NASA looks to automate data sharing with government and commercial partners
NASA wants to automate data sharing with government and commercial partners to further its human exploration mission, with Artemis launches beginning no sooner than August.
Chief Data Officer Ron Thompson hopes NASA will start sharing operational data with Space Force Space Operations because currently partnerships occur on a programmatic basis.
NASA is rehearsing the launch of its Artemis 1 rocket in preparation for an uncrewed Orion spacecraft mission around the moon, the first in a series of voyages to ultimately land astronauts on Mars. But commercial partners designed and manufactured Artemis 1 components and will be responsible for sharing data on their performance with NASA.
“We need to exchange operational data for these components as we integrate them and stack them,” Thompson said, during an AFCEA Bethesda webinar Thursday. “So it is important not to do that on paper; it is important to do this through an automated way that is not only there for the build but is there for if we have an event, god forbid, or when we go in the operations, too.”
That digital mindset is new to NASA, but it’s being woven into how the agency works with government and commercial partners, he added.
NASA is focusing on engineering, operations and safety data for its human operations, aeronautics and scientific research missions.
Interoperability with other agencies is a maturation of the Federal Data Strategy.
“We have to be better about how we exchange information across the federal space and with our citizens as well,” Thompson said.
Perhaps the best example of this is with supply chain risk management data, as all agencies work to identify which companies their goods and services are coming from, he added.
“A lot of organizations currently are getting that data independently,” Thompson said. “And we are not sharing it.”
Bilateral data-sharing agreements are part of the solution, but so is a Federal CDO Council subgroup focused on data sharing and led by the Department of Health and Human Services’ CDO, he added.
That subgroup is working to streamline data-sharing agreements and make them multi-agency use, but the end goal is to establish data-sharing enclaves — similar to how the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act established an enclave for statistical agencies to share data more freely.
Thompson may not be around to see it. The government veteran of 32 years said he’s in the twilight of his career and will likely be transitioning to another role after July 8, though he’s not sure what that is just yet.
Pentagon’s Hicks puts pressure on new AI office to deliver results
The Pentagon’s new Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) just achieved full operating capability, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks wants it to show clear progress on key initiatives such as Joint All-Domain Command and Control within the next year.
The CDAO — a product of a major bureaucrat shakeup at the Pentagon that included the merger of several agencies — is tasked with scaling digital and Al-enabled capabilities across the massive Department of Defense enterprise. On June 1 the office announced that it had achieved full operating capability (FOC) as well as the appointment of nearly a dozen officials to fill out its leadership ranks.
“I do think it’s really important to empower the team there to first of all take a little time, as they’ve put themselves together in FOC to think through that problem set themselves and put some measures out that we can talk about. So I’m not going to get in front of that process,” Hicks said Wednesday at the DOD’s annual Digital and AI Symposium.
“What I will say is that we have to be able to deliver. We have to advance and advance quickly on the challenge set that the warfighter faces,” she continued. “The CDAO has to be seen a year in as delivering on that and that it is the go-to place for talent and technical expertise to get after that problem” of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and scaling artificial intelligence across the department, she added.
JADC2 is the Pentagon’s vision for better connecting the U.S. military’s sensors and shooters, and creating faster and more unified networks through the application of AI and other digital tools.
“What we want to be able to do is make sure we are leveraging the state of the art in order to increase accuracy, increase speed of decision-making, increase the quality of our ability to deliver effects,” Hicks explained. “We need to be able to access the data that’s out there.”
The Pentagon also wants to leverage artificial intelligence and big data analytics for back office and “board room” functions — not just on battlefields, she noted. That includes applying the technology to logistics, sustainment and inventory management issues, among others.
The DOD is currently “under-gunned” when it comes to analytic capabilities, Hicks said.
To address these challenges, the Department of Defense needs the help of world-class AI talent. And talent management will be one of the challenges that CDAO must tackle.
The Pentagon wants to leverage such expertise in industry and academia.
