SBA Takes Over for VA in Certifying Veteran-Owned Small Businesses
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SBA Takes Over for VA in Certifying Veteran-Owned Small Businesses

The Small Business Administration has created a government-wide certification program for veteran-owned small businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses participating in bids for federal contracts.

SBA reevaluated and rewrote its regulations to establish the program in compliance with the National Defense Authorization Act, according to a Federal Register notice.

VOSBs and SDVOSBs were previously certified by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Verification and Evaluation. To be eligible for sole source or set-aside federal contracts outside VA, the Small Business Act only required self-certification from such companies. The new rule essentially transfers VA’s evaluation duties to SBA.

SBA will launch the Veteran Small Business Certification Program on Jan. 1. VOSBs and SDVOSBs have a one-year grace period to apply for certification or continue to self-certify. For companies that were verified by VA before January, the original expiration date of their accreditation will be honored.

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Report: Army Air, Missile Defense Team Mount Counter-UAS Mission
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Report: Army Air, Missile Defense Team Mount Counter-UAS Mission

Army Futures Command’s Air and Missile Defense Cross-Functional Team is mounting a new endeavor to support the service branch’s efforts to defeat unmanned aerial system threats, C4ISRNET reported Tuesday. 

Col. Patrick Costello, director of AMD CFT, said the team’s initiative would focus on supporting the development of new and advanced capabilities against emerging adversarial UAS capabilities.

AMD CFT is the latest Army organization to shift its focus to defeating enemy drone threats, which Army leaders have considered a high-priority objective. 

The Army Rapid Capability and Critical Technologies Office is working on technologies designed to counter drones, including high-capacity microwave systems capable of targeting multiple incoming drone threats simultaneously.

The Program Executive Office Missiles and Space is also aiding the cause by exploring how to bring new capabilities to the force.

Responsible for evaluating and deploying new counter-UAS technologies, the Department of Defense’s Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office has also been assigned to Army leadership in order to double down on this focus area.

Costello said AMD CFT’s new mission “requires coordination with the PEO, it requires coordination with the RCCTO and a close relationship with the JCO.”

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HawkEye 360 Migrates to AWS GovCloud to Enhance Security; Chris Gregory Quoted
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HawkEye 360 Migrates to AWS GovCloud to Enhance Security; Chris Gregory Quoted

HawkEye 360 has announced its movement from Amazon Web Services commercial services to Amazon Web Services GovCloud, a platform meant to host sensitive data and regulate workloads in alignment with federal security and compliance standards.

This migration is intended to strengthen the foundation of HawkEye 360’s strategy for guarding sensitive and controlled data, the Herndon, Virginia-based company announced on Tuesday.

“The move to AWS GovCloud (US) facilitates the development and delivery of export-controlled products and services and demonstrates to our customers the security and integrity of our data and analytics,” said Chris Gregory, vice president of engineering at HawkEye 360.

AWS GovCloud, which is FedRAMP compliant, consolidates the approval process that determines if HawkEye 360 is meeting Defense Federal Acquisition Supplement, CMMC Level 2 and NIST-800-171 standards while providing a platform for the company to develop and deliver its offerings.

“AWS GovCloud (US) provides us with access to ITAR-compliant services that have had a positive impact on our data storage and analytics architecture by making data more shareable and discoverable both across teams and with our government customers,” commented Kate Zimmerman, chief data scientist at HawkEye 360.

Alongside the transition, HawkEye 360 developed a data lake architecture that utilizes AWS GovCloud to unify data discovery and mining through a shared data catalog. The architecture enables advanced data fusion between different data sets to improve the identification of dark maritime vessels by using multiple sources of data.

With these analytic upgrades, the enterprise will be able to determine when a vessel stops reporting its position from standard systems and predict the path a vessel may travel while it is dark using RF detections of a vessel’s operating radars.

This enhanced dark ship detection can be leveraged by government agencies to more effectively analyze illicit activities including illegal fishing, smuggling, human trafficking and others.

