of Dense Material in Air Cargo Skids
• Software Assurance
• Technology Acceptance
• Threat Prevention
• Vehicle Ramming Mitigation Technology
• X-Ray Screener Tools

NASA has prepared a clean, controlled facility where personnel would assemble an upcoming lunar rover, which will travel to the Moon's south pole in search of ice and water. 

The space agency said Wednesday that it established the Surface Segment Integration and Test Facility at Houston-based Johnson Space Center for the assembly of the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER).

The cleanroom, which measures over 1,000 square feet, features new particle counters and air filtration units designed to maintain the facility's cleanliness. NASA must make sure that the rover is not contaminated with anything that would interfere with the spacecraft's solar arrays and scientific measurement tools.

The team in charge of the rover also built a full-scale VIPER replica to practice for the actual vehicle's assembly over a three-month rehearsal period. David Petri, system integration and test lead for VIPER, said his team needs to immediately address errors that might affect the rover's development timeline.

The space agency wants to build VIPER by summer 2022, before the launch scheduled for 2023. VIPER's findings would support NASA's Artemis program, an effort to revive manned space exploration.