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SpaceX Conducts Capability Demo as Part of In-Space Refueling Technology Development
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SpaceX Conducts Capability Demo as Part of In-Space Refueling Technology Development

According to Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program at NASA, SpaceX conducted a test on March 14 to demonstrate its ability to transfer propellant between tanks aboard Starship while in flight, SpaceNews reported Saturday.

Kshatriya told the Human Exploration and Operations Committee of the NASA Advisory Council on April 26 that the demonstration, which involved a planned transfer of at least 10 metric tons of liquid oxygen from a header tank within Starship’s upper stage onto its main tank, “was successful by all accounts.”

The demo, which SpaceX carried out under the terms of a NASA contract awarded in 2020, is part of a broader effort to develop technologies that would enable the refueling of Starship while in space, a capability that is crucial to future manned lunar missions using the spacecraft.

The next step in the effort will involve two Starships docking while in orbit, during which one will transfer propellant to the other. That demo is scheduled for 2025.

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GovCon Index Recorded Significant Growth Last Week
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GovCon Index Recorded Significant Growth Last Week

GovCon Index continued its upward trend last week with a 1.90% increase that lifted the average to $4,879.91.

GovCon Index is an aggregate index that tracks and presents real-time stock market data from 30 publicly traded government contracting companies. This information enables users to evaluate the performance of each individual entity while following key financial trends in the GovCon market.

With a notable 9.10% rise, Palantir landed the top spot in the ranks last week. CACI, which grew by 8.77%, followed closely behind, and AeroVironment (+5.10%) finished in third. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions and BAE Systems, which both rose by 4.15%, tied for fourth place.

GovCon Index grew every day last week except for Wednesday, when it dipped by 0.56%. The highest growth day was Tuesday, when GovCon Index increased by 0.91%.

Check out last week’s market reports to get a closer look at daily GovCon Index performance. To view the full list of tracked companies, click here.

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Navy Lays Keel for 6th Expeditionary Sea Base Ship
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Navy Lays Keel for 6th Expeditionary Sea Base Ship

The U.S. Navy has laid the keel for its sixth expeditionary sea base vessel named after Hector Cafferata Jr., a Korean war veteran and a Medal of Honor recipient.

The keel authentication ceremony for the future USNS Hector A. Cafferata Jr. (ESB 8) was held at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California, and was attended by the namesake’s daughter, Heather Cafferata, and granddaughter, Jessica Cafferata, as the ship sponsors, the Navy said Thursday.

ESB 8 will join the Navy’s fleet of mobile sea-based platforms that help deploy forces, supplies and equipment in support of aviation mine countermeasures and special operations force duties.

“We are honored that the late Hector A. Cafferata’s Jr.’s legacy will live on through this ship, and the keel laying is a first step of many milestones to come for this ship,” said Tim Roberts, strategic and theater sealift program manager within the Navy Program Executive Office Ships. “ESBs provide a critical capability to the fleet and provide increased flexibility to our Sailors and Marines.”

Construction of the Navy’s future USNS Robert E. Simanek (ESB 7) is also underway at General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard.

Space Systems Command Delivers FORGE Framework to OPIR Battlespace Awareness Center
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Space Systems Command Delivers FORGE Framework to OPIR Battlespace Awareness Center

Space Systems Command’s Space Sensing program executive office has delivered a ground station framework to the Overhead Persistent Infrared Battlespace Awareness Center, a.k.a. OBAC, at Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado.

The operational delivery of the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution, or FORGE, framework on OBAC will provide enhanced cyber resilience and improved missile detection and tracking capabilities to operators, SSC said Friday.

FORGE is the first operational software to set up the foundation of the U.S. Space Force missile warning, tracking and defense architecture. The framework will support continued operations of the legacy Space Based Infrared System and the Next-Generation OPIR system.

“Timely response to threats requires a modern architecture capable of hosting data from a range of new and legacy sensors that enables the development of applications to address these threats. FORGE’s modular architecture with an agile development approach is showing that you can deliver fast even in tough, complex mission areas,” said Space Force Col. Robert Davis, program executive officer for space sensing.

Lt. Col. Morgan Sparks, FORGE materiel leader, said the next software delivery will provide a modernized operator interface and enhanced capabilities to improve the nation’s ability to “detect stealthier and additional quantities of threats sooner, and to track them longer.”

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Treasury, NSF Seek to Improve Insurance Risk Modeling Related to Cyber Risks, Terrorism
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Treasury, NSF Seek to Improve Insurance Risk Modeling Related to Cyber Risks, Terrorism

The Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office and the National Science Foundation have partnered to form a new research center that will provide research, thought leadership and analysis support to help the insurance sector enhance its insurance risk modeling and underwriting related to terrorism and cybersecurity risks.

The newly established Industry-University Cooperative Research Center, or IUCRC, will consist of stakeholders from the federal government, insurance sector and academia to help improve the U.S. financial system’s resilience through several efforts, the Treasury said Friday.

Efforts include helping insurers estimate risk to improve insurance coverage, pricing and policyholder uptake, contributing to the expansion of capital markets and reinsurance and informing the treatment of catastrophic cyber risks and terrorism in government programs.

Under IUCRC, university faculty and students will work with an industry consortium to perform research focused on the insurance sector’s needs.

The Treasury and NSF released a request for research proposals to provide research analysis and thought leadership on terrorism and catastrophic cyber risk modeling and underwriting.

According to a letter issued by NSF on Wednesday, the partnership expects research efforts that will stem from the new center to result in the development of best practices and tools, assessment of policy reforms that could provide governments, insurers and other stakeholders with new data and creation of improved underwriting and modeling tools, practices and methodologies.

