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Army Accepts Bell Textron’s First MV-75 FLRAA Virtual Prototype
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Bell is developing two MV-75 Future Long Range Assault Aircraft virtual prototypes for the Army

Bell, a Textron subsidiary, has delivered to the U.S. Army the first virtual prototype of the MV-75 Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA. 

A second virtual prototype of the FLRAA is expected to arrive at the Army Aviation Center of Excellence in the coming weeks, the service branch said Tuesday. 

“We are incredibly proud to have reached this critical milestone,” commented Col. Jeffrey Poquette, project manager for FLRAA, about the delivery. “Our virtual prototype demonstrates a clear path to delivering a next-generation multi-mission aircraft that will fundamentally change how the Army conducts long-range assault operations.”

According to the Army, the virtual prototype will enable soldiers to assess the weapon system and give feedback, informing future design improvements, software development, verification, integration and test. The technology will also help identify tactics, techniques and procedures through experimentation. 

Army Development of the FLRAA 

The Army used a rapid prototyping pathway for the FLRAA. In 2022, Bell received a contract to build the MV-75 based on the V-280 Valor tiltrotor. The program completed a preliminary design, achieved Milestone B approval and then transitioned to the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase in 2024. 

“Thanks to consistent support from Army leadership, the Department of Defense, and Congress, we’ve been able to accelerate the FLRAA program and bring next-generation aviation capabilities to the warfighter faster than ever,” said Brig. Gen. David Phillips, program executive officer for Army Aviation. 

What Is the FLRAA?

The MV-75 FLRAA is a multi-mission aircraft designed to cover twice as far and fly twice as fast as the Army’s current fleet of long-range assault vessels. It will have a modular open systems approach to enable faster fielding and integration of new capabilities. 

The aircraft is expected to complement the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to improve survivability in contested environments.

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OSTP Director Michael Kratsios Issues Federal Guidance on Gold Standard Science
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An OSTP guidance directs agencies to submit a report outlining their implementation of the nine Gold Standard Science tenets

Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and a two-time Wash100 awardee, has released a memorandum guiding how federal agencies should implement and incorporate “gold standard science” principles into their research activities.

In May, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that seeks to restore agency use of gold standard science to spur innovation. Under the EO, the director of OSTP should work with agency heads to release guidance for implementing gold standard science in managing their scientific activities.

“President Trump’s Gold Standard Science EO will transform the conduct and management of federal science, from research design to public communication, in order to strengthen scientific inquiry, rebuild public trust, and ensure the U.S. continues to be the global leader in rigorous, evidence-based science,” Kratsios said in a statement published Monday.

“But federal agencies are only one part of our nation’s research ecosystem. American universities, scientific journals, industry and philanthropic leaders all have a crucial role in improving the overall quality of research, and we encourage this executive action to serve as a model for the entire scientific enterprise,” he added.

What Are the Tenets of Gold Standard Science?

The memo defines the nine key tenets of gold standard science and describes agency responsibilities regarding each tenet. The EO defines gold standard science as science conducted in a way that is reproducible; transparent; communicative of error and uncertainty; collaborative and interdisciplinary; skeptical of its findings and assumptions; structured for falsifiability of hypotheses; subject to unbiased peer review; accepting of negative results as positive outcomes; and without conflicts of interest.

To advance reproducible and replicable science, for instance, agencies should prioritize disciplined scientific methods and experimental design; encourage depositing raw data and code that contributes to research outcomes in publicly accessible repositories; address barriers by promoting training, shared infrastructure and incentives for open science practices; and establish grant programs, awards and other incentives to encourage researchers and institutions to prioritize both reproducibility and replicability.

Gold Standard Science Implementation Plan

Within 60 days, agencies should submit to OSTP and post on their websites a report outlining their plans to implement gold standard science.

The implementation plans should include descriptions of how the agency is addressing each of the tenets of gold standard science; discussion of how technology will be leveraged for implementing gold standard science; development of standardized metrics and evaluation mechanisms to evaluate adherence to these tenets and their impact on scientific quality; and plans for providing training and resources to ensure that agency employees understand and adhere to the tenets.

Exploring Use of Artificial Intelligence

The OSTP document directs agencies to explore the use of AI and other advanced technologies to implement Gold Standard Science, including the use of automated tools to validate reproducible protocols, standardize transparent data reporting and detect biases in peer and merit review.