HawkEye 360 will preview these capabilities at AWS re:Invent on December 1.

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David McKeown on DOD’s Move to Zero Trust Architecture
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David McKeown on DOD’s Move to Zero Trust Architecture

David McKeown, acting chief information officer at the Department of Defense, said DOD has been working on plans to facilitate its transition to zero trust by fiscal year 2027 and included in that initiative is the establishment of a zero trust portfolio management office, DOD News reported Monday.

The Pentagon recently unveiled the Zero Trust Strategy and Roadmap, which outlines efforts to secure the DOD Information Enterprise by reducing the attack surface, facilitating data sharing and enabling risk management.

“With the publication of this strategy we have articulated the ‘how’ that can address clear outcomes of how to get to zero trust — and not only accelerated technology adoption, as discussed, but also a culture of zero trust at DOD and an integrated approach at the department and the component levels,” McKeown said.

According to the report, DOD expects every agency to achieve target level zero trust compliance as outlined in the roadmap.

“If you’re a national security system, we may require the advanced level for those systems,” McKeown said.

“But advanced really isn’t necessary for literally every system out there. We have an aggressive goal getting to ‘targeted’ by 2027. And we want to encourage those who have a greater need to secure their data to adopt this advanced level,” he added.

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AFRL, Partners Eye Dandelion Species as Natural Rubber Source for Producing Aircraft Tires
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AFRL, Partners Eye Dandelion Species as Natural Rubber Source for Producing Aircraft Tires

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is collaborating with three organizations to explore the potential of a variety of dandelions as a local source of natural rubber.

AFRL revealed Monday that it tapped the BioIndustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem, Farmed Materials and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for the multimillion-dollar project, which aims to secure the supply chain for aircraft tire production.

The team’s objective is to plant and harvest a dandelion species called Kok-saghyz, or TK, which has been found to produce natural rubber when its roots are crushed.

To execute the multiyear program, the AFRL Materials and Manufacturing Directorate’s Manufacturing and Industrial Technologies Division partnered with BioMADE, a public-private manufacturing innovation institute established by the Department of Defense. 

BioMADE subcontracted small business firm Farmed Materials to access its TK dandelion crops. The rubber produced from the crops will be manufactured by Goodyear into aircraft tires tailored to Air Force specifications.

Researchers hope the collective effort will help strengthen the domestic stockpile of natural rubber, currently a major U.S. import.

“We are less than 10 years away from demand [for natural rubber] exceeding supply,” stated Angela Campo, research chemist at AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate and deputy program manager for BioMADE.

“The Air Force needs a secure supply chain of natural rubber. As we saw during COVID, many shutdowns occurred where many countries were no longer shipping items. Eventually, that picked back up, but we don’t ever want to be in that position of not having a consistent supply of critical materials,” Campo continued.

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Former DHS OPO Deputy Director Juan Arratia Named Executive Director at CISA Contracting Office
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Former DHS OPO Deputy Director Juan Arratia Named Executive Director at CISA Contracting Office

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has appointed Juan Arratia as executive director of its Chief of Contracting Office, Homeland Security Today reported.

Arratia joins COCO from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, where he worked as deputy director of the Office of Procurement Operations.

In his new role, Arratia will lead contracting and procurement strategies and liaise with the OCPO and OPO to ensure that their transactions comply with statutory and regulatory policies.

The former U.S. Marine initially became a contracting officer while in active duty. As a civilian, he held positions at the Acquisition and Procurement Office and the Financial Management and Comptroller of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy. He continued his career in government at the Office of Personnel Management, where he served as senior procurement executive.

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Report: Pentagon Considers Plan to Deliver Small Precision Bombs to Ukraine
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Report: Pentagon Considers Plan to Deliver Small Precision Bombs to Ukraine

The Department of Defense is looking at a proposal of Boeing to provide Ukraine with ground-launched small diameter bombs to help the Eastern European country counter Russian attacks amid declining U.S. and allied military inventories, Reuters reported Monday.

