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NASA Demos New Precision Landing Technology
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Precision landing on Moon's surface

NASA completed a field test of its official lunar landing equipment at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida in March 2025.

Evaluating the New Hazard Detection System

The agency said Tuesday it demonstrated the ability of the new hazard detection technology to perform a precise landing. The goal was to land within 50 meters of the target area. This new development reportedly advances precision landing technology and brings NASA’s Artemis mission closer to its objective of safely landing on the Moon and Mars.

During the demonstration, a team composed of Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division personnel from the Johnson Space Center and Goddard Space Flight Center tested the Goddard Hazard Detection Lidar from a helicopter to simulate a vibration-heavy environment.

The lidar system demonstrated the ability to scan an area the size of two football fields in just two seconds. It managed to process 15 million short pulses of laser light, enabling it to generate real-time 3D maps of landing sites. Aside from precision landing, this capability is intended to allow the spacecraft to avoid hazards.

SPLICE Program

The Goddard Hazard Detection Lidar is part of the agency’s Safe & Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution, or SPLICE, program. The initiative, under the Space Technology Mission Directorate, aims to develop advanced landing technologies for planetary exploration.

SPLICE is a unified landing system equipped with avionics, sensors and algorithms utilized for navigation, guidance and image processing. The SPLICE Descent and Landing Computer reads the 3D maps and assesses sensor data to determine the spacecraft’s velocity and altitude, as well as terrain hazards and safe landing sites.

These technologies can potentially be used on Mars Sample Return, Europa Lander, Commercial Lunar Payload Services flights and Gateway.

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SBIRS Survivable Endurable Evolution Program Receives Operational Acceptance
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U.S. Space Force seal

The U.S. Space Force’s Space Based Infrared System Survivable Endurable Evolution program, known as SBIRS S2E2, has achieved operational acceptance, verifying the system’s capability and readiness to support its operational mission.

“The S2E2 Operational Acceptance marks a significant leap forward in our ability to provide resilient, uninterrupted missile warning and nuclear detection in the most challenging environments,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Wilson, Space Systems Command materiel leader.

Strengthening the Resilience of U.S. Missile Warning Architecture

S2E2, which replaces the legacy Air National Guard-operated Mobile Ground System, features a modern, transportable ground station for processing data from the SBIRS and nuclear detonation detection systems to inform decisions and advance capability, survivability and operational flexibility. It also has built-in command and control capabilities designed to ensure U.S. missile warning systems remain operational and resilient in contested and degraded conditions.

According to Capt. Morgan Records, SSC infrastructure branch deputy program manager, S2E2 will provide command authorities with real-time, high-fidelity missile warning and NUDET information faster and more accurately than the previous system — a capability needed to enable rapid decision-making during missile or nuclear events.

POC - 2025 Air and Space Summit

Join Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Air and Space Summit on July 31 to gain insights into the challenges and opportunities facing the air and space defense industry. Register now!

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DOD to Host Persistent Cyber Training Environment Collaborative Event in June
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The military also faces adversaries in the cyber domain.

The Cyber Fusion Innovation Center, a.k.a. CFIC, and the Technology and Innovation Center, or ArCTIC, scheduled a collaboration event on June 4 in Georgia to discuss the Department of Defense’s requirement for a Persistent Cyber Training Environment – Cyber Innovation Challenge 5. 

Experts from industry and academia are invited to participate in the in-person event to provide insights into how the Program Executive Office – Simulation, Training and Instrumentation—known as PEO-STRI—can incorporate emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning into current training platforms to enhance operational readiness of cyber workforces, according to a special notice posted on SAM.gov.

Learn more about emerging cyberthreats and new cyber policies in the private and public sectors at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Cyber Summit on May 15. Register for the in-person event here.

DOD to Host Persistent Cyber Training Environment Collaborative Event in June

What to Expect at the DOD Event?

The DOD hosts collaborative events to serve as a brainstorming session to address a specific problem statement. Participants subsequently submit potential solutions that PEO-STRI assessors and stakeholders evaluate and select for demonstration in one-on-one sessions. 

The SAM.gov notice said collaborative events are as competitive as broad agency announcements and commercial solutions openings.

What Are the Capabilities the DOD Needs?

CFIC, ArCTIC and PEO-STRI are specifically looking for four capabilities: intelligent help desk and documentation chatbots, automated network range creation, predictive resource allocation and optimization, and advanced user and traffic simulation. 

The DOD wants the PCTE platform to increase productivity and reduce processing time through the implementation of advanced technologies that can perform tasks with minimal human intervention.

After the collaborative event, the DOD will open white paper submissions for approximately 30 days. Interested parties may send their request to attend the CE on or before May 28.

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GSA Seeks to Transform Government Procurement Through OneGov Strategy
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GSA FAS Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum shares his insights on the OneGov Strategy

The General Services Administration has introduced a new strategy that aims to modernize how the federal government buys goods and services by approaching procurement as a shared enterprise.

