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Report: DoD’s Strategic Capabilities Office to Demo Hypervelocity Projectile
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Report: DoD’s Strategic Capabilities Office to Demo Hypervelocity Projectile


Report: DoD’s Strategic Capabilities Office to Demo Hypervelocity ProjectileThe Defense Department’s strategic capabilities office plans to test-fire its hypervelocity projectile in less than a year, Breaking Defense reported Friday.

HVP costs approximately $86,000 per round and works to travel up to 5,600 miles per hour to target incoming threats.

“That projectile is being designed to engage multiple threats,” Vincent Sabio, HVP program manager at DoD’s SCO, said Thursday at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event.

“We need to be able to address (all) types of threats: subsonic, supersonic; sea-skimming, land-hugging; coming in from above and dropping down on top of us,” he added.

Sabio said the HVP round uses the U.S. Marine Corps’ ground/air task oriented radar system for long-range surveillance operations and a radar interferometer designed to provide a 360-degree fire control capability.

The projectile can be fired from the U.S. Army’s 155 mm howitzers and the U.S. Navy’s deck guns.

Sabio noted that Army howitzers’ barrel and muzzle brake components would require modifications to facilitate HVP launches.

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Trump to Name EY Principal Suzette Kent as Federal CIO
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Trump to Name EY Principal Suzette Kent as Federal CIO


Trump to Name EY Principal Suzette Kent as Federal CIO
Suzette Kent

President Donald Trump has announced plans to appoint Suzette Kent, a principal for financial services at professional services firm EY, as federal chief information officer, the White House reported Friday.

Nextgov also reported that Kent will be the fourth federal CIO and will help oversee cybersecurity policies and other federal information technology management regulations once appointed as administrator of the Office of Management and Budget’s office of electronic government.

“As a citizen, I care passionately about the transformation agenda that is outlined in the technology modernization agenda, and I am honored to be allowed to serve our country through leveraging the skills, experiences and relationships that I have developed over my career,” Kent said in a statement to the publication.

“The exciting part is that this mandate includes many of the same industrialization objectives, software solutions and transformation protocols that I have been working on for private sector clients and which will be a priority in the CIO role,” she added.

Prior to EY, she worked for seven years at JPMorgan as a managing director.

She previously served as president for global payments consulting at Carreker and partner for financial services at Accenture.

Kent has leadership experience across the areas of career development, organizational learning and workforce diversity and holds patents related to banking processes, the White House added.

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Gen. Jay Raymond: National Space Defense Center Begins Full-Time Operations
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Gen. Jay Raymond: National Space Defense Center Begins Full-Time Operations

Gen. Jay Raymond: National Space Defense Center Begins Full-Time OperationsThe National Space Defense Center, a partnership between the Intelligence Community and Defense Department, was declared fully operational on Jan. 8 to support interagency efforts to secure U.S. space assets.

NSDC aims to increase the government’s capacity to protect and defend space-based systems that support joint warfighters, the U.S. Air Force said Friday.

The center will work to develop platforms and services that can help the U.S. attribute, characterize, detect and warn against potential threats to space systems as well as supports information exchange for space defense missions of the DoD, National Reconnaissance Office and other partner agencies.

“We have officially transitioned the NSDC from an experiment to a functioning 24/7/365 operations center focused on protecting and defending the space domain,” said Gen. Jay Raymond, commander of the Air Force Space Command.

“The new 24/7 operations at the NSDC will help ensure the national security space enterprise outpaces any emerging and advanced space threats by facilitating information sharing across the space community,” noted Col. Dan Wright, deputy director of the NSDC.

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NIST’s Donna Dodson: Agencies Need Diverse Teams to Tackle Cyber Challenges
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NIST’s Donna Dodson: Agencies Need Diverse Teams to Tackle Cyber Challenges


NIST's Donna Dodson: Agencies Need Diverse Teams to Tackle Cyber Challenges
Donna Dodson

Donna Dodson, chief cybersecurity officer of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has said she believes diversity in agency teams can help the government address cyber challenges, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

“I think in the cybersecurity field we really need people with different backgrounds and different perspectives to come to the table and work on the nation’s challenges in this space,” Dodson told the station in an interview.

In the interview, she also noted that NIST partnered with other federal agencies such as the Treasury Department to  establish programs that utilize cryptography for data integrity and confidentiality efforts.

She also works with students through a cybersecurity program at the University of Maryland in Baltimore as part of her initiative to influence members of the cyber sector.

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NIST Report Aims to Help Businesses Understand Blockchain
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NIST Report Aims to Help Businesses Understand Blockchain


NIST Report Aims to Help Businesses Understand BlockchainThe National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a draft report on blockchain in an effort to give businesses a “straightforward” description of the technology.

The nearly 60-page document titled, “Draft NIST Interagency Report 8202: Blockchain Technology Overview” includes information on the concept of blockchain, its use in electronic currency and broader applications, NIST said Wednesday.

“We want to help people understand how blockchains work so that they can appropriately and usefully apply them to technology problems,” said Dylan Yaga, a NIST computer scientist and co-author of the report.

NIST added the document discusses potential uses of blockchain in areas such as banking, supply chain management and insurance transaction monitoring.

It also covers blockchain-related subjects, including digital signatures and peer-to-peer networking.

The publication includes a section that addresses misconceptions on blockchain, an overview of technical tools used in most blockchain-based systems and related issues, the agency noted.

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House Lawmakers Urge Trump to Fill White House Science & Tech Policy Director Position
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House Lawmakers Urge Trump to Fill White House Science & Tech Policy Director Position


House Lawmakers Urge Trump to Fill White House Science & Tech Policy Director PositionSeven House Democratic lawmakers have called on President Donald Trump to name a director for the White House’s office of science and technology policy and staff the institution with qualified scientific advisers in an effort to prevent the administration from falling prey to misinformation.

The lawmakers wrote in a joint letter published Wednesday that Trump’s recent social media posts reflect his “ignorance” of the Paris Climate Agreement’s principles and the difference between weather and climate.

“We believe that these mistakes might have been avoided if you had availed yourself of the kind of expert advice which previous presidents relied on when making such decisions,” they noted.

“Sound scientific and technology advice is indispensable to U.S. national security and economic growth, and to forming federal policies that help drive the kind of research and technological advances that made this country great.”

Reps. Donald Beyer (D-Virginia) and Bill Foster (D-Illinois) co-wrote the letter with Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), Mark Takano (D-California), Zoe Lofgren (D-California), Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) and Jerry McNerney (D-California).

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Report: Steve Grewal to Leave GSA Deputy CIO Post, Join Tech Company
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Report: Steve Grewal to Leave GSA Deputy CIO Post, Join Tech Company


Report: Steve Grewal to Leave GSA Deputy CIO Post, Join Tech Company
Steve Grewal

Steve Grewal, deputy chief information officer of the General Services Administration, will step down from his role by the end of January to join a Silicon Valley technology company, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

The report said Grewal has helped the implement Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act at GSA and led the agency’s enterprise IT modernization and data management efforts.

Before GSA, he spent more than five years at the Education Department in roles such as deputy director for IT services, chief information security officer, chief technology officer and acting chief information officer.

He also worked at the Department of Health and Human Services as director of operations support and at the Transportation Department as information systems security officer.

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NASA, Navy Demo Orion Spacecraft Recovery Operations Using USS Anchorage
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NASA, Navy Demo Orion Spacecraft Recovery Operations Using USS Anchorage


NASA, Navy Demo Orion Spacecraft Recovery Operations Using USS AnchorageNASA and the U.S. Navy have conducted another recovery test of an Orion test vehicle aboard the USS Anchorage amphibious transport dock.

The Navy said Thursday the Underway Recovery Test-6 is meant to ensure the safe retrieval of the Orion spacecraft crew module, which is designed to transport humans to deep space.

During URT-6, NASA engineers and Navy sailors released an Orion test capsule from USS Anchorage’s well deck, then used rigid-hull inflatable boats to bring the capsule back to the ship when enough distance was established.

The latest demonstration marks the fourth URT aboard Anchorage, a San Antonio-class vessel.

URTs are intended to support the assessment of recovery processes, procedures, hardware and personnel in a real open-ocean environment ahead of the actual Orion recovery mission.

The team started conducting URTs in 2014 and will perform URT-7 on San Antonio-class ship USS Somerset in October, when NASA is also scheduled to validate recovery hardware.

Orion is slated to fly a crew for the first time in the early 2020s during a mission called Exploration Mission-2.

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Jeanette Manfra: DHS to Update Automated Cyber Threat Indicator Sharing Platform
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Jeanette Manfra: DHS to Update Automated Cyber Threat Indicator Sharing Platform


Jeanette Manfra: DHS to Update Automated Cyber Threat Indicator Sharing PlatformThe Department of Homeland Security wants to update an automated technology platform DHS personnel use to share threat information with other federal agencies, infrastructure operators and companies, Nextgov reported Thursday.

Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate, said at a US Telecom-hosted cybersecurity forum the department seeks to address customer organizations’ concerns over threat indicators that lack information for them to prevent malicious data from entering networks.

DHS’ automated indicator sharing system is designed to help federal government and private sector users exchange data to address security challenges such as the distribution of malicious IP addresses and phishing emails.

Manfra added that DHS could update the platform in the summer or fall to include a tool for users to send automated feedback to the department about the usefulness of threat intelligence data they receive.

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ARPA-E Summit to Feature Energy Tech Platforms
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ARPA-E Summit to Feature Energy Tech Platforms


ARPA-E Summit to Feature Energy Tech PlatformsThe Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy will conduct its annual innovation summit in March as part of efforts to encourage public-private cooperation in the field of energy technology.

ARPA-E seeks to bring together industry, government and academia leaders to discuss energy-related initiatives through the event that will take place March 13 to 15, 2018, the Department of Energy said Thursday.

Thousands of participants from the U.S. and other parts of the world are expected to attend and convene during the summit.

The event will also showcase more than 275 energy technology platforms covering all sectors of energy as well as feature panel discussions to be hosted by various industry experts.

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