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FAA Opens New Field Office to Monitor Safety of Commercial Space Operations in Texas, New Mexico; Wayne Monteith Quoted
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FAA Opens New Field Office to Monitor Safety of Commercial Space Operations in Texas, New Mexico; Wayne Monteith Quoted

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has opened a new safety field office in Houston, Texas, in an effort to enhance monitoring of the increasing commercial space operations in the area and in New Mexico.

The new facility will host inspectors tasked to oversee ongoing testings and other work by SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and other space companies, FAA said Monday.

"Keeping the public safe as the pace of commercial space operations increases requires the FAA to adapt, be agile, and remain vigilant," explained Wayne Monteith, associate administrator of commercial space operations at FAA.

The new office is one of the agency's recent efforts to follow the boom of commercial space launch and reentry activities. In March, FAA streamlined its space operations licensing processes to spend more time monitoring launch and reentry safety than processing applications.

The agency also activated the Space Data Integrator, a new capability that can track space vehicles in near-real-time as they pass through the National Airspace System, in June.

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David Ziska: NSA Program Offers Pre-Vetted Commercial Tech Products for Classified Telework
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David Ziska: NSA Program Offers Pre-Vetted Commercial Tech Products for Classified Telework

The U.S. Army and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have turned to a National Security Agency (NSA) program to obtain pre-vetted platforms designed to secure classified government data in remote environments, FedTech Magazine reported Monday.

David Ziska, deputy director of NSA's Commercial Solutions for Classified program, said the CSfC inventory has 22 categories across multiple product lines with most of the offerings already familiar to customer agencies.

"With the approved list, the components are more accessible and procurement can be less of a challenge," Ziska added.

The Army implemented tools from the CSfC products list for a pilot program at Fort Gordon in Georgia that aimed to help the service branch's remote workers gain access to its unclassified and classified networks using one computing device.

Meanwhile, AFRL adopted a virtual private network tunnel framework via the CSfC program to support classified telework of senior Air Force leaders.

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Millennium Engineering and Integration Awarded Potential $180M USSF and SMC Task Order; QuantiTech CEO Patrick Murphy Quoted
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Millennium Engineering and Integration Awarded Potential $180M USSF and SMC Task Order; QuantiTech CEO Patrick Murphy Quoted

Millennium Engineering and Integration, a subsidiary of QuantiTech, announced in March that the company secured a potential $180 million United States Space Force (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) Technical and Engineering Support (STS-3) task order in support of the SMC Development Corps (DC).

The task order requires the Millennium to do strategic planning, development planning, engineering and prototype development for select Pre-Milestone B space concepts and prototypes. The task order’s base period is five years.

The work on this new prime task order will mainly be performed at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California; Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO; and at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“This is the culmination of Millennium’s extensive involvement with several Directorates at SMC over the last ten years. Millennium and our teammates are pleased to continue our support of the Space and Missile Systems Center as it becomes part of the newly formed Space Systems Command of the US Space Force,” commented Patrick Murphy, president and CEO of QuantiTech.

The company will provide planning for future space capabilities, mission area architectures and roadmaps, analytic processes, acquisition of space systems for the control, tools and products and exploitation of air and space for Milestone A and Pre-Milestone B activities within SMC.

“The award of the STS-3 DC contract demonstrates SMC’s confidence in our team’s capabilities and capacity to ensure the USSF delivers resilient, affordable, and sustainable space capabilities for our nation,” stated Daniel Benjamin, Millennium’s Space and Cyber Systems business unit vice president.

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L3Harris And International Partners To Develop NATO Surveillance Concepts; Dave Johnson Quoted
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L3Harris And International Partners To Develop NATO Surveillance Concepts; Dave Johnson Quoted

L3Harris Technologies announced on Monday that the company is working with a team of leading international defense and technology companies to develop surveillance concepts for NATO to replace the organization’s aging Airborne Warning and Control System fleet by 2035.

”L3Harris has the skill and experience to address AFSC program complexities across all domains air, land, sea, space and cyber,” said Charles Davis, L3Harris’ International vice president. 

