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SBA Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rule for Employee-Based Small Business Size Standards
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SBA Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rule for Employee-Based Small Business Size Standards

The Small Business Administration is proposing an update to employee-based size standards across nine sectors under the North American Industrial Classification System and is seeking public comment on the rule change.

The proposal, published Tuesday on the Federal Register site, includes the manufacturing, transportation, information and professional, scientific and technical services sectors.

SBA intends to increase 150 size standards based on the number of employees in a move to expand eligibility for smaller companies that want to participate in the agency’s contracting and loan programs.

The public comment period is open through June 27th. Earlier this month, the agency released four final rules that increase 229 revenue-based size standards in 16 industrial sectors.

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CISA Names Bob Lord as Senior Technical Adviser; Director Jen Easterly Quoted
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CISA Names Bob Lord as Senior Technical Adviser; Director Jen Easterly Quoted

Bob Lord, who served as the first chief security officer at the Democratic National Committee, will join the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as a senior technical adviser within CISA’s cybersecurity division.

“Bob’s decades of experience and unparalleled expertise will be a great asset as we further strengthen our community partnerships, expand the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, and continue our work as the nation’s cyber defense agency to make us more resilient,” Jen Easterly, director of CISA and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, said in a statement published Monday.

Lord previously served as chief information security officer at Yahoo and CISO-in-residence at Rapid 7. He also worked at Twitter as head of the social networking service’s information security program.

“As we face a pivotal moment in time for cybersecurity, I’m thrilled to contribute my experience to support CISA’s efforts to reduce risk to critical infrastructure, strengthen its collaboration with industry and make basic cyber practices accessible to all Americans,” Lord said.

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DHS Finishes First Phase of Bug Bounty Program; Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted
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DHS Finishes First Phase of Bug Bounty Program; Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted

The Department of Homeland Security has concluded the first phase of its inaugural Hack DHS bug bounty program, with $125,600 in prizes awarded to successful cybersecurity researchers.

The DHS said Friday 450 participating ethical hackers identified 122 cybersecurity vulnerabilities within select external agency systems, with 27 considered by officials as critical weaknesses.

The second phase of Hack DHS will focus on in-person hacking while the third and final phase will involve informing future bug bounty programs.

Launched in December, the three-phase Hack DHS is designed to provide a template other organizations can use for improving their respective cybersecurity resilience.

“Hack DHS underscores our Department’s commitment to lead by example and protect our nation’s networks and infrastructure from evolving cybersecurity threats,” explained DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a previous Wash100 Award winner.

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AT&T Receives 11 Year EIS Task Order to Modernize Army National Guard Command and Control Network; Lance Spencer Quoted
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AT&T Receives 11 Year EIS Task Order to Modernize Army National Guard Command and Control Network; Lance Spencer Quoted

AT&T announced on Tuesday that the company has been awarded a potential 11-year, $15 million task order from DISA’s Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization to help modernize GuardNet. The task order was awarded through the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract.

“We’re bringing the right solution at the right time to modernize GuardNet,” said Lance Spencer, client executive vice president of Defense for AT&T Public Sector and FirstNet. “These are  critical networking services that can help the Army National Guard improve mission readiness and delivery.”

GuardNet provides the Army National Guard leadership with command and control capabilities across GuardNet sites in 50 U.S. states and four U.S. territories. The network allows Army National Guard soldiers to access the  Internet, connect with other networks and databases, and support training and mission planning and execution.

Under the task order, AT&T expects to deliver virtual private networking services to support the Army National Guard’s remote training services and provide the Department of Defense with high-speed, highly secure cloud connectivity.

GuardNet has grown into one of the largest, single-accredited networks for DoD with more than 124,000 users spread across 11-time zone, which includes 54 joint forces headquarters and another 2,312 locations geographically separated across the globe.

The Army National Guard helps communities recover from natural disasters, pandemics and civil disturbances, and has been doing so for nearly four centuries. Combining civilian acquired skills and experiences with their combat training, Army National Guard soldiers bring rich and unique capabilities to the joint force.

Where can I find more information? Go here for more information about AT&T’s work in the public sector. For more information about the Army National Guard, please click here.

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Rancher Government Solutions Receives STIG Validation From DISA; CEO Lynne Chamberlain Quoted
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Rancher Government Solutions Receives STIG Validation From DISA; CEO Lynne Chamberlain Quoted

Rancher Government Solutions (RGS) announced on Monday that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has published and validated the Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for the Rancher Multi-cluster Manager version 2.6 (MCM) for Kubernetes.

“This announcement by DISA validates Rancher Government Solutions’ dedication, commitment and investment into ensuring that the open-source products we support meet the highest security standards of the DoD and IC,” said Lynne Chamberlain, president and CEO of Rancher Government Solutions.

As the popularity of containerized applications continues to rise, the Rancher MCM is the world’s most popular Kubernetes Management Platform, which has been downloaded more than 100 million times with over 46,000 installations across 4 million Kubernetes Pods worldwide.

The Rancher MCM lets DoD IT teams streamline cluster deployment on bare metal, private clouds, public clouds, vSphere and at the edge. It addresses the operational and security challenges of managing multiple Kubernetes clusters across any infrastructure while providing DevOps teams with integrated tools for running containerized workloads.

“This reinforces our commitment to supporting our government and DoD clients with a security-first mentality to meet the national security challenges of the future,” Lynne Chamberlain added.

The STIG validation allows the U.S. Government and specifically Department of Defense (DoD) military agencies to deploy and use the Rancher MCM 2.6 on DoD network systems as well as enables RGS to work with DISA to quickly validate and publish STIGs for major new releases of the platform.

