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The Army wants to reinvent how it feeds soldiers in the field

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 11 May 2026 15:41:41 -0400

The Army wants to reinvent the field ration and is looking to the alternative protein industry for ideas.

In a source sought notice posted Monday, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command is asking for information on alternative proteins that can have a long shelf-life and be palatable.

The Army has several objectives including enhancing food supply chain resilience, enabling biomanufacturing foodstuffs in combat-forward environments, and providing tailored, high-quality nutrition.

The notice mentions specific technologies the Army is interested in such as “fermentation, precision fermentation, or other novel biomanufacturing methods.” One goal is lightweight and nutrient-dense rations that can lower logistical burdens and physical payload.

The Army also wants to hear from respondents who can conduct consumer research such as focus groups, sensory panels, and field testing to evaluate acceptability and consumption within a military population.

For all the talk in the notice about alternative proteins and “meat-alternative products,” the Army is not interested in laboratory-grown meats or insect protein.

The notice mentions that the Army wants ideas for biomanufacturing food in forward-deployed areas, which would shorten the supply chain.

Domestic sourcing is a requirement and must comply with the Berry Amendment, which requires that the Defense Department give preference to U.S.-made products. For forward-deployed biomanufacturing, the ingredients would need to be sourced from the U.S.

The Army has a very tight turnaround time for concept papers, which are due Friday.

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Army extends MAPS deadline on same day proposals were due

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:23:39 -0400

The Army has extended the proposal deadline for its troubled, but massive professional services contract at the last minute.

Proposals were due May 8. But that same day, the Army pushed out the due date until May 20 for the $50 billion Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services vehicle.

The 10-year MAPS vehicle has been hit with a growing number of bid protests that share common complaints about perceived lack of transparency, inadequate responses to industry questions and concerns around how documentation around past performance would be handled.

The Army has also amended parts of the solicitation. Most appear to be clarifications to instructions and definitions, but there are some changes regarding when signatures are needed and when bidders can receive an exception.

The Army also has written out answers to all of the 2,560 questions submitted by industry, which has been a sticking point for bidders. But one source has questioned the value of many of the answers.

In announcing the extension, the Army said companies are not required to resubmit their bids if they already turned one in.

But industry sources indicate that many companies will need to resubmit and there is frustration that the proposal deadline was extended on such short notice.

“A lot of companies were up all night getting proposals ready, just to find out with the changes, and the extension, we’ll have to do it again,” one said.

At the very least, companies will need to map their amendments to their proposals to confirm that they are in compliance.

Meanwhile, more companies have filed protests at the Government Accountability Office. Seven new companies have filed protests, and the first two protesters have submitted supplemental filings supporting their protests.

While the protests do not trigger a delay in proposals, the Army cannot make award decisions while the protests are pending.

Nine companies have filed protests so far against the MAPS solicitation:

GovCIO
Inserso Corp.
Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions
ICF
The Jaaw Group
MetroStar Systems
ProVista Consulting
QinetiQ US
TechSur-Guidehouse joint venture

MetroStar and Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions were the first companies to file protests.

The Government Accountability Office has the option of bundling all the protests together into a single decision. But even as separate cases, the agency is due to rule on all of them by mid-August.

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Cowboy Space, Darkhive detail their Series B rounds

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:12:14 -0400

Cowboy Space Corp.

This company pushing to make data centers in space a reality has collected $275 million in Series B capital to support satellite and rocket development efforts.

Cowboy was founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt, a co-founder of Robinhood Markets, to originally focus on building satellites that could deliver space-based solar energy to Earth. The company has gradually added launch rockets to its strategy with an emphasis on delivering artificial intelligence compute in-orbit.

Later this year, Cowboy plans to launch its first satellite with the goal of showing how power can be beamed from space to Earth. Cowboy is also working with NVIDIA to deploy a data center module that the companies see as enabling AI infrastructure operations in low-Earth orbit.

As Cowboy sees the world, terrestrial capacity is being strained by AI demand and new high-performance computing capabilities are needed to overcome that challenge. The company also designed its upper stage rocket and data center payload as a single vehicle.

Index Ventures led the Series B round, which values Cowboy Space at $2 billion. Science Applications International Corp., IVP and Blossom Capital are new investors entering the fold. Existing investors that participated include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Interlagos and Baiju Bhatt.

Darkhive

This aerospace and defense technology company has fetched $30 million in Series B capital to accelerate production and delivery of its products, which include drones and software for use in military operations.

Darkhive was founded in 2021 by a group of Special Operations Command veterans to design software-defined hardware that can be quickly built and adopted by military operators.

In April, Darkhive was selected for a $49.7 million contract under the Defense Department’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program for quick fielding and scaling of new tech. This is the largest award in APFTI’s history, according to Darkhive.

Darkhive also touts a portfolio of programs with the Air Force and that service branch’s Research Laboratory, plus the Defense Innovation Unit and office of the Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering.

RTX Corp.’s venture capital arm led the Series B round and also participated in Darkhive’s $21 million Series A round back in 2024, which was led by Ten Eleven Ventures. Autonomy and sensing is one of RTX Ventures’ six key focus areas for investing in young technology companies.

Draper Associates and Bison Capital have joined as new investors in Darkhive. Returning investors include Ten Eleven, Crosslink Capital, Alamo Angels, and Stellar Ventures.

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US tech official calls for ‘transformational’ use of AI in scientific discovery

Edward Graham — Mon, 11 May 2026 12:00:00 -0400

The Trump administration sees greater incorporation of artificial intelligence capabilities into the scientific research space as critical for continued U.S. technology leadership, a White House official said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ethan Klein said a major focus of this administration “is having better integration and tie-in across the scientific development piece, all the way through tech development, testing, prototyping and scale up.”

Klein said greater adoption of emerging capabilities like agentic AI — autonomous systems capable of executing specific tasks with minimal human oversight — will have a profound impact on scientific research. A Market Connections survey of more than 200 technology executives across government that was released on Tuesday found that 53% of respondents said their agencies were already exploring uses of agentic AI or were planning pilots of the technology.

“Across a broad swath of applications, but specifically for scientific discovery, I think agentic AI will be transformational,” said Klein, who also serves as an associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Greater use of these capabilities, he said, would help to expand and enhance data collection and transform the types of experiments that can be conducted by researchers.

“I think that if we're able to actually deploy these agentic AI … agents across those workflows, they're going to see a great amount of scientific efficiency,” Klein added. "And that's incredibly important, because that underpins every one of these technologies that we're looking to develop.”

The Trump administration has already taken some steps to enhance nationwide research efforts by leveraging AI. The largest of these is the Genesis Mission, which was launched in November 2025 and seeks to further harness AI for scientific advancement.

