The U.S. Air Force’s 548th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group and 9th Security Forces Squadron have partnered to test an artificial drone technology designed to map infrastructure. USAF said Saturday that the Hivemapper airborne video map program currently in beta testing at Beale Air Force Base in California works to record imagery and helps an unmanned aerial system to track change detection through visualization and analytic tools.

The mapping technology has the potential to help civil engineers collect imagery of military base construction and maintenance projects, the service branch noted. The 3D platform is equipped with recovery and safety features for civilian users.

“With deployments across the Air Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory and Air Force Special Operations Command to name a few, the Hivemapper team continues to learn and grow with the Air Force to deliver capabilities in demand by airmen in the field,” Hivemapper CEO Ariel Seidman said.

The Hivemapper-Beale AFB partnership seeks to introduce the mapping platform to other installations.

The Australian government has pledged to collaborate with NASA on the latter’s approach to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024 and to further explore deep-space destinations such as Mars. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised to increase the Australian Space Agency’s budget to support its commitment to the lunar exploration program called Artemis and the Moon to Mars campaign, NASA said Saturday.

A joint statement of intent signed by the two agencies’ top officials establishes a path for collaboration in the robotics, remote asset management and automation areas. NASA aims to demonstrate new technology platforms and business approaches necessary to carry out future exploration that includes the Red Planet as well as expand its number of commercial and international partners through the Artemis program.

Both countries have a long tradition of collaborating on space activities such as the monitoring and communication of NASA missions via the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex and multiple data relay satellite centers across Australia under an agreement signed in 1960.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released an interim report providing updates on the activities of a task force created in 2018 to help assess and manage risks to the information and communications technology supply chain.

The ICT supply chain risk management task force has four working groups with specific areas of focus, the Department of Homeland Security’s CISA said. The first working group focuses on the sharing of actionable data about supply chain risks, while the second group deals with the evaluation of supply chain threats.

The two other working groups center their efforts on the identification of structures, processes and criteria for establishing Qualified Manufacturer Lists and Qualified Bidder Lists and development of policy recommendations to incentivize the procurement of ICT from authorized resellers and original equipment manufacturers.

Bob Kolasky, assistant director for CISA’s national risk management center, said at the CISA Cybersecurity Summit the ICT task force will kick off discussions about risk management challenges facing small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency summit said security threats associated with 5G technology could require the involvement of the U.S. government, Federal Times reported Friday.

Christopher Krebs, CISA director and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the lack of alternatives for smaller countries in need of 5G components presents an opportunity for the U.S. and its allies to come up with technology platforms to lead the 5G marketplace, which is dominated by foreign companies like Huawei.

Sen. Mark Warner, also a 2019 Wash100 Award recipient, said the government could play a role in helping develop alternatives.

“It will require active engagement of our government with one or more vendors to make sure we can say that … here’s our alternative and here’s how you can get it at, maybe not exactly the same price point as Huawei, but here’s where it’s not going to be twice as expensive,” Warner said.

A chemist from the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Laboratory has created an approach to detect contraband from luggage and clothing. Jim Deline, a scientist from TSL, has built a device that can gather traces of contamination through the use of a special swab, DHS said Thursday.

Additionally, screening officers can analyze and validate the presence of contraband by inserting the swab into an explosive trace detector. According to Deline, the approach will mitigate the need to obtain samples to confirm the substances as it converts chemicals to gas form.

“This rapid vaporization would prevent its interaction with the substrates, so the explosive could be deposited directly onto the substrates, obviating the dry transfer step,” added Deline.

NASA has connected the five main components of the Space Launch System launch vehicle’s core stage in preparation for a flight to the moon in 2024. The space agency said Friday that it conjoined the last sections of the core stage on Thursday at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

The 212-foot-tall stage is designed to generate 2M pounds of thrust to lift the Orion spacecraft for the first Artemis mission. The Artemis program aims to revive manned lunar exploration. Engineers attached an engine section, the stage’s final piece, to a liquid hydrogen propellant tank already docked to the other components.

The engine section featured systems that facilitate the control and delivery of fuel from propellant tanks to engines. The space agency will work with Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne this fall to integrate four RS-25 engines into the stage’s main propulsion systems.

“NASA and our contractor teams are making tremendous progress on every aspect of manufacturing, assembling and testing the complex systems needed to land American astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024,” said said Julie Bassler, SLS stages manager at NASA.