Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called on House lawmakers to fund the existing Public Health Data Modernization Initiative that seeks to invest in new technology platforms that detect, monitor and analyze trends associated with disease outbreaks, FCW reported Tuesday.

The initiative includes the modernization of software tools and related systems, expansion of private and public partnerships to track the spread of viruses and other health concerns and efforts to advance interoperability with stakeholder platforms.

Ileana Arias, associate deputy director for public health science and surveillance at CDC, testified Tuesday before the House Appropriations Committee’s subpanel on labor, health and human services, education and related agencies and responded to a question by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the subcommittee’s chair, about what might have been different in CDC’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak if public health data system modernization efforts had been implemented.

"One is that we would have detected it much, much sooner and been able to contain it further and more effectively," said Arias. "The other is even before detecting … and analyzing that information along with health data, we could have started to see that there might have been a problem even before getting scared about the number of cases being detected."

Arias noted that CDC is finalizing a multiyear plan detailing the agency’s funding needs to support the modernization of its public health data systems.

The Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday announced a cyber detail program that seeks to provide federal employees who have completed cyber training an opportunity to work on cyber projects at other agencies in order to gain practical experience, Fifth Domain reported Wednesday.

“We cannot overcome the shortage in the federal cybersecurity workforce overnight,” Suzette Kent, federal chief information officer and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner. “By continuing to invest and support reskilling programs, coupled with hands-on opportunities to apply those skills, the federal government is positioning itself to strengthen our cybersecurity workforce capabilities.”

Federal personnel who are recent graduates of the cyber reskilling academy can visit the USAJobs website’s Open Opportunities page to look for cyber detail opportunities at the departments of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Peter Ranks, deputy chief information officer for information enterprise at the Department of Defense, said DoD should “decouple” hardware and software development to speed up updates of systems’ capabilities, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

Ranks said Wednesday at FedScoop’s IT Modernization summit that improved use of software plays a key role in the Pentagon’s “Joint All Domain Operations” approach aimed at linking military operations across ground, air, maritime, space and cyber domains. “We are going to need software to glue those things together,” he added.

He also discussed the need to address outdated software acquisition policies, the cloud and the Joint All Domain Command and Control effort.

The U.S. Army is looking to use small satellite constellations instead to reduce vulnerability and accelerate communications speeds.

Mark Lewis, who leads the Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization Office, chaired a discussion on this topic at a forum with the Association of the U.S. Army, the service branch said Tuesday.

"More is better for the purpose of confounding a prospective adversary," the office director said.

Lewis said that larger geosynchronous satellites present both higher costs and vulnerabilities compared to small, low Earth orbit satellites. Smaller satellites move faster and would be harder to target, he added.

Col. Jason Joose, chief of staff at the Army's cross-functional team for assured positioning, navigation and timing, said industry investments in LEO satellites present a wide range of opportunities.

"When you look at the sheer number of satellites that go up and the reduced cost to do it, it gives us an array of opportunities on how to solve the problems," the colonel said.

The Space and Missile Systems Center's Launch Enterprise Mission Manifest Office has handed over to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida a multi-manifest small satellite vehicle designed to work with the sixth Advanced Extremely High-Frequency satellite.

Built by the Georgia Institute of Technology, the TDO-2 vehicle will work to utilize satellite laser ranging and optical calibration capabilities to equip warfighters with space domain awareness, the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday.

TDO-2 will take off along with AEHF-6 aboard a United Launch Alliance-built Atlas V 551 rocket. The platform will carry government payloads, which will be incorporated into the aft-end of the Centaur upper stage.

The rocket is expected to field TDO-2 after the second main engine cut off and prior to AEHF-6 during the launch. AEHF-6 will also demonstrate a "swap-out" capability, a feature that will enable two multi-manifest satellites to be replaced if required.

The Missile Defense Agency expects Lockheed Martin to fully deliver the Long Range Discrimination Radar this year, with the achievement of recent milestones.

The program already reached delivery milestones for the radar's first 10 antenna panels, Lockheed said Tuesday. The delivered panels make up half of the radar's antenna arrays. Each array measures 27 feet in height.

Lockheed prepared temporary structures to perform assemblies on schedule amid any weather conditions. The company's Solid State Radar Integration Site has already verified more than 66 percent of LRDR's technical requirements.

"We have successfully reduced a large amount of risk to ensure fielding of this critical capability on schedule in 2020,” said Chandra Marshall, who leads Lockheed’s missile defense and space surveillance radar programs.

LRDR is designed to help the military detect and track enemy ballistic missiles.

Ron Ross, a fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said that both the commercial and government sectors need transition into DevOps and DevSecOps-based approaches to strengthen national security, Fifth Domain reported Tuesday.

Ross told attendees at an Advanced Technology Academic Research Center-hosted event that industry should be a key partner in deploying new software development methods and ensuring that security controls are safe for implementation in U.S. systems.

“Give us some evidence that those security features are actually in place and doing what they’re supposed to do,” he said.

According to Ross, the private sector must be able to produce at the pace of the industry while integrating appropriate security capabilities into the agile development process.

He added that agencies must deploy a “holistic view” in cybersecurity to include methods like zero-trust concepts and other cyber resiliency approaches.

The Department of Energy is investing about $111 million in fiscal year 2020 phase II projects under small business innovation research and technology transfer programs The new funding opportunity announcement supports projects across multiple DOE offices such as those focused on cybersecurity, electricity, nuclear energy and environmental management, the department said Tuesday.

Qualifying small businesses from the programs' first phase will carry on to second phase for up to $1.1 million in awards over two years. The same arrangement applies to recipients of previous phase II awards. Participants may apply for a second or third phase II grant.