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Perseverance Rover to Begin Final Launch Readiness Review for NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission
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Perseverance Rover to Begin Final Launch Readiness Review for NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission

NASA’s Perseverance rover for the Mars 2020 mission has completed flight readiness review activities ahead of final launch assessments scheduled for July 27. The agency said Thursday the launch window for the Perseverance mission will begin at 7:50 a.m. EDT on July 30.

The assembly, test and launch operations team at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is expected to begin final checkouts for the rover’s systems and subsystems following the completion of integration activities with United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket.

The astrobiology mission requires Perseverance to probe Mars for microbial life and collect data on the planet’s geological and climatic elements.

"The launch operations team will continue to monitor the health of the spacecraft to ensure it’s 'Go' for launch – nothing glamorous, but an important part of the job,” said Dave Gruel, head of the Mars 2020 ATLO team.

"At present, everything is green across the board," noted Matt Wallace, deputy project manager for the mission at NASA. "Everyone involved with this endeavor, from the spacecraft team to the launch vehicle team to those working the range, are looking forward to seeing Perseverance begin its long-awaited flight to Mars."

According to NASA, subsequent Mars missions with the European Space Agency (ESA) are “currently under consideration”.

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US, UK Defense Depts to Hold Int’l Space Pitch Day in November
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US, UK Defense Depts to Hold Int’l Space Pitch Day in November

The Department of Defense (DoD) and its U.K. counterpart will host an International Space Pitch Day on November 16 and 17 in a move to promote allied efforts in the space community.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence said in a notice posted Wednesday the two entities are soliciting “military space capability” proposals and plan to allocate $1M in funding for 15 selected concepts.

The successful proposers must first present their concepts during the pitch day for a chance to receive up to $67K in funds to develop their proposals.

Both defense agencies will also partner with startup accelerator Starburst Aerospace to conduct pitch training sessions and design sprints for the invited proposers.

According to the competition scope, participants must have the capacity to provide technologies in areas such as health monitoring, command visualization, space weather, training systems and space domain awareness.

Interested parties must register until Aug. 19 and submit proposals by Sept. 2.

The U.K. defense ministry said the event “may be held virtually” in line with developments on the COVID-19 situation. According to a Defense News report, the event is slated to take place in London with American, British and NATO officials in attendance.

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NIST Eyes 2022 Release of Initial Algorithm Standard for Quantum-Resistant Cryptography
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NIST Eyes 2022 Release of Initial Algorithm Standard for Quantum-Resistant Cryptography

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has selected 15 algorithm submissions for the third phase of a research competition focused on quantum computing-based cryptography.

NIST said Wednesday it narrowed down a pool of 69 proposals for Phase 3 public reviews for the Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process, which seeks to establish algorithms to combat quantum decryption threats.

The Phase 3 selection culminates the three-year effort and is expected to result in a small subset of cryptographic algorithms to support quantum concepts like public-key encryption and digital-signature creation for electronic documents.

“At the end of this round, we will choose some algorithms and standardize them,” said Dustin Moody, a mathematician at NIST. “We intend to give people tools that are capable of protecting sensitive information for the foreseeable future, including after the advent of powerful quantum computers.”

Moody noted that the selected algorithms will fill an interim role for standardization procedures and that NIST plans to “look at newer approaches too.”

NIST expects the review round to run throughout a one-year period ahead of the initial standard’s planned release in 2022.

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President Trump to Nominate Greg Autry as NASA CFO
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President Trump to Nominate Greg Autry as NASA CFO

President Trump intends to nominate Greg Autry, an assistant professor on clinical entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California (USC), to serve as chief financial officer at NASA. Autry currently leads the Pacific Commercial Spaceflight effort at the Aldrin Space Institute, the White House said Wednesday.

He also chairs the safety working group at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee. Prior to his current capacity, Autry served as NASA’s liaison to the White House and published papers on space policy and development.

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QTS Publishes ESG Initiatives Report, Focused on Sustainability; Chad Williams Quoted
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QTS Publishes ESG Initiatives Report, Focused on Sustainability; Chad Williams Quoted

QTS Realty Trust has published its GRI compliant 2019 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Initiatives Report to provide a comprehensive summary and progress report on QTS' approach to sustainable business practices, the company reported on Wednesday. 

"QTS is fully committed to sustainable business practices backed by transparency and accountability," said Chad Williams, chief executive officer, QTS. "We are taking a leadership role by measuring and publishing our progress achieving key ESG milestones, including our commitment to procure 100% of our power requirements from renewable energy sources by 2025."

The report was prepared by the QTS Sustainability leadership team. QTS has expanded its initiatives into business practices. The company’s sustainability goals are aligned around a company culture that is Powered by People. 

In 2019, the company published its inaugural ESG report that featured measurable, relevant and timely targets to reduce carbon footprint, support the clean energy industry, improve the lives of QTS' stakeholders, and optimize its business results. 

