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General Radar Corporation Receives Profitable Series A Funding; CEO Dmitry Turbiner Quoted
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General Radar Corporation Receives Profitable Series A Funding; CEO Dmitry Turbiner Quoted

3D radar system manufacturer General Radar Corporation has secured a Series A funding round of $22 million, headed up by Octave Ventures.

Building on a $3.4 million seed round from Kleiner Perkins, the Series A round also featured contributions from Disruptive Technology Advisors and Perkins, the Menlo Park, California-based company said Wednesday.

Dmitry Turbiner, CEO and founder of General Radar, extended gratitude to the organization’s investors, clients and employees and asserted that General Radar’s products have the potential to alter and strengthen the populace’s relationships to the environment, natural resources and national security.

General Radar primarily partners with clientele in the aerospace and defense, wind energy, autonomy and weather markets. Their high-resolution 3D imaging radars are designed for autonomous systems and their team has focused on the development of solid-state AESA antennas as well as imaging and selecting targets by way of arbitrary waveforms and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive, expressed support for General Radar’s team’s mission and “innovations.” He feels that the company’s discoveries and services will assist the U.S. and its allies in combating national security challenges, the sophistication of which is always evolving in the 21st century.

“The innovations [General Radar] is bringing to market will significantly enhance the capabilities and reduce the cost of aerospace radar, while also opening up an exciting range of new commercial applications. We believe that General Radar is a company with a very compelling future,” commented Michael Kim, CEO and founder of Octave Ventures.

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Charles River Analytics Develops Machine Learning-Based Navy Ship Intelligence Systems Monitoring Tools
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Charles River Analytics Develops Machine Learning-Based Navy Ship Intelligence Systems Monitoring Tools

Charles River Analytics is using machine learning to develop tools for monitoring and analyzing signals intelligence systems data to identify critical system faults under a U.S. Navy-funded program.

CRA said Tuesday the Distributed Analysis Tool for Enterprise Monitoring platform monitors and analyzes the condition of software or hardware systems and sends the results in human-readable formats and recommends mitigation measures.

The first development under the DATEM program is a fault localization capability, dubbed Cable Calibration Tool, that identifies faults in the Ship’s Signal Exploitation Equipment signal chain. The CCT has been proven to work with a 91 percent rate of detection and is now used by the Navy.

CRA engineers are developing another DATEM capability called the Rapid Analysis Dashboard, which will provide a unified view of data from various Navy sources to enable rapid analysis of supply and demand for parts.

The Navy has invested a total of approximately $2.4 million in DATEM for the past six years.

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Former AFRL Official Kelly Hammett Takes Over as Space RCO Director
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Former AFRL Official Kelly Hammett Takes Over as Space RCO Director

Kelly Hammett, former head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate, has assumed the role of director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Hammett worked on directed energy programs, including the development of high-power microwave and electro-optic systems, during his more than 20-year career at AFRL, the laboratory said Monday.

As director of the directed energy directorate, Hammett was responsible for managing more than 1,200 military and civilian personnel and on-site contractors and an annual budget of $355 million.

He previously served as the chief engineer of AFRL for four years and oversaw various projects including the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing site, dubbed AMOS, and the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, known as CHAMP.

Hammett also played a key role in the development and deployment of three Raytheon High Energy Laser Weapon Systems and the AFRL Tactical High Power Operational Responder system to overseas locations.

His new office, the Space RCO, serves as the space technology procurement agency for the U.S. Space Force.

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KBR Inks Agreement to Buy Digital, IT Company VIMA Group; CEO Stuart Bradie Quoted
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KBR Inks Agreement to Buy Digital, IT Company VIMA Group; CEO Stuart Bradie Quoted

Defense contractor KBR has purchased digital transformation company VIMA Group for a potential sum of GBP £75 million.

The UK-based VIMA Group’s addition to KBR’s portfolio is intended to deepen the latter organization’s offerings in digital and information technology services for defense sector clients, the company said Wednesday.

Stuart Bradie, CEO and president of KBR, welcomed VIMA to the KBR umbrella and said the acquisition also contributes to the company’s worldwide advisory, consulting and transformation capabilities.

Bradie added that the buy “accelerates our strategy to invest in the skills of the future that will deliver growth and value creation for years to come.”

The definitively agreed upon acquisition price is inclusive of earn-out opportunities. VIMA Group’s services are regularly contracted by entities that operate out of the UK Ministry of Defense such as Defence Digital and Navy Digital. The latter organizations are using the kinds of digital and IT services offered by VIMA Group to grow and keep pace with modern technological advancements.

KBR’s acquisition of VIMA comes on the heels of the company’s $100 million investment in Mura Technology earlier this month. Their funds were provided for Mura’s plastics recycling initiatives and are aimed to further KBR’s interest in aiding sustainability measures.

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CBO Projects Federal Budget Deficit of $1T, Revenue to Hit 19.6% of GDP in 2022
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CBO Projects Federal Budget Deficit of $1T, Revenue to Hit 19.6% of GDP in 2022

The Congressional Budget Office projects $1 trillion in federal budget deficit in 2022 and expects federal debt held by the public to fall to 96 percent of gross domestic product by 2023 and then increase following that year, hitting 110 percent over the next decade.