However, “we do need, you know, folks inside the system able to help us conceptualize and build out the kind of … AI enterprise that we need,” Hicks said. “I’m very hopeful that CDAO will be right up there with ideas of how we get better at both recruiting talent, but up-skilling and re-skilling and then retaining some of that talent.”
Digital experts need to be able to rotate in and out of government, she suggested.
“Some talent we need to be really comfortable with it flowing in and out [of the department]. I think that model is completely appropriate,” she said. “We’re not comfortable with that typically. So we need to get more comfortable with it.”
The CDAO is also tasked with helping the Pentagon develop “responsible AI” systems that are effective on the battlefield but are also constrained by the ethical principles that the DOD applies to the technology. The Pentagon is currently rewriting its AI policy and rethinking its guidelines for autonomous weapon systems.
“We have been a leader in responsible AI, we have set this pace for allies and partners, and certainly for adversaries who have nothing like it. And I think we can be very effective in warfare, we can create an effective deterrent and [still] stick by our norms … That’s really important to me that we advance that through CDAO,” Hicks said.
Census Survey Explorer helping users find the data they need
The Census Bureau’s tool for finding which of its 120-plus surveys have the data users require was born out of the agency’s effort to provide a tutorial on the subject.
A beta version of the Census Survey Explorer launched in April to help researchers, who previously had to open every survey’s webpage for descriptions to know they weren’t overlooking data they needed.
Bureau surveys cover more than 100 topics, and subtopics overlap across large program areas — economic surveys collecting data on business owner characteristics and demographic surveys like the American Community Survey or Current Population Survey gathering data on employment status and income. Adding layers like geographic area complicates matters further.
“For each survey we had to convey the geographic availability, how frequently data are released, how far back the survey went, what topics were available, and we also needed to visualize this information,” said Eric Coyle, intergovernmental affairs specialist at the Census Bureau, during the 2022 Government UX Summit on Wednesday.
The Census Survey Explorer helps researchers narrow down what surveys to reference using dropdown menus to filter by data topics and geographies.
An unidentified commercial off-the-shelf product ingests the relevant data and serves it through an application programming interface to a JavaScript application. All told the tool took two months to stand up with survey owners providing input throughout the process.
“Even with our very simple prototype, we had a great deal of feedback,” said Logan Powell, developer experience lead. “And we integrated that feedback as we went through the process.”
A week-long soft launch helped ensure there were no bugs with the tool and gave the project team, which resided in the Communications Directorate at the time, time to do internal marketing.
Potential users needed to know the tool existed and where to find it, so a banner announcing its launch was displayed across many of the bureau’s webpages and a tutorial video released.
A Topics page helps users identify the search term they’re looking for, such as race if they’re seeking demographic data on Black people, and a Help page addresses frequently asked questions about the tool.
“Instead of having to crawl through lots of webpages, you now have narrowed down your choices to just a few surveys to go and click into and do some further investigation,” said Mary Leisenring, program analyst.
Navy demos 5G for machine learning, video surveillance, zero trust and more
Pentagon and Navy officials observed an AT&T-supplied 5G network power artificial intelligence, augmented reality and machine learning and other applications at scale during a recent showcase event at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego.
Fifth-generation wireless technology refers to the latest and fastest iteration of cellular communications tools. These demonstrations come a little over a year and a half after the Defense Department announced $600 million in awards to a number of commercial partners to set up the largest full-scale 5G experimentation for dual-use applications in the world — via five U.S. military test sites.
At Naval Base Coronado, the Pentagon’s intent is to develop a 5G-enabled Smart Warehouse centered on transshipment between shore facilities and naval units.
“The DOD is running a variety of 5G-related experiments with AT&T and other vendors to explore how it may help them improve their technological advantages for the future,” Lance Spencer, client executive vice president for defense at AT&T Public Sector and FirstNet, told FedScoop on Monday. “DOD has acknowledged the need to explore and use commercial networking capabilities to avoid the enormous costs of attempting to build their own networks.”
AT&T is the only 5G network provider at this California-based experiment, but cloud solutions and applications are also being provided by other vendors.
