The Missile Defense Agency is continuing work on the space-based Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer intended to detect and track next-generation missile systems, C4ISRnet reported Thursday. The sensor layer will be integrated into the Space Development Agency’s low-Earth orbit satellite constellation and work to locate hypersonic weapons, which are harder to detect compared to ballistic missiles.

Vice Adm. Jon Hill, director of the MDA, said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event that managing the transmission of data between various spacecraft will serve as a challenge for establishing the sensor layer.

“It’s going to be a great capability,” he said. “We just need to get it up there as soon as we can and rapidly proliferate.”

MDA intends to focus on determining ways of properly distributing data throughout the HBTSS as work continues on the sensor layer, according to Hill.

Several technology companies have established an alliance under the auspices of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards to create tools that would facilitate interoperability and data exchange across cybersecurity platforms.

The Open Cybersecurity Alliance aims to simplify the process of integrating mutliple technology products designed to detect, analyze and respond to cyber threats, OCA said Tuesday. 

IBM and McAfee provided initial code and content to support the open project’s objectives.

“The mission of the OCA is to create a unified security ecosystem, where businesses no longer have to build one-off manual integrations between every product, but instead can build one integration to work across all, based on a commonly accepted set of standards and code,” said Jason Keirstead, chief architect of IBM’s security threat management group.

“We’re looking at the potential for unprecedented real-time security intelligence,” added D.J. Long, vice president of business development at McAfee.

Other OCA members include:

• Advanced Cyber Security Corp

• Corsa

• CrowdStrike

• CyberArk

• Cybereason

• DFLabs

• EclecticIQ

• Electric Power Research Institute

• Fortinet

• Indegy

• New Context

• ReversingLabs

• SafeBreach

• Syncurity

• ThreatQuotient

• Tufin

Philip Perconti, director of the Army Research Laboratory, told National Defense in an interview published Thursday that ARL is focused on 10 research-and-development initiatives aimed at providing troops technological edge in future combat environments and one of those is the long-range distributed and collaborate engagements program.

He said the program is aligned with the development of long-range precision fires, which serves as the Army’s top modernization priority, and that the lab seeks to help the service branch come up with networked weapons equipped with sensors and other components.

Perconti cited the use of artificial intelligence for mobility and maneuver program and how the initiative supports the Army’s second modernization priority, which is to develop next-generation combat vehicles.

“The near term autonomous platforms will have some level of teleoperation and perhaps some level of autonomy on their own. … “We’re knee deep in this because you won’t find the answers necessarily in the private sector,” Perconti said.

Other ARL programs Perconti discussed are the science of additive manufacturing for next-generation munitions; convergence of lethality, protection and autonomy to dominate ground combat; foundational research for electronic warfare in multidomain operations; versatile tactical power and propulsion or VICTOR; the physics of soldier protection to defeat evolving threats; quantum information sciences; and transformational synbio for military environments or TRANSFORME.

The U.S. Army has unveiled six key priorities in line with its modernization initiative. The service branch said Tuesday that it seeks to prioritize update efforts in combat vehicles, future vertical lift systems, long-range precision fires, network capacities, soldier lethality and missile defense.

“We will remain focused on delivering the 31 signature systems our cross-functional teams are developing in support of the six modernization priorities and ensure we can employ them the day they show up,” Ryan McCarthy, secretary at the Army.

In addition, the Army Futures Command will oversee eight cross-functional teams from various Army bases to help the military service achieve its objectives. The military service is slated to hold its annual conference on Oct. 14 through 19 to discuss its modernization plan.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency requests for authority to directly communicate with cyber-vulnerable commercial companies, Cyberscoop reported Wednesday. CISA seeks to eliminate the need for third party entities in contacting industry firms. The effort aims to accelerate the communication process.

The agency possesses internet protocol address information of vulnerable companies, but does not have the authority to access their contact information from service providers. The authority request’s potential approval would urge internet service providers to grant DHS the needed contact details.