Karl Mathias, chief information officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, said his office aims to transform its acquisition process and help HHS to develop a consolidated approach for managing potential risks to information technology assets.

Mathias told FCW in an interview that he expects the departmentwide cybersecurity strategy to be ready in September and go beyond the zero trust model required by President Biden’s executive order in May.

“My goal is to knock down servers. Fortunately, I have CIOs who think along the same lines, and they’re busy going to cloud,” he said.

Within his office, Mathias is aiming to improve the efficiency of procurement efforts and obtain the best value in negotiations.

The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with Toyota Motor North America to develop and install a fuel cell power generation system at NREL’s Flatirons Campus in Arvada, Colorado.

NREL said Wednesday the $6.5 million project will run for three years and will identify performance limitations and degradation of the 1-megawatt proton exchange membrane fuel cell power generation system.

The research and development project will also examine how the fuel cell system performs when used with energy storage and renewable energy systems.

Toyota will provide multiple fuel cell modules to build the system, which will be part of a larger system designed for demonstrating megawatt-scale hydrogen production, energy storage, power production and grid integration.

DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy funded the project.

The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has launched an online portal to streamline the process of notifying the department of construction contracts and subcontracts awards.

DOL said Friday the Notification of Construction Contract Award Portal will enable contracting officers, contractors and subcontractors to submit to OFCCP a notice within 10 days of the award of a federal construction contract or subcontract valued at more than $10,000.

In a previous announcement, DOL said contractors can submit a single file for information on contract value, estimated commencement and completion dates of a contract, contract awarding and receiving entity and contract places of performance.

“As the pace of federal investments in our nation’s infrastructure accelerates, we expect an increase in the number of contractors and projects under OFCCP’s jurisdiction. This tool will enable us to schedule and perform compliance reviews more efficiently and effectively,” said Jenny Yang, director of OFCCP.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management has selected 10 projects to receive more than $31 million in funding to develop technologies for carbon capture and storage.

DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory said Friday the projects will help develop and test carbon capture materials and equipment for use in natural gas combined cycle, waste-to-energy power generation and industrial applications.

Other projects will also conduct front-end engineering design studies for NGCC power and industrial plants that employ carbon capture technologies.

The goal is to develop carbon capture systems capable of capturing at least 95 percent of carbon dioxide emissions generated from natural gas power plants, waste-to-energy power plants, and the industrial sector.

“Carbon capture technology plays an enormously important role in helping to achieve the deep carbon reductions we need as our energy and industrial sectors transition to net-zero emissions,” said Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary for FECM.

NETL will manage the selected projects in support of the Biden administration’s goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.

The U.S. Air Force plans to upgrade the Boeing-built B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber with a Raytheon Technologies-developed radar and a new engine from Rolls-Royce to keep the aircraft operational through 2050, Breaking Defense reported Friday.

Col. Louis Ruscetta, senior materiel leader of the Air Force’s B-52 division, said the service was working to determine possible “friction areas” to ensure that changes in one of the two major upgrades don’t have an unintentional effect across the bomber fleet.

“There’s a lot that can go wrong on the program management side,” he said. “We have to try to manage and reduce what can go wrong.”

The Air Force will integrate the Raytheon-made AN/APG-79 radar into B-52 and Ruscetta said the new capability will provide the aircraft with improved situational awareness to identify and counter targets.

He said flight testing is set to begin in late 2025 and the service intends to achieve initial operating capability status for the radar upgrade in 2027.

In September 2021, Rolls-Royce won a potential $2.6 billion contract to provide replacement engines – F130 – for the bombers. 

Ruscetta said the Air Force conducted a preliminary design review of engine subsystem in July and plans to hold a full system preliminary design assessment later in 2022.

The military branch expects to equip the first B-52 bombers with new engines between 2026 and 2027 and reach IOC status for the engine replacement program in 2030.

The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is conducting market research into commercial off-the-shelf business systems that can help the facility’s operator to manage registrations and credentials for onsite or digital access to the research center.

A request for information posted Friday on SAM.gov indicates the lab is interested in adopting a centralized platform that will support the collection and processing of data on center employees and visitors.

Argonne wants a system that can integrate with existing customized and commercial applications at the facility and accommodate multiple data flows to determine information such as whether a registrant is new or returning.

The platform should also include built-in features meant to eliminate duplication and allow users to track the status of their registrations and update their information.

Responses to the RFI notice are due Sept. 23rd.

Pete Muend, director of the National Reconnaissance Office’s commercial systems program office, said the NRO is reviewing proposals under the Commercial Strategic Enhancement broad agency announcement and plans to issue awards to radio frequency satellite companies as early as September, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

“We do have proposals, and we’re eagerly looking forward to completing that source selection and awarding multiple awards in all likelihood as soon as next month,” Muend said Thursday during a webinar.

Muend said the BAA’s next focus is on hyperspectral imagery and that the NRO intends to release a solicitation for proposals later in 2022.

In January, the NRO awarded contracts to five commercial radar satellite providers using the BAA.

Muend noted that the NRO is also broadening the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate analysis of imagery resources and facilitate decision-making processes for warfighters.