The U.S. Air Force has unveiled a new Boeing-built fighter jet to help the service branch meet its capacity goals while providing operational and developmental testing opportunities for USAF aircraft.

Boeing will provide a maximum of 144 F-15EX Eagle II jets to support the Air Force’s efforts to increase the F-15 fleet’s readiness capacity and replace the F-15C/D variants, the service said Wednesday.

The Air Force’s 96th Test Wing and 53rd Wing are slated to commence testing and evaluation activities with the 40th Flight Test Squadron for F-15EX.

Lt. Gen. Duke Richardson, military deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, unveiled the fighter jet Wednesday during a ceremony at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

“I’m pleased to say we’ve responded boldly and decisively, with a proven platform that’s modernized and optimized to maintain air superiority now and into the future,” he said.

The first formal training unit for F-15EX will operate under the 173rd Fighter Wing at the Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base in Oregon by 2024. Oregon ANG will also house the operational squadron for the fighter fleet.

The National Security Agency (NSA) plans to publish unclassified guidance to educate the public on the security risks of 5G infrastructure, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday. Wendy Noble, executive director of NSA, said the agency plans to release the document in spring.

NSA is will base the future guidance on research from the Enduring Security Framework (ESF), a public-private partnership that aims to address risks that threaten critical infrastructure and national security systems.

The Department of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security (DHS) work with the intelligence community and commercial companies to run ESF, which now focuses on 5G adoption.

ESF’s 5G-focused work generally aims to model related threats, maximize virtualization and help 5G infrastructure recover from potential attacks.

A NASA mission to study Bennu has concluded flyover activities and is moving away from the near-Earth asteroid following “Touch and Go” material excavation and sample collection operations.

NASA said Thursday that the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission completed its flyby on April 7th at 6 a.m. EDT.

The agency’s OSIRIS-REx team will conduct assessments of surface changes on Bennu after TAG activities that took place in October 2020. During the flyby, OSIRIS-REx facilitated imaging procedures for 5.9 hours at a distance of approximately 2.1 miles from the asteroid’s surface to capture over a full rotation.

The mission will use the Deep Space Network to downlink data to ground stations, which are slated to receive the data no earlier than April 13. OSIRIS-Rex will remain within Bennu’s vicinity until it commences a two-year return trip on May 10. The mission is scheduled to return to Earth by Sept. 24, 2023.

Mike Moreau, deputy project manager for the OSIRIS-REx mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said the mission collected around 4,000 megabytes of data during the flyover.

NASA previously selected Lockheed Martin’s space business to construct the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and provide flight operations support.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ: CMTL), a world leader in secure wireless communications technologies, announced today, that during its third quarter of fiscal 2021, its Location Technologies group, a division of Comtech’s Commercial Solutions segment, was awarded a $1.3 million contract renewal to support messaging services.

“This valued customer has relied on Comtech for over 20 years for short message service center support,” said Fred Kornberg, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Comtech Telecommunications Corp. “We have a proven track record with this tier-one mobile network operator and our messaging technology serves as the mainstay for its customer offering.”

The Location Technologies group of Comtech Telecommunications Corp. is a leading provider of precise device location, mapping and messaging solutions for public safety, mobile network operators, and enterprise solutions. Sold around the world to mobile network operators, government agencies, and Fortune 100 enterprises, our platforms locate, map, track and message.

Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, said the U.S. Navy plans to conduct four tests to assess its network integration capabilities in 2021, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

The tests will “allow us to bring more networks into that network-of-networks construct,” he said Wednesday at a Center for a New American Security event. “So that’s testing more data on more networks and introducing more battle management aids to put the end-user in a position where they can see the battlespace better.”

Gilday said the tests will enable the service to merge more systems with new applications and combine siloed networks into the “network-of-networks” operation to provide internet of things (IoT)-like capability for the Navy. 

Network integration is one of the four components in the service’s plan to advance the Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept. The other three are battle management applications, agile software development and common data standards.

“The reason why this is so important is, first off, we need to maintain decision advantage over the adversary,” Gilday said of the tests.

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National Institute of Standards and Technology researchers and collaborators have determined the direction or the “angle of arrival” of an incoming radio signal using an atom-based sensor.

“This new work, in conjunction with our previous work on atom-based sensors and receivers, gets us one step closer to a true atom-based communication system to benefit 5G and beyond,” Chris Holloway, project leader, said in a statement published Monday.

To determine the signal’s direction of arrival, researchers measured the phase differences of an experimental 19.18 gigahertz signal at two different locations inside the sensor filled with cesium atoms.

The research, which is part of the NIST on a Chip program and the agency’s research on advanced communications, could lead to the development of an atom-based communications platform that could be smaller and less susceptible to noise and interference.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) plans to conduct its invoice payment processing using the Delphi eInvoicing System, an internet-based portal designed for financial management activities and expects to complete the transition to the new platform on May 21st.

OPM said in a Federal Register notice posted Wednesday the migration will require OPM vendors to submit invoices through the new system to receive grant payments.

According to the agency, OPM's Office of Chief Financial Officer is working with the Department of Transportation (DoT) and its Enterprise Services Center on the effort.

The real-time invoicing tool is designed to streamline invoice and payment processing and to deliver more accurate invoice status reports.