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NREL to Conduct Research for Hyundai’s Proposed LA Air Mobility Network
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NREL to Conduct Research for Hyundai’s Proposed LA Air Mobility Network

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has partnered with Hyundai advanced air mobility company Supernal to assess the potential impact of a future on-demand air travel network on the energy grid.

NREL said Tuesday its researchers will look into the high-power energy requirements, cost and operational implications of constructing and operating Supernal’s envisioned electronic vertical takeoff and landing vehicle network in Los Angeles, California.

The study will also cover travel hotspots, market viability, accessibility, environmental sustainability and other factors that would determine the distribution of terminals for the five-passenger eVTOL autonomous air vehicles within the greater Los Angeles area.

“Our research will emphasize utility capabilities to determine the impacts of these high-load, fast-charging electric vehicles,” explained Keith Ropchock, NREL’s project partnership manager.

Jaiwon Shin, CEO of Supernal, pointed out that the collaboration will help the Hyundai company develop a network that can be augmented with existing Los Angeles mobility infrastructure.

The Supernal eVTOL is expected to operate commercial flights starting in 2028.

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Executive Spotlight: John Steckel, VP of Business Development for AMERICAN SYSTEMS
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Executive Spotlight: John Steckel, VP of Business Development for AMERICAN SYSTEMS

John Steckel, vice president of Business Development at AMERICAN SYSTEMS, one of the largest employee-owned federal contractors in the country, recently spoke with ExecutiveGov for the publication’s latest Executive Spotlight interview to discuss the firm’s growing Independent Research and Development (IRAD) initiatives.

In addition, Steckel discussed why research and development are so important as AMERICAN SYSTEMS as well as the other areas of investment in IRAD and more!

“AMERICAN SYSTEMS is one of the few that has an active and on-going IRAD program that focuses on creating innovation to help us provide better and more cost-effective services to our customers.”

You can read the full Executive Spotlight interview with John Steckel below:

ExecutiveGov: Why is Research and Development so important to AMERICAN SYSTEMS?

John Steckel: “First and foremost, AMERICAN SYSTEMS is an engineering company where our employee-owners take pride in providing smart solutions for our customers.  We do that every day in the execution of our programs, but we are always striving to improve.

Part of that includes investing in technologies that allow us to be more efficient and effective in delivering our Strategic Solutions which include Acquisition and Logistics Support, Enterprise IT, Engineering and Analysis, Test & Evaluation, and Training. So, it’s not just important to AMERICAN SYSTEMS, it ultimately benefits our customers.”

ExecutiveGov: Are your R&D efforts part of your contract tasking?

John Steckel: “Not directly. By working with our government customers over time, we learn where their needs are not being met, or where there’s an opportunity to innovate, and we focus our research in those areas.

That’s why it’s called Independent Research and Development, or IRAD. I’ve been blessed to work in several companies that provide products, services, or a combination of products and services to the government customer.

Of those, AMERICAN SYSTEMS is one of the few that has an active and on-going IRAD program that focuses on creating innovation to help us provide better and more cost-effective services to our customers.

We do this outside the scope of our existing contracts, on our own time and on our own dime, with the  goal of implementing smarter solutions moving forward.”

ExecutiveGov: Can you provide an example?

John Steckel: “We not only have annual IRAD investments, but also have built ‘labs’ where we can innovate and train our teams to be innovative.

For example, we have a Digital Engineering lab in our Patuxent River, MD office with the environment and tools to not only train our teams in Model-Based Systems Engineering techniques, but also create digital twins of systems and processes that allow us to develop smarter solutions from a systems point of view.”

ExecutiveGov: In what other areas are you investing IRAD time and energy?

John Steckel: “MBSE is just one example of the investment we’ve made to bring technology to our service solutions.  We’ve invested in artificial intelligence and machine learning to allow us to take advantage of automation to process and make decisions using big data.

This allows us to augment our teams with technology solutions to reduce cost to the customer while increasing value we provide our customers.  We’ve incorporated modeling and simulation into our training programs.

Brought knowledge management into our processes to allow us to remove silos between programs and leverage lessons learned on one program into others.  We use agile methodologies throughout our business from internal processes to developing training programs, writing software, testing customer systems, you name it.

