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NIST Releases Reference Tool for Updated Cybersecurity Framework
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NIST Releases Reference Tool for Updated Cybersecurity Framework

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a reference tool for exploring the draft version of the updated NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

The resource offers human and machine-readable versions of the Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 and enables users to view portions of the document’s functions, categories, subcategories and implementation examples using key search terms, NIST said Tuesday.

This tool will ultimately enable users to create their own version of the CSF 2.0 Core with selected Informative References and will provide a simple and streamlined way for users to navigate different aspects of the CSF Core.

Once the CSF 2.0 is finalized in early 2024, NIST will add Informative References to the tool to form the connection between the CSF and other frameworks, guidelines and resources.

Additional features to the reference tool will be implemented in the coming months.

The CSF 2.0 draft includes an expanded scope and guidance on implementing the framework and adds a sixth function of an effective cybersecurity program.

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Army Debuts Civilian Capability of Education Platform ArmyIgnitED
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Army Debuts Civilian Capability of Education Platform ArmyIgnitED

The U.S. Army has launched the civilian capability of the service branch’s voluntary education and training portal, dubbed ArmyIgnitED.

The Army Civilian Career Management Agency initially tested the portal with over 40,000 civilians in the field of human capital and resource management and has begun enabling its personnel to use the portal on an incremental basis, the service said Monday.

ACCMA ultimately plans to open access for civilians in two divisions and five other career fields to use ArmyIgnitED to pursue funds for education, professional development and training opportunities by fiscal year 2024.

“We expect this new automation to make applying for training easier, and payment to academic institutions and vendors faster,” said Donald Harrison, ACCMA’s program manager for ArmyIgnitED.

As of Aug. 9, nearly 253,000 individuals are using ArmyIgnitED.

The Army expects the portal to reach the full deployment phase in late August and provide additional enhancements, including an interface with the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army and audit capability.

Launched in 2021, the ArmyIgnitED platform was previously operated by Deloitte. After the Deloitte contract expired, the service tapped BAM Technologies to continue running the portal.

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DARPA Launches 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study
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DARPA Launches 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has put out a call for technical approaches as it launches a seven-month capability study that aims to develop technology concepts that could pave the way for the development of an integrated, multiservice lunar infrastructure.

The 10-Year Lunar Architecture study seeks to build an analytical framework that could define opportunities for commercial and scientific activity on and around the lunar surface and has several thrust areas, including transit or mobility; communications; energy; and other revolutionary orbital or surface infrastructure concepts, DARPA said Tuesday.

“To get to a turning point faster, LunA-10 uniquely aims to identify solutions that can enable multi-mission lunar systems – imagine a wireless power station that can also provide comms and navigation in its beam,” said Michael “Orbit” Nayak, program manager at DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office.

“Just like DARPA’s foundational node of ARPANET grew into the sprawling web of the internet, LunA-10 is looking for those connective nodes to support a thriving commercial economy on the Moon,” added Nayak.

DARPA will accept three-page abstracts through Sept. 6 and will ask the selected respondents to submit 10-page white papers and technical presentations by Sept. 25.

The agency will announce the chosen performers for the LunA-10 study during the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium’s fall meeting in October, ask them to provide a briefing by April 2024 and deliver a final report by June 2024.

Space Technologies Forum

Join ExecutiveBiz’s Space Technologies Forum on Aug. 29 to hear insights from industry experts, government officials and other thought leaders across the space domain as they discuss what lies ahead for space technology. Register here.

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Atlantic Council Report: DOD Needs More In-Depth Exploration of Human-Machine Teaming
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Atlantic Council Report: DOD Needs More In-Depth Exploration of Human-Machine Teaming

The Atlantic Council has released a report on the advantages and limitations of human-machine teaming, and artificial intelligence as a whole, as a tool for the Department of Defense.

The findings, which were published Monday, indicate that DOD must clarify and expand its definitions of HMT to cover wide-ranging applications for the technology.

AI and HMT can increase situational awareness and put DOD at an advantage in multiple combat domains. In administrative functions, they can improve logistics, sustainment, and efficiency in operations, cost and processing times, the council said.

The nonprofit group recommended that in the adoption of HMT, DOD must prioritize human operator training, comfort level and trust to optimize the use of such a partnership. The agency should conduct more experiments to build human trust and identify the strengths, weaknesses and breaking points of their machine counterparts.

Trusted AI and Autonomy Forum

ExecutiveBiz, sister site of ExecutiveGov, is putting artificial intelligence in the spotlight at its Trusted AI and Autonomy Forum on Sept. 12. The in-person event, which takes place in Falls Church, Virginia, is now open for registration.

DAF Prepares for Enterprise IT as a Service Wave 1 Rollout
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DAF Prepares for Enterprise IT as a Service Wave 1 Rollout

The Department of the Air Force has conducted a roadshow of enterprise information technology services at various military installations in preparation for the Wave 1 of its Enterprise IT as a Service program.

During the roadshow, selected communication squadrons from eight Air Force and Space Force installations participated in a limited EITaaS program called Risk Reduction Effort to inform the DAF’s transition to an enterprise service model from an in-house base-centric delivery model.

An industry team led by CACI‘s National Security Solutions division secured a $5.7 billion blanket purchase agreement to deliver services to over 800,000 individuals across the DAF under the EITaaS Wave 1 effort.

Wave 1 includes an upgraded IT service management system, enterprise service help desk, image and endpoint management stack, end-user devices and local field services.

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Jinyoung Englund Named Chief Strategy Officer for Algorithmic Warfare at CDAO
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Jinyoung Englund Named Chief Strategy Officer for Algorithmic Warfare at CDAO

Jinyoung Englund, most recently acting director of Defense Digital Service within the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office of the Department of Defense, has transitioned to the role of chief strategy officer for algorithmic warfare within CDAO.

She spent more than three years at DDS, where she started as a digital service expert before being appointed chief of staff and interim principal director.

Prior to DDS, Englund served for two years as a liaison officer at the FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force.

Jennifer Hay, a visiting fellow with the National Security Institute, took over Englund’s responsibilities at DDS by assuming the director position on a permanent basis. She is former head of global government relations at DataRobot who joined DDS in January as principal deputy.

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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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