The Department of the Air Force has released a report seeking phased funds for major programs such as satellites and large space systems, SpaceNews reported Thursday.

The report, titled “Alternative Acquisition System for the United States Space Force”, states that incremental funding would enable the U.S. Space Force to be flexible in allocating funds for other programs.

It was initially sent to Congress in May before being pulled back due to several objections, according to SpaceNews. 

Shawn Barnes, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, told reporters that the acquisition proposal is still being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). “I think we’re very close with OMB at this point,” he noted.

SpaceNews sources told the publication that OMB opposed incremental funding for space programs in favor of full allocations within the same year of ordering spacecraft.

The FBI is planning to integrate its confidential, top-secret and secret networks with cloud platforms to improve intelligence sharing among personnel working from home, FedScoop reported Thursday. 

Gurvais Griss, assistant director of the FBI Laboratory's science and technology branch, said at an AFCEA event that the bureau is looking to move unclassified data from legacy systems to less-classified cloud environments.

FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services unit is also working on efforts to move data from social media, communications platforms, mobile devices and system logs to a data lake to speed up analysis and response.

“At the lab … we have systems, business processes, administrative actions that previously were done on the higher classification network — not necessarily because they require that level of protection," he noted. "It’s just we organically designed it where people felt comfortable."

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of Amazon Fraud Detector, a fully managed service that will simplify the identification of potentially fraudulent online activities such as online payment and identity fraud, the company reported on Tuesday. 

“By leveraging 20 years of experience detecting fraud coupled with powerful machine learning technology, we’re excited to bring customers Amazon Fraud Detector so they can automatically detect potential fraud, save time and money, and improve customer experiences—with no machine learning experience required,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP, Amazon ML, AWS. 

AWS’ Fraud Detector will integrate machine learning (ML) to automatically identify potentially fraudulent activity. With the company's Fraud Detector, customers can select a pre-built ML model template, upload historical event data and create decision logic to assign outcomes to the predictions. 

Amazon Fraud Detector will provide a fully managed service that will enable customers to build, train and deploy machine learning models that provide real-time, low-latency fraud risk predictions. 

Customers will upload historical event data to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), where it is encrypted in transit and at rest and used to customize the model’s training. Users will provide any two attributes associated with an event and can optionally add other data. 

Amazon Fraud Detector will pre-process the data, select an algorithm and train a model. The company will integrate ML models based on Amazon’s experience with fraud to help identify patterns commonly associated with fraudulent activity. 

The ML models will improve the accuracy of the trained model. Amazon Fraud Detector will train and deploy a model to a fully managed, private Application Programming Interface (API) end point. 

Customers will be able to send new activity to the API and receive a fraud risk response, which will include a precise fraud risk score. Based on the report, a customer’s application can determine the right course of action. With Amazon Fraud Detector, customers can detect fraud more quickly, easily and accurately with ML, while preventing fraud from occurring. 

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.

SteelCloud has partnered with DLT Solutions under a distribution agreement to expand the company’s  portfolio, and gain additional access to customers and solutions, SteelCloud reported on Friday. 

"Adding SteelCloud and ConfigOS to our cybersecurity portfolio broadens DLT's channel partner and government customer access to leading security compliance automation software," said Chris Wilkinson, president, DLT Solutions, a Tech Data company. "ConfigOS saves federal agencies time, cost and labor by rapidly scanning endpoint systems and remediating STIG controls, which helps accelerate the ATO process."   

SteelCloud's ConfigOS is currently implemented in classified and unclassified environments, tactical and weapon system programs, disconnected labs, and the commercial cloud. ConfigOS will scan endpoint systems and solve STIG controls. 

The company’s solution will also provide automated remediation rollback and comprehensive compliance reporting, as well as STIG Viewer Checklist integration. ConfigOS was designed to strengthen CAT 1/2/3 STIG control. 

ConfigOS will address Microsoft Windows workstation and server operating systems, SQL Server, IIS, IE, Chrome, Microsoft Office component,  Red Hat 5/6/7, SUSE, CENTOS, Ubuntu, and Oracle Linux. 

"DLT has a great reputation for understanding complex government acquisition challenges," said Brian Hajost, SteelCloud president and CEO. "They will provide our customers with the widest range of acquisition vehicles available. DLT has strong relationships with government clients as well as the contractor community, both of which SteelCloud serves to simplify the cyber compliance process and while speeding up the need for continuous ATOs."

About DLT Solutions

DLT Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tech Data, the world's leading end-to-end distributor of technology products, services and solutions. DLT is the premier government solutions aggregator that specializes in understanding the IT needs of the federal, state, local and education markets. 

We help simplify the process for independent software vendors, federal systems integrators and value-added resellers doing business in the public sector. Leveraging Tech Data's end-to-end portfolio, an extensive array of public sector contract vehicles, and dedicated channel and enablement services, DLT provides government agencies and channel partners with the means to rapidly and cost effectively transform technology to achieve mission success.

Maxar Technologies has commended NASA on the administration’s launch of Perseverance Rover, which began its journey to Mars on an Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 30th. 

“Congratulations on the successful launch to our friends and colleagues at NASA and its mission partners,” Megan Fitzgerald, Maxar’s senior vice president and general manager of Space Infrastructure said on Thursday.

Maxar built Perseverance’s Sample Handling Assembly (SHA) robotic arm and camera focus system for NASA’s mission. The company’s other Mars missions include the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, Phoenix and InSight landers.

The Perseverance mission will for signs of livable conditions and microbial life from the ancient past. Maxar’s SHA will manipulate, assess, encapsulate, store and release collected Martian soil and rock samples. 

“We're looking forward to the exciting science that Perseverance will conduct with the help of the robotic arm we built," Fitzgerald added. 

Maxar’s camera focus system will enable Perseverance to identify promising samples on the surface of Mars. Robotics will provide extreme accuracy under severe temperature variations and within dusty and dirty environments. 

The company will also provide robotics to lunar missions. Maxar will work on the power and propulsion element and human landing system for NASA’s Artemis program. The company has initiated the build of a robotic arm called Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering and Probing of Lunar Regolith (SAMPLR) to acquire samples and determine the geotechnical properties of lunar regolith.

In addition, Maxar has begun to develop a spacecraft with three robotic arms for NASA called OSAM-1, which will demonstrate on-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing to enable spacecrafts to build and reconfigure themselves on-orbit and advance space telescopes. 

About Maxar

Maxar is a trusted partner and innovator in Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure. We deliver disruptive value to government and commercial customers to help them monitor, understand and navigate our changing planet; deliver global broadband communications; and explore and advance the use of space. 

Our unique approach combines decades of deep mission understanding and a proven commercial and defense foundation to deploy solutions and deliver insights with unrivaled speed, scale and cost effectiveness. Maxar’s 4,000 team members in 20 global locations are inspired to harness the potential of space to help our customers create a better world.