The Rancher MCM is the only Kubernetes management platform to receive such a designation.

About Rancher Government Solutions

Rancher Government Solutions, a SUSE company, is specifically designed to address the unique security and operational needs of the U.S. Government and military as it relates to application modernization, containers and Kubernetes.

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Axiom Space Completes 1st Private Astronaut Mission to ISS; Bill Nelson Quoted
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Axiom Space Completes 1st Private Astronaut Mission to ISS; Bill Nelson Quoted

Four Axiom Space astronauts have completed their science experiments and technology demonstrations at the International Space Station, marking the conclusion of the first private astronaut mission to the low Earth orbit laboratory.

NASA said Monday the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying the Axiom Mission 1 crew returned to Earth via a splashdown off the Florida coast.

The mission lasted for 17 days, 15 of which were spent in orbit testing station air purifier, researching cancer cells and conducting other scientific studies. Ax-1 was aimed at demonstrating the ability of industry, specifically Axiom Space, to perform research through ISS integration.

Astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria, Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy underwent post-flight studies to determine spaceflight effects on the human body.

Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, attributed the completion of the first private astronaut mission to ISS to the collaboration between the space agency and the private industry.

“[AX-1] is an important step in opening opportunities for space travelers and achieving NASA’s goal of enabling commercial business off the planet in low-Earth orbit,” he said.

More Axiom missions to the ISS are planned for future dates in support of the development of a commercial space station meant to function as a global academic and commercial hub.

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DOE to Establish National Grid Energy Storage Research Hub in Washington State
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DOE to Establish National Grid Energy Storage Research Hub in Washington State

The Department of Energy held a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for a grid energy storage research and development facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.

DOE said it expects the Grid Storage Launchpad to be fully operational in 2025 for scientists to experiment with new materials, components and technology prototypes intended to store electric power.

The $75 million project received investments from the state government, PNNL and the lab’s management contractor Battelle.

“Energy storage is a critical step on the path to getting more renewable power on the system, supporting a growing fleet of electric vehicles, making our grid more reliable, and securing our clean energy future. Breakthroughs at this exciting facility will help provide clean, affordable, and resilient energy to everyone, everywhere, anytime,” said Gil Bindewald, acting principal deputy assistant secretary in the DOE Office of Electricity.

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USSF Links Space Surveillance Radar System to Sensor Data Management Platform
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USSF Links Space Surveillance Radar System to Sensor Data Management Platform

The U.S. Space Force has implemented a data ingestion capability that connects the service branch’s content management platform to a ground-based surveillance radar used to detect and track objects in space.

USSF said Friday its Unified Data Library now includes data observed through the Space Fence on Kwajalein Island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Space Systems Command demonstrated the direct sensor connection process over a 30-day test period that concluded on April 5th.

The capability represents the first direct link between UDL and the Department of Defense’s Space Surveillance Network, which comprises ground and space-based sensors deployed worldwide.

Colorado-based technology company Bluestaq helped USSF develop the cloud-based UDL to collect, process and disseminate data products from the government, commercial and academic sectors.

Lockheed Martin-built and installed the Space Fence under a $914.7 million contract the U.S. Air Force awarded in 2014.

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Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Acquisition Best Practices, Space Capabilities
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Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Acquisition Best Practices, Space Capabilities

Frank Kendall, secretary of the Air Force and a three-time Wash100 Award winner, said he is reinstituting certain best practices for acquisition he had introduced under the Better Buying 2.0 initiative.

Kendall told Government Matters in an interview published Sunday that one of the best practices is to “ensure that the programs are structured to deliver meaningful capability as soon as possible.”

“A lot of programs were structured in the last few years to provide early-stage prototypes within a certain period of time but not actually to deliver real capability so where I am looking at a number of these programs, Andrew Hunter who is coming in as my acquisition executive will be looking at those programs to make sure they’re really structured to get capability in the hands of operators,” he added.

Kendall said the service considers space as a high priority and that the joint force relies on capabilities in space to support operations.

He noted that China is a pacing challenge and is a major driver of the budget request for fiscal year 2023. Kendall also shared his insights on hypersonic weapons and the Next Generation Air Dominance program.

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Tonya Wilkerson: NGA Works With Non-Federal Entities to Nurture STEM, GEOINT Talent Pipelines
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Tonya Wilkerson: NGA Works With Non-Federal Entities to Nurture STEM, GEOINT Talent Pipelines

Tonya Wilkerson, deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient, said at a recent symposium that NGA partnered with non-federal entities to develop future science, technology, engineering and math and professionals who can support the agency’s GEOINT mission.

“Specifically, NGA has worked to become more involved at the university level in the growth of STEM-based
curriculum development, with an end goal of increasing our geospatial-trained talent pool in our college-aged students,” Wilkerson told an audience at the 2022 GEOINT Symposium Sunday.

She said the agency entered into education partnership agreements with the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Harris-Stowe State University to increase STEM education opportunities for students in the region.

NGA also works with companies and universities to facilitate research and development projects as another avenue for expanding the GEOINT workforce, according to the agency’s deputy director.

Wilkerson noted that the partnerships use cooperative R&D agreements, also known as CRADA.

“It’s a superb example of a collaboration that also works to build a region-specific pipeline for future GEOINT analysts, imagery analysts, data scientists, geodesy scientists, and all kinds of other STEM experts we need,” she added.

Tonya Wilkerson: NGA Works With Non-Federal Entities to Nurture STEM, GEOINT Talent Pipelines

 

Tonya Wilkerson and other Intelligence Community leaders are scheduled to speak at GovCon Wire’s 2nd Annual IC Acquisition and Technology Innovation Summit. Register for the May 4 event via the GovCon Wire Events page.

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