“By integrating these technologies into research frameworks, agencies can optimize compliance efficiency, reduce administrative overhead, and enable researchers to focus on discovery, thereby enhancing the credibility, rigor, and impact of scientific outcomes,” Kratsios wrote in the memo.

Initial agency reports are due Aug. 22, and future annual reports are due to OSTP by Sept. 1 of each year starting in 2026.

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Daniel Hibner Installed as US Army Joint Modernization Command Lead
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Daniel Hibner, the new commander of the US Army Joint Modernization Command.

Brig. Gen. Daniel Hibner is now the new leader of the U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command, taking over from Brig. Gen. Zachary Miller, who is now the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A change-of-command ceremony was held on June 17 at Noel Field on Fort Bliss, the Army said Monday.

Who Is Daniel Hibner?

Hibner most recently was the commander of the USACE South Atlantic Division. His other command assignments include commandant of the U.S. Army Engineer School and USACE Savannah District commander. The new JMC lead also held various leadership positions from platoon to brigade and has deployed once in support of Operation Joint Guardian in Kosovo, four combat tours to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and one deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

As the newly installed JMC commander, Hibner will oversee the execution of Joint Warfighting Assessment 25 in July in the Indo-Pacific Command area. He attended parts of Project Convergence Capstone 5 in preparation for his role.

“It’s truly an honor to stand before you as the Commander of the Joint Modernization Command,” Hibner said during the ceremony. “JMC is the bridge between today’s formations and tomorrow’s battles. That bridge is built with creativity, innovation, and relentless drive to improve and reinvent.”

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GAO Reviews VA Online Scheduling Modernization Project
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The VA's modernization effort includes dozens of systems veterans use

The Government Accountability Office has called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop a comprehensive plan for the modernization of its appointment systems.

In a new report, the congressional watchdog said the project schedule of the VA’s modernization effort does not indicate a complete list or description of all IT work needed to be completed.

Veterans Struggle to Navigate VA Online Appointment Systems

The report noted that veterans make “tens of millions” of health-related appointments annually. Over years, the VA has adopted dozens of systems to support appointment scheduling and address various needs.

Many veterans find it challenging to navigate the agency’s complex systems, leading to many patients receiving delayed care.

VA has undertaken a modernization process to improve its systems, with the Veteran Health Administration, or VHA, and the Office of Information and Technology, better known as OIT, leading the initiative.

GAO Findings in VA Modernization Review

In its report, the VA warned that, without a comprehensive project scheduling that covers all IT work required in the modernization, the VA cannot ensure that VHA and OIT agree about what still needs to be done and when.

The VA, according to GAO, also does not fully monitor requirements by maintaining bi-directional traceability for deliverables. By maintaining traceability, the VA can ensure that solutions meet requirements and address veteran needs.

Aside from a comprehensive project schedule for its modernization effort, the VA must also ensure that key practices for effectively managing requirements are implemented.

The VA concurred with all of GAO’s recommendations.

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NASA Tests RS-25 Engine for Future Artemis Missions
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NASA has tested the new RS-25 engine

NASA demonstrated the new RS-25 engine No. 20001 on June 20 at the Fred Haise Test Stand at the Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

The agency said Monday the full-duration “hot fire” test was done to evaluate the engine’s performance during launch. This marked the first test since NASA completed certification testing for new production RS-25 engines in 2024.

NASA’s RS-25 Engine Test Details

The hot-fire test, led by a team of NASA operators and representatives from L3Harris Technologies and Syncom Space Services, lasted approximately eight-and-a-half minutes or 500 seconds, mirroring the actual time required for the engine to fire during a launch of a Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket on Artemis missions. The test teams also fired engine No. 20001 up to the 111 percent power level, equal to the thrust required to launch the SLS rocket that will deploy the Orion spacecraft into orbit.

Each SLS launch will be propelled by four RS-25 engines. These engines, manufactured by L3Harris, will collectively produce up to two million pounds of combined thrust. 

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Carnegie Mellon University Books $1.5B Contract for DOD R&D
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Carnegie Mellon University receives a $1.5 billion R&D contract from U.S. Air Force

Carnegie Mellon University will continue its advanced technology research, development and prototyping for the Department of Defense and national security requirements under a U.S. Air Force contract award valued a maximum of $1.5 billion. 

CMU Contract Funding

Work performance will be mainly at the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania facilities of the Software Engineering Institute’s federally funded Research and Development Center, with expected completion by June 30, 2030, DOD said Monday. USAF is allocating $416,000 in funding from its fiscal year 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds at the time of the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract award.