Klein said the initiative will help bring “a bit of that muscle [when it comes to] incorporating that into the workflows that we know are going to bring forth this new era of AI-enabled scientific discovery.”

Thursday’s panel, however, was held amid ongoing concerns about how the Trump administration’s push to scale back government operations through layoffs and reductions in force is impacting research efforts.

Just last month, President Donald Trump dismissed all 22 members of the independent advisory board overseeing the National Science Foundation, which supports nationwide science and engineering research. Critics have said the purge — which comes as NSF still lacks a permanent director — will harm continued U.S. scientific leadership.

Editor’s note: Market Connections is a business division of GovExec, the parent company of Nextgov/FCW.

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How Lyntris centers its tech on 'left of bang'

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 11 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

Left of bang, or left of boom depending on which military professional or observer one speaks to, seems to be where many of the most difficult challenges facing operators take place.

Whereas the problems of the past mostly focused on the right side of those chains of events, or after the conflicts start.

“The hardest problems of warfare for most of human history were delivering weapons systems to targets, and today we can do that with relative ease,” Lyntris’ chief executive Brian Morrison told WT. “The harder problems (of today) have almost left in time. It’s identifying targets, correlating information about those targets, presenting information about those targets, coming up with a firing solution, and then launching.”

Enter Lyntris, a newly-formed defense technology company that designs its software and hardware offerings to cover the entire left side of the chain. Lynteris emerges following the combination of Accelint Holdings and Vitesse Systems announced Thursday.

Financial terms of the move were not disclosed, but Lyntris is touting an active presence across roughly 200 programs at the U.S. Defense Department and allied partners. Lyntris is owned by private equity firm Trive Capital.

As Morrison described it, the heritage Accelint and Vitesse businesses focused on different aspects of that left side.

Accelint centered on what he called the “make sense and act” part, which starts with work to identify what the threats are and then come up with a firing solution to mitigate them.

Vitesse was more about “sense and make sense,” which Morrison said involves how operators render the threats and firing solutions in a command-and-control system for making decisions.

“If you think of the connected battlespace as sense, make sense and act – We took a company that was ‘sense and make sense’ and combined it with a company that was ‘make sense and act,” Morrison said.

The combined company’s product portfolio covers areas such as mission systems, decision support, autonomy, command-and-control, sensing hardware, radio frequency technologies, thermal management, and power and subsystem integration.

Naturally, artificial intelligence is an underlying capability that feeds into all of those products.

Morrison said Lyntris and its heritage businesses have been involved in the defense AI landscape for close to 15 years and sought to focus on specific use cases, such as swarming autonomy. This involves how multiple autonomous vehicles operate collectively, but in a decentralized manner, to achieve complex tasks without needing constant human intervention.

As Lyntris and Morrison see the world, out-of-the-box and general purpose AI tools become less useful as they get closer to the edge.

“There are just realities that we have to think about when deploying AI in life or death situations, such as combat, that don't exist in commercial AI applications,” Morrison said. “Things like rules of engagement, levels of force, contested digital environments where you may be jammed or lose contact with a platform. The AI needs to be sophisticated enough to allow that platform to act in a truly autonomous way that distinguishes between blue forces (friendly) and red forces (the foe).”

Lyntris also enters the market amid a period where DOD is pushing for more rapid prototyping and fielding of technologies before they are 100%-ready, but sees iteration while in use as the way to get there.

The company has opted to center much of its strategy around being a merchant supplier to larger prime contractors. Morrison said Lyntris views that status as helping it work on tech development in those kinds of quicker cycles DOD wants.

“If we were to pursue a position of being solely a platform prime, we'd be forced to make tradeoffs about accepting suboptimal solutions,” Morrison said. “We resist the temptation to be vertically integrating at all opportunities.”

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WT 360: NextGov/FCW’s David DiMolfetta on CISA’s catchup, federal AI policy and offensive cyber

Ross Wilkers and David DiMolfetta — Mon, 11 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The federal government’s lead agency for domestic cybersecurity and infrastructure protection matters has only completed its first week of being fully back up and running after not being funded for 11 weeks.

David DiMolfetta, cyber reporter at NextGov/FCW, has covered how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has operated through a period that followed losses of nearly one-third of its workforce under this Trump administration.

David joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to lay out CISA’s path forward with funding in place, plus what the agency’s stakeholders in the private and public sectors should watch out for amid the catchup.

David then breaks down NextGov/FCW’s recent reporting on two major storylines on artificial intelligence policy coming out of the White House that has direct implications for industry.

The second half of their conversation is all about a deep dive article David put together on where industry fits, or may not fit, into the government’s offensive cyber approach.

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Peraton's sector president hires and more leadership moves across the market

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:46:09 -0400

Peraton

Two sector president hires and an internal promotion are afoot at this technology integrator, which former Science Applications International Corp. executive Bob Genter joined in February as chief operating officer.

Gabe Camarillo, the former Army undersecretary and more recently a KBR executive, has joined as president of Peraton’s defense sector and brings two decades of experience to the role.

As Army undersecretary, Camarillo led service-wide reform efforts in software acquisition and foreign military sales. He also oversaw the establishment of the Army’s first digital engineering policy.

While at KBR, Camarillo was senior vice president of the defense technology solutions business. His career also includes executive roles at SAIC.

Vishal Tuslian is now president of Peraton's health, state and local sector following 25 years of experience at other contractors in the market.

This sector works with federal health agencies, state governments and local community organizations.

Tuslian most recently worked as president and chief operating officer at Reli Group. Prior to that, he spent a decade at Science Applications International Corp. and is a former senior vice president there.

In addition, Peraton has promoted Danny Valladares to chief technology officer for its national security business. Valladares, who announced his new role in a LinkedIn post, has been with Peraton and its heritage businesses for close to a decade.

Appian

Ali Mohammed has joined the process automation software developer as chief architect for its public sector team, which is a newly-created role for the former Army tech leader.

Mohammed most recently served in the title of assistant capability program executive and chief technology officer for the Army’s CPE ES2 organization. He is a 23-year veteran of government and private sector roles.

Jason Adolf, vice president of Appian’s global public sector vertical, announced the hire of Mohammed on LinkedIn and cited his technical and functional domain experience.

Cybersec Investments

Stacy Bostjanick, the Pentagon’s former chief of defense industrial base security, has joined this computer and network security company as vice president of government services strategy.

Bostjanick will “lead the stand-up of our new division focused on delivering cybersecurity services directly to federal departments and agencies,” Fernando Machado, Cybersec managing partner, wrote in a LinkedIn post on her hire.

