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Johns Hopkins Study Reveals Potential Long-term Impact of Climate Change on Radars
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Johns Hopkins Study Reveals Potential Long-term Impact of Climate Change on Radars

A study conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory found negative as well as positive long-term effects of climate change on communication systems such as radars.

The results were published Wednesday and presented at the annual meeting of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science.

“Will climate change alter the environment enough to impact the design of sensor systems? Because if it does — even a little bit — that would be a surprise for designers and engineers who aren’t used to thinking about the environment as an evolving design factor,” said Jonathan Gehman, APL applied physicist and one of the scientists involved in the study.

He said that S-band radars will have better longer-range advantage, while X-band and other higher frequency remote sensing systems will degrade over the next 50 years. He attributed the discrepancy to increased moisture in the atmosphere, which will impede the resolution and bandwidth capability of X-bands.

They obtained data collected via the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, which examined factors considered in impact sensor design. These include moisture conditions and rising sea surface temperatures, which influence the effectiveness of radio frequency and infrared propagation.

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FDA Issues IDIQ Solicitation to Support Data Management of Adverse Reporting System
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FDA Issues IDIQ Solicitation to Support Data Management of Adverse Reporting System

The FDA is looking to award an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to support its Adverse Event Reporting System Data Management Program.

In a notice posted Wednesday on SAM.gov, the agency said it seeking a company that can provide services including data organization, training, and software testing and validation related to processing FAERS reports.

FAERS is a computerized database used in FDA’s safety surveillance operations for products already approved and on the market. It is supported by a data management program that processes the electronic reports.

To aid the DMP, FDA intends to develop and enhance standard operating procedure requirements and improve the management of physical and electronic information it receives.

The potential five-year contract will involve collecting and processing voluntary and mandatory safety reports forwarded to the agency’s safety evaluation teams, conducting quality assurance and training programs and testing software platforms that may be used in the entire adverse event reporting system.

The single-award solicitation, which is open until Jan. 20, is part of a partnership agreement between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Small Business Administration.

USSOCOM Posts Solicitation for Next Gen EMS Countermeasures Procurement
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USSOCOM Posts Solicitation for Next Gen EMS Countermeasures Procurement

U.S. Special Operations Command has begun seeking white papers from companies capable of developing new devices designed to deter and respond to electromagnetic threats.

In a notice posted on SAM.gov, USSOCOM said it seeks to develop, test, manufacture and deploy next-generation multimission electromagnetic countermeasures that will replace currently fielded ECM technologies systems beginning in fiscal year 2025.

USSOCOM is interested in technologies built to provide ground-based electronic attack, force protection, counter-unmanned aerial system and explosive ordnance disposal capabilities.

The command plans to award a follow-on production contract via an other transaction authority for the procurement effort. 

Interested companies have until Feb. 17 to respond to the solicitation notice.

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Doug Magee Joins Day & Zimmerman as President of Government Services Group
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Doug Magee Joins Day & Zimmerman as President of Government Services Group

Doug Magee has joined Day & Zimmerman, a construction and engineering, staffing and defense-focused company as president of its government services group, which includes the D&Z-owned Mason & Hanger and SOC businesses.

In this position, Magee will guide the mission support solutions unit in delivering architecture and engineering, global security, operations and maintenance and staffing assistance to both public and private sector customers, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based organization announced on Friday.

“I’m excited to join this great organization. The company has a strong reputation in the industry for mission assurance combined with a portfolio of capabilities that deliver value,” Magee commented.

Prior to joining D&Z, Magee served as an operating company president at Akima, a role in which he supervised and expanded enterprise activities in the areas of facilities maintenance, base operations support and multi-functional logistics including transportation, equipment upkeep and supply services.

The executive has held various business development and operations positions with organizations such as DynCorp International, Kaseman, Michael Baker International and Comprehensive Health Services.

During his time in these roles, Magee led business development, multi-functional logistics and contingency initiatives while driving expansion through organic and acquisitive growth.

Toward the beginning of his career, Magee held positions at Kellogg and Brown and Root, now known as KBR.

Magee has experience working both within and outside of the continental U.S. to provide federal clients with services spanning security, training, logistics, facilities, staffing and construction.

Throughout his time in the contracting industry, he has supported many government agencies, including the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, NASA and multiple military branches, among others.

Before entering the private sector, Magee served as a transportation officer in the Army for four years.

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CISA, DHS S&T Directorate to Develop Analytics Ecosystem for Cybersecurity
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CISA, DHS S&T Directorate to Develop Analytics Ecosystem for Cybersecurity

The Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology directorate and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have launched a project that seeks to establish a next-generation analytics ecosystem to counter evolving cyberthreats and defend infrastructure from cyberattacks.

The S&T directorate will lead the CISA Advanced Analytics Platform for Machine Learning project, which will provide CISA users with a multicloud collaborative research environment to use analytic techniques across various cyber data sources to improve decision-making and situational awareness in support of cyber and infrastructure security missions.

CISA and S&T expect CAP-M to host experimentation when it comes to the analysis and correlation of data to facilitate response to cyberthreats as well as share lessons learned with government, academic and industry partners.

According to the CISA-released fact sheet, the directorate’s research plan for the CAP-M project is composed of ecosystem, tools and tradecraft and automation of the machine learning loop.

“Fully realized, CAP-M will feature a multi-cloud environment and multiple data structures, a logical data warehouse to facilitate access across CISA data sets, and a production-like environment to enable realistic testing of vendor solutions,” the fact sheet reads.