A sole-source solicitation, the service procurement is a contracting activity of Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts.

Initial Carnegie Mellon Contract

CMU secured a $2.7 billion USAF contract modification in July 2020 for the university’s continuing management of the SEI R&D center up to June 30, 2025. The Air Force’s initial contract to the university was awarded in July 2015, valued at $732 million.

Recently, a SEI study was released showing DOD software program improvements and areas where challenges remain.

Other CMU facilities include an artificial intelligence research and experimentation center established in September under a $6 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In October, the university also announced a partnership with NVIDIA for a new joint research center that will focus on robotics, autonomy and artificial intelligence.

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Tim Sheehy Proposes New Bills to Modernize Defense Acquisitions
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Sen. Tim Sheehy has unveiled a five-bill package to modernize the Department of Defense's acquisition process

Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., has introduced new legislation to update the Department of Defense’s acquisition process and better support the U.S. defense industrial base. 

His office said Monday that five new bills, authored by Sheehy, will give the Department of Defense the right tools and flexibility to acquire innovative capabilities. 

Proposed Updates to the Defense Acquisition Process

The legislative package will also enable the Pentagon to more rapidly test new technologies and award a follow-on contract to meet the critical needs of warfighters. 

“Our defense acquisition paradigm has become brittle, sclerotic and unable to respond to a growing array of asymmetric threats,” explained the legislator. “The result has been late, overbudget programs that fail to deliver the bullets, bombs, planes, and other critical equipment we need to maintain our national security.”

Sheehy said the bills are in line with the efforts of Senate Armed Services Committee chair, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., to make the defense acquisition process more agile and responsive to changes within the threat landscape. 

Sheehy’s Five-Bill Package

The Prototype to Production Act would create an expedited acquisition route for warfighter technology. The bill would also expand opportunities for non-traditional contractors and research institutes. 

Similarly, the Expedited Delivery Act would give the Pentagon the authority to rapidly acquire property or services based on differentiated capabilities, accelerated delivery schedules and improvements. 

Meanwhile, the Buy to Budget Flexibility Act would enable the DOD to purchase in greater quantities to reduce costs. 

The Smart Pricing Practices Permanence Act will turn a pilot that streamlines pricing determinations for similar products into a permanent program. 

Finally, the Procurement Reform for Immediate Military Equipment, or PRIME, Act will give industry access to government systems to explore new capabilities and empower military commanders to award follow-on production contracts.

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Navy Completes Final USS Pierre Acceptance Trials
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The U.S. Navy completed the acceptance trials for the future USS Pierre

The U.S. Navy has concluded acceptance trials for the future USS Pierre (LCS 38), achieving the highest quality rating in 15 years.

The Naval Sea Systems Command said Monday the final acceptance trials for the Independence variant littoral combat ship were conducted at Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama, during the week of June 9.

With the completion of the trials, the USS Pierre will now be prepared for its official delivery to the Navy. The ship will be commissioned in fall 2025 and then homeported in San Diego, California, where it will play a key role in ensuring forward presence, maritime security, sea control and deterrence.

The USS Pierre Legacy

The USS Pierre, the 19th Independence-variant LCS ever built, is the third Navy ship and second warship to be christened Pierre, in honor of South Dakota’s capital city. SS Pierre Victory, a Victory-class cargo ship, was the first to use the name. It is known for neutralizing a kamikaze plane near Okinawa during WWII. The second ship and first warship to be honored with the name is the USS Pierre submarine chaser (PC-1141). It was commissioned in 1943, renamed in 1946 and decommissioned in 1958.

Melissa Kirkendall, acting program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, said, “Pierre is not just the final LCS in its class — it’s a symbol of our Navy’s strength, lethality and commitment to global security.”

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DCS G-8 Karl Gingrich on How the Army Wants to Use AI to Better Perform Missions
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Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich gives a keynote address at the 2025 Army Summit.

U.S. Army soldiers in the field will soon use AI in a cloud-based intelligence platform to help them better execute their missions, a top service official said Wednesday at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Army Summit.

Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich, Army deputy chief of staff for G-8 programs, said soldiers will use AI in the Army Intelligence Data Platform, or AIDP, which organizes data for faster information processing and decision-making. He said AI will help Army intel analysts leverage the amount of data they consume from all sources, whether it is open source intelligence, or OSINT, or intel derived locally from the battlefield.

