The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has enetered into an agreement with the University of California (UC) San Diego to further research and development efforts on unmanned systems to support maritime applications.

UC San Diego said Wednesday its Scripps Institution of Oceanography will work with the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) to conduct a 10-year effort to improve the capacity of unmanned systems to collect ocean observation data.

Ongoing efforts under the partnership include the development and testing of an unmanned surface vessel to obtain oceanographic and meteorological data to support entities like the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations initiative.

The team is also working to establish a framework for meeting the staffing, training and operational needs of a new unmanned maritime systems unit within OMAO.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, the deputy administrator of NOAA, said the agency intends to combine its fleet and aircraft resources with Scripps’ R&D expertise to drive “innovative use of unmanned systems” such as data collection in remote or extreme environments.

According to UC San Diego, the agreement comes as part of NOAA’s efforts to achieve goals under the 2018 Commercial Engagement Through Ocean Technology Act.

NOAA and Scripps are also collaborating with the University of Southern Mississippi to support a new unmanned systems facility in Gulfport, Miss.

The 625th Strategic Operations Squadron (STOS) has installed a new virtual trainer system designed to help airmen at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska carry out in-house training activities.

The Virtual Airborne Processing Trainer aims to expose trainees on the weapons system that will launch intercontinental ballistic missiles from an airborne E-6 Mercury aircraft, the U.S. Air Force said Sunday.

USAF noted the training platform is purely virtual and resembles air launch control system personnel's battle staff compartment area. The 625th STOS is slated to resume initial qualification training following the completion of the platform's installation and acceptance tests.

Offutt AFB's traditional trainer unit was damaged by a flood in 2019, prompting 625th STOS to seek alternative training methods.

The U.S. Army has commenced this year’s Network Modernization Experiment (NetModX) in New Jersey to support the service branch’s command, control, communication, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C5ISR) tool development efforts, C4ISRnet reported Sunday.

Field testing activities under the third annual NetModX began last week at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and are slated to conclude by Oct. 2. As part of the event, Army personnel will utilize simulated environments to assess C5ISR technologies that were previously evaluated through laboratory-based experiments.

The theme for this year’s exercise, mission command and command-post survivability, will cover network resiliency technologies intended to withstand electronic threats in various environments. The Army plans to test the technologies ahead of preliminary design review activities in April 2021.

“What resiliency means to us is the network bends, it doesn’t break,” said Michael Brownfield, chief of the C5ISR Center’s future capabilities office within the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. “And the commanders have the information they need and the coordination that they need to fight the battle.”

Technologies being developed for NetModX 2020 include a distributed system for mission command and a modular “system of systems” involving radio-frequency functionalities.

NASA has concluded the preliminary design review of a ground system that would support a new space telescope designed to capture high-detail images depicting space.

The space agency said Saturday that its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed to help scientists pursue studies that may unlock new findings on the cosmos, including what goes beyond the solar system. The ground system will link Earth's scientists to data gathered by the new space telescope.

“We are on track to complete the data system in time for launch, and we look forward to the ground-breaking science it will enable," said Ken Carpenter, the ground system's project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The new telescope is expected to generate panoramic images with the same resolution quality produced by Hubble Space Telescope but with a greater field of view. Roman is also designed to collect data at speeds roughly 500 times beyond Hubble's.

Roman will explore locations further than the moon after a five-year primary mission. The telescope will also support the microlensing survey to discover planetary activities taking place outside the solar system.

NASA plans to launch Roman within the coming decade.

Forcepoint has introduced its Dynamic Edge Protection suite of cloud-native SASE solutions, featuring Cloud Security Gateway and Private Access offerings, to address work-from-home security challenges across network security, threat protection, secure access and data protection, the company reported on Monday.

The Forcepoint Dynamic Edge Protection suite of SASE solutions enables enterprises to use the cloud to transform their network and security architectures, simplify connectivity and unify security policy enforcement throughout their distributed application and network environments. 

Forcepoint’s converged cloud services, Cloud Security Gateway and Private Access, will provide visibility, control and protection for users and data against threats and loss, wherever people are working.

Forcepoint Cloud Security Gateway will integrate the company's Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies into a single centrally-managed cloud service. 

The solution will provide full visibility and control for remote workers, sites and on-premises facilities. Forcepoint’s service is available as a single SKU to simplify purchasing, administering and supporting multiple products or solution bundles.

Forcepoint Private Access will provide true zero-trust remote access and a built-in Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) to protect internal applications without the complexity, bottlenecks and risks of VPNs. 

The company’s offering will enhance control without exposing internal networks and enable remote users to access high-speed cloud performance. Forcepoint Private Access protects internal applications and networks against potentially compromised remote devices and networks while also preventing the loss of sensitive information or intellectual property.

About Forcepoint

Forcepoint is the global cybersecurity leader for user and data protection. Forcepoint's behavior-based solutions adapt to risk in real-time and are delivered through a converged security platform that protects network users and cloud access, prevents confidential data from leaving the corporate network, and eliminates breaches caused by insiders. 

Based in Austin, Texas, Forcepoint creates safe, trusted environments for thousands of enterprise and government customers and their employees in more than 150 countries.