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US-UK Team Demos Joint AI Toolbox for Military Use
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US-UK Team Demos Joint AI Toolbox for Military Use

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.K.’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory have jointly demonstrated an artificial intelligence toolbox during two military exercises to showcase the use of integrated AI technologies in various defense applications.

A joint AI Taskforce first deployed the toolbox at the Project Convergence 22 experiment held at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California. At the event, the toolbox exhibited its capability to draw together data from autonomous platforms, label data, train and retain algorithms deployed on high-performance computers to deliver mission-specific AI, Dstl said Thursday.

The task force took the lessons learned from the first exercise to apply the AI toolbox to a new operational environment as part of the Dstl Hydra project’s Integrated Concept Evaluation trials held at the Salisbury Plain Training Area in Wiltshire, U.K.

During the trials, the team showed that the joint AI platform can provide rapid updates to AI deployed onto autonomous systems by ingesting new data sources.

“The joint AI Toolbox, with its ability to adapt and deliver AI for different joint military missions is critical. AI flexibility and speed is key to moving us towards this goal,” said Lee Seversky, U.S. AI Toolbox lead.

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Milancy Harris, Russell Rumbaugh, Agnes Schaefer Officially Assume Roles at Pentagon
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Milancy Harris, Russell Rumbaugh, Agnes Schaefer Officially Assume Roles at Pentagon

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, press secretary at the Department of Defense, announced Thursday that nominees Milancy Harris, Russell Rumbaugh and Agnes Schaefer were sworn into their new positions at DOD.

Harris, formerly deputy assistant secretary for irregular warfare and counterterrorism at DOD, took oath as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Harris was nominated to the role in May 2022. She was part of the Intelligence Community Agency Review Team during the Biden-Harris transition and served as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Rumbaugh, previously a systems director for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at the Aerospace Corp., was sworn in as assistant secretary of the Navy for finance, financial management and comptroller nine months after being nominated to the position.

He is a former U.S. Army infantry officer who held analyst roles at the Senate Budget Committee, the office of the secretary of defense and the CIA.

Schaefer, a senior political scientist at global policy think tank RAND, was sworn in as the assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs. She was nominated to the position at the service branch in December 2021.

She previously served as associate director of RAND’s International Security and Defense Policy Center.

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CISA’s Jen Easterly: Tech Companies Should Deploy Software Offerings That Are “Secure by Design”
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CISA’s Jen Easterly: Tech Companies Should Deploy Software Offerings That Are “Secure by Design”

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and a previous Wash100 awardee, said the current technology ecosystem has “become really unsafe” and tech companies should ensure that software offerings they release to market are free of vulnerabilities that can be exploited by threat actors, Yahoo Finance reported Friday.

She told the media property in an interview that companies should develop products that are “secure by design” and equip their software offerings come with default security settings.

Easterly also called on chief executives to adopt good corporate cyber responsibilities.

“Cyber is a social good,” the CISA director stated.

“It’s about societal resilience. And my last message is that we need to fundamentally change the relationship between government and industry,” she added.

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USMC to Move Forward With Medium-Range Intercept Capability Prototype Development
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USMC to Move Forward With Medium-Range Intercept Capability Prototype Development

The U.S. Marine Corps Milestone Decision Authority has approved the next-stage development of its prototype system designed to counter cruise missile threats, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

Based in some capacity on Israel’s Iron Dome interceptors, the Medium-Range Intercept Capability will undergo a certifying process and a quick reaction assessment to inform fielding of the air defense technology in early fiscal year 2025.

“A series of activities will take place during fiscal 2023, culminating with a quick reaction assessment… for the MRIC prototype, under the Middle Tier Acquisition Rapid Prototyping framework,” said Barbara Hamby, a spokesperson for the USMC Program Executive Officer Land Systems.

The decision to move forward with the MRIC development follows the conclusion of a series of three trials, including a live-fire test of the mobile launcher at the White Sands facility in New Mexico.

MRIC’s ability to continuously launch the Iron Dome interceptors to defend against adversarial missiles was showcased in the demonstration.

The MRIC prototype uses an air surveillance system, a common aviation command and control system and a mini battle management control system.

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L3Harris to Aid in Ukraine Assistance Under $40M DOD Contract; Luke Savoie Quoted
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L3Harris to Aid in Ukraine Assistance Under $40M DOD Contract; Luke Savoie Quoted

L3Harris has won a $40 million contract from the Department of Defense to supply 14 Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment multi-purpose weapons systems in support of Ukrainian defense activities.

The portable VAMPIRE systems ordered by the DOD are designed to deliver critical defense assets to aid the nation in impeding attacks on civilian infrastructure, L3Harris announced from Melbourne, Florida on Friday.

Luke Savoie, president of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at L3Harris, highlighted the efforts the company has made to ensure the timely production of the VAMPIRE kits.

“We’re committed to supporting a U.S. strategic partner with a robust capability, as the people of Ukraine continue to defend their country and protect their independence,” he emphasized.

Under the award, L3Harris is expected to equip U.S. government-provided vehicles with VAMPIRE kits for agile combat support to Ukraine.

Four of the systems are to be delivered by mid-2023, while the remaining 10 will be ready by the end of the year.

The VAMPIRE’s mission management platform incorporates a WESCAM MX-10 RSTA targeting sensor with its weapons station, which allows operators to swiftly and accurately engage targets.

Chosen specifically for use in Ukraine, the Advanced Precision Kill System rocket delivers increased lethality for engaging small or soft targets when coupled with L3Harris’ proximity fuse.

The VAMPIRE prototype was submitted to the DOD in April 2022 and was selected in August as part of the department’s $3 billion security assistance package under the Ukraine Security Assistance program.

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