The Naval Research Laboratory fielded a mass spectrometer that gauges electronic, cosmo, geo-chemical and nuclear materials during the Nuclear Signatures Inter-laboratory Measurement Evaluation Program exercise.

Evan Groopman, a research physicist at NRL, said in a statement published Wednesday the NAUTILUS tool analyzed electronic, nuclear and extraterrestrial material compositions in test samples taken from International Atomic Energy Agency missions. 

“We are happy with the results of this exercise because it demonstrates that our up-and-coming group can both build a novel instrument for the Navy and apply it to a wide variety of problems, performing as well or better than laboratories that exclusively perform a single type of analysis using commercial instrumentation,” Groopman added.

According to NRL, the samples emulated nuclear safeguard and environmental sampling operations. David Willingham, a research chemist and head of NRL’s accelerator mass spectrometry section, said NRL correctly identified all isotopic compositions in the international round-robin demonstration.

NASA has chosen three minority-serving universities to receive hands-on experience and support in aerospace manufacturing capacities to address industry gaps.

The agency said Wednesday its aeronautics research mission directorate has teamed up with the Office of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Engagement to provide curriculum-based training, research, learning, apprenticeship and internship efforts in high-volume aerospace production under a $1.5M funding opportunity through the Minority University Research and Education Project.

Tuskegee University, the University of Texas at El Paso and Virginia State University have collaborated with various organizations to implement proposals involving additive manufacturing effects, talent development and blisk materials.

In addition, the universities will create learning opportunities in the design, construction and supply chain management of aerospace components within two years.

NASA has established MUREP to equip minority-serving institutions with reinforced research, technological and academic capabilities through investment efforts.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said he expects threat actors from countries like Russia and China to cause possible interference in the U.S. presidential elections in 2020, The Hill reported Wednesday.

“Some of the things that the Russians have tried in other countries we expect them to try to do here as well, it’s pretty common to test it out in other jurisdictions, thankfully we don’t have elections every year, so that gives us a little bit of time to plan ahead,” Wray said Wednesday in his testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee.

He noted that China, North Korea and Iran are “clearly interested in engaging in malign foreign influence” through disinformation efforts via social media and other activities in an attempt to interfere in the elections.

“They all have different ways of going about it, but they are all taking pages out of each others’ playbooks, and as we project forward that is something that we have to be vigilant about,” Wray said of the three countries.

Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, also testified before the House panel about potential threats to election security.