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Ball Aerospace Completes CDR of MethaneSAT Flight System; Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, Cassandra Ely Quoted
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Ball Aerospace Completes CDR of MethaneSAT Flight System; Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, Cassandra Ely Quoted

Ball Aerospace has successfully completed the critical design review (CDR) of the flight system and advanced spectrometer instrument that will be integrated onto a 350-kilogram satellite for MethaneSAT, a subsidiary of the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Ball Aerospace reported on Monday. The completion of CDR has enabled Ball to move into part fabrication and assembly.

"MethaneSAT aligns with Ball's commitment to earth science, sustainability and delivering science at any scale," said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace. "We have worked closely and collaboratively with the customer and other partners to develop extremely sensitive sensor technology critical to spotting methane emissions that previously would have gone undetected."

The Ball-designed MethaneSAT Instrument will measure a narrow part of the shortwave infrared spectrum where methane absorbs light, allowing it to detect concentrations as low as two parts per billion. 

From Low-Earth Orbit, the satellite will locate and measure emissions of methane sources across the globe with precision and at fine enough detail to identify these sources. The mission is expected to launch in 2022 to support EDF's stated goal of achieving a 45 percent reduction in methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 2025.

Ball recently built LIDAR and wide-field camera instruments for NASA's Cloud-Aerosol LIDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission and the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollutions (TEMPO) instrument to measure air quality for a NASA mission. 

"This is a complex, technically challenging mission driven by the profound urgency of climate change. An intensive design process up front ensures that we can move quickly from here. The result is a more powerful measurement tool than even we thought possible," said Cassandra Ely, director at MethaneSAT. 

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.

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GAO Identifies 16 Mission-Critical Federal IT Acquisition Programs
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GAO Identifies 16 Mission-Critical Federal IT Acquisition Programs

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified and profiled 16 mission-critical information technology acquisitions of federal agencies.

GAO said Tuesday agencies noted that they expect to generate cost savings from 13 of those mission-critical IT acquisitions once deployed due to a number of factors, including security improvement, legacy system shutdown and elimination of paper-based processes.

The congressional watchdog identified risk factors and challenges to each of the 16 IT acquisition programs, including information privacy risks, cost constraints, schedule slippages and workforce issues.

The mission-critical IT programs profiled in the GAO report include the Department of Defense’s Global Combat Support System-Army and Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization; the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHR) of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Next Generation Identification System.

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Christopher Krebs: Agencies Shifting to Telework Should Boost Investments in Cyber Tools
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Christopher Krebs: Agencies Shifting to Telework Should Boost Investments in Cyber Tools

Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and a 2020 Wash100 Awardee, said agencies transitioning to the cloud to support telework should consolidate and increase investments in security tools to better manage cyber threats, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

"We have to make sure that … when we have all these federal agencies that are shifting to a remote work environment or have shifted to a remote environment, that are introducing new risks, that are expanding their attack surface, that we don’t take our foot off the gas in terms of the progress we’ve made through programs like [Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation],” Krebs said Tuesday at the annual Billington cybersecurity conference.

“We should be doubling down on those investments right now, we should be accelerating the deployment of security tools like endpoint detection and response,” he added.

Krebs noted that CISA and other agencies that had moved to the cloud were able to steer clear of some vulnerabilities associated with virtual private networks that threat actors home in during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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JAIC’s Nand Mulchandani on Software-Defined Warfare, Joint All-Domain C2
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JAIC’s Nand Mulchandani on Software-Defined Warfare, Joint All-Domain C2

Nand Mulchandani, acting director of the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said software will play a decisive role in competing against adversaries in fast-paced future fights because rewriting code is faster than upgrading physical weapons, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

“The organization that’s going to be victorious in the future is going to be the organization [with] the maximum agility to bring out new capabilities and learn very, very quickly how to adapt,” Mulchandani told the publication in an interview.

“The speed at which you are able to change your tactics, change your planning, and react to changes your adversary is making is fundamentally where the game is going in the future – and the only way to take advantage of that… is to be more software-centric rather than being hardware-centric,” he added.

Mulchandani said the Joint All-Domain Command and Control program is not a “single piece of software” that will operate on a single network but will work as a meta-network designed to facilitate sharing of intelligence and data across ground, maritime, air, space and cyber domains.

“JADC2 allows you to start interconnecting and doing planning around very complex maneuvers [and then] execute those complex things in order," he said.

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Air Force to Highlight Digital Transformation Effort on Virtual Event
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Air Force to Highlight Digital Transformation Effort on Virtual Event

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is slated to host a virtual industry day Sept. 21 to discuss the service branch's digital transformation initiative and strategy to industry and academia.

