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FAA, Verizon, AT&T Agree on Steps for Aircraft-Friendly 5G Wireless Expansion
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FAA, Verizon, AT&T Agree on Steps for Aircraft-Friendly 5G Wireless Expansion

The Federal Aviation Administration has announced an agreement with telecommunications companies Verizon and AT&T on steps to expand 5G wireless service while enabling safe airport operations. 

The organization said Friday it used data from the companies to determine the possibility of mapping out areas around an airport where 5G C band signals are mitigated to prevent impacting sensitive aircraft instruments.

According to the FAA, the possibility opens up the potential for operators to figure out areas where their antennas would not need to be deferred and activate more wireless towers without affecting nearby aircraft operations.

The FAA shared that it will continue talks with the aviation community regarding current and planned 5G expansion efforts.

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Accenture Federal Wins Contract from IRS to Retool, Strengthen Identity Theft and Fraud Detection
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Accenture Federal Wins Contract from IRS to Retool, Strengthen Identity Theft and Fraud Detection

Accenture Federal Services has landed a five-year, $73 million contract award from the Internal Revenue Service to create and implement a system to detect identity theft and fraud.

The public sector subsidiary of Accenture announced Monday that AFS will continue their 40-year history of collaboration with the IRS by offering technologies and analytics that aim to verify taxpayer income, alert individual fraud and enforce tax legislation.

Elaine Beeman, senior managing director and AFS civilian portfolio lead, said that AFS looks forward to enabling the IRS to strengthen its anomaly detection.

She added, “our work includes a host of enterprise modernization initiatives, including cloud architecture, automation, testing, and agile methodologies to help the IRS create more value.”

In the endeavor, AFS will specifically be collaborating with the IRS Return Review Program.

Past AFS and IRS projects have included work on the Affordable Care Act and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. They have also partnered on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the Taxpayer First Act.

AFS recently received a ten-year, $200 million task order from the Transportation Security Administration to provide flight adaptive maintenance and Tier 3 support services.

The company also acquired Novetta, an advanced analytics company, in August 2021.

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Chinese Company Eyes Point-to-Point Travel for Reusable Space Plane
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Chinese Company Eyes Point-to-Point Travel for Reusable Space Plane

Space Transportation, a Chinese aerospace firm, is building a reusable winged rocket and space plane for rapid point-to-point transportation and space tourism, Space.com reported.

The company, also known as Beijing Lingkong Tianxing Technology, expects ground tests to occur in 2023 and the first flight the following year. The space plane is anticipated to perform a manned flight in 2025 and is targeted to carry out a global crewed space test flight by the end of the decade.

A video presentation on the company’s website shows a plane detaching from the wing powered by rockets following a vertical takeoff and continues its suborbital flight to its destination. Upon arrival to its destination, the plane will perform a vertical landing using three legs fielded from the rear.

In August, Space Transportation had secured $46.3 million in funds for its hypersonic vehicle. The company has been carrying out tests of its Tianxing 1 and Tianxing 2 vehicles but has disclosed limited details about the flight test activities.

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Lloyd Austin: Pentagon Continues to Back Diplomatic Efforts Over Russia-Ukraine Conflict
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Lloyd Austin: Pentagon Continues to Back Diplomatic Efforts Over Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Lloyd Austin, secretary of the Department of Defense and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, said that although the Russian conflict with Ukraine is not unavoidable, “there is still time and space for diplomacy,” DOD News reported Friday.

“The United States, in lockstep with our allies and partners, has offered Russia a path away from crisis and toward greater security, and the Department of Defense will continue to support those diplomatic efforts,” Austin told reporters Friday.

He said the U.S. military is taking measures to back NATO allies, including strengthening security on the alliance’s eastern flank.

“We placed thousands of U.S. troops on ‘prepare-to-deploy’ orders earlier this week,” Austin said. “If NATO activates its response forces, these troops will be ready to go.”

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a four-time Wash100 Award recipient, joined Austin during a press conference at the Pentagon.

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DARPA Program Seeks to Develop Low Noise, Compact RF Oscillators; Gordon Keeler Quoted
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DARPA Program Seeks to Develop Low Noise, Compact RF Oscillators; Gordon Keeler Quoted

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a program that seeks to employ advances in integrated optical approaches to drive the development of next-generation radio frequency oscillators.

The Generating RF with Photonic Oscillators for Low Noise program’s first technical area will focus on the development of compact, frequency-agile and low-noise prototypes that can deliver outputs ranging from 1 to 40 gigahertz, DARPA said Thursday.

“Nonlinear integrated photonics provides a path to achieve incredible oscillator performance while reducing system size by orders of magnitude,” said Gordon Keeler, program manager at DARPA’s microsystem technologies office.

“Beyond the cost and size advantages, integrated optical approaches could allow tuning over multiple frequency bands and environmental robustness. There is potential for very broad impact if our teams are successful,” added Keeler.

The research teams selected to work on the program’s first technical area are Honeywell, BAE Systems, Nexus Photonics, hQphotonics and Caltech.