“The AT&T 5G-powered solution we created at Naval Base Coronado is the first of its kind,” Spencer noted.
This high-performance private network solution combines spectrum, carrier-grade Radio Access Networks, roaming capabilities, enhanced cybersecurity and more.
According to Spencer, the 5G-enabled smart warehouse solution demonstrations proved the Navy and DOD “can take direct advantage of [AT&T’s] vast network of towers, fiber, equipment, and spectrum.” The various prototype use cases exhibited at the event focused on the 5G RAN and its optimization of warehouse operations through increased throughput of data, internet of things (IoT) support, and low latency.
For instance, officials from the Naval Information Warfare Center-Pacific showcased its Battlespace Exploitation of Mixed Reality (BEMR) laboratory to demonstrate how 5G-enabled virtual and augmented reality can be applied to military training, maintenance, and other applications, as well as operations.
Another video surveillance-associated demonstration entailed a high-definition camera placed in a highly secure room where critical technology infrastructure was located.
“A 5G radio was affixed to the camera to wirelessly feed video 24/7 of the room,” Spencer said.
In another separate AI and machine learning demonstration, DOD used AT&T’s 5G to connect a vendor-specific cloud environment with a camera-enabled system on module (SoM) for rapid, scenario-based customization. The SoM was optimized for industrial and supply chain environments to power shelf-stock analysis, people and object detection, and loss prevention, among other uses.
“In the demonstration, a pre-trained model was created to showcase real-time recognition and classification of polyvinyl chloride ‘elbows’ with varying degrees that were placed on a moving conveyor belt. The camera was trained to recognize different objects and update a database with the type and number of parts it recognized. The solution also collects metrics and [key performance indicators] and displays them on a dashboard for monitoring and managing operations,” Spencer explained.
He added that “another key outcome of the event was the demonstration of an operational use case of 5G-enabled Zero Trust Architecture, a strategic approach to cybersecurity that eliminates implicit trust and continuously validates every stage of digital interactions.”
Going forward, more experiments and testing aligned with different DOD priorities will unfold.
And Spencer also noted that this latest solution to be displayed is not limited to the walls of the warehouse at Naval Base Coronado.
“We expect this project to deliver seamless connectivity that allows for the tracking of Naval material end-to-end across supply chain routes. We also have the expertise to scale this capability internationally,” he said.
DOD still lags in delivering software for weapons systems in a timely manner, says GAO
The Department of Defense still lags behind commercial standards in delivering software for weapons systems despite using agile software development methods, a new report from the Government Accountability Office found.
In its annual weapon system assessment, the GAO asserted that despite steps being taken in recent years to modernize its software development and acquisition approach, the majority of major defense acquisition programs and middle-tier acquisition programs reviewed “reported delivering software to users much less frequently, sometimes a year or more.”
“Modern software development approaches, such as Agile, emphasize early and continuous software delivery, and fast feedback cycles so that software is being continuously evaluated on functionality, quality, and user satisfaction,” the report said, noting that 39 of 59 major defense acquisition programs and middle-tier acquisition programs reported using at least one modern software approach.
The Defense Innovation Board as well as commercial agile practices encourage delivery of working software to users as frequently as every two weeks, GAO said. Information from frequent iterations can assist in measuring progress and allowing developers to respond faster with feedback on technical glitches and risks.
DOD officials said they consider a software delivery goal of six months to a year as more suitable to account for the safety and security requirements of many of its systems.
Additionally, GAO found 59 programs reported little progress on implementing five practices on recommendations made by the Defense Science Board in 2018 to improve software development. While 39 programs said they use a modern approach, only 10 use a software factory, which was a base recommendation by the Defense Science Board underlying all others.
GAO did note that in February, DOD issued a new software modernization strategy for which several of its goals are consistent with the aforementioned practices such as using software factories.
GAO also discovered that programs continue to report workforce challenges related to software development efforts.
Over half of the programs reported at least one workforce challenge this year, with the most common challenge reported being finding staff with required expertise.