In her Defense Department role, Bostjanick led the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.

Enlightenment Capital

Rob Albritton has joined the government market investment firm as managing director for technology and innovation, a role he brings two decades of defense tech experience to.

Albritton will work with Enlightenment’s portfolio companies on their technology strategies and roadmaps, while also advising the firm on those items as well when looking at investments.

His career includes leadership roles at Tyto Athene, IBM, Octo, Mitre Corp. and NVIDIA. At Octo, he led the establishment of its oLabs organization and AI Center of Excellence in the years leading up to its sale to IBM in 2023.

FalconTek

Ricky Schultz has joined the technical and professional services provider as vice president of client development, a role he brings 14 years of experience to.

Schultz will lead FalconTek’s workforce solutions division with responsibility for client acquisition, growing partnerships and shaping the go-to-market strategy.

Prior to FalconTek, Schultz spent a decade at Aerotek and his most recent role there was practice lead. FalconTek is a service-disabled/veteran-owned small business.

Groundswell

Greg Worley, a former commandant of the Army Finance Corps, has joined the enterprise resource planning software integrator as vice president of intelligent automation in its defense business.

Groundswell announced the hire in a LinkedIn post and described his main task as leading the application of artificial intelligence and intelligent automation across federal financial management functions.

In that commandant role, Worley led a 6,100-person team with responsibility for financial operations and resource management.

Lockheed Martin

Orlando “OJ” Sanchez Jr. will move up to president of the defense giant’s aeronautics segment on June 1 and succeed Greg Ulmer, who is retiring after three decades at Lockheed.

Lockheed Martin’s aeronautics portfolio is highlighted by the F-35 fighter jet program, while the segment employs 35,000 people and generates around $30 billion in annual revenue.

Sanchez joined Lockheed in 2014 following service as an Air Force officer and most recently led the company’s famed Skunk Works advanced development program. Ullmer has led the aeronautics segment for five years.

mPower

Diane Yarnell has joined the business transformation services provider as chief administrative officer after 25 years at GRSi and DLH Corp.

MPower's LinkedIn post on this hire cites her background as covering operations, scaling organizations and building the infrastructure to support growth.

GRSi was acquired in 2022 by DLH, where Yarnell most recently worked as president of health IT.

Niyam IT

Mohamed Elansary has joined the IT solutions provider as chief operating officer, a role he brings 25 years of experience to.

Elansary will work with Suman Biswas, Niyam’s founder and CEO, and other executive team members to shape the company’s strategy and vision. Elansary’s areas of responsibility include business development, capture, proposal and marketing functions.

Prior to Niyam, Elansary worked as chief growth officer at Concept Plus and was the CGO at Buchanan & Edwards before that.

Oddball

Agata Ciesielski and Drake Rose have joined the digital services company as vice presidents, roles they both bring government experience to.

As VP of architecture, Ciesielski will oversee Oddball’s labs organization in efforts to scale artificial intelligence solutions. A two-decade tech veteran, Ciesielski is a former AI lead for the Homeland Security Department and most recently was a senior solutions manager at C3 AI.

In the VP of transformation role, Rose will focus on how Oddball translates user needs in its product development work. Rose’s career includes stints as senior product manager and associate director, product lead in the Air Force’s Kessel Run organization.

Revolutional

Mike Cosgrave has joined the technology services provider as senior vice president and general manager for its national security and defense business unit, a role he brings two decades of leadership experience to.

Revolutional is the new name for what was Harmonia Holdings in the two decades prior to its rebrand. Madison Dearborn Partners acquired the company in the fall of 2024.

Cosgrave most recently was an operational executive at Aether Aerospace. His career also includes chief operating officer stints at Tria Federal and AceInfo.

SAP NS2

Gus Perna has joined the software conglomerate’s National Security Solutions subsidiary as executive vice president and strategic customer officer, a role he brings four decades of Army experience to.

The retired four-star general’s career is highlighted by his service as chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, the initiative for developing and distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Perna is also a former commanding general for the Army Materiel Command, a key logistics organization for the service branch.

Slingshot Aerospace

Markus Hartmann has joined the space data software provider as senior vice president of legal, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

Hartmann most recently worked as chief legal development and counsel at AI startup DragonGC and before that as general counsel and corporate secretary at Mister Car Wash.

Slingshot cited his work at DragonGC as aligning with efforts to build and scale AI for space operations.

Thales Defense & Security Inc.

Chris Forrest has joined this U.S. subsidiary of the aerospace and defense electronics company as chief financial officer, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

Forrest most recently worked as executive vice president and general manager of advanced robotics and mission solutions at QinetiQ US.

His career also includes leadership roles at Collins Aerospace and ARINC.

Westat

Sunitha Mathew has moved up to chief growth officer at the provider of research, data collection and analysis services after 24 years there.

Formerly a vice president, Mathew now works with other members of Westat’s executive team to shape and execute enterprise-wide growth initiatives. Her areas of responsibility include business development, marketing and communications.

Mathew succeeds Janet Rosenbaum, who has retired after eight years at Westat and four decades in industry overall.

Viasat

Shekar Ayyar and Jinhy Yoon have joined the board of directors at this satellite network operator, which announced their appointments as part of a cooperation agreement with one of its investors.

Carronade Capital Management is an activist investor that disclosed its 2.6% stake in Viasat in the summer of 2025, when the firm also recommended Viasat pursue either an initial public offering or spinoff of the defense and advanced technologies business.

Viasat’s board is conducting a strategic review to determine its path forward. Carronade has entered into customary standstill and voting agreements with Viasat, among other provisions.

Ayyar is chief executive of networking software company Arrcus, while Yoon is a 14-year veteran of PIMCO and a former Intelsat board member. SES acquired Intelsat in 2025 to create a larger satellite network operator.

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Army small business office pulls the plug on LinkedIn posts

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:44:13 -0400

In an era when government leaders routinely use social media to make significant policy announcements, the decision by the Army Office of Small Business Programs to pull the plug on its LinkedIn feed seems counterintuitive.

The LinkedIn page for the office has 25,000 followers and the office has used it to make a wide range of announcements.

The page contains small business questions about CMMC, links to register for events and promotions of programs such as the mentor-protégé portal. All of that is just in the last two weeks.

But in a post Wednesday, the office said that it will no longer actively update its LinkedIn social media account.

“Moving forward, all announcements, resources, and opportunities will be posted exclusively on our official website,” the organization wrote.

Instead, the office directs small businesses to visit its website for the latest news and information.

Commenters expressed dismay.

