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GSA Awards Octo Consulting Task Order to Support Agile Transformation; Thomas Lee, AJ Rowland Quoted
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GSA Awards Octo Consulting Task Order to Support Agile Transformation; Thomas Lee, AJ Rowland Quoted

Octo Consulting has been awarded the five-year, $11.8 million Joint Product Team Task Order under the General Services Administration (GSA) CIO Modernization and Enterprise Transformation (COMET) blanket purchase agreement (BPA).

“This is a key win for our GSA team, further demonstrating the valuable work the team has been doing for this customer over the last several years,” said Thomas Lee, SVP of Octo’s Federal and Civilian Business Unit. “We are pleased to continue to support GSA by providing top talent and technology to help them meet mission objectives.”

Under the task order, Octo will provide Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and business and technical architecture for GSA’s Integrated Award Environment (IAE) to transform the administration’s System for Award Management (SAM).

In addition, Octo will deliver business, technical and scaled Agile leadership to support GSA’s IAE Agile Release Train, address program challenges and drive business value. Octo will also provide a variety of technologies, partnerships, processes and employees to support the modernization efforts. 

“We are excited to continue our successful partnership with GSA through this contract that enables us to impact the entire IAE program through architecture, governance, DevOps, and Agile process enhancements,” said Octo director for GSA Programs AJ Rowland. 

About Octo

Octo challenges the status quo, empowering federal agencies to leap IT hurdles by using emerging technologies to create transformative solutions that enable rapid modernization, enhance citizen engagement, and maximize human impact. We continually explore ways to transform IT, producing results vital to national security, intelligence, health care, and more.

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Octo is a technology firm dedicated to solving the Federal Government’s most complex challenges with Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Agile DevSecOps, Cloud Engineering, Open Source, Cybersecurity, and Data Science solutions. Octo enables the government to modernize faster and meet the needs of rapidly changing missions with agility. Our approach is collaborative, and our outcomes are superior.

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PredaSAR Selects SpaceX to Launch SAR Satellite Constellation; Marc Bell, MG Roger Teague Quoted
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PredaSAR Selects SpaceX to Launch SAR Satellite Constellation; Marc Bell, MG Roger Teague Quoted

PredaSAR Corporation has chosen SpaceX to launch its first 48 advanced commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle, PredaSAR reported on Tuesday. Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems will serve as the launch integration provider and spacecraft manufacturer.

“PredaSAR aims to deliver critical insights and data products to both military and commercial decision makers at the speed of need. We are pleased to fly with SpaceX, a proven launch service provider to further enable the PredaSAR constellation vision of rapid, persistent ISR, anytime and anywhere,” said PredaSAR CEO MG Roger Teague, U.S. Air Force (Ret.).

Under the collaboration, PredaSAR, Tyvak and SpaceX will work to optimize the deployment plan for the remainder of PredaSAR’s constellation. PredaSAR’s satellite launch marks the largest and most advanced commercial SAR constellation.

“We are eagerly looking forward to launching PredaSAR’s constellation with SpaceX, a trusted partner and provider of launches,” said PredaSAR Executive chairman and co-founder Marc Bell. “Our satellite design has benefited from years of advanced research and development from Tyvak and allows us to bring our clients the critical, persistent data that they need.”

SpaceX vice president of Commercial Sales Tom Ochinero. “We’re proud PredaSAR selected SpaceX as its launch provider for this very important mission.” PredaSAR chose SpaceX and Tyvak for the companies’ ability to provide reliable and schedule-certain transport with a proven record of successful launches.

About PredaSAR

Founded in 2019, PredaSAR Corporation, a U.S. owned and controlled company, is building and will operate the world’s largest and most advanced commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation, providing end-to-end solutions to both government and commercial clients.

PredaSAR is the clear choice for compelling SAR solutions, backed by a trusted and experienced, mission-savvy leadership team with strategic access to capital and cutting-edge satellite technology.

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None of 24 Agencies Received Failing Grades on 10th FITARA Scorecard
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None of 24 Agencies Received Failing Grades on 10th FITARA Scorecard

The 10th iteration of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard shows that no agency got an F or a D rating, Nextgov reported Monday. The General Services Administration (GSA) is the only agency that received an A+ rating, while nine agencies got B scores and the remaining agencies secured Cs.

“This achievement is a testament to the hard work of federal agencies’ chief information officers and also a testament to, I think, this committee and subcommittee’s steady and bipartisan oversight of FITARA since its enactment in 2014,” said Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the House Oversight’s government operations subcommittee.

The agencies that showed progress in their letter grades are the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, State, Treasury, Social Security Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Thirteen agencies maintained their scores, while four showed a drop in their letter grades.

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Christopher Scolese: Small Satellites Provide NRO More Opportunities to Do Science
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Christopher Scolese: Small Satellites Provide NRO More Opportunities to Do Science

Christopher Scolese, director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), said the NRO is becoming more dependent on small satellites to support research experiments, SpaceNews reported Monday.

“Cubesats allow us to respond more quickly,” Scolese said Monday during a live webcast at the 2020 Small Satellite Conference. “Smallsats can provide lots of opportunities to do science, to provide information for the intelligence community and to allow us to develop technologies and capabilities.”

He said the agency is leveraging low-cost launch services and small satellites to bring more technology platforms in space to explore future mission capabilities.

“You can get something up in one to three years or faster, and the price of launch is lower because you can rideshare,” Scolese said. ‘We’ll be able to do more with smaller satellites.”

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Maria Roat: Agencies Should Invest in Workforce Through Tech Training
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Maria Roat: Agencies Should Invest in Workforce Through Tech Training

The Chief Information Officers Council plans to introduce a data science reskilling program for government employees later this month. Maria Roat, deputy federal CIO and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, underscored the federal workforce’s need for training at a House subcommittee hearing, FedScoop reported Monday.

Roat said Monday during a House Oversight Government Operations subcommittee hearing on FITARA 10.0 that approximately 2 million civilian employees use technology to carry out their work and agencies should consider training along with funding to address issues highlighted by the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard.

“Just as important as we consider any technology investment, we should also remember that the people charged with using those solutions must also be skilled in the use of technology,” Roat said during the hearing. “As the pace of capability and threat continues to accelerate, we must invest in our workforce to keep their skills relevant."

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CISA Releases Updated TIC 3.0 Network Security Guidance 
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CISA Releases Updated TIC 3.0 Network Security Guidance 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an update to its Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) guidance along with documents containing a security capabilities catalog, a program guidebook and reference architecture.

CISA said Friday the TIC 3.0 core guidance incorporates public input on the draft documents released in December.

According to the Department of Homeland Security component, TIC 3.0 includes use cases as well as recommendations on pilot program execution, implementation approaches and other strategies for remote work settings.

CISA plans to issue final versions of documents such as the Use Case Handbook, Overlay Handbook, Branch Office Use Case and Traditional TIC Use Case later this summer.

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U.S. Army Eyes Unclassified Architecture for Planned Integrated Tactical Network
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U.S. Army Eyes Unclassified Architecture for Planned Integrated Tactical Network

The U.S. Army is working to establish a secure but unclassified (SBU) environment as part of the fiscal 2021 integrated tactical network (ITN) toolset known as Capability Set ‘21, C4ISRnet said Saturday.

Capt. Brian Delgado, S6 of the Army's 1st Brigade Combat Team within the 82nd Airborne Division, told the publication that the SBU will serve as the “biggest game-changer” among the CS21 tools.

The SBU is meant to enable low-level users to access software applications at the unclassified level within a tactical environment, he said. In addition, Delgado noted that the SBU architecture will help ITN tools provide a comprehensive operating picture that “directly reduces risk in the clearance of fires, combat air support and maneuvering in widely dispersed formations.”

Other technologies covered by CS21 include satellite terminals, radios, lightweight servers and waveforms.

The Army previously concluded critical design reviews of CS21 and began the procurement process for the toolset last month.

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NIST Issues Draft Guidelines on Security, Privacy Control Baselines
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NIST Issues Draft Guidelines on Security, Privacy Control Baselines

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a draft publication on control baselines to ensure security and privacy in agency systems at the low, moderate and high-impact levels.

NIST said Friday the draft SP 800-53B publication includes control updates following an assessment conducted in 2017. The draft also includes tailoring guidance and a set of assumptions to support agencies’ control selection procedures.

Other items included in the document are overlay guidelines for control baseline customization to support specific technologies, communities and operational environments.

NIST noted that it will continue seeking input on the privacy control baseline as well as the selection criteria for such controls.

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NSA Reports on New Cyber Vulnerability in Computers
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NSA Reports on New Cyber Vulnerability in Computers

The National Security Agency (NSA) has issued a report on a new cyber vulnerability that threatens certain systems present within the Department of Defense and other organizations.

The BootHole vulnerability allows cyber actors to get through the Secure Boot security standard that makes devices boot only with software trusted by original manufacturers, NSA said Thursday.

Cyber terrorists may use this vulnerability to tamper with a device's boot process. Devices running on Linux or Windows 8 and above may be affected by this vulnerability.

NSA provided two mitigation options in the “Mitigate the GRUB2 BootHole Vulnerability" report for users of Linux, an operating system that uses the Grand Unified Bootloader 2 or GRUB2 affected by BootHole.

For the standard mitigation, the report advises Linux users to update the boot components of endpoints. The agency will soon release another report for users of Windows and other systems based on the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.

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DOE Unveils $97M Funding Opportunity for Bioenergy R&D Projects
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DOE Unveils $97M Funding Opportunity for Bioenergy R&D Projects

The Department of Energy (DOE) has earmarked $97 million in funds to support 33 bioenergy research and development projects.

DOE said Friday that it aims to mitigate risks and optimize the performance of technologies designed to yield bioenergy, fuel and products from biomass and waste resources through the funding effort.

The projects are required to address topics in various areas such as scalable carbon dioxide electrocatalysis technologies, development of low-emission residential wood heaters and waste-to-energy approaches.

Mark Menezes, DOE undersecretary, said bioenergy technologies could augment energy security and grow U.S. energy supply.

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