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GSA Unveils Open Government Federal Advisory Committee; Krystal Brumfield Quoted
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GSA Unveils Open Government Federal Advisory Committee; Krystal Brumfield Quoted

The General Services Administration has started soliciting nominations for potential members of a new federal advisory committee, or FACA, that will advise the agency on open government initiatives, efforts to enhance public access to government records and data and advance equity in open government programs.

GSA said Friday the new Open Government Federal Advisory Committee is backed by the Open Government Secretariat Program Management Office and will operate in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

The new advisory panel will consist of representatives from the federal, state and local governments, academia and industry and will be selected based on their qualifications and backgrounds and FACA requirements.

“GSA looks forward to welcoming a diverse group of voices from civil society to this important new federal advisory committee,” said Krystal Brumfield, associate administrator for governmentwide policy at GSA.

“The OG FAC will allow GSA to tackle emerging open government issues, challenges, and opportunities through expert advice from these stakeholders. We look forward to receiving innovative suggestions on the development of the sixth Open Government National Action Plan as well as other efforts to strengthen open government policy and public engagement,” added Brumfield.

The GSA Open Government Secretariat will hold a virtual public meeting on May 10 to respond to questions regarding the timeline and selection process.

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DOD Looks to Develop Transportable Joint Cyber Hunt Kit Prototype
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DOD Looks to Develop Transportable Joint Cyber Hunt Kit Prototype

The Department of Defense is requesting proposals from industry sources capable of providing a joint cyber hunt kit prototype designed to conduct hunt operations on defense networks.

The Defense Innovation Unit said the prototype project aims to develop a next-generation deployable hunt kit with commercial off-the-shelf technologies and open-source software capabilities to detect advanced persistent threats on DOD networks and analyze their tactics, techniques and procedures.

DOD expects the cyber hunt kit to function as a transportable “security operations center (SOC) in a box” and include applications for case management and workflow management and extended detection and response operations.

The Pentagon aims to award an other transaction agreement to a vendor to build a prototype hunt kit within four months. During this phase, the vendor must deliver a fully integrated and configured software tool designed to enhance workflows, dataflows and user experience.

POC - 2024 Cyber Summit

The Potomac Officers Club will host the 2024 Cyber Summit on June 6 to hear from government and industry experts about the dynamic and ever-evolving role of cyber in the public sector. Register here!

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Young Bang: Army Acquisition Community Working to Identify, Address Obstacles to AI Adoption
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Young Bang: Army Acquisition Community Working to Identify, Address Obstacles to AI Adoption

Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said the service branch’s acquisition community is working to identify factors that could hamper the adoption of artificial intelligence and address those as part of the 100-day implementation plan, Federal News Network reported Friday.

“We’re aligning with everybody to look at the table stakes stuff, but we’re also looking at the obstacles that are going to make adoption of AI a little bit harder for the Army or the DoD at large,” Bang, a 2024 Wash100 awardee, told reporters.

“That also aligns with the fact that the Army is probably the first service to look at [creating a program of record] for AI. So there’s been a lot of interest from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and other services that are asking, ‘Hey, are there things that we can work together on?’ and glean lessons learned,” he added.

Bang cited the need for the military branch to consider adversarial attacks, poisoned datasets, trojans and other risks surrounding AI.

“That’s easier to do if you’ve developed it in a controlled, trusted environment that DoD or the Army owns, and we’re going to do all that. But this really looks at how we can adopt third-party or commercial vendors’ algorithms right into our programs, so that we don’t have to compete with them. We want to adopt them,” he added.

The principal deputy assistant secretary noted that the Army is building a “layered” framework for risk reduction, which will be used in future commercial AI applications.

POC - 9th Annual Army Summit

Bang will serve as one of the keynote speakers at the Potomac Officers Club’s 9th Annual Army Summit on June 13. Register now.

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Northrop Secures $388M Air Force Award for Continued Global Hawk Aircraft Sustainment
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Northrop Secures $388M Air Force Award for Continued Global Hawk Aircraft Sustainment

Northrop Grumman will continue providing logistics services in support of RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft under a $387.5 million definitized contract action from the U.S. Air Force.

The company will perform sustainment work on the high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft at its San Diego, California sites and other locations for global customers through April 30, 2025, the Department of Defense said Friday.

NATO, South Korea and Japan procure the services through the Foreign Military Sales program, and Northrop is expected to conduct aircraft support at Sacheon and Osan Air Bases in South Korea, Misawa Air Base in Japan and Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy.

Northrop has been providing services for South Korea’s Global Hawks since it received a $158.4 million undefinitized contract in November 2020. The company secured a $108.8 million contract modification the following year for the aircraft’s continued logistics support.

For the current action, Northrop is being obligated $33.7 million FMS funds at the time of award.

NTIA’s Charles Cooper Provides Updates on National Spectrum Strategy Implementation
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NTIA’s Charles Cooper Provides Updates on National Spectrum Strategy Implementation

Charles Cooper, associate administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Office of Spectrum Management, said the agency is initiating technical studies of spectrum bands as part of its efforts to implement the National Spectrum Strategy.

NTIA is working to streamline the process for federal agencies to obtain funding from the Spectrum Relocation Fund for their studies of the lower 3 GHz and the 7/8 GHz bands.

“We expect that more than 10 federal agencies will seek funding, and our hope is this streamlined process will make the application process easier and quicker for these agencies,” Cooper said.

Participating agencies will have two years to complete the band studies following the distribution of the “pipeline” funds by October.

NTIA is also exploring advanced spectrum management techniques, including Dynamic Spectrum Sharing, in collaboration with the Department of Defense.

“Although this effort hopefully will inform spectrum sharing in the future for this band and others, it is separate and apart from the Lower 3 GHz band study discussed above,” according to Cooper.

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