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University of Alaska Books $70M Contract to Continue Services for NASA’s Radar Archive Center
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University of Alaska Books $70M Contract to Continue Services for NASA’s Radar Archive Center

The University of Alaska at Fairbanks received a potential five-year, $70 million contract to continue the development and maintenance of the Synthetic Aperture Radar Distributed Active Archive Center.

The university has been performing operations and maintenance, systems engineering and data management for the facility in support of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System, the space agency said Friday.

The University of Alaska Satellite Facility operates the SAR data archive and provides its contents to a variety of users, including research teams involved in Earth science and instruments.

Aside from O&M and engineering, the new cost-no-fee completion contract also extends services such as product generation and distribution of space-borne and airborne radar data.

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Frank Kendall: Congress Should Back DOD Tech Program Acceleration Measure
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Frank Kendall: Congress Should Back DOD Tech Program Acceleration Measure

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall called on Congress to support a legislative proposal that would authorize the Department of Defense to begin work on “new start” programs before securing congressional approval in order to rapidly deploy capabilities, maintain the country’s competitive advantage and help strengthen deterrence.

“This proposal represents low-hanging fruit that would eliminate one to two years from critically needed programs without any risk,” Kendall, a 2023 Wash100 awardee, wrote in an op-ed published Monday on Breaking Defense.

Under the proposal, he said the department would be able to outline a requirements definition and conduct systems engineering and preliminary design, among other activities, without any budgetary or contractual commitments.

DOD requested $300 million in funds per year to support a number of pilot programs meant to test the concept.

Kendall noted that the proposed measure would require service secretaries to secure approval from the secretary of Defense and inform Congress within 15 days.

“When we discover innovative applications of technology that will give us a significant military advantage, we need to act,” he noted.

Senate Bill to Ensure Clean Audit of DOD in FY 2024
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Senate Bill to Ensure Clean Audit of DOD in FY 2024

A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers has introduced a bill that would require the Department of Defense to pass a clean audit in fiscal year 2024.

The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 mandates that any DOD agency that fails to conduct a clean audit return 1 percent of its budget to the Department of the Treasury for deficit reduction, the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., announced Monday.

“If the Department of Defense cannot conduct a clean audit, as required by law, Congress should impose tough financial consequences to hold the Pentagon accountable for mismanaging taxpayer money,” Wyden said.

“We can’t effectively rein in wasteful defense spending without a full and complete audit of the Pentagon,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

The legislation is also backed by Sens Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Mike Braun, R-Ind.; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

In May, Wyden, Sanders, Grassley, Warren and Braun sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to conduct an investigation into alleged overpricing by some U.S. defense contractors.

The request followed a report from CBS News that found that DOD’s fixed-price contracts would often generate 12 to 15 percent for private profits.

Johns Hopkins APL & University of Colorado Boulder Collaborate on Thermal Protection Systems Research
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Johns Hopkins APL & University of Colorado Boulder Collaborate on Thermal Protection Systems Research

Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory has collaborated with the University of Colorado Boulder on an independent research and development project that aims to predict wear and damage of thermal protection systems used on spacecraft and hypersonic vehicles.

Kerri Phillips, chief scientist in APL’s Air and Missile Defense Sector, shared that the research team is using computational modeling techniques to determine how damage evolves in a TPS exposed to a hypersonic flow.

“Ultimately, this will inform future TPS studies and tests to build an understanding of how TPS damage evolves under various flight conditions,” Phillips said.

CU Boulder and APL are part of the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics, a collaborative network of universities that support the development of advanced hypersonic flight systems for national defense.

2023 Hypersonics Forum

ExecutiveBiz is set to host the 2023 Hypersonics Forum on Aug. 15 to discuss with military leaders and industry experts the challenges, priorities, strategies and successes of hypersonic technology in the U.S. Click here to register for the event.

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SandboxAQ Awarded DISA OTA for Quantum Capabilities; Jen Sovada Quoted
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SandboxAQ Awarded DISA OTA for Quantum Capabilities; Jen Sovada Quoted

SandboxAQ, Alphabet’s artificial intelligence and quantum-focused spin-off, has won an other transaction authority agreement from the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency.

Under the Prototype Quantum Resistant Cryptography Public Key Infrastructure OTA, SandboxAQ will work with subcontractors Microsoft and Deloitte to implement its Security Suite, the Palo Alto, California-based company announced on Tuesday.

“As part of the prototype OTA agreement, SandboxAQ’s unique focus on cryptographic agility could enable U.S. government customers to automatically and seamlessly protect their IT infrastructures from both current cyber threats as well as future threats such as those posed by quantum computers,” said Jen Sovada, president of public sector at SandboxAQ.

“This first-of-its-kind program offers a pathway to protect DISA networks and data through follow-on deployments to wider architectures,” she added.

SandboxAQ’s Security Suite allows agile cryptography to defend sensitive data from present and future cyberattacks using methods such as applying cryptographic protocols that are resistant to decryption by quantum computers. Its features include cryptographic inventory, policy enforcement and remediation.

“We are excited to provide capabilities that can assist in a more secure national defense. SandboxAQ and our subcontractors will implement an approach that can be applied across the U.S. Government,” said Jack Hidary, CEO of SandboxAQ.

As subcontractors, Microsoft will deliver the DevSecOps platform and Deloitte will provide its software and service offerings, which include broad cryptographic integration and implementation. Both enterprises have previous experience working with DISA.

