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Space Force Posts RFI for National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Program
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Space Force Posts RFI for National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Program

The U.S. Space Force has released a request for information on the capabilities of commercial launch service providers to send national security payloads to space starting in fiscal 2025.

The USSF’s Space Systems Command Launch Enterprise will accept comments from companies interested to compete for the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 contracts until Feb. 24th, according to the RFI on SAM.gov.

SSC/LE is interested in information such as the availability of launch capabilities, the concept of operations, business case analysis and alternate approaches to inform the Phase 3 acquisition strategy.

The service branch’s ongoing market research follows an industry day held on Aug. 17th. United Launch Alliance and SpaceX currently provide launch services under Phase 2 contracts that are expected to end in fiscal 2027.

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Army Launches New Supercomputing Research Center Facilities in Mississippi
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Army Launches New Supercomputing Research Center Facilities in Mississippi

The U.S. Army’s Engineer Research and Development Center has opened a pair of new facilities for the Supercomputing Research Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The facilities provide 10,000 square feet of space for large-scale supercomputers and will house one of the five DOD Supercomputing Resource Centers, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Jan. 24th.

ERDC’s Information Technology Lab administered a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new facilities on Jan. 20th. The facilities also feature a technology made by Entergy to provide backup power via natural gas generators.

“The Supercomputing Research Center has long been a source of groundbreaking research and innovative problem solving within ERDC, and I have no doubt this new facility will only amplify that,” said David Horner, director of ITL.

SRC offers high-performance computing resources to address the Department of Defense’s challenges. The government allotted funds for the new facilities in 2018.

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FCC Appoints New Bureau Chiefs, General Counsel; Jessica Rosenworcel Quoted
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FCC Appoints New Bureau Chiefs, General Counsel; Jessica Rosenworcel Quoted

The Federal Communications Commission has made five appointments that determine the leadership of four bureaus and the FCC’s legal functions.

Alejandro Roark, formerly the executive director of HTTP, will serve as chief of FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, the commission said Monday. HTTP is a CEO roundtable of national Latino civil rights organizations working to promote technology access and adoption across U.S. Latino communities.

Debra Jordan, deputy chief of FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, has been promoted to serve as the same bureau’s chief. She has represented the commission in efforts that tackle cybersecurity, national security and supply chain risk management.

Jordan also served with Naval Facilities Engineering Command as command information officer.

Holly Saurer, who has served as the FCC chairwoman’s legal adviser for media, will return to the commission’s media bureau to serve as chief. She held various roles at the bureau including deputy bureau chief and senior legal adviser.

Loyaan Egal, formerly the deputy chief at the foreign investment review section within the Department of Justice’s national security division, will serve as chief of FCC’s Enforcement Bureau on an acting basis. Egal returns to the bureau, where he previously led what is now known as the fraud division.

Lastly, Michele Ellison will become FCC’s full-time general counsel, following her tenure as acting general counsel over the past year. She has advised on policy tackling national security, broadband data and 5G.

“Ensuring modern communications reach every corner of the country isn’t possible without the
leadership of incredible, capable experts throughout the Commission,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC’s chairwoman.

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Navy’s Future USS Fort Lauderdale Now Ready for Delivery Following Acceptance Trials
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Navy’s Future USS Fort Lauderdale Now Ready for Delivery Following Acceptance Trials

A new Huntington Ingalls Industries-built San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship demonstrated its construction quality and compliance with U.S. Navy requirements during recently completed acceptance trials.

The milestone now allows the shipbuilding contractor to prepare the future USS Fort Lauderdale for delivery to the service branch in the following weeks, the Naval Sea Systems Command said Monday.

Once in service, LPD 28 will become the Navy’s 12th San Antonio-class vessel and will support amphibious assault, special operations, expeditionary warfare and disaster relief missions by transporting servicemen and military equipment.

“With the completion of both Builder’s and Acceptance trials, we are confident that LPD 28 has proven the operational readiness of the vessel and the capabilities it will soon bring to the fleet,” shared Capt. Cedric McNeal, a program manager within the Navy’s Amphibious Warfare Program Office.

Aside from LPD 28, Huntington Ingalls, through its Ingalls Shipbuilding division, is currently working on the next two Navy transport vessels with a third one to start in spring.

