U.S. Army Research Laboratory scientists have manufactured a new material for propulsion and lethality applications in an effort to help address the impacts of bullet and shrapnel on humans.

Jesse Sabatini, team leader of the energetics synthesis team within ARL’s weapons and materials research directorate, collaborated with Leah Wingard, Eric Johnson and Pablo Guzman to synthesize the bis-isoxazole tetranitrate material, the Army said Tuesday.

“BITN has a strong potential for improving insensitive munitions characteristics for gun and rocket propellants” said Sabatini.

Sabatini explained that insensitive munitions explode as intended to destroy targets while enduring mechanical shocks, fire and shrapnel impact due to its stable chemical nature.

Army scientists are working to create derivatives of BITN in order to develop denser, higher-performing energetic materials for propellants and explosives.

“In assessing whether BITN and its derivatives are suitable targets to be synthesized, we have been consulting with colleagues at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama,” Sabatini said.

NASA has scheduled the launch of two new sounding-rocket missions to take place in 2018 as the space agency aims to explore coronal nanoflares and escaping atoms.

The Heliophysics Technology and Instrument Development for Science program funds the Focusing Optics X-ray Imager-3 and Visualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral Atom Sensing-2 projects that will employ updated measurement techniques and instruments to conduct its respective investigations, NASA said Thursday.

Lindsay Glesener of the University of Minnesota will lead the FOXSI-3 program that will look to observe faint events on the sun and search for tiny releases of energy called nanoflares via updated optics and detectors.

“Since nanoflares theoretically convert magnetic energy into kinetic and thermal energies, they are an obvious candidate for supplying the needed energy to heat the million-degree corona,” said Steven Christe, FOXSI-3 co-investigator.

VISIONS-2’s goal is to investigate the outflow of oxygen ions from the Earth’s upper atmosphere and into the magnetosphere, observe movement during the day from the planet’s magnetic cusps and gain knowledge to help understand physics that influence its magnetosphere.

The Congressional Budget Office Director estimates that the passage of the House Armed Services Committee’s fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill would reduce the Defense Department‘s net direct spending by up to $206 million over the next decade.

Keith Hall, CBO director, told HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) in a letter published Wednesday the estimation is based on the agency’s analysis of 2017 National Defense Authorization Act provisions.

Hall noted that proposed changes to DoD’s Acquisition Workforce Development Fund, national defense stockpile and Selective Service Registration programs will have an impact on direct spending.

CBO also estimates the implementation of 2017 NDAA provisions related to the military justice system would “increase the amount of fines and forfeitures of pay that are assessed at military courts-martial by less than $500,000” through fiscal 2026, he added.

He said those penalties are considered as revenues.

Rupert Warner, program manager of supplier diversity at the U.S. Postal Service, has touted the role of the agency’s supply chain diversity outreach in helping to fulfill its requirements, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.

Jory Heckman writes small, minority-owned and women-owned companies work with the Postal Service to help address its transportation and information technology needs.

The agency uses mules to deliver mail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and small aircraft to transport deliveries to distant areas of Alaska, Heckman reports.

Warner told Federal News Radio the agency is able to obtain the “best value versus cheapest cost” with its supplying principles and practices.

“We go for best value versus cheapest cost… and in many cases, we’re looking for innovation, we’re looking for the long-term, we’re looking for the return on investment,” he added, according to the station.