A field activity of the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command has partnered with Purdue University and U.K.-based Cranfield University to create a postgraduate educational program to help students learn defense engineering and technology skills. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, will offer the dual master’s degree program with a concentration in expeditionary warfare to address a workforce development requirement, NAVSEA said Monday.

Both universities collaborated to implement the program at NSWC Crane under a memorandum of agreement signed in October.

“When new engineers come to work at NSWC Crane, it could be their first time applying principles of heat transfer to ammunition or weapon design, or applying physics of semiconductors to night vision sensors,” said Adam Parsley, a division manager at the center. “With this dual master’s degree, that fundamental science and engineering knowledge is refined and sharpened in these highly relevant and applied courses,” Parsley added.

Located in Indiana, NSWC Crane employs more than 3,000 professionals and 73 percent of its total workforce are engineers, technicians and scientists. The center supports the service branch’s expeditionary warfare missions and works on technology such sensors, weapons and special munitions.

An expeditionary fast transport vessel Austal USA built for the U.S. Navy completed a series of builder’s and acceptance trials Thursday. The future USNS Puerto Rico, designated EPF 11, returned to the company’s shipyard after two days of integrated sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico, the service branch said Monday.

Austal USA demonstrated the performance of the ship’s systems to the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey. The noncombatant vessel is designed to support various missions in shallow-draft waterways or ports. The christening ceremony for the 11th Spearhead-class EPF ship took place in November.

Construction of the future USNS Newport (EPF 12) is underway at Austal USA’s facility in Mobile, Ala. The company also received a contract to build two more EPF ships.

Steven Bradbury, general counsel of the Department of Transportation, said DoT has started organizing field demonstrations of technologies to serve as back-up systems in the event of an attack on the U.S. Air Force’s GPS, Breaking Defense reported Monday.

Bradbury said that DoT is working with the departments of Homeland Security and Defense and other federal agencies through the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee “to address policy and technical issues including the security and resilience of GPS receivers.” The move is a response to the rapid adoption of jamming systems by countries such as Russia and China.

According to the report, DoT received 21 responses from vendors in June a month after it issued a request for proposals to look for technologies that are ready for field demos and “are capable of providing backup positioning, navigation, and/or timing services to critical infrastructure (CI) in the event of a temporary disruption to GPS.”

Brian Harrell, assistant director for infrastructure security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said at an Auburn University event that private network infrastructure providers are becoming more willing to share data, FCW reported Monday.

Harrell said that evolving cyberattacks and network breaches have resulted in privately owned infrastructure providers such as telecommunications, banking and power-related firms becoming more timely in sharing their data with the Department of Homeland Security.

CISA Director and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Christopher Krebs noted that factors such as proper information, a mitigation strategy and industry best practices help CISA in protecting infrastructure and can be used by providers to fortify their networks.

“It’s no longer good enough to say, ‘We meet with cyber every other Tuesday.’ Everything is connected,” added Harrell.

A transport helicopter built by Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky subsidiary to replace the aging Marine One presidential aircraft is on track to achieve inital operational capability next year, National Defense Magazine reported Monday.

The Sikorsky VH-92A twin-engine helicopter is based on the company’s S-92A commercial aircraft and is intended to succeed the fleet of VH-3D Sea King and VH-60N White Hawk presidential helicopters. According to Lockheed, the U.S. Navy plans to acquire 23 VH-92As which will undergo initial operational test and evaluation activities in mid-2020.

Eric Ropella, program manager for the Marine Corps VH-92A effort, told National Defense in an email that the program office is collaborating with other agencies to “ensure continued interoperability” with various communications systems as they evolve.

Sikorsky secured a $1.2B contract to develop Marine One replacement helicopters in 2014. VH-92A passed initial flight assessments last year and entered the low-rate initial production phase in June.

Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the Department of Defense will establish an “intellectual property cadre” to develop policies aimed at protecting the U.S. military’s technologies and ensuring data security by October, the Military website reported Monday.

“Acquisition and sustainment is now issuing new functional policies on mission engineering and intellectual property,” Lord said during a briefing at the Pentagon. The new IP protection group “will develop DoD policy within the whole of government effort to address concerns on data rights.”

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018 required DoD to come up with a group of IP experts within the department and industry to provide guidance on how to apply regulations to procurement strategy, according to the report.

Army leaders signed a charter to establish a cyberspace effects position for civilian personnel, Fifth Domain reported Monday.

“This is really a big deal. What this allows us to do, essentially, [is establish] a formal framework and program that will allow us to recruit, develop, retain those members of our workforce that are specifically conducting cyberspace effects,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, head of Army Cyber Command, said during a signing ceremony on Aug. 20 at TechNet Augusta.

Under Career Program 71, the new cyber warfare positions will offer a centralized approach to civilian education, training and professional development and will be aligned to a corresponding position for uniformed personnel. The report said civilian personnel will work on the service’s cyber mission force teams and carry out defensive and offensive cyberspace missions.

U.S. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, has identified “persistent engagement” as a key element in his leadership of the agency, NPR reported Monday.

“That’s the idea of persistent engagement. This idea of enabling and acting,” he said. Nakasone, who assumed leadership of NSA in May 2018, has taken an aggressive stance on the agency’s efforts to address threats from adversaries such as China, North Korea, Russia and Iran.

As part of his leadership strategy, Nakasone selected Anne Neuberger to head the Cybersecurity Directorate. The directorate, which is meant to consolidate the agency’s offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, is slated to launch in October.

“We are a surveillance agency in a democracy,” she said. “The risk of losing public understanding of what we’re doing, public trust and who we are as an organization is something that has to be forefront in our mind.”

Neuberger’s comments come after the agency recommended the termination of a government surveillance program under the 2015 USA Freedom Act in April. Other challenges cited by NSA officials include retaining talent despite making large hiring efforts.