The U.S., Australia and the U.K. have agreed to broaden cooperation to develop hypersonics and other military technology platforms, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The defense alliance, called AUKUS, will also advance cooperation on artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum, undersea and electronic warfare capabilities.

U.S. President Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement the expanded cooperation sought to reaffirm their “commitment to [the partnership] and to a free and open IndoPacific.”

The three countries launched AUKUS in September. At the time, the U.S. and the U.K. announced that they would help Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines.

A defense official said the U.S. conducted testing in mid-March of a Lockheed Martin-built hypersonic missile that was launched from a B-52 bomber, according to a report by CNN.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said the Lockheed version of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept system flew for more than 300 nautical miles at altitudes higher than 65,000 feet and hypersonic speeds faster than Mach 5.

The HAWC missile also met several objectives, including safe separation from the carrier aircraft, booster firing, integration and release and cruise, according to the report.

CNN said it was the second HAWC missile test. In September, the U.S. Air Force tested a Raytheon Technologies-built configuration of an HAWC missile powered by a scramjet engine from Northrop Grumman.

Join ExecutiveBiz Events for the Hypersonics Forum this spring to hear from federal and industry leaders as they discuss the role of public-private partnerships in hypersonics development in relation to national security, military capabilities and strategic competition in today’s evolving threat landscape.

The Department of the Air Force has officially named its Ground Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missile system the LGM-35A Sentinel.

The Sentinel is set to replace the Minuteman III ICBM system as the ground-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad and will have a modular architecture to facilitate the integration of emerging technologies in response to evolving threat environment, the Air Force said Tuesday.

The service said the GBSD weapon system, which is being developed by Northrop Grumman under a contract awarded in September 2020, will reinforce the country’s integrated deterrence and will be a fully integrated platform with command and control capabilities.

“The name Sentinel recognizes the mindset that thousands of Airmen, past and present, have brought to the deterrence mission, and will serve as a reminder for those who operate, secure, and maintain this system in the future about the discipline and responsibility their duty entails,” said Frank Kendall, secretary of the Air Force and a three-time Wash100 Award winner. Kendall approved the designation for the new ICBM system.

The LGM-35A Sentinel will be housed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Minot AFB in North Dakota and at Malmstrom AFB in Montana.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is planning to commercialize its wireless charging invention aimed at increasing the flight time of unmanned aircraft vehicles.

According to a special notice on SAM.gov, ORNL will accept licensing applications for the Operation Duration Extender for UAVs technical business opportunity through July 15.

The invention, which features various ORNL wireless charging concepts, is designed to refill the batteries of drones without establishing any physical electrical contract to avoid problems caused by environmental factors and mechanism interoperabilities.

Oak Ridge scheduled a Technology Innovation Program day on June 6 to discuss the charging technology further with interested parties months before selecting licensing candidates on Aug. 15.

The business opportunity comes as the Battelle Memorial Institute and University of Tennessee-manged national laboratory expects the global drone market to reach over $43 billion in 2024.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is shutting down its Defense Enterprise Email after approximately a decade of activity, in favor of Microsoft 365 and Teams.

The upgrade brings cloud computing technology to accommodate secure messaging, document sharing, accountability, presence monitoring and scalability for the Department of Defense’s emailing system, DISA said Monday.

Rodney Saxon, chief of DOD’s enterprise email and enterprise messaging branch, is now migrating 1.7 million users to Microsoft 365 tenants. He said the upgrade brings a robust server and larger mail storage.

Saxon noted that DISA joint tenants will retain access to the mail.mil domain as the Global Address List remains.

“Army and others get a different address when they move to their own tenant,” he added.