“The team has approached the Risk Reduction Feasibility Study phase with an open mind towards the platforms and digital architectures that will best achieve NATO’s objectives. It is critical to give NATO and the member nations as much flexibility as possible in developing advanced technology, highly adaptive, cost-effective AFSC concept shaped to meet evolving hybrid challenges” added Davis. 

L3Harris will lead the international team, which unifies the expertise across the international stage, sharing a vision of a data-centric, platform-agnostic approach. The other international team members will be announced at a future date.

The company and other team members will analyze the risks and feasibility of candidate components within its systems to strengthen NATO’s military advantage to 2035 and beyond.

L3Harris and its teammates have already delivered a High-Level Technical Concept (HLTC) study to NATO in 2020 as one of six suppliers. The study included detailed support across all business segments focused on data-centric architecture. The HLTC covered all aspects of multidomain surveillance and control over the full spectrum of benign, permissive, contested and denied operational environments.

“NATO has made it very clear that its objective is to ensure data and information are placed at the heart of all future AFSC capabilities,” commented Dave Johnson, L3Harris’ vice president of Strategy and Integrated Mission Systems.

 “With our data-centric, platform-agnostic architecture approach and experience building JADC2 capabilities, the L3Harris team is committed to working with NATO, studying all aspects of its flagship program and developing a concept for joint all-domain surveillance and control for the AFSC program,” concluded Johnson. 

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Bicameral Legislation Team Introduce Bill to Protect Sensitive Research; Sen. Angus King Quoted
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Bicameral Legislation Team Introduce Bill to Protect Sensitive Research; Sen. Angus King Quoted

Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Susan Wild, D-Pa., partnered with Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and James Lankford, R-Okla., to present a bill that aims to secure critical U.S. research from China, Russia and other foreign threats.

The bicameral bill would task the secretary of state to identify allied countries that pursue critical technology research in partnership with the U.S., Gallagher's office said Wednesday.

Leaders of the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Security Council (NSC), the Office of Science and Technology Policy and other agencies of relevance will provide input to help the state secretary come up with the list. The State Department would report these results to Congress.

The legislation would then require agencies to develop security policies that aim to protect sensitive research pursued by commercial, academic and government entities.

“American researchers are responsible for some of the world’s most cutting-edge research in key technological fields, and it is critical that we protect our breakthroughs from rival nations who would seek to steal our advances and turn them against us,” King said.

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Thomas Santucci: Agencies Must Take Pre-Migration Steps to Adopt Cloud
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Thomas Santucci: Agencies Must Take Pre-Migration Steps to Adopt Cloud

Thomas Santucci, director of information technology modernization at the General Services Administration (GSA), said federal agencies need to consider business value and procurement strategies when migrating assets to the cloud. 

Santucci said at an Advanced Technology Academic Research Center event last Tuesday that agencies need to first determine the business-related requirements of cloud migration, then move forward with other pre-migration activities, Government CIO Media and Research reported Friday.

These activities include associated workforce training and assessments on procurement strategies. Santucci also said that agencies must implement security, governance and financial structures.

“The governance structure is really important, to utilize the cloud agency experts in the cloud governance policy control policies, and then the finance — which is really important and probably deficient in the government today — which focuses on common cost considerations and tagging strategy to track costs,” the GSA executive said.

He also tackled the importance of zero-trust security adoption, which is a key element of President Biden's cybersecurity executive order.

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AFRL Rolls Out Effort to Expand S&T Partner Network; Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle Quoted
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AFRL Rolls Out Effort to Expand S&T Partner Network; Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle Quoted

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has launched a program that seeks innovative concepts from a wider pool of science and technology professionals. 

The Department of the Air Force (DAF) said Sunday its new Air and Space Forces Science & Technology Front Door program seeks to expand AFRL's network of S&T partners.

The program's corresponding website is designed to help DAF engage with potential partners, gather industry input and disseminate information on the department's S&T projects.

USAF's AFWERX innovation program is also working to expand AFRL's partnerships through the AFVentures, Spark and Prime efforts. AFVentures invests in commercial partners, Spark engages with innovators and Prime supports emerging technology markets that show military potential.

