The U.S. Army plans to send as many as 500 soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division Headquarters at Fort Riley in Kansas to Iraq this fall to help train, advise and assist Iraqi coalition troops and security forces.

The 1st Infantry Division Headquarters will relieve 101st Airborne Division troops and assume the role of Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command-Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the Army said Friday.

“Our Big Red One soldiers are well-trained and ready to continue the tremendous support the 101st Airborne Division and the Coalition are providing to our Iraqi allies,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Martin, incoming commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley.

“We will assist in training Iraqi commanders, staffs, soldiers, and police officers as they plan and conduct counter-ISIL operations in both the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys, with a central focus on the City of Mosul,” Martin added.

The U.S. Air Force and its international allies have scheduled a meeting Norway for next month to discuss efforts in cooperative research, development, testing and evaluation of space technologies for joint military operations, Space News reported Friday.

Debra Werner writes Roberta Ewart, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s chief scientist, noted the new program will require the service branch to seek an approval for a unique type of memorandum of understanding from the State Department to lay out a program’s objective.

The Air Force will also no longer have to ask the State Department to endorse additional technical projects once the memorandum gets approved and foreign military agencies that propose technical projects will have to provide partners with a technical project agreement.

Cooperative research programs have already been proposed such as the Rapid Space Capabilities and Air Force Research Laboratory’s Microsatellite Military Utility to focus on combat support technologies and miniature satellites respectively.

The U.S. Army and Saab‘s Bofors Dynamics business unit have collaborated to test and qualify an updated shoulder-fired weapon system.

The service branch said Thursday Army engineers tested the M3E1 multi-role anti-armor anti-personnel weapon system, which a version of the M3 recoilless rifle that is shorter and six pounds lighter.

William Everett, Army Foreign Comparative Testing Program project manager, said the branch’s M3E1 team traveled to Sweden to observe and validate the manufacturer’s tests rather than duplicate the process in the U.S.

Renee Bober, M3E1 product manager, said the updates include a shot counter and modern materials that will work to address user input from the U.S. Special Operations Command and other services.

The shot counter is designed to address the need to half-life an M3, which occurs when a service member does not manually record each round fired as required by the current system, according to the Army.

M3E1 will be available for acquisition to all Defense Department services when tests and qualifications are completed in 2017, the Army noted.

The weapon system works to engage light armored vehicles, bunkers and soft structures.

The Defense Department has partnered with a network of U.S. research universities to establish an accelerator program that aims to promote civil-military technology collaboration to support national security efforts.

DoD said Friday the MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator was launched at a hackathon wherein technologists worked with military and civilian first responders to address humanitarian assistance and disaster relief challenges in urban environments.

“Our mission is to develop the people and human-centered networks necessary to compete and win in the rapidly changing technology and national security environments,” said MD5 Director Adam Jay Harrison.

The first MD5 hackathon challenged multiple teams of researchers, entrepreneurs, first responders and military personnel to create prototype systems that incorporate augmented reality, sensor fusion, crowdsourcing, data analytics and robotics technologies to address disaster relief mission challenges.

DoD partnered with the New York University, Columbia University, West Virginia University, University of Southern Mississippi, GE, One Defense, Bunker Labs and the Partnership for New York City to facilitate the hackathon.

MD5 is part of the manufacturing and industrial base policy division within the office of the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The accelerator aims to assist the development of national security personnel who test and update legacy processes; as well as support the creation of human-centered networks and form ventures that can develop, commercialize or apply relevant technology, DoD noted.

MD5 plans to introduce its education, collaboration and acceleration initiatives in the coming months.