NASA has docked its Mars Helicopter to the Mars 2020 rover for the upcoming exploration mission on the red planet. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached the twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter to the rover’s belly section, the space agency said Wednesday.

The rover features a cover designed to protect Mars Helicopter from debris. The helicopter will only undock and deploy once the rover reaches a flight-suitable area within Mars’ Jezero Crater. The space agency would deploy a second wave of Mars Helicopters for future missions if the initial unit’s demonstration concludes successfully.

“Our job is to prove that autonomous, controlled flight can be executed in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere,” said MiMi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL.

NASA will launch the Mars 2020 rover July next year on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

An undersea cable project between Los Angeles and Hong Kong designed to expand internet connectivity might not get a license to operate as it faces opposition from U.S. officials due to national security concerns, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Sources said a panel led by the Department of Justice and tasked with reviewing telecommunications projects – Team Telecom – has expressed objection to the 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network project due to ties of Beijing-based investor Dr. Peng Telecom & Media Group to the Chinese government and Hong Kong’s declining autonomy.

According to the report, the $300M PLCN project is backed by Facebook and Google and work on the program is being conducted under a temporary permit, which is set to expire in September. Hong Kong-based Pacific Light Data Communication said it has installed more than 6,800 miles of cable as part of the project, which is set to enter service by December or January.

If the project’s application is denied, it’d be the first time the U.S. has denied a license for an undersea cable project due to national security, the report said.

The Department of Energy is investing $50M in fusion energy and plasma science projects conducted by industry firms, universities and national laboratories. The investment aims to allow for fusion energy’s use as a source of clean power, DOE said Wednesday.

The department used fiscal 2019 allotments for majority of the funds. Fusion energy researchers would work to sustain high-temperature plasmas in magnetic field confinements known as tokamak facilities.

“Research in the important fields of fusion energy and plasma science promises both short-term and long-term benefits to industry and society at large,” said Paul Dabbar, DOE undersecretary for science.

Sixty percent of the funds will support 10 U.S.-based multi-institutional teams to perform studies at facilities across the globe. DOE will use the remaining fraction of funds to establish new centers for low-temperature plasma research projects. The department conducted a competitive peer review to select projects.

Mark Brady, chief data officer of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, has said that the organization established a strategy for leveraging data to address everyday challenges, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

Brady told the publication that the command intends to collate large amounts of information to drive artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts while also supporting interoperability between systems. In addition, AFSPC plans to establish a “super system” that consolidates all of the command’s systems and deploy a “data catalog” approach to inform the development of next-generation technologies.

“You need a place where people can access data in some uniform, well-defined fashion rather than doing it ad hoc,” Brady said. “Then you need to produce policies for new and existing data systems to produce data that is more efficient.”