“This doesn’t make sense as LinkedIn is the social connectivity for the [Defense Industrial Base. ALL the other [Department of Defense] offices have pages to follow and stay connected,” wrote one person.

To prove that point, directly below his comment, the Army Pathway for Innovation and Technology posted an invitation to follow their LinkedIn page for the latest news and updates on their programs.

The Army PIT manages Small Business Innovation Research grants, among other programs to get leading edge technologies into the hands of operators.

Other comments lamented the Army’s decision.

“How unfortunate for the American small business community,” wrote one.

“This is a big loss. This page brings a lot of awareness and information to the [small business] community,” another commenter said.

One commenter was very succinct in his comment, which likely reflects the thoughts of many. “Why?”

Why, indeed.

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Pentagon will ‘never again’ rely on a single AI provider, official says

Alexandra Kelley — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:41:00 -0400

Leadership at the Pentagon reiterated the agency’s commitment to diversifying its artificial intelligence service providers, with Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael taking the stage Thursday at an event in Washington, D.C., to stress that his department is never being “single-threaded with any one model.”

Speaking during the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo event, Michael said that the recent deals between eight leading AI developers and the Department of Defense are both a private sector statement of support for working with the government, as well as a step towards the Pentagon’s goal to diversify its tech stack with different providers.

“We were single-threaded on one vendor, one AI vendor at the Department of War, and to integrate into classified systems is not just putting your software on a public cloud and having it work,” Michael said, referring to his agency’s contract with Anthropic. “These are sophisticated, protective systems that take a lot of work to integrate on, so it wasn't like I could just turn on a few other models that easily. But never again we’ll be single-threaded with any one model.”

Michael continued to say that the new deals with Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Reflection, Oracle and SpaceX are “a statement by the biggest tech companies in the world who are involved in the AI space … and have them say, ‘We support the Department of War, we support the U.S. government, and we support the… armed services for all lawful use cases.”

Michael’s comments come in the midst of an ongoing dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense following the company’s refusal to have its technology used in operations involving autonomous weaponry and American surveillance.

The fallout of that dispute resulted in the Pentagon designating Anthropic a supply chain risk and the White House ordering agencies to begin removing the company's products from their tech stacks. A judge put a hold on those actions in late March pending ongoing litigation over the government’s actions.

The release of Anthropic’s advanced cybersecurity-focused model, Mythos Preview, changed the discussion. Access to Mythos and its advanced capabilities for detecting cybersecurity flaws is tantalizing for the U.S. government, prompting internal drafts of policy plans that would enable some agencies to use Anthropic’s cutting-edge model.

Michael said that the advent of Mythos signals the forthcoming evolution of cyber-capable AI models.

“The Mythos moment is really a cyber moment, and it's: ‘How is the U.S. government going to deal with cyber?’” Michael said.

Major tech companies are responding to Michael’s drive to diversify the Pentagon’s vendor portfolio. Rand Waldron, the vice president of the Global Government Sector for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, told Nextgov/FCW that Defense officials are asking cloud service providers like Oracle to prioritize interconnectedness in the effort to avoid vendor lock-in.

“From what I can see, the Department of War has some very savvy people who … don't want to go all in on one [model] because then six months later, they may need to go all in on another,” Waldron said.

He explained that there will likely be models that are more finely-tuned to particular use cases, such as code generation, data analytics, supply chain management or targeting in warfighter operations. One model from a single provider may not effectively serve each of these workflows.

“I don't believe that all those different use cases will end up being the exact same model at any given time,” Waldron said.

The Pentagon’s desire to expand the service offerings available for its workforce has precedent. Waldron said that DOD and the intelligence community have laid the foundation for a flexible approach to AI services acquisition, citing the creation of the Commercial Cloud Enterprise and Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contracting vehicles as the blueprints for future contracting structure.

“It's not like they're trying to replace Anthropic with another model provider,” Waldron said. “They want to replace Anthropic with four model providers.”

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HawkEye 360's public offering hauls in $416M

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 07 May 2026 16:09:40 -0400

HawkEye 360 hauled in $416 million through its initial public offering that launched Wednesday after the commercial satellite operator’s shares became available at $26 each to open.

That price is at the high end of the range HawkEye 360 first indicated in late April, when the company launched its roadshow to generate demand for the stock. Investors are originally being offered 16 million shares from the IPO’s underwriters, which have a 30-day option to purchase another 2.4 million shares.

Based on those figures, HawkEye 360 has achieved a valuation of around $2.4 billion through the availability of its stock in the public markets. Herndon, Virginia-headquartered HawkEye 360 is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “HAWK.”

Shares in HawkEye 360 closed up 31% to $34.03 in their first day of trading on Thursday and were as high as $34.49.

HawkEye 360’s decision to tap into the public markets is the newest in a string of IPOs from other space and defense technology companies, while investors and many other stakeholders wait a public filing from SpaceX.

Voyager Technologies, Firefly Aerospace, York Space Systems, Merlin Labs and AEVEX Corp. all achieved their goals for net proceeds and valuations in their respective IPOs over the past 12 months.

Of its $416 million in proceeds fetched, HawkEye 360 will use the majority to pay down debt and put toward working capital and other general corporate purposes.

HawkEye 360 is also using $15 million for a deferred payment related to its acquisition in December of Innovative Signal Analysis, which was closed in conjunction with a $150 million Series E capital raise.

The venture capital arms of Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Airbus and Raytheon have all been investors in HawkEye 360 at various points since the latter company’s inception in 2015.

Insight Partners, Razor's Edge and NightDragon also have been involved in HawkEye 360 over the years. Insight Partners led the $145 million Series D round in 2021 and participated in the $58 million Series D-1 in 2023.

Regulatory filings on the IPO indicate that Insight Partners will hold a 15% stake in HawkEye 360, while NightDragon will hold 9.7% and Razor's Edge will be at 5%.

HawkEye 360 has launched 30 satellites to-date and recorded $117.6 million in revenue on $2.6 million in net income for 2025, while U.S. government work represented 61% of that year’s sales mix. Total backlog as of Dec. 31 stood at $302.6 million.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Morgan Stanley are acting as lead book-running managers for HawkEye 360’s offering. RBC Capital Markets, Jefferies and BofA Securities are acting as additional book-running managers. Baird, Raymond James, and William Blair are acting as bookrunners. Drexel Hamilton is acting as co-manager.

CEO John Serafini and other members of HawkEye 360’s executive team rang the opening bell Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange.

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How IT vendors should approach the federal post-quantum cryptography market

Grier Eagan and Joshua Isler — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:26:57 -0400

With a deadline for federal agencies to implement their post-quantum cryptography (PQC) strategies by 2035, government cyber experts are actively working on charting their course in the post-quantum world to come.

