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Mark Geyer Appointed NASA Johnson Space Center Director
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Mark Geyer Appointed NASA Johnson Space Center Director


Mark Geyer Appointed NASA Johnson Space Center Director
Mark Geyer

Mark Geyer, acting deputy associate administrator for technical for the human explorations and operations mission directorate at NASA, has been appointed director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston in a move that takes effect May 25.

He will succeed Ellen Ochoa, who will retire from the space agency after a 30-year career there, NASA said Tuesday.

Geyer will oversee the center that conducts human spaceflight activities and employs approximately 10,000 civil and contractor personnel.

“Mark brings with him almost three decades of NASA leadership experience at the program, center and headquarter levels,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

In his current position, Geyer assists HEO Mission Directorate Associate Administrator William Gerstenmaier in developing strategies for human spaceflight exploration missions.

He joined the agency in 1990 and served as program manager in many of the space agency’s initiatives, including the International Space Station Program from 1994 to 2005, the Constellation Program from 2005 to 2007 and Orion Program from 2007 to 2015.

He also briefly contributed to the Johnson Space Center efforts after leading the Orion project.

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VA Finalizes Rule to Expand Veteran Telehealth Services Nationwide
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VA Finalizes Rule to Expand Veteran Telehealth Services Nationwide


VA Finalizes Rule to Expand Veteran Telehealth Services NationwideThe Department of Veterans Affairs has finalized a rule for VA clinicians to provide medical services to former military personnel with the use of virtual technology.

VA said Friday the Authority of Health Care Providers to Practice Telehealth will override state telehealth laws and licensing restrictions that prevent healthcare providers from delivering care to veterans.

The federal rule is meant to expand veterans’ access to mental healthcare and suicide prevention support virtually.

Robert Wilkie, acting secretrary of the VA, said that implementing the policy is critical to the department’s ‘Anywhere to Anywhere’ initiative.

The White House’s Office of American Innovation and the Justice Department collaborates with the VA to implement the rule.

Providers can use the VA Video Connect application and other telehealth tools to serve patients nationwide, including those who stay in the veteran’s home.

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NASA’s Autonomous Rotorcraft to Launch as Part of Mars 2020 Rover Mission
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NASA’s Autonomous Rotorcraft to Launch as Part of Mars 2020 Rover Mission


NASA’s Autonomous Rotorcraft to Launch as Part of Mars 2020 Rover MissionA small unmanned rotorcraft is set to take off with NASA’s Mars 2020 rover aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The agency’s Mars Helicopter is an autonomous aircraft that aims to demonstrate controlled flight on the red planet’s thin atmosphere in support of future Mars exploration missions, NASA said Saturday.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory initiated the aircraft in August 2013 as a technology demonstration project. The rotorcraft has solar cells and a heating platform and will take a 30-day flight test.

“We don’t have a pilot and Earth will be several light minutes away, so there is no way to joystick this mission in real time,” said Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL.

“Instead, we have an autonomous capability that will be able to receive and interpret commands from the ground, and then fly the mission on its own,” Aung added.

The Mars 202 rover and the aircraft are expected to arrive at the red planet by February 2021 in order to carry out geological assessments and evaluate natural hazards and resources as well as collect rock and soil samples.

The Mars 2020 Project at JPL oversees rover development work for the science mission directorate, while the agency’s Launch Services Program manages launch management efforts.

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Nuclear Weapons Council OKs NNSA’s Recommendation to Address Plutonium Requirements
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Nuclear Weapons Council OKs NNSA’s Recommendation to Address Plutonium Requirements


Nuclear Weapons Council OKs NNSA's Recommendation to Address Plutonium RequirementsThe Nuclear Weapons Council has validated the National Nuclear Security Administration‘s strategy to help the country meet the Defense Department‘s plutonium requirement of 80 pits per year by 2020.

NNSA recommended to repurpose the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina to generate more plutonium pits, while fully utilizing the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for pit production, Ellen Lord and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said in a joint statement published Thursday.

They added the “two-prong” approach calls for the MFFF to produce a minimum of 50 pits annually and the LANL to make at least 30.

The approved strategy is a result of collaboration between NNSA and the Defense Department.

Lord serves as the chair of NWC and defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, while Gordon-Hagerty serves as administrator of the NNSA and a member of NWC.

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GSA Signs 15-Year Lease for CBP’s Consolidated IT Office in Virginia
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GSA Signs 15-Year Lease for CBP’s Consolidated IT Office in Virginia


GSA Signs 15-Year Lease for CBP's Consolidated IT Office in VirginiaThe Customs and Border Protection‘s Office of Information of Technology will move to consolidate its 11 separate locations into one facility through a 15-year lease agreement signed by the General Services Administration.

CBP OIT will occupy a 444,595-rentable-square-foot office space at 22001 Loudoun County Parkway in Ashburn, Va., GSA said Thursday.

The facility will also house CBP’s Office of Trade, Border Patrol and Laboratory and Scientific Services Directorate.

