Perspecta announced on Tuesday that the company’s hackathon competition team, Opt1x, won first place at DreamPort’s rapid prototyping event (RPE). In addition, the team also placed 36th out of 229 teams during OpenCTF, a competition during the 2019 DEF CON 27.

“There is no question that the successful performance of the Opt1x team resulted from the combined experience of its team members researching and developing cyber techniques, applications and analytics for Department of Defense customers,” said Mac Curtis, president and chief executive officer of Perspecta as well as a 2019 Wash100 Award recipient.

DreamPort, the cyber innovation center created by U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) in collaboration with the Maryland Innovation & Security Institute, is dedicated to the research and development of cyber capabilities for USCYBERCOM and our nation’s warfighters.

OpenCTF, a capture-the-flag-type hacking contest built on the principle of inclusion with challenges for all skill levels was held at DEF CON 27, one of the world’s largest and most notable hacker conventions.

“The team’s success demonstrates Perspecta’s cyber expertise and understanding of the evolving threat landscape and ability to provide our customers with a clear advantage,” Curtis added.

0pt1x—pronounced “optics”—includes team members from both Perspecta and the company’s innovative applied research arm, Perspecta Labs, who serve in research science and cyber operator roles.

About Perspecta Inc.

At Perspecta (NYSE: PRSP), we question, we seek and we solve. Perspecta brings a diverse set of capabilities to our U.S. government customers in defense, intelligence, civilian, health care and state and local markets. Our 270+ issued, licensed and pending patents are more than just pieces of paper, they tell the story of our innovation.

With offerings in mission services, digital transformation and enterprise operations, our team of 14,000 engineers, analysts, investigators and architects work tirelessly to not only execute the mission, but build and support the backbone that enables it.

Maxar Technologies announced on Tuesday that the company has delivered the robotic Sample Handling Assembly (SHA) for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The SHA will process and store samples acquired from the Martian surface.

The SHA is the sixth robotic arm that Maxar has designed, built and delivered for use on Mars. Maxar’s expert roboticists will now work closely with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to integrate the arm with the Mars 2020 rover.

After its planned launch in July 2020, the rover will land at Jezero Crater to search for signs of livable conditions and microbial life from the ancient past.

“Maxar is a global leader in space infrastructure with over 60 years of experience,” said Megan Fitzgerald, Maxar’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Space Infrastructure. “We are proud to contribute our innovative technology to the Mars 2020 mission. In addition to delivering robotic arms for planetary exploration, Maxar is pioneering robotics technologies that will enable space infrastructure to be serviced, assembled and manufactured in orbit.”

The operations of DigitalGlobe, SSL (Space Systems Loral) and Radiant Solutions were unified under the Maxar brand in February; MDA continues to operate as an independent business unit within the Maxar organization.

About Maxar

Maxar is a trusted partner and innovator in Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure. We deliver disruptive value to government and commercial customers to help them monitor, understand and navigate our changing planet; deliver global broadband communications and explore and advance the use of space.

Our unique approach combines decades of deep mission understanding and a proven commercial and defense foundation to deploy solutions and deliver insights with unrivaled speed, scale and cost effectiveness. Maxar’s 5,900 team members in 30 global locations are inspired to harness the potential of space to help our customers create a better world.

A group of NASA and third-party reviewers has completed a critical design assessment of the spacecraft Lockheed Martin will build to help the space agency investigate the Trojan asteroids.

The review covered different elements of the Lucy mission such as the vehicle and its payload, system-level flight hardware and software test plans, the ground system and related scientific efforts, NASA said Monday.

Lucy systems and subsystems have met technical requirements during the four-day evaluation by the independent review board and the program is now set to enter the fabrication phase.

The agency aims to launch the mission in 2021 and intends for the spacecraft to explore six Trojan asteroids plus one Main Belt asteroid over a 12-year period.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will manage the overall mission while Southwest Research Institute will lead the scientific investigation.

Federal projects at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have received $12M in total grants through the Technology Modernization Fund, Nextgov reported Monday.

USDA will get $8M in funds to digitize and advance cloud migration for its Speciality Crops Program, which facilitates the inspection and certification of fruits and vegetables.

EEOC will receive a $4M grant to establish a cloud-based charge and case management platform to help reduce operational costs and facilitate client services.

“It’s two projects that were operating on paper-based processes to serve citizens, one of them used triplicate copy forms—I don’t even know where to buy them anymore,” Suzette Kent, federal chief information officer and a 2019 Wash100 winner, said Monday at an ACT-IAC conference in Philadelphia.

TMF was created in 2017 through the Modernizing Government Technology Act to support IT modernization efforts across the federal government. The latest batch of awards leaves TMF with approximately $24M in funds.

Emily Murphy, administrator of the General Services Administration and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, provided updates on several GSA projects at the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council Imagine Nation conference in Philadelphia and one of the projects she mentioned is the implementation of a new contract writing system, Federal Times reported Monday.

GSA plans to issue in November a final request for quotation for the proposed replacement of the contract acquisition lifecycle management system and Murphy said the agency intends to award a contract in the spring. She also cited GSA’s upcoming plans for the NewPay HR system and fleet consolidation initiatives.

Suzette Kent, federal chief information officer and fellow 2019 Wash100 Award winner, mentioned in her speech at the event the need to advance federal information technology modernization efforts.

The U.S. Army’s new cyber innovation center will mark one year of operations in December and is slated to continue expanding next year, Fifth Domain reported Sunday.

Col. Chad Harris, project manager for Defensive Cyber Operations at the Army’s program executive office for enterprise information systems, told the publication that teams at “the Forge” have been working with various kinds of vendors on efforts like integrating a cyber defense kit to make it smaller and lighter.

“What you miss out on is those young, new, nontraditional companies that are at the very cutting edge of technology bringing new things to the marketplace that maybe you’re not seeing in other places,” he said.

The Army has also been using other transaction agreements to rapidly acquire capabilities from pre-approved vendors, according to Harris He also said the Army seeks to deploy automation and machine learning to help train “cybersoldiers” in an effort to improve operations.