Because some previously accepted cybersecurity solutions will be phased out as a part of this move toward a quantum world, there are opportunities for IT vendors.

This post-quantum focus was underscored in the recently released Cyber Strategy for America. Last fall, the Defense Department in a November 2025 memo to senior Pentagon leadership, combat commands, and field activity directors, laid the groundwork for migrating to PQC. This guideline memo built on the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act of 2022, which requires agencies to assess how they use potentially vulnerable cryptography and develop a PQC transition timeline.

Defense cybersecurity requirements

Under the defense memo, agencies will be required to receive cryptographic intake and deployment approval before testing, evaluating, piloting, investing in, using, or deploying “quantum resistant or quantum resilient technologies.”

DOD has banned the use of certain technologies in providing confidentiality, authenticity, or integrity in defense networks and communications, including:

Quantum key distribution (QKD)
Solutions combining QKD with other cryptographic key establishment
Quantum communications or networking
Non-local quantum randomness generation
Non-FIPS random number generation

DOD is also phasing out several previously accepted cybersecurity solutions. They will not test, pilot, use, or procure commercial solutions for these technologies:

Cryptographic pre-shared keys (PSK) solutions that are not provisioned through NSA Key Management Infrastructure for Type 1 devices. This will be phased out by December 31, 2030.

Symmetric key establishment protocols, symmetric key agreement protocols, and symmetric key distribution protocols. These will be phased out by December 31, 2031. DOD will not test, pilot, use, or procure commercial solutions of this type for quantum resistance.

Potential sales plays for IT vendors

With this understanding, what is the best way forward for IT vendors supporting the Defense Department?

Reach out to PQC migration leads. These leads are assessing the current state of cryptographic systems for PQC migration and are responsible for PQC acquisition requirements. These PQC leads will likely sit somewhere within component CIO offices.

Assist with inventory phase and get in early. PQC migration requires identification, inventory and reporting of all cryptographic systems across defense networks. These systems include national security systems (NSS), non-NSS, business systems, weapons systems, cloud computing capabilities, mobile devices, physical access control systems, Internet of Things, unmanned systems, operational technology and all other cryptographic-related technology.

Gathering an inventory of all cryptographic systems is a huge undertaking. It will likely require the assistance of technologies such as AI.

Pitch NIST algorithm-based solutions. Unlike the wider push for commercial solutions across the DOD, when it comes to PQC the department wants to help ensure any solution they are using is based on the approved NIST algorithms. To help ensure solutions use NIST-approved algorithms is the only way to sell PQC-related technologies to the DOD.

DARPA leads the way. PQC is very much in the research and development phase across the department, and DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which has $282 million in funding for fiscal 2026, is currently the largest PQC-related program in the Defense Department.

The PQC initiative has opportunities not solely related to PQC solutions themselves, but any technology that can help support research, development, test, and evaluation efforts around the technology. This opens opportunities for solutions related to red teaming, AI, project management and other supportive technologies and solutions.

Quantum security efforts exist now. Quantum computing and sensing are an R&D play. Because the Defense Department intends to be fully quantum secure by 2031, opportunities related to quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum networking are in preliminary R&D stages and will likely take longer to mature.

Speak directly to R&D program needs, it’s useful to know where some of the emphasis is being directed toward.

NSF National Quantum Virtual Laboratory. This program supports infrastructure and testbeds to develop quantum technologies in academic settings. Pilots include quantum frontiers, quantum information science (QIS) workforce education and training, and outreach activities.

Department of Energy (DOE) QIS Support Technology and Infrastructure: The QIS program includes facilities such as the Nanoscale Science Research Center, quantum computing and networking testbeds, foundries for superconducting qubits, and technologies producing isotopes for quantum systems.

Civilian quantum R&D plays are limited to these two agencies (NSF and DOE) and their initiatives. Potential sales avenues here would be restricted to solutions for learning content management, hardware (i.e., computing, sensing and networking), and data collection/analysis.

A 2031 deadline for PQC compliance across federal agencies is not as far off as it seems, given the scope of the inventory and analysis of cyber systems required of agencies. Combined with the fact that some previously accepted technologies will be eliminated, vendors need to start working on their PQC sales strategies now and look at these federal requirements as new opportunities to grow their business.

Grier Egan and Joshua Iseler are senior market intelligence analysts for immixGroup, a public sector business of Arrow Electronics. immixGroup delivers mission-driven results through innovative technology solutions for public sector IT. immixGroup can assist you in discovering the specifics surrounding PQC opportunities. We can help you find where agencies are focusing their attention and how to make the correct contact by reaching out to us here.

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NRC seeks research foundation for AI regulation in nuclear plants

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:07:40 -0400

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking for a contractor to help lay down groundwork for how the agency will manage the use of artificial intelligence in nuclear power plants.

NRC released a final solicitation on Tuesday for a contract being called Cybersecurity of Novel Technology Implementations in Operating and New/Advanced Reactors Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

In creating this contract, NRC is recognizing the growing use of AI at power plants and the risk that creates.

“The use of AI/ML technologies in operating and new/advanced reactors will potentially require new cybersecurity regulatory guidance and new technical basis to support that guidance,” NRC writes in the solicitation.

Under the contract, the agency wants a contractor to take an inventory on how AI is used or planned to be used. A second key task area will be to analyze how AI creates specific cybersecurity risks and map them against the NRC’s Regulatory Guide 5.71 to identify gaps.

Nuclear power plants use both digital and analog systems to monitor, operate, control and protect the facilities.

“There is an increased interest in the use of digital assets to perform these functions as analog devices face obsolescence and supply concerns,” NRC writes. “While digital assets provide increased flexibility and performance, they have the potential to introduce cybersecurity issues.”

The contractor will develop a draft assessment framework and principles for evaluating AI implementations.

The contractor will also produce a report to guide the NRC on developing regulations and guidance.

NRC is managing this as a small business set-aside contract and has set a ceiling of $250,000.

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Air Force wraps up awards for $866M advisory, assistance contract

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:55:46 -0400

The Air Force has finalized its award of an eight-year, $866 million advisory and assistance services contract to four companies that will work with one of the service branch’s military intelligence units.

The National Air and Space Intelligence Center is responsible for looking at air, space, missile and cyber issues in order to inform weapon system acquisitions and national defense policies. Other U.S. military and intelligence agencies rely on NASIC’s work as foundational to their strategies, programs and plans.

Apogee Engineering, KBR, Riverside Research, and Systems Planning and Analysis were announced as awardees in the Pentagon’s Wednesday contracts digest. They were the only companies to have submitted bids.

