Government/Military

Former diplomatic liaison to U.S. Coalition Forces Jill Kelley became a focus of media coverage when her name was leaked as part of an FBI investigation that led to the resignation of CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus in 2012. Six years later, she is now spearheading Space-SkyFi — a new public/private venture backed by both aerospace and...

Harris and L3 Technologies on Sunday morning revealed a blockbuster deal that would create the sixth largest U.S. defense contractor with about $16 billion in sales and a market capitalization of $33.5 billion, with Harris shareholders owning 54 percent of the business and L3’s the rest. The company’s said that the merger will provide L3...

Iridium was awarded a non-competitive, firm-fixed-price $44 million contract modification from the U.S. Department of Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for the extension of services on the current airtime contract. The current contract was effective on Oct. 23, 2013, and renewed the provision for delivering Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services (EMSS). It was slated to provide satellite airtime...

The Air Force awarded United Launch Alliance (ULA), Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin each multi-hundred million dollar contracts on Wednesday to develop a launch system prototype by 2021 for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. Blue Origin will develop its New Glenn launch system with an initial launch capability by 2020, according to an Air Force statement. Northrop Grumman Innovation...

The last week of August 2018 brought with it the conclusion of ITU-R Task Group 5/1 (TG 5/1) — the group charged with conducting compatibility studies and preparing the Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM) Report text for 2019 WRC Agenda Item, 1.13, on making spectrum available for use by International Mobile Telecommunications 2020 (IMT 2020), also...

Draper unveiled its team for the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract. Under the proposal, the team will support NASA in the delivery of small rovers and instruments to meet lunar science and exploration needs, advance development of lunar landers for human missions, and conduct more research on the moon’s surface ahead of a human...

XTAR has announced the results of a key demonstration, which was designed provide a SATCOM on the move (SOTM) data link from a SOTM terminal to a hub earth station at a data rate greater than 25 Mbps. The demonstration took place in July of this year. XTAR announced the results today. A 26 Mbps...

The U.S. State Department has revised its classification rules for spacecraft and spacecraft thrusters, clarifying that they cannot be considered rocket engines. The Department removed notification requirements from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and revised several entries on the United States Munitions List, to remove items that do not warrant continued inclusion. The Department...

SSL, a Maxar Technologies company, has secured another U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contract. SSL has been selected as one of three companies qualified to compete for DOD business under a contract called Small Spacecraft Prototyping Engineering Development and Integration – Space Solutions (SSPEDI). NASA‘s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley manages the contract under...

NASA is evaluating how data from the commercial small satellite industry could supplement its own Earth science data. The agency launched a pilot program to evaluate the data, and on Sept. 28, the agency awarded sole-source contracts to acquire test data sets from three private sector organizations: DigitalGlobe, Planet, and Spire. NASA’s Earth Science Division...