The Department of Defense (DoD) has named five DoD locations to participate in the Phase III trial evaluating the vaccine candidate under development by AstraZeneca for Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the department’s goal to deliver safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19 by 2021. 

“The Department of Defense continues to play a key role in the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,” said Hon. Tom McCaffery, assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs (OASD(HA)). “Now that vaccines have passed the first phases of testing for safety, dosing and response, we are ready to move into the next phase where volunteers are needed to join large clinical studies.”

The DoD has selected Naval Medical Center San Diego; Joint Base San Antonio Brooke Army Medical Center; Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center (San Antonio); Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (Bethesda, MD); and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital (Fort Belvoir, VA). 

To ensure that the vaccines work to protect those at greatest risk, participation by people from communities that are hardest hit is critical. The study will investigate people who are at an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. 

The DoD has identified people of increased risk, including those working in an essential job; living in densely populated residential environments; living or working in congregated living facilities; and members of a communities that has been hardest hit by this pandemic.

OWS is a government, interagency initiative that is focused on delivering 300 million doses of a safe, effective vaccine for COVID-19 and is part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing and distribution of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for the COVID-19 virus.

The DoD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) has worked in coordination with the OASD(HA) and the Defense Health Agency (DHA) to support OWS.

VMware has launched the company’s 5G Telco Cloud Platform, a cloud solution featuring a field proven, carrier-grade and high-performance cloud native infrastructure with intelligent automation, the company reported on Sept. 1. 

“With support for cloud native technologies in the Telco Cloud Platform, CSPs can now boost their innovation speed to deliver new applications and services, reduce operational complexities, and realize substantial total cost of ownership savings, further accelerating the rollout of their 5G networks,” said Shekar Ayyar, EVP and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware. 

The VMWare platform will include Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, an embedded Kubernetes distribution, that will allow Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to reliably build, manage and run containerized workloads across private, telco, edge and public clouds.

VMWare’s solution will integrate innovative 5G services, powered by a modernized cloud that delivers web-scale speed and agility while maintaining carrier-grade performance, resiliency and quality. The company’s innovative multi-cloud platform will also accelerate the rollout of 5G networks and modernize operational models through multi-layer automation with seamless integration. 

The Telco Cloud Platform will deploy innovative applications and services to market faster in the highly competitive 5G communications landscape and provide a cloud-first network architecture to accelerate 5G and edge innovation while delivering service agility, operational consistency and integrated lifecycle management automation from infrastructure up to network services. 

The 5G ready Telco Cloud Platform is tailored for CSPs to easily embrace cloud native technology and deliver applications and services across multi-cloud infrastructure. Telco Cloud Infrastructure will feature a consistent, unified platform to deliver operations for both Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and Cloud Native Network Functions (CNFs) across telco networks. 

The VMware solution will also optimize the delivery of network services with telco centric enhancements to support distributed cloud deployments and provide scalability and performance. 

“In a 5G world, complexity from dynamic network functions and configurable services requires automated collection, analysis, and control of operations data to establish customer insight and service management boundaries,” said Karl Whitelock, VP Communications Service Provider Operations and Monetization, at IDC Research. 

Join Potomac Officers Club for its 5G Summit on Oct. 27, 2020 to learn about the impact that innovative technologies and 5G integration have on the private and public sectors, the steps the federal agencies have taken to remain up to speed with the rapid advancement of technology, and the future programs, plans and priorities as the nation aligns with emerging technology.

Hon. Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense (DoD) and four-time Wash100 Award recipient, will be featured as the keynote speaker. Don’t miss out on this must see event! Register here for the 5G Summit on October 27th.

About VMware

VMware software powers the world’s complex digital infrastructure. The company’s cloud, networking and security, and digital workspace offerings provide a dynamic and efficient digital foundation to customers globally, aided by an extensive ecosystem of partners. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to being a force for good, from its breakthrough innovations to its global impact. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a report to provide updates on DHS’ efforts to address vulnerabilities posed by electromagnetic pulses and improve the resilience of the country’s electrical grid and other critical infrastructure against an EMP attack.

The EMP Program Status Report details how DHS promotes resilience through collaboration with other federal agencies and the private sector, risk assessments, data analysis and evaluation, testing and pilot programs and vulnerability assessments, CISA said Thursday.

“EMP attacks are part of the emerging threats against our nation and demand a response,” said Ken Cuccinelli, senior official and acting deputy secretary at DHS. “That is why DHS is taking these contingencies very seriously, working diligently to mitigate our risks and equipping our state and local partners with the resources they need to do the same. We’ve made significant progress and look forward to the work ahead.”

DHS issued the status report in accordance with an executive order President Trump signed in March 2019 directing federal agencies to address the need to protect the country against EMP threats.

The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the Department of Defense perform annual reviews of independent research and development projects and determine whether to require contractors to provide additional data on IR&D projects for inclusion in its database to understand the scope and nature of such initiatives.

GAO analyzed IR&D projects completed in 2018 against DoD’s 10 modernization priorities and found that only 38 percent of the projects are aligned with the Pentagon’s technology goals, according to the report published Thursday. 

Those modernization priorities include artificial intelligence and machine learning, autonomy, cyber, hypersonics and quantum science.

“As a result, DOD risks making decisions about its multi-billion dollar science and tech investments that could duplicate work or miss opportunities to fill in gaps that the contributions of private industry do not cover,” the report reads.

The congressional watchdog also found that DoD’s projects database does not capture enough information on cost and innovation and whether a project is aligned with any of the department’s modernization priorities.

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has unveiled plans for two new space projects administered by AFRL’s space vehicles directorate, Space News reported Wednesday.

The first project will experiment on low orbit satellite instruments, and the second one will test sensors designed to monitor the space between Earth and the moon.

The first experiment, titled Precise, will use satellite instruments to assess the ionosphere’s changes that stem from various ion source gas compositions. This study seeks to further understand the ionosphere and the effects of these gases on satellite communications.

The other one, called CHPS, will aim to demonstrate situational awareness in cislunar space that extends from geosynchronous Earth orbit to the moon. AFRL selected the two from entries submitted by 27 teams.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has launched a five-year effort to produce and gather research on data science, with regard to the areas of algorithm development, cyberinfrastructure and education.

NSF said Tusday that its institutes under the Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science (TRIPODS) program will work to foster data science innovation and host educational programs that engage with students for workforce development in the field.

The Foundations of Data Science Institute and the Institute for Foundations of Data Science, both NSF-supported entities, will tackle multiple topics under TRIPODS. The former will study computational efficiency, societal impacts, modeling and other aspects of data science, and the latter will develop ways to boost the efficiency and resiliency of computing.

Participants of these TRIPODS institutes include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Washington.

Rance Cleaveland, division director for computing and communication foundations at NSF, said the program addresses data science challenges in alignment with the existing Harnessing the Data Revolution effort.