Industry News

ITAMCO has received a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant to build a secure messaging and transaction application for Defense Department users. The company will base the messaging tool on its Crypto-Chat privacy app and blockchain technology as part of the project’s first phase, ITAMCO said Thursday. The messaging app is intended to support communications between deployed troops and headquarters as well as between intelligence officers […] More

The U.S. Special Operations Command aims to release a final request for proposals on  a potential five-year, $95 million contract in June to procure coxswain helmet systems. A FedBizOpps notice published May 12 says that USSOCOM is interested in buying  a Special Operations Forces Personal Equipment Advanced Requirements family of tactical headborne systems via the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. USSOCOM wants SPEAR helmets […] More

A Northrop Grumman-built navigation platform has worked to provide attitude control capabilities for NASA’s Cassini space vehicle in support of the Saturn exploration mission. The spacecraft with Northrop’s Space Inertial Reference Unit maneuvered through a 1,500-mile gap between the planet and its rings on April 26, the company said Thursday. Northrop’s SIRU navigation platform has a […] More

Lockheed Martin‘s Canadian arm has secured a contract to update the combat management system and subsystems on three Type 23 frigates of the Chilean navy. The company said Tuesday its CMS 330 system was chosen to replace the current system used on Chile’s Type 23 frigates after a worldwide competitive tender process. Rosemary Chapdelaine, vice president of rotary and mission systems at Lockheed […] More

COMSAT and Speedcast International have entered into a partnership agreement to offer global network services to government and maritime customers. The joint offering will combine Speedcast’s 8+ gigahertz of global satellite capacity with COMSAT’s U.S.-based teleports to provide Ku-band very small aperture terminal services for customers that need resilient connectivity, Speedcast said Thursday. COMSAT will also deliver hosting services as well […] More

Lockheed Martin has decided not to bid on a U.S. Navy contract to develop an over-the-horizon missile for the service branch’s frigates and littoral combat ships, Defense News reported Wednesday. Lockheed’s decision came after Boeing decided to withdraw from the Over-the-Horizon Weapon System competition earlier this month. “As the current OTH-WS request for proposal process refined […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has partnered with Boeing to design, develop and test a demonstration space vehicle under DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane program. The XS-1 program seeks to build and launch a new set of hypersonic aircraft designed to provide less-expensive access to space at short notice in support of national security missions, DARPA said Wednesday. […] More

CGI has begun to offer a cloud-based enterprise resource planning platform to state and local government entities that are part of the NASPO ValuePoint cooperative procurement program. The company said Wednesday it offers the CGI Advantage360 software-as-a-service ERP platform to NASPO ValuePoint participants under a master agreement with the state of Utah. CGI Advantage consists of software, business process services and […] More

Orbital ATK has received a $76 million order to produce and deliver an undisclosed number of .50 caliber ammunition to the U.S. Army. The Army placed the order for small-caliber ammunition under a supply contract with Orbital ATK, the company said Wednesday Jim Nichols, vice president and general manager of Orbital ATK’s small caliber systems division, said that company-made […] More

InfoZen has helped NASA to develop and launch a searchable database of 14,000 downloadable images, video and audio files on the images.nasa.gov website, GCN reported Wednesday. The database is hosted in Amazon Web Services‘ cloud platform and powered by Limelight Network‘s content delivery service, according to the report. InfoZen operates the online library using the AWS Lambda serverless computing service. […] More

The Energy Department will award 73 grants worth up to $72 million combined to help fund phase II research-and-development projects of 68 small businesses across 24 states. DOE said Wednesday the grants, worth an average of $1 million each, will be funded via the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs and cover a two-year base […] More

Jim Tyrell, a principal architect of JBoss solutions at Red Hat‘s public sector business, has said he observed many government agencies have purchased and implemented the Java programming language in their information technology systems. Tyrell wrote in an opinion piece published Wednesday on GCN that Java is designed to run on multiple IT systems and has driven the expansion of […] More