A team of U.S. Air Force software developers has tested a new open systems enclave on an F-22 Raptor aircraft during a flight demonstration at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Members of the Air Combat Command Federal Laboratory, Edwards AFB test pilots and software developers from the 309th Software Engineering Group developed the OSE, which consists of government-owned software architecture with existing hardware, the Air Force said Wednesday.

“We’ve proven the ability to rapidly evaluate and integrate next-generation technologies developed by experts in government, industry, and academia at a lower cost with software portability across defense platforms,” said Maj. Allen Black, test pilot and project co-lead for the F-22 aircraft.

The in-flight demonstration marks the first time that the open-source container orchestration software has been used on any fighter aircraft.

During the test, the enclave showcased its ability to integrate new technologies from the first line of code to flight in less than 60 days. 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has unveiled a new fellowship program meant to hire early career scientists and engineers to develop and manage a portfolio of technology research and development programs for the Department of Defense.

Under the DARPA Innovation Fellowship Program, the selected fellows will be part of the Defense Sciences Office and work across multiple disciplines over a period of two years, the agency said Wednesday.

“We see these fellowships as a great way for the nation’s future scientific thought leaders to have the opportunity to make extensive connections across an extraordinarily rich, technologically focused network that includes DARPA program managers and the DARPA performer community,” said Stefanie Tompkins, director of DARPA and a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient.

The program will be based in Arlington, Virginia, and the application is open for recent Ph.D. graduates and active-duty military with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Federal Reserve Banks plan to roll out an instant payments service between May and July of 2023.

“The FedNow Service will transform the way everyday payments are made throughout the economy, bringing substantial gains to households and businesses through the ability to send instant payments at any time on any day, and the funds being immediately available to recipients to make other payments or manage cash flow efficiently,” Lael Brainard, vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, said in a statement published Monday.

Over 120 organizations are taking part in the pilot program of FedNow Service, which is set to transition to the technical testing phase in mid-September.

These organizations include U.S. Bank, Exchange Bank, Alacriti Payments, ECS Fin, Form3 and ModusBox.

Pilot program participants will undergo a certification process and then transition to the production phase upon launch of the service. The Federal Reserve is tapping non-pilot service providers and financial institutions that will serve as early adopters of the FedNow Service.

The Energy Department has granted $70 million in funding to seven research projects aimed at updating an ultra-high-resolution representation of Earth that runs on high-performance computing systems and supports climate change studies.

The projects center around DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model, an exascale supercomputer simulation designed to help scientists understand changing weather patterns, the department said Tuesday.

DOE expects E3SM research and development work to advance computer models of ocean circulation in the Atlantic and the Antarctic.

“Being able to understand and predict what is happening in a system as complex as planet Earth is crucial to finding solutions to climate change,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico will lead the potential five-year research efforts, with an initial obligated fund of $14 million.

The grant is part of the DOE’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program. A peer review process took place to select the winning projects.

The U.S. Army is advancing the development of two variants of its tactical ground station designed to provide intelligence support to facilitate long-range precision targeting and improve situational awareness in contested environments, Defense Daily reported Wednesday.

Maj. Jermaine Wright, assistant product manager for the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, said the service will likely buy six Advanced prototypes of TITAN and five Basic prototypes of the ground station and expects the program to transition to the production phase in fiscal year 2026.

In June, the Army awarded Raytheon Technologies and Palantir Technologies separate contracts to build and integrate TITAN prototypes.

“TITAN Advanced operates on five enclaves. Currently, it will be on an FMTV M1083 [truck] platform. And then the Basic variant, which will we get to in prototype maturation once we get to our preferred vendor post-upselect at the end of this phase, will be on a JLTV platform,” Wright said.

“The TITAN Basic will not have that space direct downlink. The technology is not there as far as antennas and whatnot. So what they will have is space access via the hubspoke network and a redundant communications network architecture to provide that space data,” he added.

Northrop Grumman has built a TITAN Pre-Prototype and Wright said the Army will take the TPP as a “space-ground component kit” for integration with the prototype designs from Raytheon and Palantir to provide the Advanced version a space direct downlink.