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Lt. Gen. John Shaw on Deep Space Exploration
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Lt. Gen. John Shaw on Deep Space Exploration

Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, participated in a panel discussion on Monday at a conference in Las Vegas and talked about deep space and the security challenges facing deep space exploration, the Space Force said Tuesday.

“I think there will always be national security needs,” Shaw said.

“That automatically means that there is a security issue facing commercial companies that we need to be thinking through in the future as we enter a potential crisis or conflict,” he added.

Shaw highlighted the need to implement guiding principles to advance a more sustainable and safer space domain.

“I would like to see this idea of cooperative ‘norms of behavior’ that support all of the sectors, the commercial, the civil and the national security, again, to be something that we can share across the globe,” he noted.

He also cited the importance of collaboration in addressing security issues in the space domain and the role of the commercial sector in advancing deep space exploration.

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Rick Spinrad: New NOAA Investments to Support Climate Change, Resiliency Research
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Rick Spinrad: New NOAA Investments to Support Climate Change, Resiliency Research

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is allocating $15.2 million this year for new research on climate-related topics as the government aims to help U.S. communities become more resilient to extreme weather phenomena.

Sixty-three projects involving universities, research institutions and public agencies in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will receive the funds through NOAA’s Climate Program Office, the agency said Tuesday.

The awardees will team up with NOAA programs, research laboratories and centers, and may receive financial support from the agency for three to five years.

Studies will focus on topics such as wildfire pollutants in urban-to-wilderness transition zones, drought management and resilience in tribal nations and creating atmospheric simulations of aerosols, which are elemental to a proposed global dimming method.

Rick Spinrad, administrator of NOAA, said climate is a top priority for the agency and the Department of Commerce.

“These new NOAA investments are essential to improve understanding of climate change, how to mitigate increasing impacts and bolster community resilience. All of these substantive steps work together towards our goal of building a Climate-Ready Nation,” he added.

CPO has been investing in climate science since 2016, mostly in the state of Colorado, which has received a total of $29.1 million for at least 51 projects in the past six years.

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Reports: Drew Myklegard Appointed Full-Time Deputy Federal CIO
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Reports: Drew Myklegard Appointed Full-Time Deputy Federal CIO

The Office of Management and Budget has appointed Drew Myklegard as deputy federal chief information officer, a role he has held on an acting basis since April, FedScoop reported Tuesday.

OMB started its search for an individual to take the full-time position in March, when Maria Roat retired after more than four decades of federal service.

Myklegard initially held an associate role at the OMB Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer and before that position he spent more than eight years at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

While at the VA, he oversaw a division focused on DevSecOps product engineering, software as a service and platform as a service and digital transformation initiatives.

He also served at the Army National Guard as an intelligence analyst and strategic planner and worked for Booz Allen Hamilton as an associate.

According to a Federal News Network report, Myklegard is the sixth official to hold the deputy federal CIO post and will coordinate with CIOs at federal agencies to drive enterprise initiatives across the government.

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Lawmakers Launch Inquiry Over Revolving Door Between Financial Regulators, Crypto Firms
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Lawmakers Launch Inquiry Over Revolving Door Between Financial Regulators, Crypto Firms

A group of Senate and House lawmakers wrote a letter to several financial regulatory agencies to seek information about the efforts of their institutions to stop the movement of officials between government agencies and the cryptocurrency industry.

“According to the Tech Transparency Project, over 200 government officials have moved between public service and crypto firms, serving as advisers, board members, investors, lobbyists, legal counsel, or in-house executives,” the legislators wrote in the letter dated Monday.

The letter was addressed to the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The lawmakers asked each financial regulator about their agency’s ethics guidelines and transparency rules to ensure the integrity of the rulemaking process and agency officials and challenges facing their organization when it comes to enforcing and strengthening ethics requirements around revolving door hires.

Regulators should submit their responses by Nov. 7.

The letter was signed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.

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Air Force Unveils New Schedule for Small Business Research Open Topic Solicitations
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Air Force Unveils New Schedule for Small Business Research Open Topic Solicitations

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s technology directorate AFWERX is introducing a repeatable annual cycle for Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer open topic solicitations in fiscal year 2023 to further encourage small companies to participate in the service’s research and development efforts.

“This change allows AFWERX to execute contracts with rapid timelines to award, while providing industry and government a consistent, repeatable and predictable annual schedule,” said Maj. Amanda Rebhi, AFVentures division chief.

Under the new annual cycle, AFWERX AFVentures will provide small businesses two Phase I opportunities with follow-on Phase II and two D2P2 or Direct to Phase II opportunities, AFRL said Tuesday.

The first D2P2 open topic solicitation kicked off Tuesday, Oct. 25, and will run through Nov. 22. Solicitations for Phase I will be conducted every January and August and D2P2 solicitations will occur every March and October.

“The DAF Open Topic Program is targeting a 90-day timeline from proposal submission to award, while creating a more robust program that aims to better deliver cutting-edge technologies and capabilities to our Airmen and Guardians,” added Rebhi.

