The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced the potential locations for a competition that seeks to launch small payloads on short notice.

The agency said Tuesday details of the launch sites for the DARPA Launch Challenge will be finalized, along with the necessary payloads and the orbit they will be placed in, a few weeks before the planned space flight missions.

The potential launch locations are:\n

• California Spaceport
• Cape Canaveral Spaceport
• Cecil Spaceport
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport
• Mojave Air and Space Port
• Naval Outlying Field
• Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska
• Spaceport America

\nDARPA has also reviewed an initial wave of proposed launch strategies and shortlisted 18 teams that will possibly compete in the Launch Challenge.

The agency will no longer accept registrations for challenge participation by December and will announce the final contestants during the first quarter of 2019.

The participants are encouraged to coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration before submitting their applications for a launch license to address potential regulatory concerns and reduce risks.

DARPA will award a $400K prize to contestants passing the qualification step and $2M for completing the first launch.

Three teams will be awarded the grand prizes of $8M, $9M and $10M for passing the second flight mission.

The cyber national mission force has uploaded unclassified malware samples to the VirusTotal website as part of its effort to share identified cyber vulnerabilities with industry, U.S. Cyber Command reported Monday.

CNMF also created a Twitter account to alert the cybersecurity community when it posts malicious software, computer viruses and other cyber threats on the website.

CNMF is a Cybercom unit that plans, synchronizes and leads cyber operations to defend and protect the country from potential threat actors.

VirusTotal is a Google-owned malware intelligence database.
 

An SRI International-led consortium established to advance quantum science studies in the U.S. recently held its second meeting and selected its potential leaders, FCW reported Monday.

Carl Williams, deputy director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Physical Measurement Laboratory, unveiled at the meeting that 34 companies have expressed interest in joining the Quantum Economic Development Consortium to seek support for their quantum computing research.

He noted that most of the interested parties are major corporations while the rest are emerging companies.

Williams added that the private sector has started investing in quantum technology despite the forecast that the technology will fully emerge in 20 to 30 years.

Christopher Boyer, chairman of NIST’s Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, also said that quantum science is beginning to show its potential in driving efforts in security, cryptography and artificial intelligence, among other things.

NIST stood up QEDC in October in partnership with SRI International to support research and development efforts in quantum science from the public and private sectors and academic institutions.

Brig. Gen. DeAnna Burt, U.S. Air Force Space Command director of operations and communications, recently announced that the Undergraduate Space Training program is being expanded from 77 days to 111 days, Federal News Network reported.

Airmen undergoing UST will also be trained to visually identify threats in space, in the same way that F-16 fighter pilots are expected to be able to recognize airborne threats, Burt said during an Air Force Association event on Nov. 2.

Because of this new skill requirement, incoming trainees will have to be given top security clearance for certain parts of the program, Burt noted.

At present, airmen undergoing UST only need a secret-level clearance.

The changes to the UST will be implemented in October 2019.

The U.S. Air Force has announced the third iteration of a program aiming to identify vulnerabilities within the military’s cyber space.

The Hack the Air Force 3.0 bug bounty program invites computer experts from 191 countries to examine USAF websites for weaknesses through Nov. 22, the branch said Monday.

This year’s edition of the program will focus on applications recently transitioned into a USAF-operated cloud platform.

Participants will receive at least $5K for every critical vulnerability detected and possible increases depending on overall impact to the system.

The program builds on the Defense Department‘s Hack the Pentagon effort that the Defense Digital Service administered in 2016.

Carlen Capenos, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency‘s Office of Small Business Programs, said the agency is promoting different measures to foster good working relationships with the small business community, C4ISRNet reported Tuesday.

In an interview with with C4ISRNet’s Brandon Knapp, Capenos said the agency has formulated its systems engineering, technology and innovation requirements to cater to small businesses and encourage them to work for the Defense Department.

To help smaller firms adhere to the DoD’s federal contracting standards, DISA conducts monthly seminars and gives primers on how to reach the qualifications that the department is looking for, Capenos said.

She noted that when it comes to spurring new technologies, small firms readily deliver; however, when it comes to addressing cybersecurity issues, some small businesses still find it challenging due to expense considerations.

“The challenge really is for DISA to keep up with small business. We need to learn how to be more flexible and less stagnant on how we approach small business, how we get them under contract, how we utilize [Other Transaction Authorities], and those are things we are working on,” Capenos said.