The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to establish noise certification requirements for takeoff and landing of civil supersonic aircraft platforms.

A 90-day public comment period will commence on the date of publication of the proposal in the Federal Register, FAA said Monday.

The agency unveiled the NPRM nine months after it proposed to modernize the process of requesting special flight authorizations to fly aircraft at a speed above Mach 1.

FAA also works with the Department of Transportation in efforts to advance supersonic aircraft development and expects the new rulemaking activity to help the agency determine technological and economic factors that will support noise level requirements for such vehicle.

The agency pointed to the availability of new engines and materials designed to address noise from the airframe as technical advancements that have occurred in the aviation field since the Concorde supersonic passenger airplane took flight in the 1970s.

Lockheed Martin is manufacturing the X-59 Quiet Supersonic Technology platform at a company facility located in Palmdale, Calif., as part of a $247.5M contract NASA awarded in 2018.

The company aims to conduct initial test flights in 2021.

The Department of Education is inviting businesses, nonprofits, academic institutions and entrepreneurs to join a $50K prize competition to update its public-facing website.

ED.gov Redesign Challenge participants have until June 15 to offer creative design prototypes for the site’s home, program office, grant, contact, media and informational pages, according to a special notice posted Tuesday.

The department wants to retain its color scheme and seal as well as ensure compliance with federal accessibility standards into a redesigned online portal.

ED noted it may divide the prize among multiple winners that would propose ideas to improve the design, presentation, interactivity and navigation of its website.

Proposers may also receive an invitation to deliver presentations to an expert panel at the department’s Washington, D.C. office and will have the chance to bid for a concept implementation contract.

The General Services Administration has announced a delay in the acquisition process for the e-marketplace platform as GSA works to meet the demand of federal agencies for information technology hardware and related services in support of telework initiatives during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The contracting team for the Commercial Platforms proof of concept has also had to shift their focus to COVID-19 response efforts,” Laura Stanton, deputy assistant commissioner for category management at GSA, said in a statement published Wednesday. “A delay is anticipated in the contract award to e-marketplace platform providers for the proof of concept.”

Stanton said her organization’s goal is to award the contract “in the coming months.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will begin deploying new capabilities for Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation dashboards in April to help federal agencies gain more insight into their cybersecurity posture, Fifth Domain reported Wednesday.

Judy Baltensperger, project manager for the CDM dashboard at CISA, said the agency will start fielding risk-scoring and ongoing assessment metrics and other “minimum viable products” for the dashboards this month.

“We’re going to focus on delivering simple features,” Baltensberger said. “Then through our scaled, agile software development, we’re going to iteratively make enhancements to each of these products, and we’re also going to be collecting user feedback from each one of [the] agencies.”

She said DHS will release another update in August and another set of minimum viable products like threat intelligence feed integration and system health monitoring in November.

“The goal is going to be fit for use, operational data. We want you to trust the data that is in this dashboard, and we want to see you start to take action and make risk-based decisions on it,” Baltensberger said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health have launched a joint research and development initiative focused on using additive manufacturing to address medical equipment shortages, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

The three agencies signed a memorandum of understanding and is seeking 3D-printing capabilities that will enable the rapid production of medical supplies and personal protective equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic.

America Makes, a nonprofit startup accelerator organization, teamed up with the agencies to help them coordinate with firms in the manufacturing sector as part of the initiative.

NIH currently has an open-source tool called 3D Print Exchange where entities can identify and share models that are interoperable with commercial 3D printers. The VA, which assesses and tests the user-submitted designs, also has its own 3D printing network to aid the operations of its medical frontliners.

“This initiative is rapidly evolving,” Beth Ripley, enterprise lead of the VA 3D Printing Network. “In just six days, VA tested two face shields and designed and tested one face mask. We have already made significant progress in a short time.”

NASA and Northrop Grumman have demonstrated the capacity of the James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror to reflect light and obtain as much detail as possible from outer space.

The agency said Wednesday that the telescope will use the same configuration for its 21-foot mirror upon its launch in 2021. Testing procedures for Webb and its mirror began last month at Northrop’s facility in Redondo Beach, Calif.

During the assessment, teams used special equipment to mimic zero-gravity environments to assess the telescope’s capacity to operate and maneuver in space.

Northrop and NASA engineers are now co23nducting final tests before Webb’s delivery to French Guiana for launching.

“Deploying both wings of the telescope while part of the fully assembled observatory is another significant milestone showing Webb will deploy properly in space,” said Lee Feinberg, an optical telescope element manager at NASA. “This is a great achievement and an inspiring image for the entire team.”

The Northrop-NASA team plans to conduct reassessments in the coming weeks in light of the COVID-19 health crisis.

Edward Parkinson, CEO of the First Responder Network Authority, said FirstNet has reached new milestones this week with the announcement of over 11K user organizations.

FirstNet now has coverage across the U.S. since the public safety network’s initial launch three years ago, Parkinson wrote in a blog post published Tuesday.

“Now just two years into the five-year buildout of FirstNet’s dedicated Band 14 spectrum, AT&T recently announced that more than 11,000 public safety agencies and organizations are using more than 1.2 million connections,” he said.

The LTE-powered network now also employs a push-to-talk feature in support of public safety communications.

“We are proud to support our men and women on the frontlines as they selflessly serve their communities,” he said to conclude his blog post.