Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has unveiled a new document outlining strategic direction, priorities and objectives for the 18 elements of the intelligence community over the next four years.

The 2023 National Intelligence Strategy sets six goals to boost the IC’s capabilities to better prepare and respond to a range of threats posed by adversaries and transnational challenges, such as climate change and health security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Thursday.

The NIS aims to strengthen partnerships, develop a better understanding of supply chains, identify implications of emerging technologies and use economic statecraft tools to prevent strategic competitors from undermining U.S. competitiveness and national security.

“Together, we are developing capacity, capability, and resiliency to meet the pacing challenges of our nation and partners. The 2023 National Intelligence Strategy is geared toward making this process a robust reality,” said Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency.

Haines said the strategy underscores the expanding role of the IC in supporting the resilience of the U.S. national critical infrastructure.

Both Haines and Nakasone are 2023 Wash100 Award honorees.

A new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program aims to explore the potential of quantum heterostructures and other manmade metamaterials to regulate the temperature of superconducting electronic devices.

The Synthetic Quantum Nanostructures program will cover demonstration, testing and validation of experimental technologies from the disruption opportunity phase previously announced by DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, the agency said Wednesday.

DARPA introduced the SynQuaNon effort to address obstacles in cooling down devices used in quantum computing. Such equipment need to stay at a fraction of degree above zero Kelvin, or -460 degrees Fahrenheit, which normally requires large, power-consuming refrigeration units.

The agency expects participants to come up with scalable prototypes that use energy-efficient, synthetic nano patterned structures to manage the temperature of the devices.

“If we can increase the operating temperature for new superconducting nanoelectronic devices by a factor of 10, for example, the size of the refrigerator required for cooling goes down by more than a factor of 100,” said Mukund Vengalattore, program manager at the Defense Sciences Office.

“By reducing the power and cooling overhead required, we can reduce the [size, weight and power] significantly as well as improve other device-relevant metrics.”

The Department of Defense, General Services Administration and NASA have jointly released a proposed rule to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation to require contracting officers to provide explanations to unsuccessful offerors on certain contracts.

A Federal Register notice posted Wednesday states that the rule implements a section of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020 mandating that the FAR be revised to include the post-award explanation requirements.

Unsuccessful awardees on task orders or delivery orders issued under an indefinite-quantity/indefinite-delivery contract may submit a written request for an explanation as to why they did not win the award.

The explanation must be concise and include a summary of the rationale for the award and an evaluation of the significant deficient factors in the offeror’s offer.

The rule covers offers on task orders or delivery orders exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold but not greater than $6 million.

Interested parties have until Oct. 10 to comment on the proposed rule.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs Office has lifted certain restrictions on commercial remote sensing satellite operations.

The Office of Space Commerce said Monday that Tier 3 restrictions on “most capable, unmatched commercial remote sensing systems” expired on July 19, three years after NOAA adopted a three-tier approach to licensing commercial remote sensing systems.

“We said these temporary restrictions would last no more than three years, and three years later, we lifted them. U.S. capabilities lead the world in this important market, and this licensing change will maintain that lead,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad.

NOAA reduced global imaging restrictions to permit imaging and distribution for all except less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface, removed restrictions on non-Earth imaging and rapid revisit, as well as removed temporary conditions on X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar.