The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House passed Tuesday, will develop a 5G cross-functional team inside the Department of Defense (DoD), and name a chief information officer (CIO) to spearhead the initiative, Defense News reported on Wednesday.

The NDAA will shift the 5G project from the research phase to an operational program. Following the DoD’s announcement of $600 million in funds to support 5G experiments at military bases across the nation, the experiments have the potential to become operational technologies. 

If signed into law, the NDAA would direct the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, with support from the 5G cross-functional team, to create a plan for transitioning 5G wireless technology to operational use within the DoD.

The transition plan would need to include a “timeline for the transition of responsibility for 5G wireless networking to the chief information officer.” Additionally, the secretary of defense must name the CIO by Oct. 1, 2023.

“The secretary of defense shall designate the chief information officer as the senior official within DoD with primary responsibility for policy, oversight, guidance, research and coordination on matters relating to 5G wireless networking; and making proposals to the secretary on governance, management and organizational policy for 5G wireless networking,” the legislation stated.

The 5G cross-functional team will work across a variety of challenges related to 5G wireless network, including establishing acquisition authorities, strategy implementation, advancing adoption of next-generation commercial 5G technology, facilitating public-private partnerships and coordinating research and development.

The team will also be responsible for initiatives advancing 5G wireless network technologies. 5G cross-functional team will be charged with integrating  5G wireless networking into programs and initiatives “relating to secure microelectronics and command and control.”

The legislation places 5G procurement authorities with military department secretaries. The department would have to create a 5G security program to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in the 5G telecommunications infrastructure.

Ball Aerospace has supported the completion of the preliminary design review (PDR) for NASA's Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), the company reported on Wednesday. 

"This latest program milestone is an important step forward in realizing NASA's mission to peer into the history of the universe," said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace.

Ball has been charged with building the spacecraft and telescope. The company is also responsible for system integration and test, support for integration of the spacecraft onto a launch vehicle and commissioning of the spacecraft after launch.

The SPHEREx bus will be based on the Ball Configurable Platform (BCP) spacecraft. Ball’s platform has been designed for flexible, cost-effective applications. It will leverage a common spacecraft bus and standard payload interfaces to reduce cost, streamline payload accommodation and minimize delivery time. 

With PDR complete, the SPHEREx project will enter critical design review to complete the Key Decision Point C process in coordination with NASA, prior to beginning the implementation phase.

"Ball has a long heritage of delivering new and innovative solutions for tomorrow's science questions, partnering with our customers and the science community to provide science at any scale," Lystrup added.

About Ball Corporation

Ball Corporation (NYSE: BLL) supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ more than 18,300 people worldwide and reported 2019 net sales of $11.5 billion.

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued a draft internal report on an approach based on hardware-enabled security to help protect application containers in multi-tenant cloud environments.

NCCoE said Monday that the document also provides information about the prototype implementation that the general security community can use as a template or blueprint.

The document also describes the three stages of the prototype implementation. Stage 0 focuses on platform attestation and measured worker node launch. Stage 1 deals with trusted workload placement, while Stage 2 focuses on asset tagging and trusted location.

Comments and feedback on the draft report “Hardware-Enabled Security: Container Platform Security Prototype” are due Jan. 29th.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has freed up 280 megahertz of mid-band spectrum in the 3.7-3.98 gigahertz band for 5G networks. The mid-band 5G spectrum auction will make available 5,684 flexible-use overlay licenses based on partial economic areas, FCC said Tuesday.

“By freeing up this wide swath of critical mid-band spectrum, the FCC is paving the way for Americans to receive fast 5G wireless services,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

The commission received commitments from satellite operators using the C-band to free up the 3.7-3.98 GHz band and move into the C-band’s upper portion. The transition’s initial phase is expected to be completed by Dec. 5, 2021, while the next phase will conclude by Dec. 5, 2023.