Ball Aerospace delivered the Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) for Landsat 9, completing development of the instrument on schedule and under budget, the company announced on Friday. Ball will continue to support instrument integration and spacecraft-level testing, working closely with NASA and the Landsat 9 spacecraft provider.

The Operational Land Imager 2 design is a virtual copy of the instrument’s predecessor, which launched in 2013 on the Landsat 8 spacecraft and is operating past its design life with no interruptions to operations for more than six years. 

OLI-2 is a push-broom sensor with a four-mirror telescope that takes measurements in the visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The instrument images the entire globe every 16 days at resolutions as high as 15 meters, which is sufficient to resolve land cover features such as forests, farms and urban centers.

“Ball Aerospace is enabling the sustainability of the nation’s land imaging architecture through collaboration with our customer and industry partners,” said Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace. “By developing innovative, reliable, cost-effective instruments and investing in the next generation of land imaging technology, we are ensuring the long-term continuity of Landsat’s important data record.”

About Ball Aerospace

Ball Corporation (NYSE:BLL) supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ 17,500 people worldwide and reported 2018 net sales of $11.6 billion.

The U.S. Air Force Materiel Command recently conducted a study on potential areas for improvement and found that personnel want better communication and innovation across the command.

The Air Force said Wednesday that AFMC sought the input of around 88,000 civilian and military personnel on how to meet the demands of the National Defense Strategy as part of the AFMC We Need initiative. Respondents pointed to cross-enterprise collaboration, innovation and communication as key factors for progress, while inconsistent operations significantly limit organizational improvement.

“Capturing both the internal and external perceptions of AFMC was key to this initiative,” said Col. Patrick McDonnell, team lead for the AFMC We Need effort. “We not only wanted to know what our people were seeing, but also how we are perceived by those outside AFMC who we work with on a daily basis in support of the Air Force mission.”

AFMC made improvements in hiring through streamlined procedures and Congressional hiring authorities, the Air Force noted. However, according to AFMC Commander Gen. Arnold Bunch, IT and facility issues require a longer-term strategy.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing a system of small robots that combine to form a shape-changing space exploration vehicle for missions on Saturn’s moons.

JPL said Wednesday its Shapeshifter prototype is a semi-autonomous system of 3D printed robots that form a ground exploration platform when combined and separate into flying drones.

Shapeshifter’s future, fully automated version would feature drones, known as cobots, that would automatically assemble without the need for ground station-based commands.

JPL works on Shapeshifter as part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program that supports non-traditional projects that may seem unrealistic to some.

The robotic system may support a future mission on Titan, one of Saturn’s 62 moons, according to JPL Principal Investigator Ali Agha.

Agha’s team will enter Shapeshifter to the selection for NIAC’s second phase in 2020.

The team is also looking to create up to 12 robotic systems for specific functions such as cave exploration.

Emery Csulak, chief information security officer of the Department of Energy, has said that the department has begun deploying a new cybersecurity risk management framework at several national laboratories, Fedscoop reported Wednesday. 

Csulak added that DOE has been using the Factor Analysis of Information Risk framework to assess the benefits and risks of migrating systems and applications to the cloud. The department also plans to implement FAIR for business case management as part of fiscal 2021 budgeting procedures, he noted.

“They need to be able to make honest risk decisions at the level where they affect their operational capabilities — whether or not it’s with science or nuclear protection,” according to Csulak.

DOE intends to include more agencies in efforts to implement the FAIR framework by fall, he said.

The Government Accountability Office has found that the Department of Energy is yet to develop plans for implementing electric grid security that fully address key factors such as threat actors, vulnerabilities and impacts.

GAO stated in its report that DOE based its risk assessments on outdated models and that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s grid security approval procedures failed to ensure full compliance with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s requirements. FERC’s methodologies also failed to “evaluate the potential risk of a coordinated cyberattack on geographically distributed targets,” GAO noted.

According to the watchdog, DOE’s guidance for resource allocation to mitigate security risks will “likely be limited” until the department provides a complete strategy for grid cybersecurity.