Industry News

A Custom Market Insights report predicts the military unmanned aerial vehicle market will reach $11 billion in value by 2021 from $3 billion in 2014. “Quantities of fielded military and commercial systems of every size and description are set to increase,” Custom Market Insights said Feb. 3. According to the report, persistent military drones will account […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency‘s Tactical Technology Office will hold a proposers day on April 20 and 21 to discuss ways to develop new military technology systems and seek potential contributors. DARPA said Wednesday it is searching for ideas in agile development, autonomous or cooperative unmanned systems, weapons, power and propulsion proposals for ground, maritime, air and space systems to assist in military […] More

Science Applications International Corp. has awarded a subcontract to a Sypris Solutions subsidiary to design and develop an electronic encryption device to control access to land-based intercontinental ballistic missile silos. Sypris said Wednesday the 22-month contract covers services in areas such as design, development, documentation, integration, testing, certification, training, maintenance and logistics for the Missile Electronic Encryption Device program. Sypris Electronics will be responsible for […] More

Japan has met with Western defense contractors including Boeing and Lockheed Martin for a potential “next generation” of fighter jets in an effort to enhance the country’s air presence, Reuters reported Tuesday. Siva Govindasamy writes that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries partnered with Japan’s defense ministry to develop the ATD-X experimental aircraft, whose stealth fighter technologies the country […] More

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has released a solicitation for research proposals on a tool designed to help the Intelligence Community detect and identify various types of chemicals in remote areas. IARPA said in a broad agency announcement posted March 11 it intends to build a low-power system designed to detect chemical weapons, explosives and narcotics under the Molecular […] More

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has issued a broad agency announcement to acquire ideas for the development of quantum annealing methods to solve complex optimization problems in enterprise operation. IARPA said Feb. 25 it aims to create application-specific quantum annealers that the agency believes can help address operational efficiency and risk issues of an organization. The agency seeks industry […] More

An Aerojet Rocketdyne-built propulsion system helped to launch a Orbital ATK-made Cygnus space vehicle onboard a United Launch Alliance-made Atlas V rocket to transport cargo to the International Space Station. The OA-6 flight’s launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Tuesday represents Orbital ATK’s fifth cargo delivery mission to the ISS under the company’s Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA, Aerojet […] More

NASA has launched Orbital ATK‘s Cygnus spacecraft that will carry more than 7,000 pounds of cargo for delivery to the International Space Station. The OA-6 mission launch from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station late Tuesday marks the company’s fifth operational mission under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program, the agency said Wednesday. Cygnus is expected to dock with the orbiting laboratory on Saturday […] More

QTS Realty Trust is establishing a mega data center in downtown Chicago as the company aims to help address a demand for colocation, managed hosting and cloud computing services in the Midwest. QTS said Tuesday the 317,000-square-foot facility will be built to provide infrastructure as a service to government and other enterprise customers. Construction on the first phase of the QTS Chicago […] More

The State Department is set to hold its first overseas small business government contracting conference on May 31 at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. The Office of Small and Disadvantage Business Utilization will convene large contractors, agency representatives, suppliers and small businesses during the event to facilitate socio-economic discussions, the department said in a […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has selected satellite component manufacturer Vanguard Space Technologies to produce structures for the NASA Landsat 9 project to collect baseline data for a map of Earth’s land cover. Vanguard will make baseplate structural assemblies and mounting struts for the OLI-2 Instrument that consists of construction, attach points and metallic fits to mount the telescope and other […] More

The National Institutes of Health plans to add more vendors to a potential $20 billion small business set-aside contract vehicle that covers information technology support services for NIH and other federal agencies. NIH said March 14 in a FedBizOpps notice it will accept proposals from companies who aim to win positions on the agency’s Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners […] More