“The new lease will reduce its footprint, improve the utilization rate, and save taxpayers approximately $8 million in annual leased cost avoidance versus non-consolidation,” said Chris Wisner, director of portfolio management and real estate at GSA’s Public Buildings Service.

CBP aims to reduce real estate footprint of its IT operations by more than 191,000 RSF.

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Justin Poole: NGA Pursues AI, Automation, Augmentation to Address Big Data Challenges
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Justin Poole: NGA Pursues AI, Automation, Augmentation to Address Big Data Challenges


Justin Poole: NGA Pursues AI, Automation, Augmentation to Address Big Data ChallengesJustin Poole, deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, has said NGA has begun efforts to adopt artificial intelligence, augmentation and automation, also known as the ‘triple A,’ to generate insights from vast amounts of data and address other big data revolution-related challenges faced by the intelligence community, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.

“NGA intends to apply ‘triple A’ to every image that we ingest by the end of this year,” Poole said at the annual C4ISRNET conference.

Poole noted that NGA produced over 50 million indexed observations from at least 12 million collected images through the use of AI.

“We’ve launched a number of initiatives to figure out how to automate things like change detection, target recognition and target monitoring,” he added.

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Trump Considers Rep. Brian Mast for VA Secretary Post
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Trump Considers Rep. Brian Mast for VA Secretary Post


Trump Considers Rep. Brian Mast for VA Secretary Post
Brian Mast

Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., has emerged as one of the potential frontrunners to succeed David Shulkin as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

The Trump administration has begun to consider other candidates after Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician, decided to withdraw his name from consideration for the VA secretary post.

Mast is a 12-year U.S. Army veteran who served as a bomb disposal expert under the Joint Special Operations Command during his deployment to Afghanistan. His assignment in the Middle Eastern country resulted in the amputation of his legs due to an improvised explosive device.

He provided expert advice to the National Nuclear Security Administration and worked at the Department of Homeland Security as an explosive specialist.

He is a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees.

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GAO: Indefinite-Delivery Orders Comprised 40% of DoD Contract Obligations in FY 2015-2017
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GAO: Indefinite-Delivery Orders Comprised 40% of DoD Contract Obligations in FY 2015-2017


GAO: Indefinite-Delivery Orders Comprised 40% of DoD Contract Obligations in FY 2015-2017The Government Accountability Office has found that orders placed under indefinitely-delivery contracts accounted for approximately 40 percent of the Defense Department’s contract obligations between fiscal years 2015 and 2017.

GAO said in a report published Thursday it found that DoD awarded about three-quarters of indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts to a single vendor in the past three fiscal years.

The congressional watchdog evaluated IDIQ contracts and found that the Pentagon added ordering provisions that considered competition for succeeding orders.

“However, nearly all of the contracts we reviewed contained provisions that, while not explicitly limiting competition, may have the potential, under certain circumstances, to reduce the number of contractors who are eligible to compete for the orders,” GAO noted.

The agency evaluated DoD’s use of indefinite-delivery contracts in compliance with the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

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AFRL Completes Demonstration of New Maintenance Robotic System
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AFRL Completes Demonstration of New Maintenance Robotic System


AFRL Completes Demonstration of New Maintenance Robotic SystemThe U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Manufacturing Technologies Division has showcased a new a robotic system for aircraft maintenance.

The Advanced Automation for Agile Aerospace Applications or A5 robot uses sensor feedback to perform factory work in localized environments, Wright-Patterson AF Base said Thursday.

The robot weighs 22,000 pounds and is expected to reduce the time spent on aircraft coating removal by up to 50 percent.

A5 uses sensor-gathered data to form a path plan that serves as a guide for maintenance activities, eliminating the need for system reprogramming.

“The A5 robot is mounted on a mobile platform that allows it to move about an aircraft,” said Rick Meyers, an automation and robotics program manager at the AFRL.

“A human operator interfaces with the onboard computer, and the robot plans and completes the manual tasks,” he added.

The A5 is nearing completion of its Phase I development, and is scheduled to undergo additional testing on a C-17 aircraft in fall this year.

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House Lawmakers Introduce Digital Government Services Delivery Bill
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House Lawmakers Introduce Digital Government Services Delivery Bill


House Lawmakers Introduce Digital Government Services Delivery BillReps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, have introduced a bill that seeks to improve the delivery of government services to the public through online platforms.

The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act would establish standards for mobile security interfaces across federal websites, according to an article published Thursday on Ratcliffe’s website.

He said the bill “takes advantage of new and emerging technologies that can drastically improve the way our federal agencies provide critical services to folks across the country, including people with disabilities or those who live in rural areas with limited access to traditional, in-person assistance services.”

Internal Revenue Service data shows live or in-person assistance calls to IRS cost taxpayers up to $60 on average and digital transactions cost them only $0.22.

Fourteen other House lawmakers sponsored IDEA.

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