The U.S. Space Force is looking into commercial satellite-based products and services to provide secure, reliable satellite communications connectivity to the warfighter, SpaceNews reported Tuesday.

Clare Hopper, director of Space Systems Command’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, said she envisions the Department of Defense’s Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Satellite-Based Services, or PLEO, contract to expand over the coming years to include more vendors and services.

“We expect greater competition and more offerers being able to respond to the needs of the DOD,” Hopper said.

“We will, over the course of the contract, extend opportunities for industry to update their offerings as well as invite new entrants,” she added.

According to Hopper, the PLEO contract’s $900 million ceiling could be raised based on the demands of the defense market.

The CSCO is also exploring the use of small geosynchronous communications satellites to boost the resilience of the military’s space architecture and reduce reliance on large geostationary orbit satellites.

The Space Force anticipates issuing a request for proposals in 2025 to procure small GEO satellite capabilities from industry or government sources.

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Katy Kale, deputy administrator at the General Services Administration and a previous Wash100 awardee, convened leaders from small and medium-sized businesses and other organizations to discuss the agency’s efforts to create an equitable procurement process as part of its Equity Action Plan.

The roundtable also featured discussions on tools and best practices for achieving success as federal contractors, challenges and opportunities small businesses face in federal contracting and contract opportunities for underserved communities, GSA said Tuesday.

The discussion saw participation from Krystal Brumfield, associate administrator and chief acquisition officer of the Office of Government-wide Policy and Exodie Roe III, associate administrator of the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization.

Other officials from the GSA, the Small Business Administration, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the Minority Business Development Agency were also present.

The U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and Naval Research Laboratory completed a nine-year study testing the Path Optimization flight-planning software on an unmanned aerial vehicle in the North Slope of Alaska.

Path Optimization, or POTION, exceeded expectations in providing trajectory planning for energy-focused missions of Platform Aerospace‘s Vanilla UAV in the Arctic Circle, the Navy announced Tuesday.

The “energy-aware” flight research initially tested POTION in 2014 on the Hybrid Tiger UAV, which combined renewable power harvesting technologies from hydrogen fuel cell, solar and atmospheric wind. The program was backed by the Department of Defense Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund and Operational Energy Prototyping Fund.

The Vanilla UAV was able to go past its maximum flight endurance of 10 days with the help of POTION’s recommended routes which are based on weather forecasts from the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.

“A glider’s efficiency is quantified by its judicious energy utilization, a stark contrast to the combat efficiency metrics applied to fighter aircraft. Similar to transport planes, gliders aim to traverse vast distances with minimal fuel consumption,” said project lead Vladimir Dobrokhodov, NPS associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Over a meticulous nine-year collaboration between NPS and NRL, innovative approaches have been developed to optimize efficiency of long endurance aircraft.”

The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has launched the third track of its technology challenge that aims to demonstrate remote identity validation and authentication platforms for combatting identity fraud.

Track 3 of the Remote Identity Validation Technology Demonstration, or RIVTD, will focus on remote identity validation systems designed to differentiate between bonafide and unauthorized users, DHS S&T said Tuesday.

The first track of the challenge focused on identity document authentication while the second round centered on facial recognition software to detect fraud through ID and selfie photo comparison.

“The emergence of new, powerful, widely accessible technologies underscores the importance of facilitating the development and evaluation of tools to combat fraud,” said Arun Vemury, senior engineering adviser for identity technologies at DHS S&T.

The directorate partnered with the Transportation Security Administration, the Homeland Security Investigations Forensic Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology on the new RIVTD round.

“TSA is excited to continue partnering with S&T in this area and completing an independent assessment in the future that provides an objective baseline of performance across the vendor community,” said Jason Lim, identity capability manager at TSA.