The General Services Administration has decided to extend the Transactional Data Reporting pilot through fiscal year 2020 to consolidate 24 schedules into just one platform. GSA said that it implemented the TDR rule as an optional three-year pilot in 2016, which covers eight schedules and related special item numbers.

TDR is an acquisition regulation that requires monthly reporting of transactional sales data from Multiple Award Schedules and other governmentwide contracts to boost transparency and reduce burden. GSA said that it will reassess the TDR pilot by the end of FY 2020 and decide whether to cancel, expand or continue the program.

The Department of Defense has tested a ground-launched cruise missile to gather data for future intermediate-range weapons development. The missile flew 500 kilometers from a site in San Nicolas Island, Calif., before striking a target, DoD said Monday.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Carver, a DoD spokesperson, said the tested weapon is a variant of the existing Tomahawk missile, Military.com reported Monday. The test follows the end of an old treaty that restricted the U.S. from performing intermediate-range tests. The severed agreement was known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Mark Esper, secretary of defense and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, earlier this month announced the country’s departure from the treaty due to Russia’s continuous violation of the agreement.

Travis Air Force Base has fielded an industrial-sized 3D printer to manufacture nonstructural aircraft components. Accredited by the Air Force Advanced Technology and Training Center as well as the Federal Aviation Administration, the Stratasys F900 3D printer uses Ultem materials to produce plastic parts, the U.S. Air Force said Monday.

USAF selected three members from the 60th Maintenance Squadron to be trained and certified by an instructor from the University of Dayton Research Institute as technicians. The service branch noted it took eight months before the printer was deployed.

“There were facility requirements that had to be met, and then installation and certification processes to complete,” said Master Sgt. John Higgs, aircraft metals technology section chief at the 60th MXS. “After, we needed to decide who could operate the printer, then have a UDRI instructor certify them,” added Higgs.

Higgs said other organizations and Air Force bases have sent requests for the production of supplies. In addition, 60th MXS intends to utilize the printer to yield other products aside from aircraft parts.

China has outpaced the U.S. in regards to producing patents for quantum technology over the past decade and some scientists say the Trump administration has voiced its concern about the number of Chinese students in the U.S. involved in quantum science studies and other sensitive scientific areas, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

“We’ve always encouraged the best and brightest to come from overseas, and it’s always served our nation well,” said John Preskill, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. “But there is concern in government about how we are training all these people, and a lot of them are going back to China and competing in technologies that have implications for national security. And we’re talking about what to do about it,” he added.

According to the report, some U.S. agencies have moved to limit collaboration with China. One of the agencies supporting research on quantum science and physics is the Department of Energy, which prohibited its contractors and personnel from responding to China’s Thousand Talents and other talent recruitment initiatives of foreign countries in June.

Driven by China’s strides in the field, Congress passed in 2018 the National Quantum Initiative Act to allocate additional research funds worth $1.2B. DOE is expected to get a large share of the funding and plans to use it to establish research centers focused on quantum science.

The Department of Energy has recognized Hill Air Force Base for the installation’s ongoing energy savings effort that began in 2018. The base received DOE’s 2019 Federal Energy and Water Management Award that honors efforts of significance in energy efficiency, water conservation and renewable energy use, the U.S. Air Force said Sunday.

Hill AFB pursues energy savings efforts under a $91.1M 23-year contract with Energy Solutions Group that provides infrastructure updates across 328 buildings. The efforts are also intended to reduce the number of external energy sources that USAF relies on for missions.

Energy Solutions Group has helped the Hill AFB install new LED lighting and update steam distribution systems, control systems and ventilation at the base. Hill AFB also features a 3.55-megawatt solar array that contributes renewed energy to the base’s electric grid.

USAF expects these efforts to reduce the base’s annual energy consumption by 9 percent and energy costs by 13 percent. The service branch also hopes for Hill’s distributed and renewable energy portfolio to rise by 30 percent.

“There are Department of Defense directives that guide us to reduce our energy consumption, so this will go a long way to us actually meeting those requirements,” said Nick King, energy and utility manager at Hill AFB.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has pushed back the release of its revised cybersecurity standards for Department of Defense contractors until after the review of a related set of standards is completed, Inside Defense reported Friday.

NIST delayed its issuance of Special Publication 800-171 Revision 2, known as “Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations,” due to the Office of Management and Budget’s pending completion of its review of SP 800-53. Revision 5 of SP 800-53 was originally intended to cover controls on supply chain, system design, privacy and cyber resiliency matters.

NIST noted that it put the release of SP 800-171 on hold “due to dependencies on SP 800-53.” SP 800-171 includes guidelines for cyber incident reports that DoD contractors handling unclassified information must be able to achieve.