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NASA, DARPA, Sikorsky Design Software for Future Automated Air Taxis
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NASA, DARPA, Sikorsky Design Software for Future Automated Air Taxis

NASA is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, to develop and test autonomous software designed for future self-flying air taxis.

The research is led by NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility program, which aims to take transportation to new heights by innovating passenger and freight flights in dense traffic environments and other scenarios, the agency said Tuesday.

AAM’s mission is to ensure a safe, accessible, automated, yet affordable air transport in hard-to-reach urban and rural areas.

The three organizations are currently designing software using scripted flight paths as well as customized test tablets and ground control room simulations to understand the technology’s behavior and response to air-to-air encounters.

The software will eventually be installed and tested on Sikorsky’s modified S-76B helicopter, labeled the Autonomy Research Aircraft, and its Optionally Piloted Vehicle Black Hawk helicopter.

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DOE’s INFUSE Program Awards 6 Grants to Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
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DOE’s INFUSE Program Awards 6 Grants to Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory secured six of the 18 public-private partnership grants awarded by the Department of Energy for fusion energy research.

The 2023 DOE Innovation Network for Fusion Energy chose PPPL along with six of its principal collaborators, including Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a spinoff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the laboratory announced Monday.

INFUSE is an annual funding program launched in 2019 to accelerate fusion development, and bridge research and development efforts among laboratories, universities, and the industry.

MIT spinoff CFS is studying deuterium, a hydrogen isotope, as an alternative to a radioactive form of the element in coating the tokamak, which is seen as the main plasma confinement device for future fusion power plants.

PPPL’s other partners are Focused Energy, Helion Energy, Kyoto Fusioneering America, Gauss Fusion and its New Jersey division, Bruker OST. All of them will leverage the laboratory’s resources and capabilities to further their experimental technologies and facilities for the nuclear reaction-based power concept.

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BAE Systems Secures DARPA Contract to Develop Efficient Analog Correlator; Bryan Choi Quoted
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BAE Systems Secures DARPA Contract to Develop Efficient Analog Correlator; Bryan Choi Quoted

BAE Systems’ research and development arm has received a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as part of its Massive Cross Correlation program.

Under the $14 million contract, BAE Systems’ FAST Labs segment will develop technology designed to support the use of modern signal processing and computation on a novel variety of compact military platforms, BAE announced from Merrimack, New Hampshire on Wednesday.

“Smaller and more efficient systems improve size, weight, power, and costs to allow for full-spectrum signal processing closer to the edge, or onto platforms operating in denied airspace,” said Bryan Choi, who serves as technology development director for FAST Labs.

He added that the new analog correlator technology can improve decision making, equip small platforms to deploy mission-critical technology and help build a new type of system.

Signal processing enables Department of Defense activities surrounding sensing, imaging and communications systems, and correlators play a major role in comparing, contrasting and processing signals. Today, many digital correlator technologies are cumbersome and require large amounts of power.

BAE Systems’ role in the program will be to create a more efficient analog correlator with high dynamic range and wide bandwidth to support new capabilities, such as synthetic aperture radar image classification and image formation, automatic target recognition, passive coherent location and jam-resistant communications in small form factor platforms.

In carrying out this work, BAE Systems will team with the University of Minnesota, a subcontractor on the program.

This award follows multiple DARPA contract wins for BAE Systems. In May, the company’s FAST Labs sector received a $7 million award to develop an autonomous space-based surveillance tool under the agency’s Oversight program, and in March, FAST Labs booked a $5 million contract to continue its work on the Technologies for Mixed-mode Ultra Scaled Integrated Circuits initiative.

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Video Interview: Rob Geckle on How Airbus US Is Supporting Defense Tech Innovation
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Video Interview: Rob Geckle on How Airbus US Is Supporting Defense Tech Innovation

As the defense landscape continues to evolve, Airbus is looking to accelerate its development of new platforms and technologies here in the United States. Airbus U.S. Space and Defense Chairman and CEO Rob Geckle spoke with Executive Mosaic’s Summer Myatt in a new video interview about what the company is bringing to the U.S. defense ecosystem.