Why do we do this?  It is all about serving our customer’s National Priority Programs in the most efficient and effective way … keeping costs down … providing more value to the customer … and probably most importantly, being good stewards of our tax dollars.”

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CISA’s Bob Kolasky on Analyzing, Mitigating Cyber Risks Using Actionable Metrics
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CISA’s Bob Kolasky on Analyzing, Mitigating Cyber Risks Using Actionable Metrics

Bob Kolasky, assistant director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s National Risk Management Center, said cyber risk management not only requires agencies to perform information sharing but also demands an evolved approach that includes the analysis of existing and potential risks.

“It means using existing efforts around vulnerability management, threat detection and network defense as a springboard for connecting the relationship between threat, vulnerability and consequence with actionable metrics that drive decision-making,” Kolasky wrote in an article published Tuesday on FedTech Magazine.

He highlighted the need to establish the architecture to analyze cyber risks for critical infrastructure and noted that NRMC is working with the Environmental Protection Agency and other sector-specific agencies to create a “National Critical Functions risk architecture” to serve as an engine that will combine all data layers into a single analytics tool.

“Supporting efforts to better grasp the impact of cyber risk across the critical infrastructure community will involve developing usable metrics to quantify cyber risk in terms of functional loss,” Kolasky wrote.

“The goal is to more precisely understand the relationship between threat, vulnerability and consequence on critical functions, and to bring that thinking into cost-benefit analysis for mitigating risks,” he added.

He also discussed how security ratings have helped organizations measure exposure to cyber risks and the need to better understand and reduce systemic cyber risk.

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House Lawmakers Seek to Improve Federal Cybersecurity With FISMA 2022 Bill
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House Lawmakers Seek to Improve Federal Cybersecurity With FISMA 2022 Bill

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and ranking member James Comer, R-Ky., have proposed a bipartisan bill to improve the federal government’s defenses against cyberattacks.

“The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2022 elevates our federal cyber defenses to the next level, taking a cutting-edge and strategic approach to ensure federal IT systems can better prepare for and respond to today’s cyber challenges,” Maloney said in a statement published Tuesday.

FISMA 2022 would promote shared services; push for a risk-based cybersecurity posture through adoption of zero trust, automation, cloud migration and other principles; streamline and modernize reporting requirements through the use of automation; and require agencies to maintain inventories of internet-accessible information systems and advance information sharing.

The proposed legislation would also clarify the roles of the Office of Management and Budget, National Cyber Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Chief Information Security Officer and other federal offices to facilitate cooperation on cyber incidents.

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IRS Wants to Buy More Problem-Solving Technologies Using Streamlined Procurement Program
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IRS Wants to Buy More Problem-Solving Technologies Using Streamlined Procurement Program

The Internal Revenue Office is expanding its procurement and phased-funding program to quickly deploy more emerging technologies aimed at solving various agency problems, FedScoop reported Monday.

Mitch Winans, IRS senior adviser for enterprise digitalization, explained in a recent webinar that the Pilot IRS program enables the agency to purchase bits of technologies for evaluation using less money and time than traditional processes deploying them at scale.

Under Pilot IRS, market research and solicitation for a needed service are finished within four weeks at most before four to five bidders are awarded potential three-phase contracts.

According to a senior IRS contracting officer, the program receives a huge number of proposals as it enables companies to deliver their technologies directly to the agency.

Pilot IRS has released nine technology challenges since its inception, with five of them currently in the third phase.

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Palo Alto Networks Tapped to Leverage Cybersecurity Programs for the VA
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Palo Alto Networks Tapped to Leverage Cybersecurity Programs for the VA

In a multiyear deal, cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks has been chosen by the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide security for several of its valued assets.

Namely, the VA has recruited the help of Palo Alto to protect its increased remote workforce, its collection of Internet of Medical Things (IoMTs) and the Electronic Health Record Modernization program, the company announced Tuesday.

Palo Alto Networks President BJ Jenkins explained that the DA is a safety net for millions of veterans, extending services such as healthcare. Jenkins considers this a “critical mission” and remarked that using the company’s cybersecurity tools for this purpose was a badge of honor.

The partnership between Palo Alto and the VA has been ongoing now for a decade.