Once the soldiers have all of their data in the right place, Lt. Gen. Gingrich said they will run applications on top of the data to better leverage today’s modern technologies. AIDP, which has been deployed and operationalized to units in all priority theaters, has capabilities such as data ingress, processing, egress, persistence and discovery.

Lt. Gen. Gingrich expects AI to quickly spread to other capabilities.

“I think, over time, you’ll start to see it proliferate into unmanned systems,” he said during his keynote address. “That’s something that we want and will continue to work on through [program managers] and [program executive officers].”

Learn about how the U.S. Air Force and Space Force are leveraging emerging technologies like AI in their missions at the 2025 Air and Space Summit on July 31! This elite GovCon event will feature fascinating keynotes from high-ranking officers such as Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and integration. Stick around and learn about new requirements for big budget programs such as the proposed Golden Dome homeland missile defense system. Secure your spot now for the top GovCon conference for air and space partners.

DCS G-8 Karl Gingrich on How the Army Wants to Use AI to Better Perform Missions
The U.S. Army is in the early stages of using AI to write requirements documents, Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich said during his keynote address at the 2025 Army Summit. Image: Charles McClanahan

How the Army Is Using AI to Write Requirements Documents

The Army is also in the early stages of using AI to write requirements documents. Lt. Gen. Gingrich said the service is automating a standard template and is leveraging a large language model to write requirements and, if necessary, integrate them with other existing requirements.

Lt. Gen. Gingrich said the Army automated building a performance objective memorandum, or POM, by using Microsoft computing tools Power Query and Power BI. These tools, he said, allowed the Army to build a POM and perform course of action development without disturbing the authoritative data. Power Query is an Excel add-in that simplifies data discovery, access and collaboration while Power BI visualizes data.

Previously, soldiers were typing numbers into an embedded Excel spreadsheet over and over. Lt. Gen. Gingrich said the service is looking to bring in companies to help it further automate data manipulation.

Despite building a POM without creating a single PowerPoint slide, Lt. Gen. Gingrich said the Army will continue to use PowerPoint despite trying to wean itself off it.

“We still have to do PowerPoint because that’s what makes us feel good, [to] be honest,” he said.

Army RDT&E Budget Consolidation

The Army will consolidate much of its FY 2026 research, development, test and evaluation, or RDT&E, budget request, specifically less complex programs, into three different portfolios with single budget line items in an attempt to accelerate fielding emerging technologies. Lt. Gen Gingrich said these three portfolios will be:

  • Counter small unmanned aircraft systems, or C-sUAS
  • UAS
  • Electronic warfare

This, he said, should allow the service to procure critical technologies faster to respond to a current threat instead of buying something for five years based off of a threat from seven years ago. Larger, more complex, acquisition programs will still have longer-term and more formal POM planning.

Discover how to best position your GovCon firm for rapid acquisition initiatives at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Air and Space Summit on July 31! Learn about how optical data relay will modernize space communications. Explore offerings from leading defense contractors such as Kepler, Raft and Exiger. Create new partnerships and rekindle old ones, all in a supportive atmosphere. Register now for this premier GovCon conference and position your company for success in FY 2026.

DCS G-8 Karl Gingrich on How the Army Wants to Use AI to Better Perform Missions
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Ivo Djoubrailov Returns to Chief Data Officer Role at Department of Housing and Urban Development
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Ivo Djoubrailov was appointed as chief data officer at HUD, a role he previously held for a brief couple of months 2020-2021.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has named Ivo Djoubrailov as its chief data officer.

Djoubrailov confirmed his appointment in a LinkedIn post.

“Honored to (re)enter the Chief Data Officer role —leading data strategy to deliver value across the department and proud to support our [chief information officer], Mr. Eric Sidle, whose high-octane brilliance is powering HUD’s transformation to serve the public better,” he wrote.

Djoubrailov briefly held the data chief role at HUD from December 2020 to January 2021.

Who Is Ivo Djoubrailov?

Before his recent appointment, he served as the department’s chief digital services officer and led as deputy chief technology officer for over two years.

Djoubrailov’s career also includes positions at Perun Business Group, which delivered enterprise IT and analytics services, and MicroStrategy, where he shared his expertise in data modeling, stress testing, cluster optimization and schema design as a technical adviser.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business IT from Virginia Tech and a mater’s degree in applied analytics from Columbia University.

What Are the Responsibilities of HUD’s Chief Data Officer?

As data chief, Djoubrailov will be in charge of developing and implementing the department’s data strategy and governance. He will also oversee efforts to harness data to advance the HUD mission.

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