The U.S. Marine Corps heavy lift helicopter, manufactured by Lockheed Martin‘s Sikorsky subsidiary, has been deployed to its first fleet exercise in Mountain Home, Idaho.

Marines assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 practiced external lifts with the CH-53K King Stallion, which was designed with increased lift capacity than its predecessor, the service branch said Thursday.

Staff Sgt. James Ganieany, airframes division chief for HMH-461, said the squadron has been training with the CH-53K since it conducted its first operational flight for the heavy-lift military helicopter in April.

The Marine Corps declared initial operational capability for the CH-53K program in April, paving the way for a full-rate production decision in 2023.

Lockheed said the service branch plans to buy as many as 200 CH-53Ks through the “Approved Acquisition Objective.”

Barry Kirkendall, technical director for space at the Defense Innovation Unit, said the technology accelerator is tapping into the private industry to accelerate the testing and development of new military hypersonic technologies, Forbes reported.

Kirkendall envisions that private sector capabilities and capital can reduce pressure on the U.S. missile infrastructure that could not support rapid testing of new technologies.

“So we find ourselves leaning on wind tunnels and test ranges that have hardly any availability. We can’t afford to build new infrastructure and new ranges so we’re looking for another solution,” Kirkendall said.

DIU has a new program, dubbed Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities, that calls for the development of a hypersonic test aircraft for the military that can fly and maneuver at a speed greater than Mach 5.

The high-speed vehicle must have the capacity to enable long-endurance testing of hypersonic platforms and related components and collect near real-time data on the performance of in-flight vehicles.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is soliciting information on potential industry sources of technical and engineering services in support of the Defense Enterprise Office Solution program.

DISA wants information on potential vendors that could support the integration of existing Department of Defense applications and infrastructure within a cloud environment and provide services in the areas of risk analysis and mitigation, cybersecurity policies and reports, service desk, configuration management and lifecycle cost analysis, according to a sources sought notice published Tuesday.

Potential offerors should have knowledge and experience in cloud computing infrastructure and information technology; integration, testing, sustainment and migration; infrastructure development and design; and voice, video, records management, productivity tools and collaboration services.

The needed support services will cover the department’s user base across secret and non-classified internet protocol router networks, denied environments and future domains.

DISA expects the performance period for the DEOS technical and engineering support requirement to kick off on June 7, 2023 and run through June 6, 2026.

According to the notice, Booz Allen Hamilton provides engineering, programmatic and technical services for DOD’s DEOS cloud adoption effort under a sole-source contract.

Interested vendors should submit capability statements through Sept. 28.

Verizon has teamed with the University of South Carolina to create a 5G-powered facility for experimentation in a variety of fields that serve the public good.

Located in the McNair Center in Columbia, South Carolina, the Innovation Experience Hub allows USC students to participate in study projects that examine manufacturing, healthcare and civil infrastructure and more, enabled by a Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network, the New York City-based company said Friday.

“Working with the University of South Carolina, we have a great opportunity to collaborate with dozens of partners to ideate and develop new 5G-powered solutions leveraging the latest technologies, including large-scale IoT, artificial intelligence, computer vision and augmented reality,” commented Jennifer Artley, senior vice president of 5G acceleration at Verizon Business.

On the network, researchers are expected to work on enhancing manufacturing activities like quality sensing and defect identification. For healthcare purposes, they will examine the impacts of remote health monitoring on emergency response as well as determine how 5G can assist real-time analysis of patient vitals, in addition to hospital connected asset facilitation.

In the realm of civil infrastructure, Innovation Experience Hub participants will navigate the different ways 5G communications can be used to oversee the conditions of roads and bridges, report statistics about various structures and be harnessed for drone-based imagery of roads, bridges and buildings via AI computer vision.

The new USC facility is the latest in a growing list of 5G labs established by Verizon across the U.S. These destinations are consistently motivated by partnerships with clients throughout the public and private sectors — startup businesses, universities and government/military entities, among others — to see how 5G can change and expand industries.

Earlier this week, Verizon was tapped by the Department of Defense to build a private 5G network at Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickham.