Adam Drake, CEO and chief data officer of data consultancy firm Atazzo, is working on modernizing U.S. Marine Corps logistics operations as part of his role as a 2019 Presidential Innovation Fellow, GCN reported Friday. 

Drake is collaborating with the service branch’s deputy commandant for installations and logistics on “a series of projects” to support the Marine Corps and Department of Defense in all logistics-related matters. He intends to deploy his experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence while partnering with the DoD’s Joint AI Center on broader initiatives managed by the department’s AI community.

“The success of almost any enterprise, especially a logistics enterprise, hinges on its ability to ingest, process, disseminate and act on timely data,” he said.

Other efforts that Drake highlighted include fortifying the DoD’s security posture as it transitions workloads into a cloud environment.

Government and private sector leaders cited hacking and spoofing as potential threats to the nation’s GPS systems during the 2019 Satellite conference in Washington, D.C., C4ISRnet reported Saturday. James Miller, executive director of the National Space-Based positioning, navigation and timing advisory board, said during a panel discussion that while jamming is a pervasive threat in 2019, spoofing is a more complicated form of hacking that can manipulate and misguide GPS platforms. 

Jonathon Caldwell, GPS III program manager and vice president for navigation systems at Lockheed Martin, added that GPS technology has “become an economic powerhouse” with significant impact on sectors such as agriculture. 

The Department of Homeland Security announced in April that PNT is one of its national critical functions, or operations that need to be protected to sustain the nation’s economic, security and public health in the event of an attack.

The General Services Administration has partnered with the Office of Personnel Management to help OPM update its information technology systems and address structural issues through the Centers of Excellence program. GSA said Monday it will provide technical and consulting assistance in support of OPM’s IT and future modernization initiatives through a discovery sprint.

“We are excited to begin the CoE discovery phase with OPM and leverage the expertise of our GSA IT team as we work with OPM to modernize their IT capabilities,” said GSA Administrator and 2019 Wash100 winner Emily Murphy. 

OPM serves as the third federal agency GSA has teamed with as part of the CoE initiative, which aims to advance IT modernization through the use of government services and private sector innovation. GSA also partnered with the departments of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development through the CoE program.

The partnership will focus on IT workforce planning, IT planning and government, retirement services technology portfolio and mainframe and disaster recovery planning areas. The partnership came a day after the White House introduced a legislative proposal to authorize OPM’s move to GSA as part of reorganization.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team began using a new unmanned aerial system designed to provide near-real time video access for reconnaissance missions, DVIDS reported Thursday. Program Executive Office Soldier had troops hold, inventorize and train to use the new system at Fort Bragg, North Carolina from April 29 to May 3.

The system is part of the Army’s Soldier Borne Sensors program that applies drones to perform dangerous reconnaissance work instead of risking soldier lives. The UAS consists of a daytime drone, a nighttime drone and a ground control system with a handheld controller and display for users. The two drones feature sensors that emit low visual and audio signatures.

“The squad will not have any dead space within its area of operations and this allows soldiers to detect threats earlier than ever, meaning it is more likely soldiers won’t be harmed during their missions,” said Nathan Heslink, assistant program manager for SBS at PEO Soldier. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration has allowed Pantex Plant’s High Explosives Pressing Facility to proceed with full-scale operations after a series of readiness assessments. The Texas-based facility would replace the nuclear weapons plant’s aging machining and pressing equipment, and consolidate operations to lessen the motion of explosives across the plant, the Department of Energy said Thursday.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages the 45-square-foot pressing facility that underwent construction from 2011 through 2017. Pantex Plant functions to assemble, dismantle and maintain nuclear weapons in support of NNSA’s mission to sustain the country’s nuclear stockpile.

“NNSA is modernizing the nuclear security enterprise to face 21st century threats,” said Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, undersecretary for nuclear security and NNSA administrator.