Weekly GEOINT Community News

Northrop Grumman Launches Minotaur IV Rocket Carrying Satellite for NRO

Northrop Grumman successfully launched its Minotaur IV space launch vehicle and placed a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) spacecraft into orbit at 9:46 a.m. EDT on July 15. The Minotaur IV was launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0B at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. The Minotaur IV is capable of launching payloads of up to 4,000 pounds (or 1,800 kilograms) to low Earth orbit. This mission’s Minotaur IV configuration included three decommissioned Peacekeeper stages and a Northrop Grumman manufactured Orion 38 solid fuel upper stage. The Minotaur rockets are manufactured at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Chandler, Arizona; Vandenberg, California; and Clearfield and Magna, Utah. According to Kurt Eberly, director, launch vehicles, Northrop Grumman, this mission marks the 27th consecutive successful launch for the company’s Minotaur product line, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

MindfuL Technology to Provide Transparency and Build User Trust in ML Systems

BAE Systems has delivered MindfuL Technology software to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of a contract under the agency’s Competency-Aware Machine Learning (CAML) program. The delivery of the MindfuL software is the first milestone in the program to improve the transparency of machine learning systems. MindfuL software will independently “audit” a machine learning-based system and provide the end user with insights to build trust in the technology. The first software release of the system provides a baseline capability to detect when the system encounters a new environment for which it has not been trained.

Carahsoft and Chainkit Deliver Military Grade Cyber Security, Forensics and Compliance to Public Sector

Chainkit and Carahsoft Technology have announced a partnership where Carahsoft will serve as Chainkit’s Master Government Aggregator. Carahsoft will make Chainkit for Splunk software available to the public sector through Carahsoft’s NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V and National Association of State Procurement Officers (NASPO) ValuePoint cooperative purchasing contracts and the company’s reseller partners. Chainkit for Splunk delivers forensic-class attestation of agency systems, networks, apps, data, and logs at the highest levels of integrity. It also hardens Splunk logs in real-time to mitigate cyber risk and contain damaging attacks including ransomware, espionage, military systems compromise, and industrial control takeover. It also provides tamper evidence for indicators of compromise and forensic integrity that can satisfy the latest compliance standards requirements.

Perspecta Labs Awarded $37 Million DARPA Contract to Improve Network Card Speed

Perspecta’s innovative applied research arm, Perspecta Labs, has received a prime contract award on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Fast Network Interface Cards (FastNICs) program. The award, which represents new work for the company, has a total potential ceiling value of $37 million and a four-year period of performance if all options are exercised. The objective of the FastNICs program is to speed up complex computing applications, such as the distributed training of machine learning classifiers and video analysis applications, by 100x through the development, implementation, integration, and validation of innovative networking approaches. On the program, Perspecta Labs will research, design, develop, and demonstrate new network interface hardware that operates at a 10-terabit-per-second speed, and the associated system and programming software to manage and utilize the new hardware.

MarkLogic Announces Data Hub Central

MarkLogic has announced Data Hub Central, a new cloud-native user interface for simplified data integration. The Datahub central is the newest capability of MarkLogic Data Hub Service. For users of their cloud service, Data Hub Central provides a simple user interface for self-service data integration where developers, architects, and business analysts can collaborate to integrate, explore, analyze, and share consistent data assets tailored to business needs.

Peer Intel

Parsons Corporation announced the addition of Michael McKloskey as vice president, business development, for the Cyber and Intelligence market. McKloskey has been advancing the Intelligence Community’s mission for nearly 16 years, both with the National Security Agency and the broader defense industry.

Robert Victor, PE, F.ASCE, has joined Dewberry as an operating unit manager to lead its mid-Atlantic engineering operations. As the new operating unit manager for Dewberry’s mid-Atlantic region, Victor will oversee a staff of more than 350 employees across 11 offices. These offices represent extensive services, such as engineering, geospatial, survey and mapping, environmental, and construction across federal, state and local, and commercial markets, including real estate and commercial development.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Camille Nichols, a leader in business transformation and acquisition, has joined Amentum’s senior leadership team as Executive Vice President of Project Services. In her new role, Nichols is responsible for Amentum’s contracts and procurement, ethics, information technology, security, and real estate organizations.

Charles Clancy was appointed senior vice president, chief futurist, and general manager of MITRE Labs, which comprises nearly 50 percent of the workforce, to deliver solutions-driven innovation. In this new role, he is responsible for sparking innovative disruption, accelerating risk-taking and discovery, and delivering real-time technology capabilities and execution through labs, platforms, and the MITRE Fellows program.

John Wilson was appointed vice president, chief information and security officer, a role he has been serving in an interim capacity since November. He leads MITRE’s Enterprise Computing, Information and Security organization and is responsible for advancing MITRE’s intelligent enterprise, information security, as well as overseeing the company’s business transformation.

Christina Orfanos was promoted to the role of vice president, Talent Experience & Total Rewards. She is responsible for managing the strategy, planning, development, implementation, and administration of MITRE’s talent program.

Featured Image: Northrop Grumman successfully launched its Minotaur IV Rocket into orbit this morning, at 9:46 a.m. ET. | Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman