The U.S. Marine Corps‘ Training and Education Command seeks ideas from federal employees as part of an innovation challenge that aims to optimize small-unit training, DoD Buzz, DoD Buzz reported Monday.

Hope Hodge Seck writes TECOM has received approximately 150 challenge submissions so far and will continue to accept ideas until March 31 through a dedicated website that can be accessed using Defense Department credentials.

“Sometimes it’s hard for this organization to look inside itself for new ideas… so one of those ways that you get good ideas is, you go outside the organization,” said Maj. Gen. James Lukeman, commanding general of TECOM.

USMC officials will review responses in April and notify challenge winners in May, Seck reported.

The report said the challenge’s winners will receive a free trip to Quantico, Virginia-based TECOM where they will have the opportunity to brainstorm with subject matter experts.

The Advanced Power Technology Office within the Air Force Research Laboratory currently maintains a coatings application booth for Lockheed Martin-developed F-35 fighter aircraft at Hill Air Force Base which will begin operations in October 2017.

Defense Department, government and industry stakeholders will establish the coatings application booth at Hill AFB as part of a multi-year collaborative project that aims to help sustain the Air Force’s F-35 fleet, the service branch said Monday.

The booths will support the application of coatings for the F-35 units which will aid the operational life of each aircraft as well as offer corrosion protection and heat resistance.

Air Force researchers worked with maintainers, environmental and technical staff to understand logistical needs of the F-35 depot teams in a push to maximize the utilization of automation, commercial technologies and up-front investments on life-cycle maintenance cost reduction.

David Madden, APTO program manager at AFRL’s materials and manufacturing directorate, said the team used computer modeling systems to develop an airflow approach that can filter out particulates and reuse air during aircraft coating.

“Extra flow meters and additional sensors have been included in this booth that may … be able to calculate the amount of energy used per gallon of paint sprayed or measure how much electricity is used for each aircraft completed,” said Madden.

“In this way, we could develop production efficiency metrics that can be compared with traditional booth operations across the Air Force.”

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) have asked the White House to approve two agreements that aim to support the production of Lockheed Martin-built F-16 fighter aircraft in India and export of a General Atomics-made remotely piloted aircraft to the country, Defense News reported Monday.

Joe Gould writes Cornyn and Warner said in a Thursday letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the co-production of F-16 planes in India will help sustain a fleet more than 1,000 fighter jets in the U.S. Air Force and retain approximately 800 engineering and design jobs in the U.S.

The lawmakers noted that the potential F-16 transaction would help the U.S. advance its security partnership with India, build up interoperability, increase India’s capacity to fight threats and help the country “balance China’s growing military capability in the Pacific.”

Warner and Cornyn, co-chairs of the U.S. Senate India Caucus, also called on Tillerson and Mattis in a separate letter to support the sale of Guardian aerial drones to India in a deal that could be worth more than $2 billion, Gould reported.

The senators noted that the potential Guardian deal would help facilitate intelligence sharing and joint operations between the U.S. and India.

The U.S. Navy has established a new task force to assess the status of the military branch’s ocean science programs that encompass oceanographic infrastructure, technical workforce, technologies and their applications to naval operations.

Navy oceanographer Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet and Rear Adm. David Hahn, chief of naval research, and will co-lead an executive steering committee for Task Force Ocean, which will comprise senior leaders from the U.S. Fleet Force, Naval Academy, Naval Post Graduate School and the Pacific Fleet, the service branch said Friday.

The group’s executive steering committee will create a five-year roadmap intended to guide ocean science efforts that support the branch’s goals.

“Through the implementation of the roadmap, our priority is to reinvigorate and reconstitute our technical workforce,” said Gallaudet.

“We’ll be looking at everything from oceanographic survey ships, unmanned vehicles, ocean and acoustic modelling, and how we apply our products to recruiting, educating, developing and retaining our workforce,” he added.

The roadmap will focus on programs to monitor the ocean environment, process collected data and strengthen the ocean science technical workforce at the Navy.

The Defense Department has begun to develop strategies to prepare for and mitigate  security threats from synthetic bioweapons, DoD News reported Thursday.

Arthur Hopkins, acting assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs at DoD, told a House subcommittee Thursday that DoD’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program explores medical countermeasures as well as protective equipment and detection systems intended to address chemical and biological threats, Cheryl Pellerin wrote.

The report said synthetic biology involves the use of techniques and tools to sequence, synthesize and manipulate genetic material.

“The same tools of synthetic biology that we’re concerned about as being capable of being used against us, we are also using in the laboratories to help develop countermeasures,” said Hopkin.

“We want to make sure that the things that we do to protect ourselves don’t interfere with … [applying] the technology for peaceful, useful purposes,” he added.

Hopkins noted that DoD has called on the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an interagency study on the potential impact of emerging threats on national security.

DoD’s response to future threats would fall into the areas of detection, protection and mitigation, according to Hopkins.