The Defense Logistics Agency is working on recycling optical-grade germanium to help boost the domestic availability of what is considered a critical material and lessen U.S. reliance on international market for its supply.

The Department of Defense reported Wednesday a DLA program introduced the germanium recycling capability in the U.S. defense industrial base.

The U.S. source more than half of its germanium needs from international providers, mainly China.

The material is from night-vision and thermal-sensing devices used by the military, and Pennsylvania’s Tobyhanna Army Depot provided most of the germanium scrap being processed by the program.

“Until now, there was no entity in the country that could do this complete process, from demilitarization and disassembly to ingot production. Everything that’s being done to recycle the material through this program is being done 100 percent stateside,” said Nancy Albertson, a chemist and program manager for DLA Strategic Materials.

With nationwide consumption reaching 30,000 kilograms in 2020, the DLA program looks to cover 2,200 to 3,000 kilograms of the annual germanium need through the recycling capability.

Military platforms such as Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Apache helicopters and naval systems use night-vision and thermal-sensing equipment with germanium.

NASA is soliciting partnership proposals from the private sector to develop flight technologies that can help reduce emissions from narrow-body airplanes.

The agency said Thursday it is looking to award at least one contract early next year for the design, production and test of a single-aisle aircraft model under the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project.

For the SFD effort, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California will enter into a funded Space Act Agreement with a selected industry partner to build the demonstration platform.

Under an SPA, the agency is not obligated to buy an aircraft or mission hardware for missions and will only collect data from the project for use in airframe configuration assessments.

“Now, with this ambitious new project, we’re again joining with U.S. industry to usher in a new era of cutting-edge improvements that will make the global aviation industry cleaner, quieter, and more sustainable,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The project is part of NASA’s Integrated Aviation Systems Program, which centers on research and development work aimed at incorporating aeronautic systems into future commercial transportation vehicles.

Proposals are due Sept. 1, according to a solicitation notice posted on SAM.gov.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program has added two new columns to the Plan of Actions and Milestones template to help agency partners track findings related to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Binding Operational Directive 22-01 and related common vulnerabilities and exposures.

FedRAMP said Tuesday Column AC should be used to monitor the due date of any BOD 22-01 vulnerability, while Column AD should be utilized to determine whether a CVE is associated with vulnerabilities listed on the POA&M line item.

The columns should be left blank in the event that providers found no association between BOD 22-01 findings or CVE and those listed on the POA&M line item.

According to the POA&M completion guide, the POA&M is a key document in the security authorization package and helps identify a system’s security deficiencies and weaknesses and outlines the specific measures a cloud service provider will take to address such lapses.