The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the University of Miami have collaborated to upgrade an ocean color observation system.

NIST said Tuesday the Marine Optical Buoy-Refresh initiative aims to update MOBY to ensure that the autonomous optical buoy provides more accurate satellite measurements of sunlight’s colors or wavelengths.

The team will replace the ocean color sensor’s aging hardware with a new optical system, a control system and support structures to eliminate uncertainties in the measurements.

The optical system will include a spectrograph that can simultaneously measure sunlight at three different depth intervals.

MOBY consists of an optical buoy that measures and records light and a mooring buoy that keeps the optical buoy moored off the coast of Lanai, Hawaii.

The first upgraded optical buoy was installed in late February 2022 and a second mooring buoy was deployed in January 2021.

The Office of Personnel Management plans to update its website to enable users to immediately access information and quickly gain responses to their inquiries related to benefits, retirement, pay and employment, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

“Right now, you would have to hop to multiple OPM program offices to get that information. When we do this, it’s going to be much more based around common customer experiences than just OPM’s core structure,” Guy Cavallo, chief information officer at OPM, told FNN in an interview.

The agency will consider technology and content as it overhauls the website.

For the technology aspect, OPM will migrate the backend system to a cloud-based platform.

“That’ll be under the hood, and people won’t realize it, but from an OPM standpoint, it’s going to give us a much more resilient and elastic website to be able to deal with the future,” Cavallo said.

When it comes to the content portion, the CIO office will work to align the website redesign with the Executive Order on improving federal customer experience and service.

“We already are building user stories on [topics such as], ‘I’m a current federal employee, and I want to look at my benefit, so I want to look at what changes if I move to another agency,’” Cavallo noted.

BMNT will help NASA connect with small businesses to identify relevant products and services that could support the space agency’s missions.

The consulting firm said Wednesday it secured a 42-month contract with NASA for the buildup of the Early Stage Innovation Program and will employ its entrepreneurial engagement service, which it uses to bridge organizations such as the U.S. Space Force and Aerospace Corp. to businesses focused on addressing space exploration issues.

“This ESIP contract will enable NASA to leverage private investment in commercial space to solve mission-critical problems while aligning NASA efforts to strategic investments in Deep Tech,” said Ellen Chang, vice president at BMNT.

Women and minority-owned entities as well as small businesses that are new to the agency will be targeted to join opportunities like NASA’s annual solicitation for small business innovation research.

Chang also heads H4XLabs, the business unit leading the Palo Alto, California-based company’s space entrepreneurship service.

The U.S. Air Force demonstrated expanded missile capacity with two Boeing-built F-15EX Eagle II fighter aircraft by fielding missiles from their new weapon stations during a flight test held in late November over the Gulf of Mexico, the service said Wednesday.

Eagle II pilots from the Air Force’s 96th test wing launched an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile from Station 1 and an AIM-9X missile from Station 9 as part of the Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force mission.

The flight test reportedly marked a key step in proving the fighter jet’s capability to fire up to 12 air-to-air missiles.

The two F-15EX Eagle II jets, which come with four additional missile stations, deployed the missiles against a target drone and over the water range of the Eglin Test and Training Complex, reflecting another milestone in the aircraft’s development test program.

In October 2021, the Air Force announced the completion of the first operational test mission of Eagle II at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. 

The Air Force awarded Boeing a potential $23 billion contract to design and produce the F-15EX Eagle II in July 2020.