Boeing and Saab produce GLSDB, a GPS-guided weapon system composed of the GBU-39 small diameter bomb and the M26 rocket motor that can hit armored vehicles and other targets at a range of about 94 miles.

According to a document obtained by the wire service, GLSDB could be handed over to Ukraine as soon as spring 2023.

Boeing’s proposal to U.S. European Command, which manages the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, would require a price discovery waiver and source main GLSDB components from existing U.S. suppliers.

The news agency said the potential production of the small precision bombs would require at least six vendors to speed up parts delivery to accelerate weapons production.

A spokesperson for Boeing declined to comment. Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman, a spokesman for DOD, said the U.S. and its allies “identify and consider the most appropriate systems” that would support Ukraine.

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DARPA-CYBERCOM Pilot Program Seeks to Speed Up Development of Cyber Capabilities for Operational Use
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DARPA-CYBERCOM Pilot Program Seeks to Speed Up Development of Cyber Capabilities for Operational Use

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and U.S. Cyber Command have launched a pilot program that intends to accelerate the delivery of strategic and tactical cybersecurity capabilities to cyber operators.

The Constellation pilot program will establish an iterative, user-directed pipeline to expedite the development and integration of cyber capabilities into CYBERCOM’s software ecosystem, DARPA said Monday.

“To have the greatest operational and strategic impact, these emergent capabilities must reach operators continuously in short timescales, much shorter than legacy acquisition processes,” said Kathleen Fisher, director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office.

“We are optimistic about Constellation’s potential to enable long-term sustainment for rapid cyber capability prototyping and integration. Running Constellation projects in parallel with DARPA development can help us reduce risks and transition timelines and overcome the ‘valley of death,’” added Fisher.

The pilot program will establish a framework and mechanisms to offer physical and virtual infrastructure, contracts and personnel and sustain relationships to help address the gap between operational warfighting capabilities and research and development.

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Treasury Dep Sec Wally Adeyemo Highlights Inflation Reduction Act Investment Opportunities
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Treasury Dep Sec Wally Adeyemo Highlights Inflation Reduction Act Investment Opportunities

Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Department of the Treasury, said the Inflation Reduction Act provides investment opportunities to advance the U.S. clean energy sector. 

In a recent roundtable with clean energy investors and operators, Adeyemo explained that the law works to enable the U.S. to boost the production of existing and new clean technologies and offers targeted bonus incentives to drive clean energy investments in underserved communities, Treasury reported Saturday. 

The department said third-party analysts estimate that the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy incentives will generate trillions of dollars in private sector investment in the energy market over the next decade.

Treasury is hosting a series of roundtable discussions with key stakeholders to gather public comments and inform its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August.

In October, Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service released six requests for public comments on the implementation of climate and clean energy tax incentives mandated by the law.

The notices focus on energy generation incentives, credit enhancements, incentives for homes and buildings, consumer vehicle credits, manufacturing credits and credit monetization.

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David Wisniewski Appointed Deputy Director of NRO Cyber Security Office
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David Wisniewski Appointed Deputy Director of NRO Cyber Security Office

David Wisniewski, a former U.S. Space Force division chief, has joined the National Reconnaissance Office as its deputy director of the Cyber Security Office, according to a LinkedIn post published Tuesday.

In his new role, Wisniewski will oversee the development of an organization-wide cybersecurity strategy, plan enhancements to the agency’s cyber architecture and define future requirements.

The executive most recently served as division chief at the Space Warfighting and Analysis Center, where he helped develop an approach to creating resilient satellite navigation architectures.

Wisniewski previously held various roles focused on space and cyber programs during his more than 16-year career in the U.S. Air Force and was division chief of the future technologies division within the Space Security and Defense Program. The latter entity is a joint organization that manages space protection efforts across the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.

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