Industry News

Orbital ATK has set up the second qualification motor for NASA‘s Space Launch System boosters ahead of a ground test to assess the boosters’ performance against low temperatures on June 28. The company said Monday the static-fire test of the second motor called QM-2 follows the ground test of QM-1 in 2015. “Testing before flight is critical to ensure reliability and […] More

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has launched its Geospatial Information Systems fair in support of NGA’s Partners in Education program to provide more than 100 high school students a means to exhibit their GIS projects. NGA employees examined the projects of young geospatial inventors and provided purpose, design, methodology, execution and creativity feedback to assist the participants’ final works, the […] More

A team of contractors led by an L-3 Communications division will deliver warfighter readiness and training research services to the U.S. Air Force under a seven-year, $200 million contract awarded in April. L-3 Link Simulation and Training will collaborate with Cubic‘s global defense unit, Ball Aerospace and Leidos to develop technology that will work to create wide-spectrum readiness features, Cubic said Monday. “As part […] More

A Technavio report forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent for the directed-energy weapons market by 2020 due to the continuous demand for DEW systems and equipment in law enforcement. The report published April 2016 by Research and Markets states that demand for non-lethal weapons is a primary driver in the market, with the U.S., Russia, Israel and Japan expected […] More

Sandia National Laboratories has teamed up with the U.S. Marine Corps in an effort to help the service branch draft investment plans on microgrid and renewable energy projects through the use of the Microgrid Design Toolkit. MDT is a Sandia-built software platform that works to help users evaluate technology options, design microgrids and determine potential trade-offs […] More

Janus Global Operations has established a Dubai office that will serve as the company’s regional hub for commercial and government customers across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. JGO President and CEO Alan Weakley said in a press release published Thursday the Dubai office will support the company’s efforts to expand in the region and rapidly address client […] More

Guggenheim Securities has found that foreign military sales of U.S.-built platforms and weapon systems amounted to $29 billion after six months of the government’s 2016 fiscal year, Defense News reported Friday. Aaron Mehta writes the investment banking and capital markets company said in its report obtained by Defense News that Lockheed Martin is the largest beneficiary of FMS deals for the first half of fiscal […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has asked industry for proposals to help DARPA in its push to move forward scientific simulations of physical systems in an effort to carry out complex designs. DARPA said Friday the Accelerated Computation for Efficient Scientific Simulation program’s goal is to develop a new processor with updated simulation capacity for design, prediction, and discovery for use in partial […] More

The General Services Administration has kicked off its search for a contractor to assist in the management of the domain name registry and registrar service for federal agencies, state and local governments and native sovereign nations. GSA seeks companies to aid in domain registration, perform website hosting, accept and store authorization letters, set  up point […] More

NASA’s Planetary Data System has unveiled Mercury’s initial global digital elevation model produced through the use of at least 100,000 images and data collected by the space agency’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory said Friday the global DEM details the planet’s lowest and highest elevation and other topographic features. […] More

IBM and South Korea-based information technology firm SK Holdings C&C will collaborate on efforts to add Korean to the IBM-built Watson cognitive computing platform’s list of seven conversational languages. IBM said Sunday the partnership aims to provide application program interfaces and services designed to help South Korean application developers develop their own software apps in their native […] More