NASA will perform a second hotfire test of the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi no earlier than the last week of February, SpaceNews reported Friday.

The second static fire test of four RS-25 engines of the SLS core stage is the final step in the Green Run test campaign that kicked off a year ago. The test rerun was planned after the initial hotfire test fell short of the planned 485 seconds when a hydraulic system for one of the engines reached an “intentionally conservative” limit that prompted the flight computer to trigger a shutdown during the test.

NASA said engineers will upgrade the conservative logic parameters for the upcoming test, which will run for at least four minutes, and that it will take about a month to refurbish the SLS core stage following the second Green Run static-fire test before delivering it to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The SLS core stage will be part of the Artemis 1 unmanned lunar orbital test flight, which is expected to launch in November 2021.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and corporate investigators said they believe the operation of cyber attackers allegedly linked to Russia extended far beyond compromising SolarWinds’ Orion software and found that about 30 percent of victims in the private and government sectors were not using the software, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The hackers “gained access to their targets in a variety of ways. This adversary has been creative,” said Brandon Wales, acting director of CISA. “It is absolutely correct that this campaign should not be thought of as the SolarWinds campaign.” 

Malwarebytes, a computer security company, said the same hackers who targeted SolarWinds also compromised a number of its Microsoft 356 cloud email accounts by leveraging a vulnerability in the software’s configuration to secure access to email accounts. Malwarebytes noted that it does not use SolarWinds Orion.

A source said SolarWinds is now investigating whether hackers used Microsoft’s cloud as a primary entry point into its network.

“We continue to collaborate closely with federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to investigate the full scope of this unprecedented attack,” a spokesman for SolarWinds said in an email.

The cyber attack breached the departments of Homeland Security, State, Commerce, Energy, Labor and the Treasury and Wales said the ongoing investigation has identified dozens of organizations within the private sector as victims in the attack, bringing the total number of compromised institutions to well under 100.

“We continue to maintain that this is an espionage campaign designed for long-term intelligence collection,” Wales said.

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) science and technology directorate has cited how its network of laboratories support the department in carrying out operations. 

“Our in-house labs offer technical support, infrastructure and core capabilities that produce hard science to support the mission,” said Julie Brewer, director of S&T’s Office of National Laboratories (ONL). 

DHS said Thursday its laboratories work to optimize the department's field operations, assist in decision-making activities and provide insights on potential acquisitions.

S&T's Chemical Security Analysis Center is established to conduct studies on chemical hazards and threats while the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center helps FBI and DHS perform forensic analysis and threat characterization on biological agents.

NBACC also supported response efforts during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic.

National Urban Security Technology Laboratory demonstrates and evaluates various security capabilities while Plum Island Animal Disease Center studies and develops vaccines for foreign animal diseases.

Transportation Security Laboratory creates standards, protocols and test articles to support the evaluation of detection technologies. 

“These labs are key because their capabilities align to the core DHS mission, which allows us to do much of the science in-house. This allows for efficient and effective execution—especially when time is of the essence,” Brewer added.

The U.S. Army will use its experimental laboratories at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) to host integration activities for the U.S. military's joint warfighting systems, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.

APG will coordinate with service laboratories in the U.S. to run experiments on various joint warfighting concepts within virtual environments and gauge how they can work with one another.

"All this is happening at Aberdeen, which is going to federate across our entire country to touch all the different laboratories and essentially enable an environment that, through the interconnectivity, we can run the end-to-end joint mission threads and burn the risk out of doing it for real live," said Mike Monteleone, director at the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat Systems, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center's space and terrestrial communications directorate.

C5ISR Center is currently working on new infrastructure within a warehouse-like space at APG to accommodate joint partners and manage the increased need for integration tests.

According to the report, the service branches are developing joint warfighting capabilities in support of the Department of Defense's Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control program.

President Biden has issued a memo seeking to create a task force on scientific integrity to promote decision-making driven by scientific data.

"Scientific and technological information, data, and evidence are central to the development and iterative improvement of sound policies, and to the delivery of equitable programs, across every area of government," the memo stated. 

The memo directs the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to establish an interagency group under the National Science and Technology Council that will be responsible for evaluating current agency policies related to scientific integrity.

The task force’s 120-day review must be based on best practices in collaborating with federal scientists and professional contractors, as well as the news media and social media.

The group must also “prevent improper political interference” in policies involving scientific integrity and obtain input through events such as the OSTP’s virtual stakeholder summit.

In addition, the memo tasks the OSTP director to publish the task force’s findings on the agency's website a well as other public channels. Biden’s directive builds on prior scientific integrity memos signed in 2009 and 2010.

Ball Aerospace has completed the spacecraft and payload assembly integration of NASA’s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) space-based astrophysics observatory, the company reported on Friday. With the completion, Ball will start environmental testing of the observatory, including instruments and the spacecraft bus.

“It is truly a pleasure to work with an integrated team that includes government, industry, academia and international partners on a mission that will gather exciting and important science, supported by Ball’s commitment to delivering science at any scale,” said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace.

The observatory has been scheduled to launch in late-2021. Once on orbit, IXPE will measure the polarization of cosmic X-rays. The measurements will enable NASA to improve the understanding of the fundamental physics of extreme objects in the universe, such as black holes.

IXPE is a Small Explorer (SMEX) mission, under NASA’s Astrophysics Explorer Program, which is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and supported by Ball Aerospace, the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado Boulder and other partners.

Under the mission, Ball will deliver the IXPE spacecraft, mechanical and structural elements of the payload, observatory assembly, and integration and test. The spacecraft for IXPE is based on Ball’s smallest Ball Configurable Platform (BCP) model.

Previously, Ball developed a similar BCP for NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM). The company also built two additional BCP small satellites that are currently performing on orbit: STPSat-2 and STPSat-3.

STPSat-2 launched in November 2010, and STPSat-3 launched in November 2013. The two STP satellites were developed for the U.S. Air Force Space Test Program’s Standard Interface Vehicle (STP-SIV) project.

“Moving IXPE into environmental testing is an important step gearing up towards launch this year as it ensures the observatory will be able to withstand the effects of the launch into space,” Lystrup added.