The Santa Clara, California-based company’s remote access technology will be used to secure the remote workforce expansion. In addition, the VA’s electronic records modernization strategy, which has been configured to give 9 million veterans a resistance-free access to healthcare, intends to implement next-generation security technology.

Automated visibility of healthcare records will also be installed into all IoMT devices in the VA’s network via said technology.

In September 2021, Palo Alto released a study regarding IoT trends and security issues, the IoT Security Report. It polled 1,900 IT professionals worldwide.

One revelation from the report was that 78 percent of those surveyed saw an increase in the number of IoT security incidents spurned by a transition to remote work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Numbers like these are likely the reason the VA is seeking out Palo Alto’s services to ensure security with their data and programs.

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Ron Thompson: NASA Develops Data Directives in Agency’s 5th Digital Transformation Year
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Ron Thompson: NASA Develops Data Directives in Agency’s 5th Digital Transformation Year

Ron Thompson, NASA’s chief data officer and deputy digital transformation officer, said the space agency is now developing data policy following a phase of digital transformation research.

He said Jan. 18 at the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center’s Digital Transformation Summit that NASA is now in its fifth year of digital transformation, FCW reported Friday.

Thompson noted that NASA sees intelligent data management as a way to address data publishing maintenance challenges. These challenges include changing the labels and classifications of sensitive data as potentially demanded in the future.

NASA’s directives currently under development are intended to improve how the agency uses data, Thompson noted.

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James Webb Space Telescope Reaches L2 Orbit After NASA Course Adjustment
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James Webb Space Telescope Reaches L2 Orbit After NASA Course Adjustment

NASA has finished adjusting the course of its James Webb Space Telescope toward a final orbit around the L2 Lagrange point.

Webb performed a mid-course burn where the spacecraft’s onboard thrusters fired for almost 297 seconds to achieve a corrected trajectory, Alise Fisher, public affairs specialist at NASA, said in a blog post published Monday.

The burn boosted the space telescope’s speed by 3.6 miles per hour to execute the trajectory change, which is needed for Webb to orbit around L2.

NASA expects the spacecraft’s intended orbit to provide for a wide cosmic view while maintaining a temperature cold enough for Webb to perform optimally. The space agency said Webb still has propellant for momentum unloading and station-keeping activities, following the redirection.

Engineers can now begin the three-month process of tuning Webb’s optics to near-nanometer precision, as the telescope’s primary mirror segments and secondary mirror are now deployed.

JWST, which is now almost a million miles away from Earth, succeeds the Hubble space telescope to capture space imagery for astrophysics studies. NASA collaborates with the European and Canadian space agencies for JWST.

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Army Preparing for First OCONUS Cloud Deployment in Indo-Pacific Region
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Army Preparing for First OCONUS Cloud Deployment in Indo-Pacific Region

The U.S. Army has begun preparations for the service branch’s first-ever deployment of an overseas tactical cloud system that could improve data storage and processing in the Indo-Pacific region, FedScoop reported Monday.

According to Army spokesperson Bruce Anderson, the service branch’s Pacific component is now working to determine where best to locate the cloud-hosted data capabilities, with exercises and experimentations planned through fiscal 2023.

He told FedScoop that officials are currently developing contracting requirements for the required cloud service to deploy cloud technologies to the tactical edge outside the continental U.S. with the help of commercial companies.

In a recent AFCEA NOVA event, Army Chief Information and former Wash100 Award recipient Raj Iyer detailed the planned Pacific system as a hybrid platform using commercial cloud services and on-premise data centers to perform various information functions for the military.

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EAC’s Mona Harrington Named Deputy Assistant Director of CISA’s National Risk Management Center
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EAC’s Mona Harrington Named Deputy Assistant Director of CISA’s National Risk Management Center

Mona Harrington, executive director of the Election Assistance Commission, will join the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s National Risk Management Center to serve as deputy assistant director, Politico reported Monday.

Harrington will help the center oversee election security, as well as associated critical infrastructure and 5G networks, in her new role. NRMC hosts CISA’s team assigned to protect election activities.

She was appointed to become EAC’s full-time executive director in June 2020 after assuming the role on an acting basis. The incoming CISA executive oversaw election security, COVID-19 response, workforce growth and fund distribution efforts during her time at EAC.

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