President Biden Signs Bill to Prevent Conflicts of Interest in Federal Contracting
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President Biden Signs Bill to Prevent Conflicts of Interest in Federal Contracting

President Biden has signed a bill that seeks to identify and eliminate potential conflicts of interest in federal contracting through business relationship disclosure requirements into law.

The Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act mandates that federal contractors disclose existing and future partnerships with companies that may oppose ongoing services they provide the U.S. government, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs said Tuesday.

Committee Chairman Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., is the lead author of the bill.

“This new law will ensure federal contractors are providing transparency about potential conflicts before they are awarded taxpayer dollars,” Peters noted.

The U.S. Senate passed the bipartisan legislation in August, four months after the measure was introduced by Peters and his fellow senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Magi Hassan, D- N.H., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

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USAF Squadron Discusses Government-Industry C2 Collaboration at Industry Event
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USAF Squadron Discusses Government-Industry C2 Collaboration at Industry Event

The U.S. Air Force 505th Command and Control Wing’s 805th Combat Training Squadron held a classified industry day to demonstrate its in capabilities in developing, testing and delivering key command and control technologies.

The squadron, which is also known as the Shadow Operations Center-Nellis, hosted 120 industry experts, including small tech companies, at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada earlier this month.

The event included discussions on C2 challenges, future requirements and how government-industry collaboration can use venues such as ShOC-N’s Industry Day to advance C2 technologies and gather warfighter feedback about the innovations.

“The systems we need exist today, but they are being developed in stovepipes,” Col. Frederick Coleman, 505th CCW commander, said in his keynote speech at the event. “We need our industry and government partners to come together under one roof, on one network, to figure out how to link these advanced tools in a meaningful way that allows us to execute C2 rapidly and simultaneously across security classifications and levels of war.”

Coleman also emphasized the importance of advanced intelligence and machine learning and the automation of “everything that starts and ends with data.”

ShOC-N will host another industry day tentatively scheduled for June 2023.

NGA, Global Disinformation Lab Report Discrepancies in Russian Claims on Ukrainian Refugee Movement
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NGA, Global Disinformation Lab Report Discrepancies in Russian Claims on Ukrainian Refugee Movement

Commercial satellite data indicate that the number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Russia may have been exaggerated by the Russian government to justify its invasion of Ukraine, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency said Thursday.

The study was conducted by NGA in partnership with the University of Texas in Austin’s Global Disinformation Lab as part of the Tearline open-source intelligence project.

Russian state media have been reporting that “large flows of refugees” were coming from Ukraine to the Rostov region in southwest Russia. The Border Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation also stated that more than 16,000 civilians crossed that border every day since the war began. However, GEOINT images showed low counts of civilian vehicles and lack of traffic congestion at the Rostov border.

Researchers found more accurate figures in statistics published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which showed an increase in refugee and vehicle crossing in the Ukraine-Poland border post-invasion. According to UNHCR, 42,273 refugees came to Poland via the Korczowa-Krakowiec border on March 18. Thirteen images showed that the average number of cars and trucks increased from 31 and 60 to 95 and 110, respectively, when the war erupted.

The U.S. State Department asserts that the disinformation is part of Russia’s propaganda to boost public support for its attack on Ukraine. The department funded the Conflict Observatory program to gather and expose crimes related to the Ukraine war, and NGA contributes to the initiative by providing unclassified imagery.

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Kratos Helps Execute Ballistic Missile Intercept Tests Between US, Japan
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Kratos Helps Execute Ballistic Missile Intercept Tests Between US, Japan

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions supported ballistic missile intercept tests as part of a two-week testing event held by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and Japan’s maritime self defense force at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii.

Kratos said Tuesday its team worked with industry and government partners to integrate and launch three medium-range ballistic missile targets and one short-range ballistic missile target as part of the Japan Flight Test Aegis Weapon System-07 event.

In one of the JFTM-07 tests, a Standard Missile 3 Block IIA was fired from a Japanese Maya-class destroyer, JS Maya (DDG 179), to intercept a MRBM target. 

Kratos said the three-stage MRBM targets used in the ballistic missile intercept tests come with a payload mounted on the company’s Oriole rocket motor and two Terrier Mk-70 rocket motors.

According to the company, the targets, including one SRBM, performed nominal trajectories and met target requirements during the event.

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L3Harris Wins Navy Contract Modification to Expand Delivery of Modernized Radios
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L3Harris Wins Navy Contract Modification to Expand Delivery of Modernized Radios

L3Harris Technologies has been awarded a $21.9 million firm-fixed-price modification to an earlier U.S. Navy contract.

The modification exercises an option to produce and deliver a total of 374 modernized radios, 335 of which will go to the military branch and 39 will go to the U.K. government, the Department of Defense announced on Tuesday.

Work under the modification is expected to be completed in March 2025 and will be conducted in San Diego, California.

At the time of the award, fiscal 2023 weapons procurement funds amounting to $19.6 million and Foreign Military Sales customer funds of $2.3 million will be obligated. None of these funds will expire at the end of the fiscal year.

The contracting activity is the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland.

L3Harris previously won a $15.3 million modification to the same contract, which exercised an option to produce and deliver 228 modernized radios to the Navy and 27 to the government of the U.K.

The initial $18 million firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract was awarded in June 2021. Under the original award, which is expected to be completed in April 2023, the enterprise is currently providing the Navy with 285 modernized radios.

