Weekly GEOINT Community News

General Atomics Awards Contract to Firefly Aerospace Inc. to Launch NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols Mission, Developing Advanced Military GPS Receivers and Chips, NGA Publishes Latest Broad Agency Announcement for Topic: Innovative GEOINT Research, and More

MNKO-02.22

General Atomics Awards Contract to Firefly Aerospace Inc. to Launch NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols Mission

General Atomics awarded a contract to Firefly Aerospace Inc. to launch a GA-EMS developed Orbital Test Bed (OTB) satellite carrying NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument. The launch vehicle delivering the satellite to space will be Firefly’s Alpha rocket and is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2022. MAIA’s planned three year on-orbit operation will measure airborne particulate matter in the atmosphere to allow team members to correlate MAIA’s measurements with adverse human health issues such as cardiovascular and respiratory disease, initially focused on 12 primary target areas around the world. MAIA is a Venture-class mission within NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the MAIA instrument design, development, and delivery.

Developing Advanced Military GPS Receivers and Chips

BAE Systems received a $247 million contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center to design and manufacture an advanced military GPS receiver and next-generation semiconductor. The technology will provide positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities to warfighters so they can execute missions in challenging electromagnetic environments. The Military GPS User Equipment Increment 2 Miniature Serial Interface program will provide improved capabilities for size-constrained and power-constrained military GPS applications, including precision-guided munitions and battery-powered handheld devices. The program will focus on the certification of an advanced application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and the development of an ultra-small, low-power GPS module. Both products will work with the next-generation military M-Code signal technology, which provides reliable GPS data with anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities to protect against electronic warfare threats.

NGA Publishes Latest Broad Agency Announcement for Topic: Innovative GEOINT Research

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) published a new Broad Agency Announcement topic Feb. 17, seeking innovative solutions that offer revolutionary change to current GEOINT research methods. The Boosting Innovative GEOINT Research BAA, known as the BIG-R BAA, enables NGA to adopt phased approaches and use multiple contract instruments to target expertise, mitigate risk, and create an innovative environment for developing new capabilities. NGA published the primary BIG-R BAA in July 2020. The new topic is titled “NGA Research Wide Innovative Seedlings” and points to NGA’s interest in concepts that create new capabilities within the NGA Mission Imperatives: Assured Positioning, Navigation, Timing & Targeting; Accelerated Tasking Orchestration; Data Access/Integrity; and Analytic Workflow Modernization.

Carahsoft and Vyopta Partner to Provide Collaboration Intelligence to the Public Sector

Vyopta, a leading provider of Collaboration Intelligence, and Carahsoft Technology announced a partnership. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will serve as Vyopta’s Master Government Aggregator and make Vyopta’s comprehensive monitoring and analytics for Collaboration Performance Management (CPM) and Workspace Insights solutions available to the public sector through Carahsoft’s reseller partners and NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V and Maryland COTS contracts.

Parsons to Display Leading Defense Capabilities During IDEX 2021

Parsons Corporation will demonstrate multiple leading defense capabilities during the 2021 International Defense Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) from Feb. 21-25, 2021, in Abu Dhabi. The solutions on display are currently operating with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and other global militaries, including all-domain battlespace awareness, signals intelligence (SIGINT), C5ISR, directed energy, and border security. Capabilities on display will range from tailored hardware and software cyber solutions to smart base solutions and critical infrastructure protection, as well as airborne mission planning and data processing tools.

Public Comment Sought for OGC API – Processes Standards Working Group

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) seeks public comment on a revision to the OGC API – Processes Standards Working Group (SWG) Charter, which introduces new work items for the SWG. Comments are due by March 8, 2021. The OGC API – Processes SWG is the group within the OGC membership responsible for the development and maintenance of the OGC API – Processes core standard and its extensions, as well as for maintaining the WPS standard.

Featured Image: Firefly Aerospace Inc. to Launch NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols Mission. | Image Credit: General Atomics

Weekly GEOINT Community News

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