Weekly GEOINT Community News

MagQuest Moves Forward with Phase Two

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is moving on to phase two of its MagQuest challenge. On July 24, a MagQuest webinar will be held in which technical considerations for phase two will be discussed. $1.2 million was invested to launch this innovative competition with the goal to advance how we measure Earth’s magnetic field. During phase one of the competition, 10 winners were awarded $200,000 in cash prizes. During phase two, participants from phase one as well as new entrants will submit detailed designs for data collection methodologies. Phase two will offer up to $1 million in prizes and submissions are due Aug. 28.

Raytheon and UK MoD Team to Develop Small Sats

Raytheon signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK Ministry of Defence to join Team ARTEMIS Industry, a collaboration between government and industry formed to fast track the launch of a small satellite constellation and enhance the UK’s sovereign space capability.

National Geographic Society Seeks Experts for Living Map of the World

National Geographic Society, working with partners at Google and World Resources Institute, is building a living map of the world. National Geographic is calling on the community of land cover and photo interpretation experts to by September help annotate and curate Sentinel-2 satellite imagery needed by machine learning algorithms. Experts who can spend 20-40 hours on this task in the next 6-8 weeks should send their resumes to gsaccocio@ngs.org. Click here to learn more.

U.S. Air Force Awards Leidos Task Order to Support ISR Operations

Leidos was awarded a task order by the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command to support the ISR Support Services program. The single award, cost-plus-award-fee task order has a one-year base period of performance, four one-year options, and a total ceiling of approximately $900 million. Work will be primarily performed at U.S. Air Force sites in Virginia, Texas, Nebraska, and California.

Carahsoft Expands Availability of AWS to Public Sector

Carahsoft announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been added to its GSA IT Schedule 70 contract. This newest contract award represents a significant expansion in Carahsoft’s role as a distributor for the AWS Distribution Program. In total, Carahsoft now offers AWS solutions on 40 public sector contracts and cooperative purchasing agreements.

Advances for Luxembourg-based Kleos Space

Kleos Space Scouting Mission satellites are ready to launch and unveil hidden maritime activity. Four satellites will soon be launched from Rocket Lab’s Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The satellites, built by Gomspace of Denmark, will be used to gather geospatial intelligence for government and commercial entities from space. In total, 20 satellites will be built by Gomspace for the Kleos Scouting Mission and launched by Rocket Lab. The satellites don’t rely on GPS signals, and can be used when the Automatic Identification System is unavailable, or when imagery is unclear or targets out of patrol range, the company said.

Kleos Space has also partnered with L3 Harris to market Kleos’ capabilities to U.S. government agencies. Through this partnership, L3 Harris will place Kleos Space products on its GSA Earth Observations Solutions schedule and prepare and present mission scenario demonstrations to NGA.

Peer Intel

Robert Cardillo, former director of NGA, joined Cesium’s Advisory Board. As the sixth NGA director, Cardillo advocated for stronger partnerships with the commercial geospatial industry.

Jean-Sébastien Guy was appointed president of Korem Geospatial. As president, he will spearhead Korem’s strategic development to further accelerate the company’s growth.

Photo courtesy of Rocket Lab