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Federal CIO Clare Martorana Shares Top Priorities for 2023
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Federal CIO Clare Martorana Shares Top Priorities for 2023

Clare Martorana, federal chief information officer and a 2022 Wash100 awardee, said increasing collaboration among the information technology community, scaling best practices and removing silos are among her top priorities for 2023 as part of efforts to improve customer experience and advance IT modernization, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

The Office of Management and Budget CIO said her office intends to initiate actions in areas that could support agencies in their procurement and recruitment efforts. She cited as examples a repository of best-in-class contract vehicles, a library of position descriptions and a platform that could make it easier for technologists to find and apply for a job in government.

“We’ll also be doubling down on maximizing the impact we can make with every IT investment, buying down technical debt, improving security and modernizing legacy IT,” Martorana told FNN in an interview.

“By partnering with our agency teams and our budget colleagues, we’ll be able to identify where agencies are on their IT modernization journeys and ensure they’re on a path to enable digital transformation — one that will span from fiscal year to fiscal year and administration to administration,” she added.

When asked about the focus areas she would like to address from a policy perspective in 2023, Martorana cited artificial intelligence, the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program and continued engagement with agencies to identify their needs.

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US Senate Confirms Terrence Edwards as NRO Inspector General
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US Senate Confirms Terrence Edwards as NRO Inspector General

Terrence Edwards, former chief of staff to the principal deputy director of national intelligence, has been appointed and confirmed as the new inspector general of the National Reconnaissance Office.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Edwards’ nomination on Friday, making him the official successor to Susan Gibson, NRO’s inspector general from 2016 to 2022.

Prior to his appointment, Edwards worked at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He joined the agency as deputy general counsel for management, ensuring that customers complied with U.S. law on acquisitions, human resources and technology issues. He later ascended to the position of chief of staff to Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and two-time Wash100 Award winner Stacey Dixon.

He also held legal roles in other federal agencies, including the National Security Agency, Communications Electronic Command and Army Sustainment Command.

As inspector general, Edwards will lead NRO’s oversight division, which is responsible for investigating fraud, abuse or other reported violations within the agency.

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Peraton Secures Seat on $1.7B NCI BPA for IT Services; Tarik Reyes Quoted
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Peraton Secures Seat on $1.7B NCI BPA for IT Services; Tarik Reyes Quoted

Peraton has won a spot on a five-year, unrestricted $1.7 billion blanket purchase agreement from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.

Under the agreement, Peraton is expected to deliver information technology and professional IT services to the agency’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and Technology, the Reston, Virginia-based organization said Wednesday.

“As a leading mission capability integrator and enterprise IT provider, our team is poised and ready to support the agency,” said Tarik Reyes, president of Peraton’s defense mission and health solutions sector.

Through the BPA, customer value partners and Peraton are responsible for providing DevSecOps, cloud support , IT operations and service desk assistance as well as cybersecurity, engineering and data management capabilities.

Services performed by the company are intended to help progress NCI’s mission of leading, conducting and supporting cancer research to progress scientific understanding and promote longer, healthier lives.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to deliver impactful outcomes to NCI’s critical mission and meet the agency’s requirements,” Reyes remarked.

Alongside its research efforts, work conducted by the institute includes training and information-sharing, which supports improvements in cancer detection, diagnosis and care and contributes to reducing rates of cancer-related deaths and new cancer cases in the U.S.

This award follows Peraton’s multiple contract wins for IT support services this year. Earlier this month, Perspecta Enterprise Solutions, a Peraton subsidiary, booked a $342.7 million Transportation Security Administration contract to operate, maintain and improve the agency’s IT equipment, services and processes.

Perspecta also received a potential 10-year, $2 billion contract from the Defense Health Agency to bolster its military health database by standardizing enterprise-wide IT processes and procedures.

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IARPA Sets Proposers Day for ReSCIND Cyber Program
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IARPA Sets Proposers Day for ReSCIND Cyber Program

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity will hold a proposers day on Feb. 28 to discuss with industry partners a new program aimed at developing new cyber network defenses through cyberpsychology-determined practices.

Reimagining Security with Cyberpsychology-Informed Network Defenses seeks to apply cyberpsychology to defend against cyber threat actors by analyzing their human limitations, such as cognitive weaknesses and inherent decision-making biases, according to a notice posted Friday on SAM.gov.

Through the ReSCIND program, IARPA aims to develop novel methods to identify and model attackers’ human limitations or cognitive biases as well as measure and induce changes in cyber attack behavior and success.

The agency also seeks to provide algorithms for automated adaptation of cyberpsychology-informed defense platforms based on observed attack behavior.

Interested companies have until Feb. 13 to register for the event.

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U.S. Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill to Clear Space of Dangerous Debris; John Hickenlooper Quoted
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U.S. Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill to Clear Space of Dangerous Debris; John Hickenlooper Quoted

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed legislation that would authorize a NASA-run demonstration program to remove dangerous orbital debris from space.

The Orbital Sustainability or ORBITS Act was proposed in September by Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., along with Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo, Hickenlooper’s office said Thursday.

“From satellite communications to rockets carrying humans into deep space, space debris is a massive threat to space operations,” said Hickenlooper, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science. “I’m over the moon that our ORBITS Act passed and we can start cleaning up this space junk.”

In 2022 alone, NASA has been ordering the International Space Station to conduct a number of pre-determined debris avoidance maneuvers because of the increasing amount of debris. The most recent PDAM was done on Wednesday.

Under the ORBITS Act, NASA will launch a research and development program in search of technologies that can safely execute active debris remediation missions.

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