QTS has updated its environmental goals in the 2020 report, noting that the company will procure 100 percent of power from renewable energy sources by 2025. As of 2019, QTS procured 32 percent of its energy from renewable sources, and in 2020 the company expects that percentage to increase.

Additionally, the company will pursue LEED certification in 90 percent of facilities by 2025. QTS’ 2019 report noted that 50 percent of QTS' facilities are LEED certified, and the company will continue to investigate green building certifications that align with QTS' sustainable business initiatives.

In 2017, QTS set a goal to conserve at least 10 million gallons of water per year. Because it achieved this goal in both 2018 and 2019 it is increasing the goal to 15 million gallons of water annually going forward. QTS has achieved its initial goal of installing EV charging stations at 30 percent of its facilities. QTS will install EV charging stations at 75 percent of its facilities by 2025. 

QTS' sustainability strategy has included redeveloping brownfield properties and transforming them into state-of-the-art data centers. QTS has recycled over 1.2 billion pounds of material. QTS will also change its focus and has set a target to recycle 90 percent of its operational waste by 2025.

"While growth and profitability are clearly important to our business, QTS has always fostered a culture that enables our employees to pursue excellence and positively impact each other and our communities. This emphasis on serving others is and always has been equally critical to our long-term strategy," Williams concluded. 

About QTS

QTS Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: QTS) is a leading provider of data center solutions across a diverse footprint spanning more than 7 million square feet of owned mega scale data center space within North America and Europe. Through its software-defined technology platform, QTS is able to deliver secure, compliant infrastructure solutions, robust connectivity and premium customer service to leading hyperscale technology companies, enterprises, and government entities.

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AWS Launches Contact Lens to Expand Contact Centers Operability; Larry Augustin Quoted
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AWS Launches Contact Lens to Expand Contact Centers Operability; Larry Augustin Quoted

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of Contact Lens, a set of capabilities for Amazon Connect enabled by machine learning, that will enable contact centers to understand the sentiment, trends and compliance of customer conversations to improve their experience and identify crucial feedback, the company reported on Thursday.

“Contact Lens leverages various AWS capabilities—such as storage, transcription, natural language processing, and search—but stitches them together for customers into an easy-to-use contact analysis tool, all usable from the Amazon Connect user interface,” said Larry Augustin, VP Productivity Applications, AWS.

AWS’ service will offer a fully managed, cloud contact center service to assist companies deliver advanced customer service at lower cost. With Contact Lens, contact center supervisors will be able to emerging themes and trends from customer conversations, conduct fast, full-text search on call transcripts to troubleshoot customer issues and improve contact center agents’ performance with call analytics.

The company will launch Contact Lens in late 2020, which will provide alerts and issues during in-progress calls, enabling earlier intervention when a customer experiences a poor experience.

Later this year, Contact Lens will introduce new features that provide supervisors with real-time assistance by offering a dashboard that will show the sentiment progression of live calls in a contact center.

The dashboard will be continuously updated as the interactions evolve and will enable supervisors to look across live calls to spot opportunities to help their customers. Real-time alerting gives supervisors the ability to engage and de-escalate situations earlier.

About Amazon Web Services

For 14 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 175 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 77 Availability Zones (AZs) within 24 geographic regions, with announced plans for nine more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Japan, and Spain. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs

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CACI Partners with RigNet to Expand SteelBox App Security; Dab Kern, RADM Jamie Barnett Quoted
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CACI Partners with RigNet to Expand SteelBox App Security; Dab Kern, RADM Jamie Barnett Quoted

CACI International has partnered with RigNet to add new capabilities to CACI’s SteelBox, a secure mobile communications application for government agencies, CACI reported on Thursday.

“SteelBox has already opened new lines of secure communications for government agencies at a time when that capability is more crucial than ever. We are pleased to partner with RigNet to continue expanding SteelBox’s secure communications capabilities,” said Dab Kern, CACI senior vice president for Corporate Capabilities and Technology Integration. 

With the partnership of RigNet, CACI will be able to securely connect users with SteelBox. SteelBox will be able to secure more than 4 million government issued cell phones covered by Controlled Unclassified Information requirements. 

CACI’s solution will also help eliminate vulnerabilities in alternatives that do not meet Federal security standards. SteelBox has met the federal requirements and has been integrated in SecuSUITE government software. 

In addition, CACI recently announced its partnership with BlackBerry Limited to provide SteelBox, an enterprise technology which is the first secure and certified mobile communications app that will enable government officials to use smartphones to text and make calls without fear of eavesdropping or data compromise.

CACI and BlackBerry built the solution to meet National Security Agency’s (NSA) Commercial Solution for Classified program requirements and has already premiered on the NSA-approved vendors list for certified mobile solutions. The NSA has also cleared the solution to its SECRET CSfC standards.