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Lawrence Wong Added as Veritas Technologies SVP and Chief Strategy Officer; CEO Greg Hughes Quoted
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Lawrence Wong Added as Veritas Technologies SVP and Chief Strategy Officer; CEO Greg Hughes Quoted

Lawrence Wong, a former Accenture exec, has been named senior vice president and chief strategy officer of Veritas Technologies.

The role will entail Wong creating and implementing a cloud strategy to build on Veritas’ growth and acquisitions, the Santa Clara, California-based enterprise data management company said Tuesday.

“The enterprise is looking for guidance on how to navigate today’s digitally complex world, and the need for a trusted partner to help them on their journey to the cloud is more important than ever,” said Greg Hughes, chief executive officer at Veritas.

Wong’s position is a new creation and expects him to work in collaboration with the company’s leadership. He will report to Hughes.

At Accenture, Wong helmed the U.S. west cloud first business as managing director and member of the global leadership council. He specialized in helping customers migrate data and business plans to the cloud.

Additionally, Wong has leadership experience at McKinsey & Company, Hewlett Packard and a number of startup software companies. The appointment of Wong follows Veritas’ installment of four public sector advisory board members in October 2021.

Wong believes he is well suited to help Veritas and its customers address some of the most pressing problems facing tech-adjacent businesses, such as “operating in increasingly fragmented and complex multi-cloud environments with unprecedented data growth.”

The new board members are intended to assist the company in ensuring they’re meeting cybersecurity and data protection needs, guidance that Wong will no doubt take into account in his new role.

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Vectrus Converged Environment Expands to Support DoD Readiness, Modernization Efforts; Corinne Minton-Package Quoted
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Vectrus Converged Environment Expands to Support DoD Readiness, Modernization Efforts; Corinne Minton-Package Quoted

Vectrus announced on Tuesday that the company has expanded its Converged Environment service offering in order to address the most significant installation management challenges with the Department of Defense (DoD).

“Our Converged Environment offering meets the demands of the military while promoting cost savings, increased security, and more strategic use of resources — and rapidly enabling critical data-driven decision-making for our customers,” said Corinne Minton-Package, senior vice president of Systems and Technology at Vectrus.

Vectrus’ Converged Environment expands the company’s existing Converged Infrastructure offering to create and implement technology solutions and operational efficiencies by integrating all aspects of physical and digital infrastructure.

As a result, the Converged Environment improves performance and reduces costs across communications, assets, logistics, supply chains, acquisition, cyber as well as physical security, facilities and operational processes.

“Unlike traditional solutions, the Vectrus approach exists at the intersection of technology, security, and assets, making us uniquely positioned to unlock the benefits that come with integration,” Minton-Package explained.

The Converged Environment approach has been integrated for the Naval Base Coronado in San Diego. Vectrus has implemented technology solutions and applications for a “warehouse of the future” as the prime contractor for the base. The smart warehouse will improve efficiency, security, and safety of material across supply handling, management, storage and distribution.

“We are proud of this investment and are committed to developing tailored solutions to meet the DoD’s modernization objectives through the deployment of Vectrus Converged Environments,” Minton-Package added.

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Cubic’s Scott Rosebush Talks Acquisition Agility, Accelerating Innovation With Potomac Officers Club
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Cubic’s Scott Rosebush Talks Acquisition Agility, Accelerating Innovation With Potomac Officers Club

Scott Rosebush, senior program director for Cubic Mission and Performance Solutions, was featured recently in an Executive Spotlight interview with the Potomac Officers Club to share his goals in the federal landscape, his notable career achievements and his strategies for transforming government acquisitions to foster agility and speed. 

Rosebush is an aerospace and defense industry veteran with experience across systems engineering, communications and signals intelligence and cybersecurity for companies including Northrop Grumman, SAIC and TASC. 

In this excerpt from his interview, Rosebush speaks on one of the most urgent challenges facing federal innovation today as adversarial capabilities continue to advance:

“From my perspective, one of the biggest challenges of embracing emerging technology in the federal government space is adjusting from traditional acquisition practices to something more agile and rapid. When you look at recent technological advances like shrinking satellite build-and-deploy lifecycles from decades to months and eliminating the lengthy accreditation approvals for technical refreshes for software using techniques like Continuous Approval to Operate (cATO), our acquisition processes simply weren’t designed to accommodate those changes. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that our adversaries have become increasingly nimble. So in some cases, we don’t just need to speed up acquisition by 10 or 20 percent, we need to multiply our acquisition velocity by 10 or 20 times.” 

