The Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate has partnered with the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center to create a garment system for wildland firefighters in an effort to address risks from heat exhaustion.

DHS said Monday the Wildland Firefighter Advanced Personal Protection System is made of material with high heat loss properties that work to reduce core body temperatures during wildfire scenarios.

William Deso, APPS project manager, said wildland firefighters provided input for the WLFF APPS garment system that is designed to provide protection against burn injuries as well as user comfort.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection asked DHS to develop new personal protective equipment when CAL FIRE found that wildland firefighters experience heat stress at a higher rate than burn injury patients.

DHS published a report on WLFF APPS in 2014 that detailed wildland fighters’ experiences as they tested 1,000 garment ensembles during two wildfire seasons.

WLFF APPS prototypes have achieved National Fire Protection Association 1977 standards that outline requirements for wildland firefighting garments such as heat loss, thermal stability, heat and thermal shrinkage parameters, DHS said.

The Government Accountability Office has asked the Defense Department to revise the way the department prepares budget materials and execution reports in an effort to help Congress oversee operation and maintenance budget.

GAO said Tuesday the DoD should add operation and maintenance base obligations to each account under the budget materials and execution reports.

The government watchdog released a report that examines the trends in enacted funding for DoD’s operation and maintenance base appropriations accounts since fiscal year 2009 and the amount of O&M funding the department transferred.

GAO found nearly $146.9 billion in reprogrammed funds from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal 2015 and the review concluded no apparent impact of the realignments on base obligations as DoD failed to submit a separate O&M base obligations report to Congress.

The agency also found O&M base obligations in excess of O&M base enacted amounts in each fiscal year due to the realignment of funds.

“By revising its guidance to require congressional reporting on O&M base obligations for each account in these materials and reports, DOD could provide complete information to assist Congress in better understanding and overseeing DOD’s full funding needs for O&M base,” GAO noted.

The Virginia National Guard held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday on the military organization’s new state headquarters at the north section of the Defense Supply Center Richmond in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

The 102,000-square-foot facility, which is scheduled to be completed in February 2018, will accommodate the Adjutant General of Virginia, the Virginia National Guard Joint Staff and Air National Guard Staff, the Virginia National Guard said Tuesday.

The $30 million project will be funded by the Department of Military Affairs and the state’s Air National Guard and Army National Guard.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Allan Day, Defense Logistics Agency aviation commander, said the facility will expand the Guard’s presence at the site as well as bring new military partnership opportunities.

Lt. Col. Charlton Dunn, construction and facilities management officer at the Virginia National Guard, said the project will increase authorized space to 98 percent from the 58 percent capacity of the organization’s current state headquarters in Sandston.

Dunn added the facility will be designed to comply with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver requirements and feature ground-source heat pumps, photovoltaic solar panels and natural gas to support energy efficiency goals.

The construction project employs a construction manager at risk, building information modeling as well as a commissioning agent to address initial and lifecycle costs within existing time constraints, the Virginia National Guard added.

The U.S. Air Force wants to forge cooperative research and development agreements with companies to perform airworthiness assessments on non-Defense Department military type aircraft.

The goal is to better understand the state of civil aviation and provide independent review of the safety of aviation products to industry, the Air Force said Monday.

Under a CRADA, the military branch and a private sector partner will collaborate to define a set of evaluation benchmark and perform an independent compliance assessment to produce a comprehensive risk analysis document.

”These partnerships will help our military maintain its technical superiority while supporting a robust defense industry base,” said Jorge Gonzalez, the Air Force’s technical airworthiness authority.

The service branch noted its newly established Non-Defense Military Aircraft Office will carry out CRADAs with industry partners on a first-come, first-serve basis and the standard period of performance will run for two years.

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall met with scientists and engineers at the Army Research Laboratory to observe technologies that ARL currently develops under the Defense Department‘s Third Offset Strategy to pursue new autonomous and artificial intelligence platforms.

The U.S. Army said Friday Kendall inspected projects the ARL views as in line with the Third Offset Strategy.

Kendall also discussed DoD’s efforts to update acquisition practices and investment strategies to support the future force and learned about ARL’s Open Campus Initiative that aims to foster collaboration between the laboratory and organizations in academia, industry and government on research projects to support the Army.

Army neuroscientist Jean Vettel demonstrated a system that works to facilitate teaming functions between humans and computers on activities such as target identification, the Army noted.

Vettel’s team develops the human-machine collaboration technology using funds from the Autonomy Research Pilot Initiative of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Researchers also presented ground and air robotics that aim to explore new environments, share intelligence and support manned-unmanned interfaces.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has visited Beijing to brief the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Gordon Lubold writes Milley is scheduled Tuesday to meet Gen. Li Zuocheng, head of PLA’s ground forces, and his personnel to assure PLA that the plan to field the THAAD system in South Korea aims to protect the latter country and the U.S. from North Korea’s ballistic missile threats.

The meeting between Milley and Li comes amid the Chinese government’s concerns that the THAAD platform could undermine China’s nuclear deterrent, Lubold reports.

The U.S. and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Lockheed Martin-built THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear missile tests.

The THAAD system is designed to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missile threats within and outside the atmosphere through the use of a kinetic energy-based interceptor fired from a truck-mounted launcher.