“RigNet has been providing highly secure, highly reliable telecommunications to customers for four decades. This is a strategic venture into the government sector, and we are delighted to be working with CACI and BlackBerry on SteelBox connectivity,” said retired RADM Jamie Barnett, RigNet Senior Vice President for Government Services. 

About CACI

CACI’s 23,000 talented employees are vigilant in providing the unique expertise and distinctive technology that address our customers’ greatest enterprise and mission challenges. Our culture of good character, innovation, and excellence drives our success and earns us recognition as a Fortune World's Most Admired Company. As a member of the Fortune 1000 Largest Companies, the Russell 1000 Index, and the S&P MidCap 400 Index, we consistently deliver strong shareholder value.

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VA Appoints Todd Simpson Deputy Assistant Secretary for DevSecOps
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VA Appoints Todd Simpson Deputy Assistant Secretary for DevSecOps

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has appointed Todd Simpson as deputy assistant secretary for DevSecOps to enhance cybersecurity within the department’s application development lifecycle, FedScoop reported on Thursday.

The VA has been pushing for modernization across its different services, including a massive overhaul of its electronic health record system. “We are trying to answer questions that were previously unanswerable,” Simpson stated. 

In his new role with the VA, Simpson will focus primarily on software development. DevSecOps is growing in popularity with other IT offices in federal agencies creating offices around it. The VA has a more than $100 billion annual budget with almost $5 billion proposed to be dedicated to IT in the budget request for fiscal 2021. 

Simpson will bring decades of government IT experience to the VA. Simpson has more than 24 years of information technology (IT) leadership and management experience from the private sector and in the federal government.

Simpson has managed at the executive level in the areas of strategic planning, organizational development and operational efficiency. He is experienced in improving business processes, and managing complex, multi-disciplinary and time sensitive projects while achieving cost savings.

Before joining the VA, he served as chief information officer (CIO) of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and associate CIO of the Department of Transportation. With the FDA, Simpson was responsible for providing information technology (IT) services and support to approximately 20 thousand federal personnel and contractors throughout the continental United States and internationally.

Simpson began his career in the U.S. Air Force (USAF), serving 3 years active duty and 3 years active reserve. He worked in the IT field as a systems analyst, Senior Technical Advisor, IT manager and CIO in the private sector for 18 years.

He began his federal government career as the CIO for the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) Criminal Division in 2010, where he led the IT and Litigation Support units. In the role, he reduced the annual IT and litigation support budgets by more than 50 percent and achieved a net annual savings of more than 3 million dollars from data center and server consolidation.

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Space Force Launches New Logo, ‘Semper Supra’ Motto; Gen. Jay Raymond Quoted
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Space Force Launches New Logo, ‘Semper Supra’ Motto; Gen. Jay Raymond Quoted

The U.S. Space Force has unveiled its new logo and motto as part of effort to establish its cultural identity and branding, SpaceNews reported Wednesday. The service adopted the motto “Semper Supra,” which means “always above,” and the delta symbol to honor the heritage of the U.S. Air Force and Space Command.

Advertising agency GSD&M designed the logo, which features the Polaris star, two spires signifying a rocket launch and four bevelled elements symbolizing the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines.

“We are building a new Service to secure the space domain … the ultimate high ground. Our strategic imperative is to ensure that our space capabilities & the advantages they provide the nation & our Joint and Coalition partners are always there,” Gen. Jay Raymond, chief of space operations at the Space Force and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said in a tweet.

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CISA Hires Josh Corman, Rob Arnold to Support COVID-19 Response; Christopher Krebs Quoted
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CISA Hires Josh Corman, Rob Arnold to Support COVID-19 Response; Christopher Krebs Quoted

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has hired cybersecurity professionals Josh Corman and Rob Arnold to support CISA’s COVID-19 pandemic response efforts.

“This changing threat landscape demands an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach and for us to bring the best and brightest minds to the front lines, and the authority granted to us by the CARES Act makes it possible to quickly recruit and add top experts to our team,” Christopher Krebs, director of CISA and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said in a statement published Wednesday.

“Josh and Rob are two examples of the type of innovative leaders that will help us build up our technical capabilities while at the same time improve our engagement with our industry and security researcher community partners during this critical time,” added Krebs.

Corman will serve as a visiting researcher and offer advice on CISA’s industry engagement initiatives backing pandemic response and support the agency’s life safety programs and control systems. He previously served as chief security officer at PTC and director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. 

Arnold will serve as senior cybersecurity and risk management adviser within CISA’s National Risk Management Center. In this role, he will offer advice on how the critical infrastructure sector can bolster its defense against cyber threats during the pandemic and help the agency understand shifts in cyber threats.

Prior to CISA, he was founder and CEO of Threat Sketch. He also co-founded the North Carolina Center for Cybersecurity.

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