The Aerospace Corp. has secured a potential $600,000 NASA grant to develop Brane Craft — a 1-meter square spacecraft that could envelop space debris and remove them from Earth’s orbit. The nonprofit said Monday Brane Craft was among the 13 concepts that the agency selected for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program which aims to foster the creation of new […] More

Greg Bury, former director of business development at Gas Liquids Engineering, has joined Huntington Ingalls Industries subsidiary UniversalPegasus International as vice president of business development for the unit’s Canadian operations. He will report directly to UPI President Philip Luna and bring more than 30 years of business development experience to his new position, HII said Tuesday. […] More

Lockheed Martin is looking into alternative uses for a habitat module it is developing for NASA‘s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships program focused on research-and-development projects to identify new technologies, Space News reported Wednesday. Bill Pratt, NextSTEP program manager at Lockheed, told the publicaiton its cislunar habitat could be used to support other countries and companies that are looking to embark […] More

Space Systems/Loral will work with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to conduct design studies on a spacecraft for potential use in JPL’s Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission. The ARRM spacecraft will be built to land on an asteroid, extract a boulder, and redirect it into a lunar orbit in preparation for astronauts to visit in the 2020s, the company said Thursday. NASA intends to use the […] More

Decision Lens has received agency authorization under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program for its cloud-based software. The company said Wednesday it obtained the FedRAMP certification through sponsorship from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Decision Lens’ Software-as-a-Service platform is deployed in a public cloud environment and works to help government and commercial clients analyze, prioritize […] More

A team of Lockheed Martin and NASA engineers has placed a company-built Orion crew module on a “birdcage” assembly platform at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Lockheed said Wednesday the 2,700-pound module for the Exploration Mission-1 will undergo proof-pressure and structural tests at the facility before engineers integrate it with other components of the Orion spacecraft. The […] More

NASA plans to send the Orion unmanned spacecraft and 13 CubeSats to deep space onboard the Boeing-built Space Launch System in 2018. “The 13 CubeSats that will fly to deep space as secondary payloads aboard SLS on [Exploration Mission-1] showcase the intersection of science and technology, and advance our journey to Mars,” Dava Newman, NASA’s […] More

IBM has completed upgrade work on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s supercomputing systems intended for weather and climate forecasts under a $44.5 million contract. The company worked to increase the operational computing capacity of the Luna and Surge supercomputers from 776 teraflops to 2.89 petaflops each, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. “The faster runs and better spatial […] More

Glen Sharlun, formerly a federal sales executive at ArcSight and Hewlett-Packard, has joined Authentic8, provider of the cloud-based browser Silo, as head of federal operations. Sharlun’s appointment is part of the company’s efforts to expand into the federal market, Authentic8 said Thursday. “Government employees, perhaps more than employees of commercial enterprises, need a completely secure […] More

Lockheed Martin will move forward with the full-scale fabrication phase of its Orion spacecraft for NASA‘s Exploration Mission-1 as the agency and company have reported most of a critical design review as complete. “The vast majority of Orion’s design is over, and now we will only change things when new requirements come into play,” Michael Hawes, a […] More

FCi Federal has received a $1 million contract to evaluate the Department of Health and Human Services’ compliance status under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. FCi will perform the HIPAA audits in partnership with Lunarline for the HHS’ civil rights office for 18 months, FCi said Tuesday. “We are excited to apply our unparalleled support services […] More

Harkins Contracting has been awarded a $5.6 million contract to construct a single-story mission launch command center at NASA‘s Wallops Island, Virginia-based flight facility. NASA said Thursday it would use the center to manage and interface with rockets, payloads, launch pad support systems when the agency conducts spaceflight missions from the Wallops Flight Facility. The […] More