All three contractors have participated heavily in public sector efforts to adopt quantum technologies. In 2022, both SandboxAQ and Microsoft were chosen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence to deliver approaches for migrating to post-quantum cryptography.

Video Interview: Aaron Weis Urges Government Leaders to Shift From ‘Legacy View’ of Cybersecurity
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Video Interview: Aaron Weis Urges Government Leaders to Shift From ‘Legacy View’ of Cybersecurity

Modernization within the federal government is not an easily outlined set of instructions or a checklist that can be neatly completed. Rather, modernization is a mindset, says Google Public Sector’s Managing Director of Technology Aaron Weis, and government leaders must shift their perspectives in order to achieve it.

“I think up until now the government has been looking at cloud as an enabler in cloud capability. They viewed the cloud capability, though, through their legacy lens,” said Weis, a four-time Wash100 Award winner, in an exclusive video interview with Executive Mosaic.

“And what I mean when I say that is, the government asked for GovCloud, which is an air-gapped, separate cloud capability that different cloud service providers would stand up to give the government equivalent cloud capability, but not have it touch their commercial capability,” Weis explained.

“That’s a way of thinking about it that is sort of rooted in that legacy view, which is a way of thinking that says computing power is in data centers on servers and racks and computers and hard drives. That is, over the long term, a limiter for the government,” he added.

Zero trust has emerged in the last decade as a new way of thinking about cybersecurity that goes beyond the traditional model and provides better real-time security of devices, systems and networks. Weis noted that zero trust is giving the government an opportunity to rethink the way it secures data, applications and networks in the face of growing cyber threats.

“It no longer implies that they need to sort of live in a castle behind a moat of GovCloud, and now they get the advantage of using all of the massive compute and capability that exists commercially for cloud providers,” Weis said. “It’s a shift for the government in terms of the way that they think about that. It will be an enabler for the government in order to realize that zero trust dream.”

For more insights from Aaron Weis, watch his full video interview here. Want to know why Aaron is a Potomac Officers Club member? Watch what he has to say about his POC membership experience here.

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Leonel Garciga Named Army CIO
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Leonel Garciga Named Army CIO

Leonel Garciga, a U.S. Navy veteran, has been appointed chief information officer of the U.S. Army.

He will also serve as principal adviser to the secretary of the Army as he oversees the service’s technology modernization efforts and manages information systems, the Army said Monday.

Garciga has been serving as director of information management within the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, since March 2019.

He previously served as chief technology officer and senior adviser on technology at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Before DTRA, Garcia spent three years at the Defense Intelligence Agency as an intelligence analyst.

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IRS Requests Info on IT Security Implementation Support Services
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IRS Requests Info on IT Security Implementation Support Services

The Internal Revenue Service has begun gathering information on potential sources of information technology security implementation contractor support for the IRS Cybersecurity organization.

A notice Wednesday on SAM.gov states that the IRS division requires support to modernize the agency’s IT cybersecurity core infrastructure and implement zero trust architecture capabilities.

Task orders under the recompete contract cover cybersecurity systems and capabilities assistance, Splunk technical expertise and project and program management services.

IRS Cybersecurity is seeking potential vendors to design, operationalize and maintain new security processes and applications and migrate the agency’s existing IT assets into a streamlined environment.

Responses are due July 24.

Commerce Department Expands 1st CHIPS for America Funding Opportunity
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Commerce Department Expands 1st CHIPS for America Funding Opportunity

The Department of Commerce has expanded the first CHIPS for America funding opportunity to accept applications for the construction, modernization and expansion of semiconductor supply chain projects with capital investments of $300 million or more.

Eligible large-scale supply chain projects may apply for funding to build or scale up their facilities to boost the production of leading-edge, current-generation, and mature-node semiconductors, the Commerce Department said Friday.

A separate funding opportunity is expected to be released in the fall for semiconductor materials and manufacturing equipment facilities with capital investments below $300 million.

The department also released a “Vision for Success” outlining three primary goals to boost investments in the semiconductor supply chain: strengthening supply chain resilience, advancing U.S. technology leadership and supporting vibrant U.S. fab clusters.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said President Biden’s Investing in America agenda has spurred billions in private sector investment to advance the semiconductor supply chain.

“We’re laying out our vision for how we’ll build on that progress by responsibly making investments to ensure resiliency and success for the clusters we will create,” she added.

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NASA to Wrap Up Operational Testing of Experimental All-Electric Plane in September
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NASA to Wrap Up Operational Testing of Experimental All-Electric Plane in September

NASA is set to finish the aircraft operations portion of the development of the X-57 Maxwell experimental all-electric plane by September.

The agency said Friday that it has collated lessons learned from the project and will continue documentation several months after the conclusion of operational activities.

The aim of the X-57 Maxwell program was not to create a prototype but to study the feasibility of an electric propulsion design and its regulatory implications. The vehicle was developed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

The project ran into mechanical challenges that are causing delays to the aircraft’s first flight, including the unavailability of some critical hardware components.

The program provided “foundational information to industry through lessons learned, and we’re seeing the benefits borne out by American commercial aviation companies that are aiming to change the way we fly,” said Brad Flick, director of the Armstrong Flight Research Center. ”The future of electrified propulsion is possible because of their contributions.”

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