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Raytheon Intelligence & Space Wins U.S. Army Contract for IFF Surveillance Capabilities; Denis Donohue Quoted
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Raytheon Intelligence & Space Wins U.S. Army Contract for IFF Surveillance Capabilities; Denis Donohue Quoted

The U.S. Army has tapped Raytheon Technologies’ intelligence and space business to improve its Mode 5 and ADS-B surveillance capabilities for use with the Army’s Identification Friend or Foe technologies. Work is expected to be completed in 2026.

As part of the potential five-year, $17.5 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, Raytheon Intelligence & Space will deliver a range of products and services including digital control panels, APX-119 transponders, KIV-77 crypto modules, personality modules, mounting trays and crypto simulators for the Army’s Foreign Military Sales platforms, the company said Monday.

Denis Donohue, vice president of communications and airspace management systems for Raytheon Intelligence & Space, said the contract allows the company to deliver “critical” surveillance capabilities to the military in their mission to strengthen national security.

“It is our priority to help ensure our nation’s warfighters are properly equipped with increased situational awareness and stronger security functions,” Donohue stated.

Raytheon’s work under the contract is expected to improve the Identification Friend or Foe’s ability to identify aircraft, vehicles or forces as friendly, neutral or enemy through its air traffic control interrogation systems.

Recently, Raytheon Intelligence & Space opened a new manufacturing facility in McKinney, Texas to foster accelerated business unit expansion, enhance agility and meet increased customer demand.

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Hermeus Unveils Full-Scale Autonomous High-Speed Aircraft Model
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Hermeus Unveils Full-Scale Autonomous High-Speed Aircraft Model

Venture-backed startup Hermeus revealed a full-scale prototype of its hypersonic aircraft to a group of people from the government and business sectors last week.

The Quarterhorse prototype unveiling event sought to highlight the company’s progress in developing hardware designed to support high-speed flight, Hermeus said Tuesday.

For the showcase, the company set the aircraft engine to full afterburner while in a static position.

Hermeus announced a $60 million award from the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX Strategic Funding Increase program in August to demonstrate Quarterhorse’s turbine-based combined cycle engine through a flight test.

The company based its proprietary TBCC engine on General Electric’s J85 turbojet.

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Jen Easterly: Hackers Could Back Cyber Defense Efforts
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Jen Easterly: Hackers Could Back Cyber Defense Efforts

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said she wants the community of private hackers to play a role and help strengthen U.S. cyber defense initiatives, Wired reported Wednesday.

“We want to ignite the power of hackers and researchers and academics because, at the end of the day, the world is full of vulnerabilities, and I feel the offense is dominating the defense,” Easterly told the publication in an interview.

“So I want to make sure we are tapping into the brilliance and the goodness of those communities to help us identify and close those vulnerabilities,” she added.

Easterly also highlighted the importance of having “adversarial empathy” to understand how threat actors operate and the need for the government to partner with the private sector to “create a common picture of the operating environment” and prepare for future attacks.

CISA issued Friday a Federal Register notice announcing the establishment of a new cybersecurity advisory committee that will offer recommendations with regard to the development and implementation of programs and policies in support of the agency’s mission.

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University-Affiliated Space Dynamics Lab Gets $1.3B in Sensor R&D Contracts From MDA, USAF
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University-Affiliated Space Dynamics Lab Gets $1.3B in Sensor R&D Contracts From MDA, USAF

Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), a nonprofit research unit of Utah State University, will explore sensor systems under a pair of contracts worth $1.31 billion combined from the U.S. Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

SDL will develop engineering support and capability for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s space vehicles directorate through the Space & Nuclear Advanced Prototypes, Experiments & Technology (SNAPET) program.

The five-year, $1.01 billion SNAPET contract will include system development and validation, modeling, simulation and data analysis work.

For the MDA contract, valued at $300 million over seven years, the university-affiliated research organization will develop and engineer sensors for space applications. Both awards use an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity type of procurement.

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PAWR Program Launches Wireless Testbed for Advanced Drone Research; Ismail Guvenc Quoted
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PAWR Program Launches Wireless Testbed for Advanced Drone Research; Ismail Guvenc Quoted

A National Science Foundation-funded initiative has announced the general availability of a wireless testbed for network communications and unmanned aerial systems experimentation.

The Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) Program Office said Tuesday that the Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless (AERPAW) testbed is now available for drone flight demonstration and software-defined radio experiments in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The testbed comprises two fixed network nodes deployed at North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus and a tower with a fixed node at Lake Wheeler Field Laboratory, along with two aerial-mounted nodes on custom drones and one mobile node on a ground-based rover.

“The AERPAW platform uniquely combines programmable wireless networking with custom drones to enable research into both airspace operations and wireless connectivity through 4G, 5G, and beyond,” said Ismail Guvenc, the testbed’s principal investigator and engineering professor at NC State.

The NSF-funded PAWR program, co-led by US Ignite and Northeastern University, also operates the POWDER testbed in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the COSMOS project in West Harlem, New York City.

It is working on a fourth testbed, dubbed ARA, in Ames, Iowa, for rural broadband connectivity.

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Navy Department Tests UAS for Resupply Applications; Cmdr. Seth Ervin Quoted
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Navy Department Tests UAS for Resupply Applications; Cmdr. Seth Ervin Quoted

The Department of Navy has tested and considers implementing unmanned aircraft systems that deliver supplies as needed in battlefield scenarios. 

