Industry News

The General Services Administration held an event Thursday to inform vendors of GSA’s  framework to address outdated technology systems in the government. GSA Administrator Denise Turner Roth hosted the technology industry day with agency Chief Technology Officer Navin Vembar; David Shive, acting commissioner for the Technology Transformation Service; Mary Davie, assistant commissioner of integrated technology services; and 18F Executive Director Aaron Snow, GSA said Thursday. The […] More

NASA launched a Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a United Launch Alliance rocket on a mission to explore and collect a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Lockheed said Wednesday the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer spacecraft separated from the Atlas V 411 rocket nearly an hour after launch, then autonomously deployed […] More

Blue Origin plans to carry out an unmanned flight test in October to evaluate its New Shepard rocket’s abort system, Space News reported Thursday. Jeff Foust writes the in-flight abort test of the Blue Origin-built suborbital vehicle will occur at the company’s test site in West Texas and aims to demonstrate how the crew capsule would fire its […] More

The State Department has awarded FCi Federal a five-year, $25.5 million prime contract to support DOS diplomatic pouch and mail services. FCi said Thursday it will help the department incoming and outgoing mails at two government-run facilities located in Virginia under the contract. Michael Petrucelli, executive vice president of corporate development at FCi, said the company currently […] More

MEADS International and Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa, a state-owned defense firm in Poland, have agreed to explore cooperation and business opportunities related to the WisÅ‚a medium-range air defense program. The two companies inked a letter of intent to allow PGZ a participation in the expansion and sales of the Medium Extended Air Defense System in partnership […] More

NASA has selected the Goddard Space Flight Center’s team of industry and academic investigators to build a spectrometer that will work to support planet formation research aboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. The space agency said Thursday the High Resolution Mid-InfrarEd Spectrometer will be built by a team of investigators with GSFC senior scientist Samuel Harvey Moseley […] More

Moderna Therapeutics has secured a potential five-year, $125 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response to produce a vaccine for the Zika virus. HHS said Wednesday ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority will help Moderna conduct clinical trial, toxicology studies, vaccine formulation and manufacturing through the contract’s four-year […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hold a proposers day on Sept. 30 regarding a program that aims to develop tools that will work to mitigate potential safety risks and advance the potential of gene-editing technologies. DARPA said Wednesday the Safe Genes program aims to address safety gaps in the field of genome editing using biosafety and biosecurity tools. “Gene […] More

XTec has received a potential three-year, $60 million task order to continue to provide project management and technical support services for the State Department‘s enterprise identity management system. XTec said Thursday the order contains one base year and four six-month options and falls under a blanket purchase agreement that was based on the company’s Federal Supply Schedule contract with the General […] More

The federally funded National Center for Atmospheric Research has selected Juniper Networks to build the networking infrastructure for a new supercomputer that scientists will use to forecast climate patterns and analyze the effects of global warming. Juniper said Wednesday the machine will be deployed to the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center this fall and is designed to generate 5.34 quadrillion calculations per second. Tim Solms, vice president of Juniper […] More

Lockheed Martin has agreed to involve Poland’s state-owned defense organization Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa in various defense and security programs as part of Lockheed’s commitment to Polish industry. The two parties inked a letter of intent to allow PGZ member companies to participate in Lockheed programs on satellite systems, aircraft, helicopters, weapons, combat systems, training devices and simulators, the […] More

UES has won a potential six-year, $42 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to research and develop advanced materials for electronic, magnetic and electro-optical applications. The Defense Department said Tuesday that UES will help the Air Force Research Laboratory produce materials the service branch can use to update digital, radio frequency, radar, infrared detector, opto-electronic, communications, power generation, sensing […] More