To read the full Executive Spotlight Interview with Cubic’s Scott Rosebush, visit PotomacOfficersClub.com, where you can read more interviews with notable GovCon executives and learn more about the platform’s membership benefits and options.

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ManTech Lands $118M Navy Contract to Offer ISR Support to Unmanned Aircrafts; EVP David Hathaway Quoted
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ManTech Lands $118M Navy Contract to Offer ISR Support to Unmanned Aircrafts; EVP David Hathaway Quoted

Information technology company ManTech has won a five-year, $118 million contract from the U.S. Navy to apply their technological services to unmanned aircraft systems.

The contract is offered by the Naval Surface Warfare Center and expects ManTech to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in aircraft systems such as the MQ-4C Triton, the company announced Tuesday.

“Under this important recompete win, our aim is to ensure battle-space dominance at speed across the full range of combat scenarios,” said David Hathaway, executive vice president and general manager of ManTech’s defense sector.

Hathaway also emphasized intelligent systems engineering as a key proficiency in ManTech’s toolbox.

NSWC’s contract will see ManTech employing model-based systems engineering alongside the company’s cyber range environment, ACRE. ManTech’s work will also utilize electro-optical infrared sensors that bolster vision in any light condition.

The project comes as part of the Department of Defense Information Analysis Center’s multiple award contract vehicle.

It arrives on the heels of an $88 million task order under which ManTech is providing test and evaluation support to Navy weapons and combat systems. That contract is also a product of the Naval Surface Warfare Center and was announced in January 2022.

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SBA Announces February Deadline for Targeted EIDL Advance Program Reevaluation Requests
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SBA Announces February Deadline for Targeted EIDL Advance Program Reevaluation Requests

The Small Business Administration has announced that small businesses that were declined for the Targeted Economic Injury Disaster Loan Advance program can submit requests for reevaluation.

The Targeted EIDL Advance program was introduced to provide additional financial help to small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and provides applicants up to $10,000 in funding that does not need to be repaid, SBA said Tuesday.

Applicants should be located in a low-income community, have 300 or fewer employees and can demonstrate a reduction of more than 30 percent in revenue during an eight-week period starting on March 2, 2020, or later.

Submissions of reassessment requests are due Feb. 15th. Under the current administration, the Targeted Advance program has distributed approximately $5 billion to nearly 600,000 small businesses, especially those in underserved communities.

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Experts Share Insights on New Cybersecurity Questions in FY 2022 CIO FISMA Metrics
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Experts Share Insights on New Cybersecurity Questions in FY 2022 CIO FISMA Metrics

Cybersecurity experts shared their thoughts on new questions and items outlined in fiscal year 2022 chief information officer metrics, including the document’s increased focus on multifactor authentication and encryption, Federal News Network reported Monday.

In December, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency released the FY 2022 CIO metrics to assess agencies’ efforts to improve their cybersecurity posture under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014.

Grant Schneider, senior director of cybersecurity services at Venable and former federal chief information security officer, acknowledged the document’s emphasis on MFA methods that are resistant to phishing.

“If I were to consult with an organization, and they could only do one thing, that would be the thing,” he said of phishing-resistant MFA. “Encryption is also really important, being able to be sure that your information is secure while it’s inside the environment.”

Chris DeRusha, federal chief information security officer and a previous Wash100 Award winner, said penetration testing, blue teaming, vulnerability disclosure programs and other new items in the FY 22 metrics are “getting to a greater focus on capabilities that are leading to observable security outcomes.”

“We need to make sure that we’re emphasizing the growth of these capabilities,” said DeRusha. “And that’s a lot of what the metrics are doing is first taking a temperature of where agencies actually at with those so we can understand what we may need to do as interventions to help them support the build out of this capabilities.

The metrics in the document have been updated to reflect some of the priorities and requirements outlined in the cybersecurity executive order released in May 2021. Meanwhile, House lawmakers recently introduced a bipartisan bill to update FISMA as part of efforts to improve the federal government’s defenses against cyberattacks.

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