The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps might adopt technologies demonstrated on Oct. 27th at Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s Webster Outlying Field, Naval Air Systems Command said Tuesday.

Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Four or UX-24 demonstrated the Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft System (TRUAS) and the Blue Water logistics UAS.

TRUAS is designed to resupply shore-based Marines with tactical equipment and consumables such as food. Blue Water is made to resupply naval troops or Sailors at sea.

Between the two, TRUAS has a heavier lift capacity of 150 pounds and Blue Water has a longer range, but can only carry up to 50 pounds of cargo.

“The demonstration highlighted the basic capability of the systems to operate autonomously, to have mission plans uploaded and to execute the flights with little to no input while they were in the air,” said Cmdr. Seth Ervin, chief test pilot at UX-24.

The U.S. Marine Corps will accept deliveries of the TRUAS, also known as TRV-150, in the summer of next year.

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Jacobs Adds AliveCor CEO Priya Abani to Board of Directors; Steve Demetriou Quoted
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Jacobs Adds AliveCor CEO Priya Abani to Board of Directors; Steve Demetriou Quoted

Priya Abani, CEO, president and board member of AliveCor Inc., has been elected to Jacobs’ Board of Directors.

Abani brings more than two decades of experience in developing entrepreneurial organizations, building strategic partnerships and scaling product innovation to her role at Jacobs as the company increases its focus on key areas including cyber, AI and climate response.  

Steve Demetriou, CEO and chair of Jacobs, welcomed Abani and noted that a “critical element” in the new appointee’s decision to join the board was her alignment with the company’s mission of creating a more connected and sustainable world.

He added, “Priya’s vast knowledge and experience in technology-driven and innovative solutions makes her a great addition to our board.” 

With the addition of Abani, Jacobs’ board of directors is now composed of 12 members, 58 percent of whom are female and ethnically diverse.

At AliveCor, an AI-enabled healthcare application and product company in the cardiology market, Abani leads accelerated revenue growth, expansion efforts and the development of strategic cross-industry partnerships.

Prior to joining AliveCor, Abani served as a founding member and general manager of Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service team, where she was responsible for leading product, engineering and development teams and driving product expansion.

Additionally, Abani’s philanthropic interests and activities include raising awareness for issues and causes such as women’s empowerment, poverty and children’s education.

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GSA Selects Box For Native E-Signature Capability; Aaron Levie Quoted
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GSA Selects Box For Native E-Signature Capability; Aaron Levie Quoted

Box has been selected to provide its Box Sign product through Systems Engineering Solutions Corporation (SES) as the native e-signature capability for the U.S. General Services Administration.

SES, a Greenbelt, Maryland-based IT consulting firm, will leverage its own components in tandem with Box Sign to deliver a secure, cloud-native document signing experience to the GSA and its partners.

Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box said this deal solidifies the GSA as a leader in federal government modernization efforts and will allow the agency to digitize paper-based workflows, enhance productivity and bolster security.

“We are proud to have the underlying technology behind Box Sign powering the GSA in its endeavors to bring agility to the way it operates,” Levie added.

The Box Sign e-signature tool is expected to optimize the GSA’s document, contract and business agreement signing process by improving the sender and signer experience, lowering security and compliance risks and ensuring rapid delivery of critical information.

This partnership continues the company’s history of collaboration with federal government organizations including NASA, the Department of Justice and the USDA Forest Service, among others.

Recently, Box was tapped to provide the U.S. Air Force with cloud content management services in support of the military branch’s electronic flight publication system.

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Lauren Knausenberger: DAF Pursues IT Modernization Based on 4 Pillars
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Lauren Knausenberger: DAF Pursues IT Modernization Based on 4 Pillars

Lauren Knausenberger, chief information officer at the Department of the Air Force and a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, said that DAF has a four-pronged plan to transform its information technology environment for both Air Force and Space Force missions.

Knausenberger told FedTech in an interview that the department seeks to incorporate zero trust, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, network and cloud elements into the digital foundation for the military’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control strategy.

JADC2 is the military’s concept of creating an integrated sensor network on the battlefield to inform commanders and their decisions.

In the interview, Knausenberger also noted that DAF is working to measure what affects the warfighter and further build its digital workforce through education as well as address outdated policy, redundant information technology and manual ­processes.

“The biggest game-changer that I hope to see us do over the next year is to get to one secret network. Being able to collapse into one operational environment and take advantage of modern technology in a faster way across our enterprise,” she said.

The DAF CIO also mentioned the department’s roadmap to guide the implementation of zero-trust security approaches and its enterprise strategy that covers automation and segmentation processes.

When asked about DAF’s use of DevSecOps, Knausenberger said the department uses the method in most of its software development efforts such as those led by the Kessel Run unit.

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DHS Wants to Know How Public Perceives Emerging Tech Applications
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DHS Wants to Know How Public Perceives Emerging Tech Applications

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to conduct a survey to understand public perception of facial recognition technology and other artificial intelligence applications. 

DHS said Friday in a Federal Register notice that it will accept written comments on the department’s information collection plan through Dec. 6th.

The department has adopted some AI-based tools to perform missions such as transportation security and border protection and noted that conducting perception research would help officials decide how to go forward with emerging technology development projects.

The notice of information collection comes more than two months after DHS’ science and technology directorate released a strategic plan to address AI-related opportunities and challenges for the department’s mission.

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