Work will take place at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio through June 30, 2034.

Solicitation documents from August 2025 outline how NASIC set up the Advisory Support and Technical Requirement Administration contract to aid in the production of technical intelligence on foreign systems.

The contract’s key activity areas include collection, analysis, planning, processing, dissemination and archiving.

Awardees will compete for task orders to perform work in support of these functions at NASIC:

Administrative and management analysis
Research Development
Program and project management
Acquisition planning
Financial management
Human resources
Logistics
Engineering and facility management
Industrial and personnel security
Cybersecurity
Engineering services
Intelligence analysis
Modeling and simulation
Information technology
Business analytics

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DOD grows Scale AI agreement to $500M

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:55:06 -0400

The Defense Department has increased the ceiling of a contract with Scale AI from $100 million to $500 million only eight months after first making the award for access to the company’s product line.

Under the production Other Transaction Agreement, Scale AI is working with DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office on efforts to incorporate computer vision and generative AI decision support technologies in military planning and operations.

Scale AI said Wednesday that demand across the department has exceeded the original ceiling, which necessitated the fivefold increase.

DOD components can use the OTA to initiative their own project agreement at pre-negotiated, volume-based pricing and have a portion of it co-funded by the CDAO office.

The OTA covers access to Scale AI’s machine learning operations platform that supports computer vision models, a generative AI platform for deploying models securely, and decision-making tools for defense and intelligence operators.

Scale AI was founded in 2016 and counts the parent company of Facebook as a major investor. Meta Platforms acquired its 49% non-voting stake in June 2025.

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Legislative proposal would eliminate contracting preferences for minority, women-owned businesses

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:20:18 -0400

A bill introduced in the House and Senate in late April would effectively wipe out many of the contracting preferences for minority and women owned businesses.

The Ending Discrimination in Government Contracting Act was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisconsin). It would codify and expand on provisions in President Trump’s March 26 executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion provisions in federal contracts.

The EO requires agencies to insert a clause in contracts that bans DEI and mandates reporting requirements to assure compliance, as well as allowing agencies to cancel contracts for not complying with the no-DEI requirement.

Prime contractors would be required to report subcontractors who violate the contract clause. Primes also would be required to report subcontractors who file a lawsuit challenging the no-DEI requirement.

The executive order also set a July 24 deadline for agencies to modify existing contracts by inserting the no DEI clause.

In their bill, Lee and Grothman also aim to eliminate contracting goals and preference programs for small businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. These include the 8(a) program and small businesses owned by women.

Their bill leaves in place goals for businesses in the HUBZone small business, veteran-owned and service-disabled/veteran-owned categories.

The proposed legislation expands on the executive order by also banning agencies from considering sex, along with race and ethnicity when awarding contracts and grants. It also would bar agencies from telling prime contractors to require their subs to consider race, ethnicity or sex.

Lee and Grothman’s bills also end the requirement that agencies report on the number of contracts that go to women-owned businesses, and socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses.

The bills also seeks to repeal the Minority Business Development Act of 2021, which has steered billions of dollars in contracts to minority-owned businesses since its passage.

Part of the argument from Lee and Grothman is that DEI programs waste taxpayer money and are not fair.

Their proposed bills would be a significant restructuring of the small business contracting world and would impact thousands of businesses.

So far, there are no co-sponsors for Lee's bill (S. 4390) or Grothman’s bill (HR. 8511). Both bills have been referred to their respective committees.

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The data accountability trap: Why federal AI success hinges on stewardship over software

Tyler Morris — Wed, 06 May 2026 17:12:13 -0400

The federal government race for artificial intelligence will not be won by those who move first, but by those who start from the right place. For agencies in 2026 that starting point is not the next algorithm or procurement because it is the data they already have. As we navigate the landscape shaped by the White House National Policy Framework for AI from March 2026, we are witnessing a regulatory paradox.

While this framework seeks to accelerate innovation by reducing regulatory friction through targeted preemption, the contractual and legal teeth of data accountability have never been sharper. Success in this era is not a matter of workforce culture alone but is about enterprise-wide data governance as the only lever that turns high level policy into consistent mission ready execution.

Foundation Over Frontier

There is a growing tension between the drive to streamline adoption and existing privacy laws like PII and HIPAA. We must be clear that deregulating tools does not mean deregulating the data those tools use. Every scanned document and unstructured file carries institutional knowledge that if ignored weakens the reliability of a system output. Modernization must be deliberate because simply moving records to the cloud without classification and retention policies risks replicating years of disorder in a new digital format. The agencies that lead will be those that respect the foundation of data integrity as much as the technological frontier.

Consider the situation of a defense organization attempting to use AI tools to predict equipment maintenance needs. If the underlying maintenance logs are simply digitized, but not validated, the AI system will produce predictions that are fast but fundamentally flawed. When those same logs are cataloged with standardized metadata across every depot, the model becomes a force multiplier that leadership can actually trust.

The difference in AI results is found in the groundwork, rather than the algorithm because data integrity is the true source of mission power. Archives must be treated as predictive assets rather than administrative burdens to ensure that automation does not outpace accountability.

Governance as the New Accountability

With no centralized federal agency overseeing AI, responsibility has shifted directly to data owners. Governance, specifically classification and access, has become the primary mechanism for managing risk. As noted in OMB directives M-25-21 and M-25-22 agencies must align use with rigorous governance frameworks and risk management practices. Public trust begins at this data layer, where agencies must know where each dataset originates and who is responsible for its accuracy.

Transformation success depends on people who understand the lineage of information. When government employees can trace and trust the information that shapes a decision, they are more likely to use the tools confidently which ultimately improves the execution of the mission.

The Reality of Contractual Liability

Data governance is the primary defense against legal and operational breaches and is codified in the recently released GSA clause 552.239-7001. Under these rules the use of unauthorized or ungoverned shadow AI becomes a direct contractual liability.

The GSA mandate requires a tight 72-hour window for reporting. If government information owners do not know where their data is, or how it is being accessed, they cannot possibly know it has been breached until it is far too late. This turns the use of unauthorized tools into a guaranteed contract violation rather than just a technical oversight. The era of experimentation without guardrails is ending, and the new phase of federal intelligence will be defined by better stewardship of the information lifeblood that sustains it.

Turning Policy into Mission Power

To comply with new AI guidance, federal leaders must turn vast stores of information into structured and usable assets. The GAO 2025 report on generative AI highlighted that while use cases are nearly doubling, many AI pilot programs lack the comprehensive data inventories needed to mitigate ethical and operational risks. When strategies fail to prioritize information provenance, this risks undermining both performance and public confidence in AI programs.

