NSUF Awards 33 Rapid Turnaround Experiments on Nuclear Energy
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NSUF Awards 33 Rapid Turnaround Experiments on Nuclear Energy

The Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Nuclear Science User Facilities Program, or NSUF, has selected 33 Rapid Turnaround Experiment projects to support efforts to advance nuclear science and technology.

The awardees, which include principal investigators from 13 universities, six national laboratories and industry, will have access to NSUF testing resources over the next nine months to conduct a diverse range of nuclear energy and materials research.

They will examine the potential use of materials, fuels and sensors in maintaining the existing U.S. fleet of reactors and advance next-generation nuclear technologies.

In a separate announcement, NSUF said the projects were worth a combined value of $1.9 million, bringing the total RTE awards to roughly $3.37 million for fiscal year 2024.

The application for the third and final RTE call for fiscal year 2024 opened on Monday.

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BlackSky Secures NRO Contract Extension for High-frequency Imagery Services
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BlackSky Secures NRO Contract Extension for High-frequency Imagery Services

BlackSky Technology will continue providing the National Reconnaissance Office with advanced high frequency imagery services under a one-year extension on the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer, or EOCL, subscription contract.

The company said Wednesday it rapidly delivers Gen-2 imagery and analytics up to 15 times per day to senior military leaders, warfighters and other U.S. government users through its constellation design and use of end-to-end artificial intelligence-driven system automation.

According to BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole, the EOCL contract is now in its third year and underscores the value of the real-time, high-revisit monitoring approach of the company.

“This contract represents continued confidence in BlackSky as a trusted mission partner as the NRO makes strides in leveraging commercial space technology to strengthen national security,” said O’Toole.

In May 2022, BlackSky secured the EOCL contract, which has a five-year base and five one-year options for additional services. The company employs an advanced software-as-a-service customer platform and its 14-satellite constellation to offer one of the highest dawn-to-dusk revisit rates, averaging a collection time of less than 90 minutes from when a customer places an order to product delivery.

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DOD Directs Components to Use Spiral 4 Contract Vehicle for Wireless Mobility Services Procurement
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DOD Directs Components to Use Spiral 4 Contract Vehicle for Wireless Mobility Services Procurement

The Department of Defense has released a memorandum directing all DOD components to use the Spiral 4 contract vehicle when procuring unclassified wireless mobile devices and services as part of efforts to streamline the acquisition process and enable visibility of wireless usage, monthly spending and inventory.

The May 23 memo also applies to military personnel and federal civilian employees stationed within the country and U.S. territories who travel internationally.

Spiral 4 is a 10-year, $2.67 billion follow-on indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for wireless mobility services and devices the U.S. Navy awarded in early May.

Seven companies secured spots on the recompete contract, which replaces the Spiral 3 vehicle that expired on May 7.

According to the document, all DOD organizations should transition their mobile device acquisitions to Spiral 4 “no later than at the end of their current order’s period of performance.

John Sherman, chief information officer of DOD and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, signed the memo.

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ONCD Develops Pilot Reciprocity Framework for Harmonizing Cybersecurity Regulations
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ONCD Develops Pilot Reciprocity Framework for Harmonizing Cybersecurity Regulations

National Cyber Director Harry Coker said the White House Office of the National Cyber Director is launching a pilot reciprocity framework for use in a critical infrastructure subsector to gain insights on how to harmonize cybersecurity regulations.

The effort builds on the findings of ONCD’s August 2023 request for information, which sought industry feedback on existing challenges with regulatory overlap and explored a framework for harmonization and reciprocity of baseline cybersecurity requirements, Coker said in a blog post published Tuesday.

ONCD has been collaborating with agency and industry partners to develop a comprehensive policy framework for regulatory harmonization, which will streamline oversight and strengthen cybersecurity readiness and resilience across critical infrastructure sectors.

A summary report on the RFI revealed concerns about the lack of harmonization and reciprocity across federal agencies that could harm cybersecurity outcomes and the problem extends to businesses of all sectors and sizes.

“Partners raised concerns not only about a lack of harmonization and reciprocity across Federal agencies, but also between state and Federal regulators and across international borders,” Coker said.

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ECS’ Mark Maglin, Patrick Elder: Army Endpoint Security Solution Uses Data Mesh for Data Protection, Network Visibility
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ECS’ Mark Maglin, Patrick Elder: Army Endpoint Security Solution Uses Data Mesh for Data Protection, Network Visibility

Mark Maglin and Patrick Elder of ECS said the Army Endpoint Security Solution or AESS uses data mesh architecture to help the military branch protect its data, produce cyberthreat intelligence and achieve network visibility to safeguard and defend more than 800,000 endpoints across the service branch’s global infrastructure.

In an article published on the company’s website, Maglin and Elder noted that ECS has been overseeing AESS as a managed zero trust security service for Army Cyber Command since 2016.

To mature AESS, the ECS executives highlighted the need to implement a data catalog, which builds a machine-readable inventory of data products within an organization using metadata.

“Having a robust data catalog, where data has been curated and normalized to semantic standards, will empower individual users to independently develop useful data analytics,” they wrote.

According to Elder and Maglin, the AESS platform uses data mesh to help cyber operators achieve data-driven decision advantage.

“AESS enables decision dominance by producing, collecting, and analyzing threat data to improve enterprise visibility and effectively protect the Army’s mission networks,” they noted.

Maglin is vice president of Department of Defense cybersecurity at ECS and Elder is director of ECS Data and AI Center of Excellence.

