NASA has established a new virtual institute at Ames Research Center in California that aims to promote the development of small spacecraft systems and facilitate communication on such systems among government agencies, industry and academia.

The Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute will work to identify collaborative opportunities on small space vehicle platforms and determine policy issues and technical scope through partnership with subject matter experts, NASA said Friday.

The space agency said S3VI will host an online resource for small spacecraft lessons, systems test data repository and the space technology mission directorate’s Small Spacecraft Technology State of the Art report.

The virtual institute will also coordinate the human exploration and operations mission directorate’s CubeSat Launch Initiative and STMD’s Cube Quest Challenge in order to help students and industry launch miniature satellites as supplemental payloads on future space launches.

NASA’s STMD and the science mission directorate will jointly sponsor the S3VI portal that is scheduled to go live in early 2017.

The General Services Administration has awarded 15 vendors spots under four new special item numbers for “highly adaptive” cybersecurity services as part of GSA’s Information Technology Schedule 70 contract vehicle.

Mary Davie, assistant commissioner at GSA’s integrated technology services branch, wrote in a blog post published Thursday that agencies can now place task orders or establish blanket purchase agreements through the new HACS SINs.

GSA established the four SINs in September for vendors that offer penetration testing, incident response, cyber hunt and risk and vulnerability assessment services.

Davie said the SINs are designed to provide access to pre-vetted support services that will help agencies test high-priority IT systems, address potential vulnerabilities and mitigate threats.

GSA plans to add more vendors under the SINs and all current IT Schedule 70 vendors that offer highly adaptive cybersecurity services will be required to migrate their products to the new SINs, Davie wrote.

The assistant commissioner noted GSA works with the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget to evaluate vendors and address the government’s cybersecurity needs.

The new SINs will support the White House’s Cybersecurity Strategy and Implementation Plan and Cybersecurity National Action Plan.

U.S. authorities are investigating a distributed-denial-of-service attack that hit internet performance management company Dyn‘s managed domain name system infrastructure, USA Today reported Friday.

Eli Blumenthal and Elizabeth Weise write that Amazon, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix and PayPal were among the websites hobbled by the DDoS attack on the Dyn service Friday.

The report said security experts believe the source of attack came from internet-connected devices infected with the Mirai malicious source code.

Mirai uses malware from phishing emails to infect computer or home networks initially, then spread the virus to various devices to create a robot network, Blumenthal and Weise noted.

CNBC reported Friday the Department of Homeland Security examines the potential causes of the Dyn attack and that a U.S. intelligence official does not think the incident was a state-sponsored or a directed attack.

A team of Dyn engineers worked to restore the company’s service shortly after they discovered the cybersecurity incident, according to CNBC.