A NASA advisory committee has released its annual report for 2017 that offers information on the agency’s safety performance as well as issues associated with its space programs.

The report issued Thursday by NASA’s aerospace safety advisory panel provides assessments of the agency’s Exploration Systems Development initiative; Commercial Crew Program; International Space Station; deep space exploration; enterprise protection; and aeronautics operations, the agency said Friday.

The panel offered several recommendations such as the need for NASA to make changes to space traffic management and situational awareness operations in an effort to address safety risks posed by micrometeoroids and orbital debris to human spaceflight missions.

The committee also called for a review and amendment of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 that mandates a presidential investigation into loss of space vehicles and crew as well as implementation of an independent review that would look into mishaps related to human spaceflight missions.

The report also highlighted the panel’s concerns with the 33-month launch gap between Exploration Mission-1 and EM-2 due to possible modification to the Mobile Launch Platform; issues with the Deep Space Gateway; and safety concerns associated with ISS deorbit planning efforts.

The committee also cited the impact of continuing resolution on NASA’s program management and implementation as well as funding concerns related to the agency’s aircraft management information system.

The Energy Department‘s Vehicle Technologies Office has earmarked $2.5 million in fiscal 2018 funds for two new programs that seek to address transportation energy management challenges with big data and high-performance computing platforms.

DOE said Tuesday the Big Data Solutions for Mobility initiative looks to create big data tools and algorithms to model urban transportation networks, as well as data science and HPC-based methods to analyze transportation systems.

Four national laboratories will collaborate with industry and academic organizations on the effort.

The HPC4Mobility initiative aims to encourage companies, transportation system operators and cities to identify  energy efficiency measures for mobility systems.

Qualifying participants under that program will have access to machine learning platforms, supercomputing facilities and data science expertise at national laboratories.

DOE VTO has provided $500,000 in total seed funds for separate projects led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

LBNL partnered with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to develop an HPC-supported method to compute demand models and forecast the energy impacts of emerging mobility technology.

ORNL teamed up with GRIDSMART Technologies to create reinforcement learning-based approaches to manage traffic efficiency and energy use.

The Government Accountability Office has urged the Department of Veterans Affairs to reevaluate and update its risk management policies to comply with prevailing security standards.

GAO said in a report published Thursday it also recommends VA to create an oversight strategy that can validate the effectiveness of risk management initiatives implemented at Veterans Health Administration locations.

The government watchdog agency discovered multiple VA risk management policies did not include all Interagency Security Committee-established elements of standards including some guidelines on facility security level measurement and facility assessment.

The report noted VA risk management oversight activities also failed to meet aspects of the Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government and the Office of Management and Budget‘s Circular A-123 regulation which directs agencies to maintain the accountability and effectiveness of programs.

GAO said the lack of a system-wide oversight plan makes variations on medical center approaches unknown and such gaps will prevent VA from knowing if medical centers have enough protection or if opportunities to leverage resources are fulfilled.

Robert Jackson, a law professor at New York University, and Hester Peirce, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, have been sworn in as commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SEC said Thursday Jackson will serve at the commission through June 5, 2019 and Peirce through June 5, 2020.

Both new commissioners were nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in late 2017.

Jackson previously taught law classes and served as director of the Program on Corporate Law and Policy at Columbia Law School.

He also served as an adviser for the Troubled Asset Relief Program at the Treasury Department‘s Office of the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation.

Peirce worked as director for the Financial Markets Working Group for George Mason University’s Mercatus Center in addition to her previous role as senior research fellow there.

She previously worked on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), counsel to then-SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins and staff attorney in the commission’s investment management division.