“I’m constantly looking to cultivate additional technologies that I can Americanize, industrialize and improve and adapt here in the United States,” said the 2023 Wash100 Award winner.

“An interesting feature of U.S. national security policy is to foster and encourage foreign direct investment in the United States in a way that is consistent and supports national security,” Geckle noted. “Folks will often ask me, ‘Rob, how can a company like Airbus — which is a European company known for commercial technology and aircraft — how can you be a defense contractor?’”

Geckle explained that Airbus U.S. operates under what’s known as a special security agreement, which allows the company to work directly with U.S. officials in the proper classification settings.

“I report to an independent board of directors, that is majority controlled by U.S. nationals with requisite security clearances and allows me to operate in a classified environment, take technology that’s ready, affordable, I can industrialize it in the United States and have improved and adapted manufactured by U.S. nationals, adapted by U.S. engineers and improved over time iteratively,” Geckle shared.

With trends like peer and near-peer warfare, deterrence and data-centric warfare shaping the defense landscape today, Geckle said Airbus U.S. “can add value along a number of those axes, whether it’s platforms, aircraft, whether it’s space or space systems.”

Watch the full video interview with Airbus’ Rob Geckle for more insights about U.S. defense trends and technologies.

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USAF Selects Amentum to Provide Aircraft Maintenance Under $223M Contract; Dr. Karl Spinnenweber Quoted
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USAF Selects Amentum to Provide Aircraft Maintenance Under $223M Contract; Dr. Karl Spinnenweber Quoted

Amentum has booked a contract worth $223 million from the U.S. Air Force to furnish planes carrying high-consequence leaders with its aircraft maintenance expertise.

Specifically, the firm-fixed-price, five-year award via the USAF 316th Wing charges Amentum’s team with administering high-grade upkeep and backshop services to the executive airlift fleet of the 89 Airlift Wing, the Chantilly, Virginia-based company said Tuesday.

In a statement, Dr. Karl Spinnenweber, president of the company’s critical missions group, underlined the consistency with which the service branch has relied on Amentum over the last two-plus decades to provide “24/7, no-fail, high stakes transportation.” This work has, the executive said, made a noticeable impact on national security.

The engineering and project management company’s efforts will ideally optimize the aircraft so that their passengers — which potentially include the U.S. President, Vice President, cabinet officials and military leaders — can traverse the globe securely and with ease.

“Our top-tier sustainment professionals deliver exceptional performance and have earned the prestigious FAA Diamond Award for Excellence 21 consecutive years in recognition of their commitment to aviation maintenance and training,” commented Amentum Senior Vice President of Sustainment Analytics and Aviation Solutions Joe Kelly.

Work under the contract will be performed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and will reportedly utilize cutting edge tools and technologies.

The USAF contract follows two other major awards for Amentum from military service branches over the last month. Mid-July, the company secured a six-year, $946.6 million contract to conduct life cycle support services for the U.S. Army’s fixed-wing aircraft fleet used in transport missions.

Earlier this month, Amentum was awarded an eight-year, $818 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to evolve and sustain F-16 combat training fighter jets for the U.S. Navy.

DOD Kicks Off Talent Management Innovation Challenge; Gilbert Cisneros Quoted
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DOD Kicks Off Talent Management Innovation Challenge; Gilbert Cisneros Quoted

The Department of Defense has launched the Talent Management Innovation Challenge in an effort to enhance its recruitment, retention and diversification of military and civilian employees.

DOD said Friday the inaugural initiative will gather talent management ideas from the department’s workforce from Aug. 11 to Sept. 30 and proposals will be assessed by senior leaders to determine potential for broad applicability and positive impact.