"By expanding our presence and creating more visible and convenient virtual front doors, we are cultivating a worldwide ecosystem of research from basic to applied that drives the pace of technology and competition in the agile pursuit of innovative solutions for warfighters and stakeholders alike,” said Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, AFRL commander.

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DHS Allots $475M for Fiscal 2021 Competitive Grants; Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted
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DHS Allots $475M for Fiscal 2021 Competitive Grants; Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will invest $475 million in seven competitive grant programs filed under fiscal year 2021. DHS said Friday that it will use these funds to finance anti-terrorism and disaster recovery projects of nonprofits, private companies and non-federal government agencies.

These competitive grant programs address challenges related to border security, terrorism, physical security of nonprofits, maritime and transit infrastructure and bus security.

The allotment adds to nearly $1.5 that DHS is investing in non-competitive grants for disaster resiliency efforts. Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of Homeland Security and 2021 Wash100 Award winner, said the grant recipients include underserved communities and organizations.

"The funding allocated for each of the grant programs will allow these communities and organizations to build, sustain and improve their preparedness and response capabilities," he said.

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CAES Secures Vinnova Contract For Space Computing Development; Mike Khan Quoted
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CAES Secures Vinnova Contract For Space Computing Development; Mike Khan Quoted

CAES announced on Monday that the company secured a contract from Vinnova, a Swedish government agency committed to promoting innovation, developing next-generation RISC-V-based space computing capabilities. 

The RISC-V developments will enable future CAES microprocessors to control spacecraft, create high-performance payload processing and feature timing isolation for software applications and prevent interference from other system components. 

“We look forward to working with Vinnova and our project partners to enhance our RISC-V processor technology to meet our customers’ next-generation space program needs,” commented Mike Kahn, CAES’ president and CEO as well as a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient.  

“Our space systems team is fully prepared to address the market’s growing need for cybersecurity and create the next generation of trusted, radiation-hardened processors with both RISC-V and SPARC/LEON architectures to enable low risk, high-performance implementation for space applications,” added Kahn. 

The NOEL-V fault-tolerant, 64-bit processor core is based on the open RISC-V instruction set architecture. It builds upon CAES’ heritage with the SPARC/LEON architecture. It also marks the newest addition to CAES’ trusted fault-tolerant space computing product portfolio.

“The results of this initiative with Vinnova will inform our future radiation-hardened NOEL-V microprocessor development in collaboration with the European Space Agency. Our team plans to publish the results and disseminate the technology to benefit the industry at large,” stated Sandi Habinc, CAES general manager of Gaisler Products. 

As soon as a multi-core NOEL-V processor development platform will be tested through a partnership with Chalmers University of Technology and atsec, an independent laboratory focused on information security. The tests will ensure strong security towards higher software layers.

“Chalmers’ collaboration on the LEON processor development dates back to 1997. We are excited to continue this long-standing collaboration on the RISC-V processor architecture as part of the Vinnova activity,” added Stefan Bengtsson, president and CEO of Chalmers University of Technology.

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Pentagon to Announce Transition Plan as Acquisition Office Faces Vacancies
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Pentagon to Announce Transition Plan as Acquisition Office Faces Vacancies

The Department of Defense is facing vacancies within its office focused on weapons procurement and modernization efforts, Politico reported Friday.

A spokesperson for DOD said Stacy Cummings, who is performing the duties of undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, and is also a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, is set to step down from her post in the coming weeks.

“Succession plans are in place to ensure continuity of operations and support of the Secretary’s priorities," Jessica Maxwell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said in a statement. "We will be announcing the transition plan in the coming weeks.”

Michael Brown, director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), withdrew his name from consideration for the role of acquisitions chief at the Pentagon citing an ongoing investigation into hiring practices at DIU.

Defense News reported that DOD has only one nominee within its acquisitions office. Deborah Rosenblum, the administration’s pick for the role of assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs at the Pentagon, is awaiting Senate confirmation. 

Some of the unfilled posts within the office are the deputy undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, assistant secretary for industrial base policy and assistant secretary for sustainment.

According to Politico, the Biden administration has yet to announce nominees for 27 DOD positions that require Senate confirmation. Twenty nominees are still awaiting confirmation in the upper chamber.

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