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Leidos Secures $55M TSA Hazmat Services Contract; Eric Freeman Quoted
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Leidos Secures $55M TSA Hazmat Services Contract; Eric Freeman Quoted

Science and technology company Leidos has been granted a potential five-year, $55 million contract from the Transportation Security Administration to conduct waste facilitation services.

The follow-on contract tasks Leidos with providing hazardous materials management and disposal services at over 430 federal airports across the U.S. and its territories, the Reston, Virginia-based organization announced on Tuesday.

“We are proud to continue performing this important work while protecting our nation’s transportation systems and the traveling public,” Leidos Senior Vice President and Integrated Missions Operations Manager Eric Freeman remarked.

Freeman additionally emphasized the longstanding relationship between the company and the TSA.

The contracted work will entail the company maintaining federal, state and local standards to impact management, movement and disposal of these materials. The Leidos team will provide compliance assistance visits of airport operations, develop standardized operating methods, and will execute regular audits of treatment, storage and disposal facilities.

Leidos will also guide TSA in the use of the company’s online recording system, HazOUT, and assist with the creation and implementation of their training plan.

This agreement follows a previous five-year contract that was granted in 2017. The terms of the previous contract are similar to the newly offered edition.

The new TSA award comes on the heels of Leidos’ Department of Defense award in early October. Valued at $1.5 billion, the task order calls for Leidos to assist with developing and implementing new command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools.

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FAA Releases Updated Guidance for Recreational Drone Flying
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FAA Releases Updated Guidance for Recreational Drone Flying

The Federal Aviation Administration has released updated guidance intended for the recognition of community-based organizations authorized to provide safety guidelines for the recreational operation of unmanned aircraft.

FAA said Monday recreational drone operators are required under law to follow comprehensive safety guidelines set by CBOs recognized by the agency.

The safety standard must be developed in coordination with FAA and can be customized to a particular drone type.

The advisory circular listed recommended recreational drone flying safety requirements that CBO applicants may consider when requesting FAA recognition.

The guidance defines a CBO as a membership-based association entity that “provides a comprehensive set of safety guidelines for all aspects of model aviation addressing the assembly and operation of model aircraft and that emphasize safe aeromodelling operations within the national airspace system.”

The updated document also provides information on drone operations for certain educational and research purposes and applications for recreational flying fixed sites.

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DARPA Seeks Proposals for New AI Program to Strengthen Network Security
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DARPA Seeks Proposals for New AI Program to Strengthen Network Security

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has issued a broad agency announcement seeking technical proposals for a new program that aims to develop automated approaches to conducting cybersecurity assessments on computer networks.

The Cyber Agents for Security Testing and Learning Environments program focuses on developing an artificial intelligence toolkit designed to create realistic environments and train AI agents in mitigating advanced persistent cyberthreats, DARPA said Monday.

CASTLE will use reinforcement learning to train defensive AI agents in adversarial environments that replicate actual networks and simulate defensive actions of cyber threat actors against counter-APT tools.

The program will run for four years and will be divided into three technical areas that seek to automate the creation of realistic network environments, learn cyber defensive operations for maintaining operations and enumerate potential attack paths.

“Reinforcement learning may enable the creation and training of cyber agents that are much more effective than current manual approaches for addressing APTs in networks,” said Tejas Patel, CASTLE program manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office.

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DOE to Develop Research Center to Advance Stable Isotopes Production; Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE to Develop Research Center to Advance Stable Isotopes Production; Jennifer Granholm Quoted

The Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory held a groundbreaking ceremony to commence the construction of a new facility for the large-scale production of stable isotopes for industrial, medical and research applications.

DOE said Monday the Stable Isotope Production and Research Center will receive $75 million in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure a sufficient supply of stable isotopes in the U.S.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said isotopes are essential to keeping the health and safety of Americans as they could help diagnose and treat life-threatening diseases like cancer and could be used for identifying nuclear threats.

“With support from the President’s Inflation Reduction Act, the world-class Stable Isotope Production and Research Center will help establish a reliable domestic supply of isotopes critical to the health and safety of Americans in every corner of the nation,” Granholm said.

SIPRC will be part of the department’s Isotope Program, which oversees the production and distribution of radioactive and stable isotopes that are in short supply.

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Think Tank Veteran Laura Baldwin Accepts VP Role at Institute for Defense Analyses
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Think Tank Veteran Laura Baldwin Accepts VP Role at Institute for Defense Analyses

The Institute of Defense Analyses, an operator of three federally funded research and development centers,  has appointed RAND veteran Laura Baldwin to a vice president position, effective Nov. 14.

She will be responsible for driving research initiatives for the Systems and Analyses Center and the Science and Technology Policy Institute in her new role, IDA said Monday. 

The Duke University alumnus has spent more than 20 years at Santa Monica, California-based policy think tank RAND.

Baldwin most recently served as associate director of the nonprofit organization’s national security research division, where she conducted research into the convergence of economics and national security with supply chain analyses.

While at RAND, she took part in an analysis of alternatives for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-135 tanker recapitalization program.

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