Jane Edwards
is a staff writer at Executive Mosaic, where she writes for ExecutiveBiz about IT modernization, cybersecurity, space procurement and industry leaders’ perspectives on government technology trends.
Latest stories
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Completes Crew-1 Mission for NASA
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft carrying four astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday after a nearly six-month stay at the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Crew-1 mission. Resilience carrying NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Victor Glover and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi performed a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:56 a.m. Eastern time.
Stratolaunch Conducts Second Test Flight of Carrier Aircraft
Stratolaunch performed on Thursday the second flight test of its carrier aircraft that the company plans to use to support launches of its Talon-A hypersonic testbed vehicle. The plane, which has a wingspan of 375 feet, reached an altitude of 14,000 feet during the test flight over the Mojave Desert in California that lasted for 3 hours and 14 minutes.
ManTech, Google Cloud Forge Partnership; Matt Tait Quoted
ManTech International and Google Cloud have agreed to team up to deliver cloud and analytics services to the U.S. federal government. “The partnership grows out of successful collaborations between ManTech and Google Cloud to accelerate government’s digital transformation,” said Matt Tait, chief operating officer of ManTech.
- in News
Private Equity Firm Godspeed Capital Debuts, Partners With East Rock Capital
Godspeed Capital Management officially launched Wednesday as a private equity firm that will focus on investing in defense and government services companies in the lower middle market. The firm also partnered with New York City-based East Rock Capital to help carry out its strategy in identifying potential investment opportunities with a focus on buy-and-builds, control buyouts, special situations and corporate carve-outs.
General Motors Gets License for Oak Ridge National Lab’s ‘MENNDL’ AI Software
General Motors has secured a commercial license for an artificial intelligence software from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in support of its vehicle technology development efforts. The company will use and evaluate the potential of the Multinode Evolutionary Neural Networks for Deep Learning AI system in speeding up the development of driver assistance technologies.
FCC OKs SpaceX’s License Modification Request for Starlink Constellation
The Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX’s request for modification of its license for its Starlink satellite constellation. The modified license will allow SpaceX to move the operational altitude for its 2,814 satellites to the range of 540 to 570 kilometers, reduce the number of satellites in the constellation from 4,409 to 4,408 and change the minimum earth station elevation angle for gateway and user beams.
- in Contract Awards, News
Raytheon to Develop Earth Prediction Innovation Center Under NOAA Contract
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded a $45 million contract to Raytheon Technologies’ intelligence and space business to design and establish the Earth Prediction Innovation Center that will facilitate collaboration among government, academia and industry stakeholders to come up with an Earth modeling system to improve weather forecasting.
SAIC’s Diana Ceban on Path to Coordinating Core IT, Clinical Systems Upgrades
Diana Ceban, vice president of federal health at Science Applications International Corp. said military health agencies should modernize core information technology systems as they advance upgrades to clinical technology platforms to improve patients’ access to services and achieve a continuum of care. Ceban noted that there are three phases to health IT modernization that could be used to coordinate updates to clinical systems and core IT back-end platforms.
Saab Completes Indiana Facility for T-7A Trainer’s Aft Fuselage Work
Saab has finished building a new site in West Lafayette, Indiana, that will accommodate aft fuselage production work for the T-7A Red Hawk jet trainer the company is developing with Boeing. The Boeing-Saab team designed the Red Hawk trainer platform for the U.S. Air Force and won a $9.2 billion contract in September 2018 to manufacture the aircraft as replacement to the service’s fleet of T-38 trainers.
Lockheed Martin Space Execs Discuss Recruitment Efforts Amid COVID-19
Lockheed Martin’s space business hired 2,700 employees and 700 interns in 2020 and executives discussed in an interview about the company’s college hiring and other recruitment initiatives amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Nick Spain, vice president for human resources at Lockheed Martin Space, said the company partners with universities, including minority-serving institutions and historically Black colleges and universities, to recruit potential candidates.
in Contract Awards, NewsDARPA Taps Perspecta Labs for Long-Range Tactical Communications Work; Petros Mouchtaris Quoted
Perspecta’s applied research arm has received a potential 45-month, $18.5 million contract to develop a platform for long-range tactical radio communications under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program. Perspecta Labs will build, prototype and test an adaptive distributed array system that works with unmodified tactical waveforms and existing tactical radios as part of DARPA’s Resilient Networked Distributed Mosaic Communications program.