Developing zero trust strategies that don’t limit access to FOIA data
OPM hack class action plaintiffs win initial approval for $63M payout
A D.C. federal judge Tuesday gave preliminary approval for a $63 million settlement to go ahead in a class action brought by victims of the 2014 and 2015 Office of Personnel Management data breaches.
In a court order, U.S. district judge Amy Berman Jackson said the figure in the agreement was “fair, reasonable, and adequate, and in the best interest of named plaintiffs and class members.”
The $63 million payout remains subject to a fairness hearing scheduled for Oct. 14.
If it receives final approval, the settlement will bring to an end a long-running class action brought by the U.S. citizens and permanent residents whose personal information was compromised as a result of cyberattacks at OPM and through the breach of electronic information systems operated by contractor Peraton in 2013 and 2014.
The class action is open to citizens who had to spend money remedying issues directly related to the breach, such as paying for credit record monitoring services, and claims may be submitted until Dec. 22.
In 2015, OPM announced it was hit with a series of intrusions understood to be linked to two Chinese government-sponsored groups, which resulted in the compromise of personal information of around 22 million individuals.
A subsequent report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform found that the earliest known data breach at the agency came in November 2013 but was not detected for years until a private cybersecurity firm was brought in to run forensics.
Before that, malware was found to be lurking on the organization’s data infrastructure dating back to 2012, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team.
“The long-standing failure of OPM’s leadership to implement basic cyber hygiene, such as maintaining current authorities to operate and employing strong multi-factor authentication, despite years of warnings from the inspector general, represents a failure of culture and leadership, not technology,” the report stated at the time.
Following the breach, OPM contracted with credit monitoring company ID Experts to provide monitoring services to victims of the breach. According to federal government spending data, the agency has so far spent $248 million on the contract, which has an award ceiling of $416 million.
In an online statement, Daniel Girard, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said: “The settlement ends a seven-year legal effort to win compensation from the government.”
“The settlement will compensate victims who suffered a financial loss as a result of the hack, providing for minimum payments of $700, even for those with minor expenses,” he added. “The court’s order sets a deadline of December 22, 2022 for class members to submit a claim.”
An OPM spokesperson declined to comment and referred FedScoop to the Department of Justice.
House panel wants audit of underperforming software, IT at DOD
Members of the House Armed Services Committee are taking aim at underperforming software within the Department of Defense.
The HASC subcommittee on cyber, innovative technologies, and information systems’ mark of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would require the Pentagon to contract with a federally funded research and development center to conduct an independent study on the impacts and challenges associated with the use of software and information technology.
“This is getting at the fundamentals of if we do not have properly functioning IT or software, what is it costing us,” a committee aide told reporters Tuesday before the subcommittee marked up the proposal ahead of the full committee markup slated for June 22.
This ultimately gets down to better efficiency and use of resources, the aide noted, citing examples of military personnel waiting for their devices to boot up or load, rather than spending time training or performing other important tasks.
“We thought if we could quantify that as many commercial companies do in terms of the cost imposed in terms of lost time, that we could have a number that we could take and illustrate that investing in things like software and IT actually will save the department money in terms of lost working hours,” the aide said.
In an open letter penned earlier this year, Michael Kanaan, director of operations for the U.S. Air Force and MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator, prodded department leadership to “fix our computers,” citing various complaints about long wait times to get computers running and outdated applications and software.
“Want innovation? You lost literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of employee hours last year because computers don’t work. Fix our computers,” he wrote. “You tell us to accelerate change or lose, then fix our computers. Before buying another plane, tank, or ship, fix our computers.”
The independent review the subcommittee panel is calling for would include a survey of armed services members to identify the most important software and IT challenges that result in lost working hours, a summary of the policy or technical challenges that limit the ability of the service secretaries to implement needed software and IT reforms, and recommendations to address challenges.
The panel also wants to take a hard look at the office of the chief information officer in an attempt to improve its ability to perform the vast functions under its purview, including requiring an independent posture review of staffing levels.