Recruiting and accessions; promotion and retention; and wild card are the three categories under the challenge led by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

“This challenge reinforces the need to tap into the full range of strengths and capabilities of all our employees,” said Gilbert Cisneros, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. “By harnessing the tremendous talent and experiences of our military Service members and civilian colleagues, we can bring forth new, innovative, and effective ideas tailored to our personnel.”

The DOD 2040 Task Force supported the launch of the challenge. For future initiatives, the Chief Talent Management Officer and Talent Management Executive Council will take charge.

AFRL Information Directorate Unveils Facility for Developing Advanced Computing Technologies
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AFRL Information Directorate Unveils Facility for Developing Advanced Computing Technologies

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Information Directorate has unveiled a new facility in Rome, New York, focused on developing high-technology quantum computing capabilities for the warfighter.

The Extreme Computing Facility features two laboratories for quantum computing, networking and security and two neuromorphic computing laboratories for cognitive machine learning research, AFRL said Monday.

Michael Hayduk, deputy director of the AFRL Information Directorate, said the establishment of the state-of-the-art facility represents “a new era” for advancing the development, integration and deployment of next-generation computing technologies for the Department of the Air Force.

Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new facility and announced $44 million in additional funding from the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense spending bill to support quantum computing programs at the Rome site.

The new federal funding includes $10 million for distributed quantum networking testbed and quantum cloud computing environment and another $10 million for a Joint All-Domain Command and Control testbed to create an operational-like environment for testing new multidomain technologies.

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Army Seeks White Papers for Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Swarm
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Army Seeks White Papers for Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Swarm

The U.S. Army’s Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office is fielding white papers from vendors with capabilities to develop and demonstrate technologies that can detect, track, identify and/or defeat sUAS swarm systems.

In a notice posted Thursday on SAM.gov, JCO and the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office said they are assessing industry interest in a program focused on fixed, stationary, mobile or mounted DTID technologies, which can be demonstrated by June 2024.

The competitive solicitation is open to commercial available products as well as concept demonstrations from academic institutions and businesses of all sizes.

The service branch aims to select a cost-effective prototype that can respond to a swarm of UAS threats and are compatible with systems operated by Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control.

Interested organizations may submit their white papers until Sept. 6.

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OMB Guidance Advocates Use of US-Made Construction Materials in Infrastructure Projects
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OMB Guidance Advocates Use of US-Made Construction Materials in Infrastructure Projects

The Office of Management and Budget has issued final guidance to increase the use of U.S.-made construction materials, iron, steel and other goods in federally funded infrastructure projects.

The White House said Monday the document supports the implementation of the Build America, Buy America Act provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The guidance seeks to implement the statutory requirements for Buy America preferences for federal financial assistance under BIL, including preferences for U.S.-manufactured steel and iron products and construction materials.

The document also includes a definition of the term “construction materials” and local manufacturing process standards for each construction material cited in the definition.

The final guidance will take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register and builds on the current administration’s commitment to support U.S. jobs and the manufacturing sector.

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Treasury Requests Input on Sensitive Tech Investment Oversight
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Treasury Requests Input on Sensitive Tech Investment Oversight

The Department of the Treasury has issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to solicit feedback that would inform the establishment of a program requiring U.S. persons to officially declare investments in entities located in countries of concern. It would also prohibit such persons from engaging in transactions involving technologies that pose a threat to U.S. national security.

The formation of the proposed program is in accordance with an executive order that intends to address foreign threats to U.S. national security by authorizing the secretary of the Treasury to regulate U.S. investments in geopolitically fraught countries that are involved in developing sensitive technologies, according to a Federal Register notice published Monday.

Per the notice, the program would impose the prohibition and notification requirement for transactions involving high-level technology categories: semiconductors and microelectronics, artificial intelligence and quantum information technologies.

The department wants input on the type of analysis or due diligence U.S. persons should anticipate undertaking to determine whether they are investing in a covered foreign person and seeks recommendations on how to improve clarity or refine the definitions given the program’s overall objectives.

Comments on the proposed rulemaking are due Sept. 28.

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