The industry day will showcase digital engineering efforts from select programs and expound how the Air Force and the U.S. Space Force will conduct business in the future, USAF said Friday. The Air Force aims to share best practices and encourage collaborations and feedback from the academia and industry via the event.

"We need to fully take advantage of digital tools and approaches to improve time and efficiency in each acquisition phase," said Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr., commander at Air Force Materiel Command.

Interested participants have until Sept. 19 to register for the event via the Beta SAM website.

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DHS Issues Explosive Trace Detector RFI
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DHS Issues Explosive Trace Detector RFI

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking for sources of explosive trace detectors that can analyze samples from vehicles, baggage and various objects. DHS said Friday it aims to explore the usage of detectors that could yield analysis results in less than a minute.

“Explosives trace detectors are one of the primary tools that front-line local, state, tribal and federal security personnel have at their disposal to detect explosives hidden in packages, vehicles, luggage and other items,” said John Kada, a chemist at the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory.

Kada added ETDs are used to intercept explosives and mitigate terrorist activities. Responses to the request for information are due Oct. 8.

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IRS Seeks Methods to Improve Procurement via Labor Data
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IRS Seeks Methods to Improve Procurement via Labor Data

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has launched a $7M solicitation to help the U.S. government improve deliveries of products and services, Nextgov reported Friday. The solicitation calls for industry to propose ideas on how to gather, analyze, visualize and manage labor data relevant to procurement.

The agency launched the solicitation through the Pilot IRS experimental contract vehicle in alignment with the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Frictionless Acquisition effort. OMB wants to have commercial item deliveries run at marketplace speeds.

“Maximizing the use of existing labor/wage data will result in better acquisition planning, improved contract negotiations and lower taxpayer costs," IRS said in the request for proposal notice.

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Army Opens New ARCYBER Headquarters in Georgia; Gen. Paul Nakasone Quoted
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Army Opens New ARCYBER Headquarters in Georgia; Gen. Paul Nakasone Quoted

The U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) has opened its new headquarters location at Fort Gordon in Georgia as part of the Army’s plans to consolidate the component's cyberspace, education, training and capability development operations. The new facility, dubbed Fortitude Hall, spans 336,000 square-feet and is valued at $366 million, the Army said Thursday.

Ron Pontius, deputy to the commanding general at ARCYBER, told attendees at the facility's dedication ceremony that the new location will help streamline ARCYBER’s network, defense and offense operations while driving collaboration between cyber forces and Cyber Center of Excellence (CCoE) trainers.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commander of ARCYBER, noted that the new location will facilitate collaborative partnerships for electronic warfare, information operations and cyber initiatives.

"Due to the partnerships that ARCYBER built and nurtured to date, the Army’s operational and institutional cyber forces enjoy unprecedented synergies, operating from a single, information power projection platform," said Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) and a 2020 Wash100 Award recipient.

 ARCYBER previously partnered with Augusta-based academic and government entities including the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Georgia segment, he added. The Army first announced plans to consolidate its cyber organizations spread across three states and various facilities in 2013.

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Vice Adm. Ross Myers to Lead Navy’s Fleet Cyber; Gen. Paul Nakasone Quoted
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Vice Adm. Ross Myers to Lead Navy’s Fleet Cyber; Gen. Paul Nakasone Quoted

Vice Adm. Ross Myers, former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, has been assigned to lead Fleet Cyber, a command tasked to administer the U.S. Navy's information and cyber activities. 

Myers leaves his USCYBERCOM post to Maj. Gen. Charles Moore who also received a promotion to lieutenant general. , USCYBERCOM said Thursday.

“As the J5, chief of staff and then the deputy commander, Ross has demonstrated his appreciation for partnership as a foundational leadership principle,” said Gen. Paul Nakasone, USCYBERCOM's commander and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient. 

Myers' experience includes commandership over naval aviation forces such as Carrier Air Wing Five. He also served as USCYBERCOM's chief of staff and deputy executive assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations. Moore, Myers' successor, most recently served as USCYBERCOM's director of operations.

“To have the opportunity to continue to serve on the Cyber Command team and in close partnership with NSA is very humbling and exciting," Moore said.

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Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Steven Mnuchin Agree on Continuing Resolution Ahead of FY 2021
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Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Steven Mnuchin Agree on Continuing Resolution Ahead of FY 2021

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have entered into an agreement to introduce a short-term spending bill to prevent a government shutdown at the start of fiscal year 2021.

Mnuchin told Fox News that he and the House speaker agreed to work on a continuing resolution to extend the US government’s spending beyond Sept. 30th, The Washington Post reported Monday. He noted that he expects the resolution to secure government funding through December 2020, according to the report.

“The speaker and I have agreed we don’t want to see a government shutdown,” said Mnuchin. “The most important thing is to make sure at the end of the month, we don’t shut down the government and we get something past the election."

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