The U.S. Air Force has named its new Boeing-made T-X aircraft, with a public announcement at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference. Matthew Donovan, acting USAF secretary, announced the aircraft’s naming as the T-7A Red Hawk in National Harbor, Md., on Monday, the service branch said the same day.

“The name Red Hawk honors the legacy of Tuskegee Airmen and pays homage to their signature red-tailed aircraft from World War II,” Donovan said.

He unveiled unveiled a quarter-scale model of the T-X, now named T-7A Red Hawk, with a red-colored tail. The aircraft’s new name also honors the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, a fighter that served under the U.S. Army Air Forces’ first fighter squadron of African Americans.

USAF intends to use the T-7A trainer as a replacement for the existing T-38C Talon aircraft. Boeing secured a $9.2B contract last year to produce T-X aircraft under a partnership with Swedish firm Saab.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has unveiled a new program to train health care providers on the new electronic health record platform. The program, dubbed VA Innovative Technology Advancement Lab, has selected 76 participants to provide feedback that will be used to continuously improve the Cerner-built EHR technology, the department said Monday. 

“VA established VITAL to specially train staff who can identify possible challenges and work across the entire VA organization to make improvements,” said Robert Wilkie, secretary of VA and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner. 

VITAL will train end-users who require instructor-led EHR training, “super users” who need enhanced training to support their peers and users who need specialty training before the platform goes active. The program consists of four, three-day, in-person sessions within 12 to 18 months. 

The Department of Health and Human Services has adopted artificial intelligence to determine how government-friendly a solicited service can be, FCW reported Monday. Jose Arrieta, chief information officer at HHS, said the department constructed a neural network that has so far calculated correctly 86 percent of the time.

The neural network serves to help human procurement staff determine government-friendly services and allow personnel to focus on more crucial work. The AI-driven network builds on existing HHS work statements and guidelines on governmental functions from the Government Accountability Office. HHS has so far spent under $300,000 on the project and anticipates to save about $100 million in the first batch of work, Arrieta said.

“The better you understand when you need federal employees and when you need contractors to perform a service, the better service outcome you will provide,” the CIO noted.

The U.S. Air Force intends to reactivate the squadron that performed the pre-operational tests of the B-2 Spirit aircraft to support the flight test phase for the military service’s future B-21 Raider bomber plane. B-21 prime contractor Northrop Grumman is building the test aircraft at a production facility in Palmdale, Calif., the Air Force said Monday.

“The first flight of the Raider will take it from Palmdale to Edwards AFB, where the legacy of excellence will continue with the reactivation of the 420th Flight Test Squadron,” said Acting USAF Secretary Matthew Donovan.

USAF noted it collects feedback from the intelligence community as part of the B-21 program security evaluation process. The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and the 420th Flight Test Squadron will collaborate to deploy the long-range bomber aircraft.

Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, Whiteman AFB in Missouri and Dyess AFB in Texas were chosen as the preferred Raider operating base locations.

The National Reconnaissance Office and U.S. Space Command participated in an exercise to demonstrate space defense collaboration. NRO said Friday that it joined USSPACECOM and other members of the space community to exhibit cooperative space asset protection during the 13th Air Force Space Command Schriever Wargame.

“Space Command’s mission to protect and defend all U.S. satellites will enhance the survivability of NRO intelligence collection satellites and enable continuation of the national intelligence mission deep into conflict,” said Christopher Scolese, NRO director.

The two-week exercise took place at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., from Sept. 12 to 13. Gen. Jay Raymond, commander of USSPACECOM and Air Force Space Command, said the wargame allowed participants to practice a jointly created concept of operations.

“Recently we’ve reached an agreement with the NRO that, when a threat is imminent, the NRO will execute direction from U.S. Space Command to take protective and defensive actions to safeguard their space assets,” Raymond added.

The Department of the Treasury has issued sanctions against North Korean cyber terrorists who have targeted critical infrastructure. These state-sponsored hacking groups, known as Lazarus Group, Andariel and Bluenoroff, have been working with the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a North Korean intelligence agency, the department said Friday.

Treasury announced these sanctions in accordance to Executive Order 13722 that former President Obama issued to address North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities.

“Treasury is taking action against North Korean hacking groups that have been perpetrating cyber attacks to support illicit weapon and missile programs,” said Sigal Mandelker, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

Lazarus Group uses espionage, data theft, malware and other tactics to attack critical infrastructure as part of RGB’s third bureau. Bluenoroff and Andariel are sub-groups that stemmed from Lazarus. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command have also attributed several uncovered malware samples to North Korea.