“We ask a lot of the CIO’s office. It has statutorily defined responsibilities over the electromagnetic spectrum, position, navigation and timing, IT architecture, networking, information assurance, cybersecurity, cyber capabilities — they do all this with quite a small staff. So this is ensuring that staffing and the workforce are of an adequate size and expertise,” a committee aide said.
Oracle completes $28.3B acquisition of Cerner
Cloud giant Oracle has completed its $28.3 billion acquisition of electronic health records company Cerner.
The deal concludes after the technology company’s tender offer to purchase all issued and outstanding Cerner shares for $95 per share expired after midnight, eastern time, on June 6.
It brings to an end scrutiny of the transaction from antitrust authorities including the FTC and the European Commission.
Cerner currently has contracts with the Coast Guard, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.
Oracle is hoping that the acquisition will allow it to use Cerner’s trove of health information to bring cloud-based data analytics and AI technologies to bear on the sector. It may also shift some business away from AWS, which Cerner named as a preferred cloud partner in 2019.
However, Oracle will have to respond to continued scrutiny from lawmakers, who have repeatedly raised concerns over Cerner’s role at the center of the VA’s troubled electronic health records (EHR) modernization program.
Late last month, Senate lawmakers unanimously passed legislation that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to report the costs of its EHR modernization program more regularly and in greater detail.
The proposed bill has already passed the House of Representatives and will now be sent to President Biden to be signed into law.
VA has recently continued with the rollout of its EHR modernization program, which relies on Cerner’s Millennium platform, despite opposition from lawmakers.
Earlier this month, the department forged ahead with a go-live of the platform at the Central Ohio Healthcare System in Columbus, Ohio, following implementation of the system at sites in Spokane and Walla Walla, Washington.
In March, the department’s Office of Inspector General published a trio of reports that identified major concerns about care coordination, ticketing and medication management associated with the EHR program launch.
Oracle Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison will discuss acquisition at an online event on June 9. Details of the event can be found here.
Lawmakers want Army to take closer look at electrifying tactical vehicles
Members of the House Armed Services Committee want the Army to explore the idea of conducting a new pilot program focused on battery-powered tactical vehicles.
Lawmakers on the HASC tactical air and land forces subcommittee will include such a directive in their mark of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which will be released this week.
“There is a direct report language in the subcommittee mark that deals with tactical vehicle electrification and asks the Army to look at the advisability and feasibility and estimated cost of doing an electric tactical vehicle electrification experiment or pilot through a CRADA cooperative research and development agreement with industry to kind of play around with the idea of tactical vehicles operating away from, you know, charging stations around the corner — that kind of thing,” a committee aide told reporters Monday during a background briefing on the legislation.
The information from the briefing was embargoed until Wednesday morning.
“There’s a lot to learn and … many members of the committee are very interested in the potential for electrification and are looking for ways to perhaps accelerate the promise of electrification,” the aide said, noting that “the real challenge is tactical applications.”
Officials in the Biden administration, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, are keen on the U.S. military moving toward electric vehicles. They have touted it as a way to combat climate change and achieve operational benefits in the form of reduced logistical and maintenance requirements, and stealthier platforms that emit less noise and heat.
Contractors such as GM Defense are investing in EV technology with the hopes of selling it to the Pentagon.
Defense officials and other observers see the non-tactical vehicle fleet as “low-hanging fruit” when it comes to electrification. However, making the tactical fleet battery-powered is more complicated because the platforms must be able to operate in more austere environments.
In an Army commissioned study released last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said all-electric tactical vehicles won’t be practical until 2035 at the earliest, largely due to shortcomings in battery technology and recharging capabilities on potential battlefields of the future.
Army Lt. Gen. Duane Gamble, then deputy chief of staff, G-4, told members of the HASC in December that in the near term the service will be more focused on hybrid-electric drive for combat vehicles because “full electrification for our complex weapon systems at the forward edge of the battlefield is a goal that we don’t believe that currently our technology will support.”
Gamble is now serving as special assistant to the staff director in the office of the chief of staff of the Army.
The Army likely won’t be acquiring large numbers of “full electric” variants of complex weapon systems until the 2030-2035 time frame or later, Gamble said.