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- July 24, 2024
July 24, 2024
ManTech and Boeing win $1B+ DOD deals, SpaceX dragon, 8a sole source, AI needs oodles of energy, hacked docs from Leidos leaked
GovBrew
July 24, 2024
QUICK HITS
Why do 8(a) participants win so many sole source contracts? 8(a) awards a stunning 95.47% of socioeconomic sole source dollars.
Senior Executive Service: Multiple vacant positions will not hinder it from pushing through with reforms.
New competition alert: Are you an AI-focused organization? Maybe you have the answer to NIST’s manufacturing problems.
FAR Part 51: Learn more about the “Use of Government Sources by Contractors” in this Friday’s webinar.
DEFENSE & AEROSPACE
The DOD is pursuing cutting-edge technology to safeguard the Arctic.
The Arctic strategy lacks details, but greatly supports increased investment in high-tech sensor and radar systems, various military equipment, and continued support for the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, which serves as a U.S. Space Force base. We assume “thermal everything” is part of the plan. Read more
Army: Amping up interdiction capabilities and space control planning is the goal.
SMDC Commander Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey has outlined the Army’s (sort of) new space vision, emphasizing the need to expand personnel for planning, operations, and deployment. Looking ahead to 2030, he discussed the importance of growing space capability and air defense missiles as they align with the Army's warfighting concepts. Read more
The Pentagon really wants that doomsday machine—and they’re willing to spend $141B on it.
The DOD aims to refurbish Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos, which are scattered in “sacrifice zones.” (Sorry, Nebraska readers.) However, these missiles lack practical use as weapons, and their primary purpose—drawing an enemy’s nuclear strikes—does not provide a meaningful objective. It will cost billions to do. The program has faced debates and discussions within the congress. So is this doomsday machine really pointless? Read more
ICYMI:
Take a look at MBDA’s concept for the Sky Warden Counter Drone system.
US-Japan collaboration on Patriot air defense missile production gets delayed due to Boeing’s component shortage.
Acquisition boss: NGAD and F/A-XX will continue.
Boeing’s challenge: (Well, one of their challenges, at the moment.) Converting the F-15EX into a growler-like electronic attack jet.
Defense Contract Awards
ManTech inked a $1.35B Army Icon Task deal.
Boeing bagged a $1.2B USAF E-7 Wedgetail contract.
BAE Systems won a $22M DIB Advanced Microelectronics deal.
Leidos got a $16.5M USAF Central Command System Support contract.
Follow the Defense Leaders
USAF A1 welcomed its new CIO.
Stratera Technologies’ former CTCO was selected to be INCATech’s CTGO.
Lt. Colonel tapped to be BESPIN’s CEO.
Rite-Solutions has a new Contracts and Procurement VP.
Defense Job Openings
USAF is hiring a Deputy Director for Installation Support.
DCMA wants a Contract Administrator.
USACE needs a Program Manager.
ACC is seeking a Supervisory Contract Specialist.
CHART
Contracting officers workforce from 2013-2022. The blue line represents government-wide contracting officers, the green line represents those that work at DOD, and the pink line represents non-DOD contracting officers. (Source: Federal News Network)
INTEL COMMUNITY
CIA on AI: Fear not! The Intelligence Agency follows all ethical principles.
The CIA assures the public that AI usage is being treated with a "thoughtful approach" in the intelligence agency. This is done with the participation of the stakeholders as well. Are the ethical principles it employs enough to erase the worries of those who are skeptical about the agency’s agenda? Read more
Oh no! Hackers leaked documents from the Pentagon, NASA and other agencies.
Online delinquents have stolen important government documents from Leidos, one of the biggest IT services providers in the United States—and they decided to leak it as well. It is believed that the government data was nabbed when one of Diligent Corporation's system was compromised. Read more
ICYMI:
There’s been some high-profile staffing changes at Secret Service this week. Also, an independent review of the assassination attempt is underway.
ODNI wants an IC CFO Chief of Staff.
ODNI is hiring a Data Analytics Division Chief.
ODNI needs a Senior Advisor to the CISO.
CIVILIAN
Federal agencies were affected by the worldwide outage; Congress want answers.
Federal government operations that were impacted by the Microsoft outage connected to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, seem to be regaining stability. Members of Congress are still seeking an explanation for the biggest IT disruption ever recorded. Read more
SpaceX will drag down the ISS using a “Dragon.”
The engineers at SpaceX are clearly Game of Thrones fans! SpaceX announced its plan for bringing the International Space Station (ISS) home to Earth by tossing it into the Pacific Ocean using 46 Draco (Dragon) thrusters. That's triple the usual 16 on board Cargo Dragon missions to the ISS. Read more
VA’s plan to roll out EHRs again sparks worry among lawmakers.
Disaster in the making? The VA aims to resume the deployment of its Oracle Cerner electronic health record system at more medical facilities next year. However, a bipartisan collection of lawmakers have expressed reservations. They don't believe that the result of a recent rollout near Chicago is good enough to “go live” with more EHR activities. Read more
ICYMI:
NASA, Boeing to discuss the status of the Boeing Crew Flight Test mission on the ISS on Thursday.
AI needs energy galore to work, but can we do that using clean energy? DOE thinks balance is what it needs.
DOE will invest in nuclear emergency response upgrades.
Act1 Federal is now an employee-owned company.
Civilian Contracts Awards
GDIT will begin working on the $308M GSA Assisted Acquisition Tool Modernization deal.
SpaceX was awarded a $113M NASA NOAA JPSS-4 Satellite Launch contract.
Booz Allen Hamilton got a $45M FAA Project Resource Management and IT Services IDIQ.
Arch Systems bagged a $17M NOAA MDL Support Services contract.
Follow Civilian Leaders
Former ASRC VP was selected to be Tria Federal’s Capture Management VP.
Former Odyssey Systems Executive Director is now Dynamo Technologies’ CGO.
CISA’s Integrated Operations Assistant Director was tapped to be its new Executive Director.
BENS’ Board of Directors has 4 new members.
Civilian Job Openings
USDA wants a CFO.
DOJ is looking for a Section Chief.
OPM is seeking a Program Manager.
The U.S. Courts is hiring a Deputy Chief.
M&A CORNER
Loar strikes a $385M cash deal for Applied Avionics.
Loar Holdings has agreed to buy Applied Avionics in a cash transaction worth approximately $385 million. Applied Avionics designs, builds and produces avionics interface products such as NEXUS and VIVUSUN switches and indicators found on platforms in military and commercial aerospace and defense end-markets. Read more
ICYMI
Wiz called off the $23B Google deal, will focus on IPO instead.
SHOWER THOUGHTS 🚿
On the nth day, the AI said, “Let rice husks become cement.”
Researchers are exploring the use of rice husk ash as a partial alternative to cement in the construction industry. This eco-friendly approach is said to reduce the environmental impact of the traditional one while providing a more sustainable substitute. One could say that this will gain Mother Nature's nod of approval, but how will it affect the quality of the product? Read more
Google’s plan scrapped: Third-party cookies will not crumble.
After having a discussion with privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Apple, Google decided to hold on to the Chrome cookies and opted to give its settings better “choices”. But here’s the twist: advertisers can still track the user's every move. So, what changes did Google actually make to enhance the protection of the people who use its browser? Read more
Meta has unveiled its biggest open AI model to date—and it’s free for everyone to use.
In April, Meta hinted at a groundbreaking project. Now it has made its debut. Say hi to Llama 3.1— the largest ever open-source AI. The company claims that it performs better than GPT-4o and Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet on a variety of benchmarks. How vastly does it differ from other AI models? Read more
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