CBO said Tuesday it expects outlays to average 23 percent of GDP over the next 10 years, deficit to rise to 6.1 percent of GDP by 2032 and total revenues to hit 19.6 percent of GDP in 2022, which reflects the highest level in 20 years. 

According to the agency, revenues are projected to stay above the five-decade average of 17.3 percent of GDP throughout the next 10 years.

CBO noted that unemployment rate averages 3.8 percent in 2022, real GDP increases by 3.1 percent and the price index for personal consumption expenditures rises by 4 percent this year.

According to the report, the projected 10-year deficit in CBO’s May 2022 baseline was $14.5 trillion, up $2.4 trillion from the agency’s baseline projections in July 2021.

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GAO Offers Recommendations to DOD on Managing Major IT Business Programs
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GAO Offers Recommendations to DOD on Managing Major IT Business Programs

The Government Accountability Office assessed the performance of 25 major information technology business programs of the Department of Defense and found that 19 of these programs did not fully report their progress on their operational performance.

GAO recommended that DOD ensure major IT programs report operational performance measures and related data to the federal IT dashboard, according to a report published Tuesday.

Of the 25 programs, the congressional watchdog found that officials for 15 of the programs said they have an approved cybersecurity strategy and provided a copy of that strategy.

While 10 of the programs reported having system security plans in place to manage supply chain risks facing information and communications technology, the other 15 programs did not show that they had ICT supply chain risk management plans.

“Until DOD ensures that these programs have such plans, they are less likely to be able to manage supply chain risks and mitigate threats that could disrupt operations,” the GAO report reads.

According to the report, four programs represented over half of DOD’s budget for major IT business systems in fiscal year 2022 and these are the department’s Healthcare Management System Modernization, Navy Enterprise Resource Planning, General Fund Enterprise Business System and Global Combat Support System-Army.

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Army Lt. Gen. Bryan Fenton Eyed as Next Special Operations Command Lead
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Army Lt. Gen. Bryan Fenton Eyed as Next Special Operations Command Lead

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Bryan Fenton has received a nomination from President Joe Biden to serve as commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in, Florida.

Fenton is also eyed for appointment to the rank of general, according to Lloyd Austin, secretary of the Department of Defense and a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient. The announcement was made on Monday.

The Army lieutenant general is the current commander of the Joint Special Operations Command and JSOC Forward, SOCOM.

He was commissioned as an Army infantry officer in May 1987 and has, since then, served with European Command, Southern Command, Africa Command and other combatant commands. His career also includes time participating in Operations Joint Forge, Bosnia; Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan/Africa; Iraqi Freedom and Odyssey Dawn, Libya.

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House Panel Unveils $762B Defense Funding Bill for FY 2023
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House Panel Unveils $762B Defense Funding Bill for FY 2023

The House Appropriations Committee has released a draft bill that would allocate $761.7 billion in defense funding for fiscal year 2023, reflecting an increase of $32.2 billion from the FY 2022 enacted funding level.

The defense funding bill would appropriate $173.1 billion for military personnel; $269.3 billion for operation and maintenance; $131.7 billion for research, development, test and evaluation; and $143.9 billion for procurement, the House panel said Tuesday.

Under the bill’s procurement section, the measure would earmark $27.8 billion for the purchase of eight Navy ships, $7.2 billion for 61 F-35 fighter jets, $1.5 billion for B-21 Raider procurement and $2.7 billion for the acquisition of 15 KC-46 tankers.

The draft legislation would provide $1.7 billion for the U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance program and $1.1 billion for the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift program.

The bill also includes security assistance to Ukraine, $2.5 billion in investments in climate adaptation efforts and clean energy technologies and a requirement for contractors to pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour.

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DHS Incorporates Cybersecurity Principles Into Positioning, Timing & Navigation Tech Guide
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DHS Incorporates Cybersecurity Principles Into Positioning, Timing & Navigation Tech Guide

The Department of Homeland Security has released a document meant to help companies design positioning, navigation and timing systems with cybersecurity features such as zero trust.

DHS’ science and technology directorate said Monday the PNT Reference Architecture guide includes application examples involving system resilience approaches and is a continuation of version 2.0 of the Resilient PNT Conformance Framework.

Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, acting undersecretary for DHS S&T, noted that global positioning systems and other PNT-based services have multiple applications across the critical infrastructure sector.

For example, timing information from GPS plays a critical role in telecommunications and is used for network synchronization. It is also used for certain protective functions in the power grid,” she added.

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April Doss Rejoins NSA as General Counsel
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April Doss Rejoins NSA as General Counsel

April Doss, who previously worked for the National Security Agency between 2003 and 2016, has returned to NSA to serve as its general counsel, according to her LinkedIn post. 

Her initial 13-year NSA career included work across information sharing initiatives, operational programs and technology innovation efforts. 

Doss held the position of associate general counsel for intelligence law before she left the agency in April 2016. She then accepted a partner role at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr and chaired the law firm’s cybersecurity and privacy practice.

Prior to rejoining NSA, Doss served as executive director at the university-affiliated Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy. She also had teaching stints at the law schools of Georgetown University, University of Maryland.

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