The next phase of federal AI will not be defined by new tools but by better stewardship. To move from experimentation to mission ready intelligence federal leaders must take immediate steps to shift the starting line. This begins with conducting comprehensive audits of legacy records and unstructured files to identify the institutional knowledge currently sitting outside the reach of these AI systems. Agencies must also align procurement and management to ensure every dataset has a clear and auditable lineage to satisfy new contractual requirements. Finally,records management and mission teams must treat data as a shared asset rather than an administrative burden.

Intelligence does not start with algorithms; it starts with accountability. When agencies shift the focus from technology to data governance, they do more than keep pace with innovation; they set the pace for responsible government.

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Astranis, Scout Space lay out next steps following capital rounds

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:51:53 -0400

Astranis

The communications satellite operator has collected $455 million in new capital to accelerate production of its spacecraft for commercial customers and pursue opportunities in the U.S. military market.

Snowpoint Ventures and Franklin Templeton co-led a Series E round that hauled in $300 million for Astranis, while the remaining $155 million comes from a delayed-draw credit facility provided by Trinity Capital. Astranis can use the facility to access funds as needed rather than all at once.

Astranis employs roughly 500 people and opened for business in 2015 to build small communications satellites for geostationary orbit. These “micro-GEO” satellites are intended to be more maneuverable than larger systems and give operators more direct control, including telecommunications firms and government agencies.

In April 2022, Astranis CEO John Gedmark said the company was aiming to have 100 satellites in active service by 2030. Astranis has launched five satellites since its inception.

With the new investment, Antaris will push to scale its production in-line with U.S. military requirements and indications that it wants both more maneuverable spacecraft and capability to expand network capacities more quickly.

Astranis is on a pair of large Space Force contracts awarded within the past 10 months: a potential $4 billion effort focused on GEO communications satellites, and a separate $1.8 billion vehicle for space domain awareness.

Other Series E participants included Andreessen Horowitz and funds managed by BlackRock, Baillie Gifford and Fidelity Management & Research Company. BAM Elevate, Nimble Partners and Friends & Family Capital also were involved.

Scout Space

This specialist in space domain awareness software has completed an $18 million Series A capital raise to support upcoming missions and work to expand manufacturing facilities, including a new 2,600-square-foot hub in Northern Virginia.

Scout Space opened for business in 2019 to develop sensors and software that help spacecraft see and understand events around them. The company is working on an orbital distributed sensor network that incorporates optical payloads, edge processing and autonomy to enable real-time awareness and responsiveness in space.

The idea behind that approach is to help satellites and other space systems detect, track and characterize objects in orbit.

With this newfound investment in place, Scout also will advance on its partnership with Blue Origin to integrate the former’s Owl sensor on the launch company’s Blue Ring payload hosting spacecraft. Scout is also seeking to expand its work with Space Force and help the service branch further advance GEO-based sensing systems.

Washington Harbour Partners led the Series A round that also included participation from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, Decisive Point, Fusion Fund and Noblis’ venture capital arm.

For Noblis, this continues the nonprofit science and technology firm’s work with Scout almost three years after first entering the investment via a seed round.

In an April episode of our WT 360 podcast, Noblis CEO Mile Corrigan mentioned Scout when summarizing venture investment activity since the firm started out on that in 2023.

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Army's NCODE pilot takes shape with eight-company cyber pool

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:47:53 -0400

A group of eight companies have won spots on a pilot program that the Army will use to help its small business contractors mitigate cybersecurity threats.

The eight companies will compete for task orders under the $49 million Next-Gen Commercial Operations in Defended Enclaves contract to help small businesses implement standards written by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This includes NIST 800-171, which is required for compliance with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification.

NCODE will give small businesses a secure Defense Department-funded cloud environment to meet CMMC and other defense cybersecurity compliance requirements.

DOD received 31 bids in total for the opportunity and announced these winners on Tuesday:

ATX Defense
Beryllium Infosec
Cytex
David T. Scott & Associates
Eccalon
Exostar
Security Centric
Summit 7 Systems

These eight companies form a pool of what are known as verified external service providers. Through the NCODE vehicle, small business DOD contractors will use defense funds to more quickly improve their cybersecurity posture.

The contract runs through May 14, 2031.

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NextPoint Group acquires fellow software development provider

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:46:17 -0400

NextPoint Group, a software development provider for national security agencies, has acquired a fellow specialist in the same line of work that concentrates on cybersecurity and data analysis requirements.

UScontracting opened for business in 2002 and also touts signals intelligence as a core focus area. This transaction marks NPG first purchase with the backing of Godspeed Capital Management, the private equity firm that acquired NPG in late 2025.

Financial terms of the move announced Wednesday were not disclosed.

“The company’s capabilities, customer access, and talented team align closely with NPG’s strategy to build and scale a differentiated, provider of mission-focused technologies and solutions,” NPG CEO Ron Kattas said in a release.

NPG was founded in 2004 to work with defense and intelligence agencies on efforts to modernize and operate networks. In backing NPG, Godspeed aims to further build the company into a larger mission technology contractor for the national security community.

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Army's $50B MAPS vehicle hit with second protest

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 06 May 2026 13:00:08 -0400

More complaints about perceived ambiguities surrounding the Army’s massive MAPS contract have led a second company to file a protest challenging the procurement.

Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions has joined MetroStar Systems with objections to how the Army is managing its potential 10-year, $50 billion Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services vehicle.

Complaints about the contract – where proposals are due Friday – have focused on a lack of transparency and inadequate responses to industry questions. The protesters claim these responses create ambiguity and risk for potential bidders.

In its protest, Intelligence Consulting complains about how the Army has changed the solicitation number with each amendment.

Intelligence Consulting also claims that the Army has failed to answer over 200 questions submitted by industry. For many of the questions the Army does answer, the responses are not seen as meaningful.

A typical response for nearly 700 questions has been along the lines of “the solicitation accurately reflects the government’s needs in a manner that maximizes competition and adheres to all applicable laws without being unduly restrictive.”

The solicitation also requires submission of documentation for classified work, but there is no mechanism to securely submit that documentation.

Intelligence Consulting filed its protest May 5 and the Government Accountability Office is due to make its ruling by Aug. 13.

The MetroStar protest has a decision deadline of Aug. 3.

While the protests will not delay the Friday due date for proposals, the Army cannot make award decisions until GAO rules on the protests.

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DHS preps industry for communications equipment recompete

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:31:34 -0400

The Homeland Security Department has provided industry a rough timeline for its plan to conduct the recompete of a contract for commodity communications equipment and services.

