Navy Vice Adm. Robert Sharp, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, appeared Monday at the GEOINT Symposium to discuss the four strategic goals – people, partnerships, mission today and mission tomorrow – of NGA’s Strategy 2025. Sharp talked about NGA’s efforts to recruit, develop and retain talent as well as its focus on inclusion and diversity.

Sharp said the agency is onboarding 300 employees this year. He noted that the agency is advancing data interoperability and international partnerships through several initiatives including the International Program for Human Geography and the TanDEMx High Resolution Elevation Data Exchange program. For the strategy’s Mission Today goal, Sharp discussed the agency’s use of technologies in its Enterprise Engine – Notice to Mariners initiative to speed up data analysis. 

“It now uses translation algorithms and optical character recognition to read documents in different formats, and it puts maritime symbols, numbers, and words into a GIS-enabled workspace,” he said. “That means analysts don’t need to scrutinize pages of source data and charts by hand anymore — they have electronic records that are way easier to work with than manually annotated hard copy records.” 

To achieve the Mission Tomorrow goal, Sharp asked interested stakeholders to partner with NGA on projects related to artificial intelligence, automation and augmentation. “Our goal is to partner with machines so that we can make best use of the exponential growth in volume and source of data, letting machines do what machines do well and analysts do what analysts to even better — think critically and solve problems,” Sharp added.

The U.S. Army is seeking new ways to utilize near-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit satellite communications technology to establish a tactical satcom network, C4ISRNET reported Friday.

The Army has launched initiatives like the Expeditionary Signal Battalion-Enhanced pilot program, which involves the deployment of small to medium-sized terminals to support satellite constellations in closer orbits. Such satellites have the capacity to potentially speed up communications and improve network performance.

Rich Williams, associate vice president at LinQuest, said the smaller terminals designed for MEO and low-Earth orbit have reduced footprints and require less power due to their proximity to Earth. According to Todd Harrison, senior fellow and aerospace security project director at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Army also needs to address emerging threats like jamming and spoofing that can compromise the satcom network’s cybersecurity.

“They will need to work with these commercial companies to build that security into their satellites and their ground stations,” Harrison noted.

The U.S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration launched a new initiative to increase partnerships with industry to address the national aircrew shortage. The collaboration intends to promote aviation across the country and increase the number of pilots joining the military, the Air Force said Friday.

“This collaborative effort will enable the Air Force and the FAA to work with industry partners to share best practices and find ways to get more people to fly,” said Air Force Secretary and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Heather Wilson. 

FAA will also assist the service branch in utilizing new technologies and techniques to improve pilot training. Initial joint efforts of FAA and the service would focus on attracting more people to take aviation professions, promote efficiency in training and improve partnerships with federal agencies, the Department of Defense, academia and industry.

Benjamin Huebner, privacy and civil liberties officer for the CIA, told attendees at a Brookings Institution event in Washington, D.C. that the agency is working on over 100 artificial intelligence initiatives, Nextgov reported Friday.

Huebner said the CIA seeks to incorporate new data analytics and machine learning methods in AI development while also covering ethical issues like biases and privacy measures. He added that the agency intends to implement “explainability” into its AI technology, which will provide users with insight into “how the algorithm actually got to the answer it did.”

“The algorithm that’s pushing that data out is a black box and that’s a problem if you are the CIA,” he said.

The U.S. Navy started construction on a land-based test site at Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia to speed up development of its new weapons elevators, a project that saw a delay due to technical issues, USNI News reported Friday. Capt. Danny Hernandez, spokesperson for Navy acquisition chief James Geurts, said the service aims to complete the facility in 2020.

The site will support tests of the Advanced Weapons Elevators, which are under installation and certification process aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. The Navy originally planned to complete development of all the 11 AWEs in June. However, work is expected to continue through October as only two of the systems have been certified for use.

“AWE is a first-of-kind developmental system without a land-based prototype,” Hernandez said. “The shipboard AWEs have been test beds for discovering many of the remaining developmental issues that have delayed the scheduled turnover to the crew.”

Some issues that delayed the project include physical adjustments and software refinement for AWE’s weapons movement.