POC - 2024 Cyber Summit

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NASA Eyes Solicitation for Capability Studies on Lunar Surface User Terminals, Network Orchestration & Management Tech
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NASA Eyes Solicitation for Capability Studies on Lunar Surface User Terminals, Network Orchestration & Management Tech

NASA plans to invite industry stakeholders to conduct capability studies in the areas of lunar surface user terminals and network orchestration and management systems through a solicitation under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2, or NextSTEP-2 broad agency announcement.

For the first study area, NASA is seeking industry studies on user terminals that could meet requirements to support moon exploration plans and ensure interoperability with developed standards, according to a presolicitation notice published Tuesday on SAM.gov.

Under the second study area, the space agency is interested in industry-led studies and demonstrations on systems that could help control and interface with a distributed network of satellite ground systems supporting the Near Space Network.

“The resulting studies will ensure advancement of NASA’s development of space communication and exploration technologies, capabilities, and concepts,” the notice reads.

NASA’s Commercialization, Innovation and Synergies Office will outline the detailed study requirements, participant eligibility, submission information, evaluation criteria and other information on the overall acquisition strategy in the forthcoming Appendix Q solicitation.

Through NextSTEP-2, the agency intends to facilitate industry studies to provide space mission users with a resilient infrastructure for space and ground communications and infrastructure.

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CDAO Seeks Industry Partner for AI Governance Mechanism Assessment & Implementation
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CDAO Seeks Industry Partner for AI Governance Mechanism Assessment & Implementation

The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s Responsible Artificial Intelligence division seeks an industry partner that would help it map existing Department of Defense AI governance mechanisms, identify areas that require new governance mechanisms and develop a roadmap to guide DOD components in implementing them.

According to an open call posted Wednesday on Tradewinds AI, the industry partner would work to analyze the DOD’s existing AI governance mechanisms or those that might be applicable to it, develop the means to be used by CDAO in offering DOD components recommendations regarding AI governance processes and help implement those recommendations.

The open call may result in pilot project awards to be issued via the other transaction authority for prototype projects.

Interested parties have until June 17 to respond.

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VA Deploys Accenture Federal Services Healthcare Notification Tool; Ron Moody Quoted
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VA Deploys Accenture Federal Services Healthcare Notification Tool; Ron Moody Quoted

An Accenture Federal Services-developed automated text message service has launched at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health centers nationwide.

Dubbed “Annie,” the service can deliver notifications related to medication reminders, surgery preparation instructions and medical treatment plans and supports self-care health data monitoring, Accenture Federal Services announced from its Arlington, Virginia headquarters on Wednesday.

“The tool is a shining example of how a familiar technology, such as text messaging, has the ability to elevate the overall healthcare experience for those who have served in our nation’s military,” said Ron Moody, the company’s chief medical officer and clinical lead for Annie.

Findings from an eight-month study performed at the Minneapolis VA Health Care Center indicated that veterans who used Annie had a positive experience, most notably in the areas of patient education, symptom management, self-care and ease of use.

The study also recorded a 53 percent decrease in surgery cancellations driven by the tool’s ability to simplify the cancer care hospital preadmission process.

Annie was created by Accenture Federal Services under a subcontract with Iron Bow Technologies.

VA Deploys Accenture Federal Services Healthcare Notification Tool; Ron Moody Quoted

Accenture Federal Services is sponsoring the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Cyber Summit tomorrow. There is still time to register for this exciting event – click here to view the full lineup of expert speakers and secure your spot.

Multi-Institution Collaboration Develops Model to Speed Up Nuclear Fusion Research
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Multi-Institution Collaboration Develops Model to Speed Up Nuclear Fusion Research

A new collaboration among researchers at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, or NERSC, and the Energy Sciences Network aims to accelerate research on nuclear fusion as a viable energy source.

The team has developed a multi-institution scientific environment called Superfacility that connects resources from DIII-D and NERSC via the ESnet6, the latest iteration of the Department of Energy’s high-speed data network ESnet, General Atomics, host of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, said Monday.

The Superfacility model utilizes NERSC’s high-performance computing — a.k.a. HPC — and DIII-D’s diagnostic suite to send data from fusion experiments to the Perlmutter supercomputer, enabling high-fidelity reconstruction and large-scale automated analysis of plasma pulses.

“To achieve the goal of fusion, all available resources, including HPC, need to be applied to the analysis of present fusion experiments to be able to extrapolate to future fusion power plants,” said Sterling Smith, the project lead for the DIII-D team involved in the Superfacility effort.

“The use of HPC accelerates advanced analyses so that they can feed into the scientific understanding of fusion and point us toward the solutions needed to realize fusion energy production,” Smith added.

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Sivaram Ghorakavi Named EEOC Deputy CIO & Chief AI Officer
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Sivaram Ghorakavi Named EEOC Deputy CIO & Chief AI Officer

Sivaram Ghorakavi, formerly chief architect and chief data strategist at the National Labor and Relations Board, has been appointed deputy chief information officer and chief artificial intelligence officer of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

He will manage EEOC’s information technology operations and provide oversight of technology-focused projects and partnerships to drive the commission’s mission goals and strategic objectives, EEOC said Monday.

As CAIO, Ghorakavi will coordinate AI efforts across the agency, including its AI and Algorithmic Fairness initiative, which guides the use of AI in employment decisions.

“Siva’s appointment reflects our confidence in his demonstrated abilities and experience to help lead our agency in both digital transformation and adapting to emerging technologies, both for internal processes and in our law enforcement efforts,” said EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows.

Ghorakavi’s 15-year government career also includes time as an information technology portfolio manager at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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