Under the OneGov Strategy’s initial phase, GSA said Tuesday standardized terms and pricing will be implemented to streamline agencies’ access to IT tools.

The agency will also adopt a more direct engagement model to support original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs.

Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service and a 2025 Wash100 awardee, called the new strategy a “big win” for industry and government.

“We’re creating a more consistent, scalable, and efficient way to buy technology—one that benefits agencies, OEMs, and taxpayers alike. We expect this approach to have similar success and benefits across other categories,” added Gruenbaum.

What Is the OneGov Strategy?

The OneGov Strategy seeks to promote direct engagement with OEMs to streamline acquisition, improve cybersecurity protection and ensure more transparent pricing.

The initiative is expected to expand into hardware, infrastructure, cybersecurity services, platforms and other categories over time. GSA will continue to work with industry stakeholders to implement the strategy, enabling it to become a governmentwide hub for shared IT services.

The strategy supports an executive order signed in mid-April, which directs federal agencies to prioritize the procurement of commercially available products and services to eliminate unnecessary expenditures associated with buying custom products where a suitable commercial platform would have met the government’s requirements.

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DOJ Says Government Saw 25% Rise in FOIA Requests in FY24
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The DOJ Office of Information Policy releases its summary of annual FOIA reports for fiscal year 2024

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy has reported that the government received a record high of approximately 1.5 million requests under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, during fiscal year 2024, up 25 percent from FY 2023.

OIP said Tuesday agencies processed 1.49 million FOIA requests, an increase of 34 percent from the prior fiscal year.

According to OIP’s Summary of Annual FOIA Reports for FY 2024, five federal agencies received the vast majority, or 84 percent, of all FOIA requests governmentwide. These are the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Health and Human Services.

These five agencies also processed 85 percent of FOIA requests governmentwide in FY 2024.

Administrative Appeals

The government received 20,115 administrative appeals in FY 2024, a 39 percent increase from the previous year.

Of those received appeals, the government processed 18,575, reflecting a nearly 26 percent increase from the number of appeals processed in FY 2023.

DHS, DOD, DOJ and the Social Security Administration processed 75 percent of the total number of appeals processed governmentwide in FY 2024.

Of the 122 agencies subject to FOIA, 87 agencies ended the last fiscal year with no pending appeals in their backlog.

Proactive Disclosures

According to the OIP report, government agencies continued to proactively disclose large volumes of information in FY 2024.

Under FOIA subsection (a)(2), agencies are required to proactively disclose to the public non-exempt information from certain categories of records without waiting for a specific request to be received. Those categories include final agency opinions and orders rendered in the adjudication of cases; specific policy statements that are not published in the Federal Register; and administrative staff manuals and instructions to personnel that affect a member of the public.

In FY 2024, approximately 251 million records were posted online, a 0.77 percent increase in proactive disclosures over the previous fiscal year.

FOIA offices across the government posted 1.9 million subsection (a)(2) records online, reflecting an over 400 percent increase in online postings compared to FY 2023.

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DHS, DOD Secretaries Named FEMA Review Council Co-Chairs
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FEMA logo

U.S. President Donald Trump has named Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as co-chairs of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council.

Kristi Noem Career Highlights

Noem, a 2025 Wash100 Award recipient, was appointed as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in January. Before her appointment, she was the governor of South Dakota, a position she had held since 2018. She was elected to the South Dakota House of Representatives in 2006 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. During her tenure in Congress, Noem focused on agriculture, tax reform and veterans affairs, among other issues.

Pete Hegseth Career Highlights

Hegseth, a fellow 2025 Wash100 awardee, assumed the defense secretary role in January following his confirmation. A veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard, Hegseth has extensive military experience, including service in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. His previous roles include executive director of Vets for Freedom and a contributor for Fox News.

U.S. Emergency Management and Disaster Response

As co-chairs, Noem and Hegseth will lead the FEMA Review Council, which was established earlier in 2025 to advise the president on FEMA’s ability to address disasters within the United States.

Eleven other people, including Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg, were also appointed to the council.

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Space Force Will Source Commercial Satellites for GSSAP Replacement, Acquisition Leader Says
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Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration.

The U.S. Space Force will replace the specialized military satellites of its Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program surveillance constellation with commercially designed and operated in-orbit technologies. At a recent event, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said he recently signed an acquisition decision memorandum in support of the project. 

“Today I signed a new ADM back out to the program office to approve their basic acquisition plan and get after developing a fuller acquisition strategy,” the official shared with the audience of the State of the Space Industrial Base Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Purdy expects the new effort to not only open the application of commercial technologies for high-value military functions, but it will also create opportunities for new companies to enter the national security space market. 

GovCons May Need Compromises on Requirements

The official admitted at the event that commercial vendors cannot meet stringent military requirements, according to a previous analysis. GSSAP monitors and characterizes objects in orbit, a function that was deemed too sensitive for commercial space systems. 

“We had a couple of key problems,” revealed Purdy. “So the team recommended some tradeoffs.”