The second technical area of the GRYPHON program seeks to inform future architectures of oscillators by pursuing techniques that provide “even lower phase noise or ultra-wide tunability.” Groups selected for this effort were research teams from the University of Virginia and Columbia University.

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IBM to Double-Down on Partnership with CISA via JCDC to Fight Cybercrime
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IBM to Double-Down on Partnership with CISA via JCDC to Fight Cybercrime

IBM has announced it will perpetuate its relationship with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) by working as an alliance partner in the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC).

The computer hardware company said Thursday it intends to share information with the CISA and JCDC in hopes of mounting a cohesive strategy against cybercrime. The organizations aim to prevent cybercrimes from happening but respond efficiently and exactingly when they do occur.

IBM reports that through incident responses across industries they have developed protection procedures that include threat monitoring capabilities and open-source data and intelligence about threat groups. They will share these findings via their X-Force Exchange platform.

Over the past several months cybercrime in the U.S. has increased, mostly in the form of financial thefts and state-sponsored attacks. It’s due to this uptick that IBM and CISA, through the JCDC, are motivated to act.

One such example of notable cybercriminal activity was due to the Log4j data breach in late 2021. Executive Gov reported on the breach, as well as published General Dynamics Chief Information Security Officer Michael Baker’s thoughts on the crisis in January 2022.

In a survey polling over 500 information technology leaders in July 2021, IBM found that agencies intended to prioritize cybersecurity funding for the 2022 fiscal year.

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NSWC Crane Announces 4 New Executive Leadership Team Members
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NSWC Crane Announces 4 New Executive Leadership Team Members

The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, in Indiana has named Kyle Werner, Dane Speer, Brent Voigtschild and James Ross as new members of its executive leadership team.

The four new directors will oversee various departments and lead the strategic vision of the U.S. Navy federal laboratory, the Naval Sea Systems Command said Thursday.

Werner will serve as NSWC Crane’s deputy technical director, bringing to his new position eight years as a former member of the executive leadership team.

Speer will work as business director with responsibility for the organization’s planning, assessment, budgeting and workforce development efforts.

Voigtschild will occupy the corporate operations director and lead a department working on various organization competencies such as human resources, corporate communications, infrastructure, security and information technology.

Meanwhile, Ross will bring his over-a-decade experience as NSWC Crane nuclear deterrence, hypersonics and missile defense official to his new role of director fo the global deterrence and defense department.

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DOE Releases RFI on Pathways for Industrial Sector’s Decarbonization
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DOE Releases RFI on Pathways for Industrial Sector’s Decarbonization

The Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office is looking for public feedback on four technology pathways aimed at helping the industrial sector reduce emissions while remaining competitive in the global scene.

A request for information details energy efficiency; electrification; low-carbon fuels and feedstocks; and carbon capture, utilization and storage as ways to achieve the Biden administration’s decarbonization goals, the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy said Thursday.

AMO wants to learn more about emerging technologies for industrial decarbonization, opportunities for demonstration-scale projects, barriers facing carbon emission reduction, government resources that can support climate initiatives and strategies to benefit the industrial workforce.

AMO is also interested in technologies that can be used to achieve similar environmental goals in different sectors.

Interested stakeholders can submit their comments on the RFI until Feb. 28.

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DHS Officials Share Efforts, Challenges in Agency’s Data Use
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DHS Officials Share Efforts, Challenges in Agency’s Data Use

Two leading Department of Homeland Security officials discussed ongoing efforts to enhance data use within the agency during a recent Advanced Technology Academic Research Center webcast, Nextgov reported Thursday.

Kathleen Kaplan and Elizabeth Puchek, chief data officers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, respectively, said their organizations already improved how they handle information since a 2019 law that created their roles.

Kaplan shared that FEMA is currently ongoing a data refresh to sort data entering her agency based on source and quality and Puchek noted that USCIS is also preparing for a similar initiative to maintain the integrity of its database.

Despite progress, the two officials noted several challenges to their data goals such as competition for time and funding with other offices and poor technologies for information sharing between different agencies.

In 2019, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act became law, mandating 24 Chief Financial Officers Act federal civilian agencies to establish chief data offices.

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DOI Interior Business Center Modernizes FRTIB’s Financial System
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DOI Interior Business Center Modernizes FRTIB’s Financial System

A business-focused organization within the Department of the Interior has completed an effort to modernize and standardize the financial, procurement and travel systems for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.

The Interior Business Center said Monday it used the PRISM software-as-a-service to streamline procurement activities as part of FRTIB’s Financial Systems Modernization Project.

PRISM’s procurement cycle integrates information across the initiation, solicitation and awarding phases of procurement programs.

The board will also use E2 Solutions’ web-based travel management system to organize, authorize and process trips of federal officials.

DOI expects the SaaS implementation to centralize financial, procurement, travel and investment management into one integrated source.

Expanding FRTIB’s financial management services also involves pre-built integrations with IBC’s existing capabilities including business analytics, reporting and decision making support.

IBC also helped FRTIB decommission legacy systems.

FRTIB is tasked to oversee the Thrift Savings Plan, a retirement savings plan for members of the federal workforce and military branches.

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