GovConJudicata Weekly Debrief (5/9–13)
This week's Weekly Debrief covers testimony on Capitol Hill on small business contracting, tech bills advance through Senate and House committees, Army's air-to-ground network, Space Force's priorities, small businesses and big OTAs, and cyber agencies and others advise reviewing contracts with technology vendors.
Congress
"Acquisition experts urged lawmakers to reform current procurement policies to better address significant issues hindering the federal buying process while testifying on Capitol Hill about the sharp decline in small businesses serving as government contractors."
"A slew of technology-centric legislation cleared Congressional chambers on Wednesday, notably the Senate version of the National Manufacturing Extension Partnership Supply Chain Database Act."
Defense
"The Army will be conducting experiments to extend its ground forces’ communications capabilities through the air. Past efforts have aimed to improve communications between aircraft and ground units. But this time, the service be looking to put waveforms in their ground communications assets on airborne systems to assess ground extension for mesh networking and thickening of the network."
"A decade ago, the major launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center in Florida were flying just three or four missions annually. Now, after a record 31 launches in 2021, they are expecting to host 67 this year, or almost one every five days."
Small Business
"You can’t swing a cat in Defense Department circles without hitting someone talking about innovation. And how to get innovative companies into the ecosystem of DoD’s and the armed services’ supplier base. One small company just showed what’s possible. Thirty-employee Ditto makes software that ensures data synchronization and application operation in situations with unreliable connectivity. It got an Air Force contract with a ceiling of $950 million. CEO Adam Fish says that was Ditto’s second federal contract. The first was an other transaction authority (OTA) deal through the Air Force’s Afwerx, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory. The larger contract was a regular Defense Federal Acquisition (DFAR) transaction."
Cyber
"U.S. cybersecurity agencies and others from nations in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance urged organizations to review their agreements with entities they grant system access to for help with various functions. They noted advanced persistent threat actors’ plans to increase their use of such entities as vectors for attack."
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