According to the acquisition leader, the proposed GSSAP replacement will be unclassified and will be available to allies through the Department of Defense’s foreign military sales program. He also shared that multiple vendors will be selected to build, launch and operate satellites to provide surveillance services to the government.

GSSAP’s Role in Space Safety

Built by Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems for the U.S. Space Force, the GSSAP satellites are located in near-geosynchronous orbit to collect space situational awareness data. The satellites can perform Rendezvous and Proximity Operations to more closely investigate objects of interest. 

The constellation sends data through the Air Force Satellite Control Network ground stations to the Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado for surveillance, space flight safety and satellite collision avoidance.

Learn more about the advanced capabilities shaping the future of air and space defense at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Air and Space Defense Summit on July 31. Register for the in-person before it sells out!

Space Force Will Source Commercial Satellites for GSSAP Replacement, Acquisition Leader Says
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NASA, Magna Petra Partner to Seek Helium-3 Isotope on Lunar Surface
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Lunar exploration

Magna Petra will bring back the NASA-developed Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations, or MSOLO, instrument to the lunar surface under a cooperative research and development agreement with the space agency.

MSOLO, which was demonstrated during the recent Intuitive Machines 2 mission, will be launched to the moon no earlier than 2026 to “measure low molecular weight volatiles in hopes of inferring the presence of rare isotopes, such as Helium-3, which is theorized to exist, trapped in the regolith, or lunar dust, of the Moon,” NASA said Monday.

Helium-3 Isotope Applications

Magna Petra will select a commercial rover where the MSOLO instrument will be mounted and intends to collect Helium-3 isotopes and use them for energy production through nuclear fusion, quantum computing, healthcare and specialized laboratory equipment. The company will share data gathered in real time with NASA to understand the location of volatiles on the moon and determine whether they can be extracted.

“Learning more about the lunar volatiles and their isotopes supports NASA’s goal of sustaining long-term human space exploration,” said Roberto Aguilar Ayala, research physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “We will need to extract resources locally to enhance the capabilities of our astronauts to further exploration opportunities on the lunar surface.”

MSOLO, originally designed to analyze volatiles used in the manufacturing of semi-conductors, was modified to withstand harsh space conditions. It was first sent to the lunar surface as part of the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1.

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NITRD NCO Issues RFI for New AI R&D Strategic Plan
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Artificial intelligence research and development

The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development, or NITRD, National Coordination Office has commenced soliciting industry input on the development of a 2025 National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan.

AI Advancement Sought by NITRD

The NITRD said Tuesday the RFI seeks public input on an updated version of the previous administration’s National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan. This initiative aims to continue advancing the United States’ artificial intelligence capabilities over the next three to five years through research and development focused on driving AI innovation, strengthening national security, boosting the economy and contributing to human progress.

The solicitation is open to researchers, industry leaders and relevant stakeholders involved in AI R&D. Responses to a previous RFI about a possible AI Action Plan will be given consideration. Parties interested to submit their responses on the new RFI have until May 29 to do so.

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Air Force CTO Unveils Zero Trust Goals for Warfighting Modernization
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Air Force CTO Unveils Zero Trust Goals for Warfighting Modernization

The Department of the Air Force’s newly appointed permanent chief technology officer, Scott Heitmann, has developed a “Walking Deck” outlining zero trust implementation as his office works on the modernization of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force warfighting capabilities. IT modernization to ensure cybersecurity and resilience in all Airmen and Guardians devices is focused on zero trust, DAF said in a LinkedIn post published Tuesday.

At the Potomac Officers Club’s next GovCon conference, the 2025 Cyber Summit, there will be a panel dedicated to zero trust! Register now while spots are still available. You’ll be rewarded with countless key networking and learning opportunities rooted in the world of cyber GovCon.

The department stressed its sharp focus on the empowerment of U.S. warfighters through a seamless connectivity network enhanced with cybersecure software supporting lethality. It further noted that modernization and innovation are imperatives, not just goals, given the increasing global competition.

DAF Zero Trust Strategy Baseline

Last July, DAF’s Office of the Chief Information Officer issued a new zero trust strategy as part of the Air Force’s efforts to protect critical assets and strengthen resilience against evolving cyberthreats. The zero trust pursuit has seven strategic goals, including ubiquitous access to protected resources further addressed in Heitmann’s zero trust Walking Deck.

To enable Airmen and Guardians’ seamless and secure network access anytime, anywhere, the CTO’s task template lines up potential “network of the future” options, such as choices under DAF’s Base Infrastructure Modernization, or BIM, program. Heitmann also pinpointed in his zero trust-centered task list the Air Force’s Theater Deployable Communications, or TDC, program, wherein Iron Bow Technologies already secured a potential four-year, $144 million contract in January 2023.

Other deliverables that the CTO outlined for the Air Force zero trust requirements cover accelerating operations under of the service branch’s Cloud One and CloudWorks environments. 

Air Force CTO Unveils Zero Trust Goals for Warfighting Modernization
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