DHS awarded the current Tactical Communications II contract, also known as TACCOM II, in 2019 at a $3 billion ceiling over up to five years. Other agencies can also place orders against the contract for products as they are made available through commercial and General Services Administration catalogs.

The department is calling the upcoming iteration TACTICS, short for Tactical Communications and Technical Investigative Comprehensive Solutions, and is eyeing Aug. 3 as the date to release the final solicitation.

Awards for the five-year contract should follow in the third quarter of this calendar year, DHS said in a Friday notice to its Acquisition Planning Forecast System.

Like with the current iteration, TACTICS will have one technical category for equipment and a second focused on services.

Examples of equipment include radios and accessories; communications infrastructure; and maritime, airborne and satellite systems. TACTICS equipment will also cover video, audio and sensor-based devices used for collecting and managing operational data.

The services category encompasses work areas such as maintenance, installation, repair, deployment, spectrum support and project management.

DHS has obligated roughly $1.8 billion in order volume to-date against the current TACCOM II contract that is slated to sunset in May 2027, according to Deltek data. Tribalco, Motorola Solutions, Chartis Consulting Corp., CACI International and ACG Systems are the top five recipients of orders so far.

TACTICS II is also bundling in requirements from a contract called TechOps II, short for Technical Investigative Surveillance Equipment II. But task order activity for TechOps II took place via the NASA SEWP V vehicle for commodity IT needs, which means spending data there is not readily available.

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Air Force eyes OTAs, agile acquisition for next-gen air operations command and control system

Nick Wakeman — Tue, 05 May 2026 14:35:53 -0400

The Air Force is in the early stages of a modernization effort for its command-and-control system for air operations.

Postings on Sam.gov signal that the service wants a faster and more flexible acquisition plan, including other transaction agreements to get artificial intelligence capabilities into the field more quickly.

The Air Operations Center wants to modernize the systems used by the Joint Force Air Component Command to manage air, space and cyberspace operations.

The Air Force released a request for information in February for the Next-Generation Air Operations Center Weapon system and has since posted several updates including two sets of Q&As.

The contract is being managed by Kessel Run division within the Portfolio Acquisition Executive for command and control and battle management, which is responsible for agile software development across the Air Force.

The RFI calls for a prime contractor to work as a systems integrator. The government is also looking at modernization and not a discrete product buy. But several of the documents, such as the statement of need, have not been publicly disclosed.

Some technical requirements include IL6 or higher for cloud, Secret or higher for edge computing, and a continuity of operations/disconnected state requirement.

The solicitation will include a requirement for a Top-Secret facility clearance. The Air Force expects to release a bidder’s library with the draft solicitation.

The documents ask industry to share ideas for an outcome-based approach to meeting the program’s objectives. They also ask about agreement structures including an OTA.

In Q&A documents released Tuesday, the Air Force again said it was considering all acquisition strategies.

An OTA with follow-on production is one approach that could bring the speed and flexibility the Air Force is looking for. But a traditional procurement will likely be used for sustainment, according to the Q&A.

No procurement timeline has been given, but the Air Force has signaled it wants a competitive field. Industry is already pressing the program office on that point.

One question submitted by a prospective offeror asked how the government would ensure a level playing field and avoid "carve outs and pay-to-play relationships with a small group of vendors."

The Air Force response was brief: "The government is engaging with industry as part of market research and seeks to maximize competition for this requirement."

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Trump admin floats policy language limiting contractor say on agency uses of technology

Alexandra Kelley and David DiMolfetta — Tue, 05 May 2026 14:12:00 -0400

The federal government is circulating draft policy documents that contain language clarifying the government’s ability to use private sector technology without outside stipulations for how they do so, two sources familiar with their development told Nextgov/FCW.

While it remains unclear if the language being passed between various government agencies — namely the Department of Defense and components of the Trump administration — will manifest into an executive order or finalized policy, that language centers on ensuring the government has control over how its acquired technology products are used.

One source familiar with the ongoing development told Nextgov/FCW that the goal of the language is to clarify that “it is for that democratically elected government to determine what is a lawful and appropriate use of a particular technology, not solely a company.”

The White House is mulling an executive order that would create a working group for AI models before they are deployed, according to a person familiar with the matter. The New York Times first reported the administration’s consideration of the order. It’s not clear if the contracting language is a separate initiative or would be a provision embedded into a forthcoming directive.

Other language featured in the draft documents examines how the government can manage emerging cybersecurity threats posed by AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos Preview and OpenAI’s GPT 5.5, according to the same source and another person familiar with the matter.

The discussions and draft documents highlight how the Trump administration is looking to take a more hands-on approach on the AI sector, despite prior policy positions that signaled a more permissive environment for the evolving technology.

“There is likely going to be another wave of AI government statements,” the first source said.

When asked to confirm the existence of these documents, a White House official told Nextgov/FCW that “any policy announcement will come directly from the President. Discussion about potential executive orders or policy directives are pure speculation.” The Department of Defense referred questions to the White House.

The Trump administration’s efforts to refine the government’s rights when licensing private sector AI models and systems follow a dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense over using the company’s AI products in autonomous weaponry and domestic surveillance.

The Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, and federal agencies were subsequently required to offload the company’s products from federal workloads. Some lawmakers took issue with the perceived retaliation on behalf of the administration, and Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Calif., attempted to amend the Defense Production Act to prevent government blacklisting in March.

The administration has telegraphed some of its wants for the relationship between vendors and industries since that debacle, with Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, saying on a March episode of the All-In podcast that “all lawful use seems like a good thing” to benchmark against.

Anthropic model capabilities piqued government officials' interest, however, when the company announced the release of its new high-powered Mythos Preview model and associated Project Glasswing for select companies to test in their digital networks.

Leadership at the Pentagon has not been wholly opposed to guardrails on tech use in defense and warfighter operations. Michael told CNBC on May 1 that the Pentagon wants guardrails “in some ways,” but maintained that these guardrails have to align with the government’s needs.

“When they deploy on our networks, they’re deploying models that are tuned for national security purposes,” Michael said. “And that's why the partnership with the executive team and the management is so important, because things are evolving in the threat landscape. And whatever guardrails, whatever principles they want to develop against, has to be consistent with our values, our mandate, our restrictions, even, and that’s where the guardrails come in.”

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Quantum Space, RealmOne detail CEO transitions

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:56:33 -0400

Quantum Space

Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s director from 2018 to 2021 and an architect of the Artemis program, has joined this highly-maneuverable spacecraft developer as CEO to lead its push for growth in national security space.

Quantum Space is designing its flagship Ranger satellite to operate in the low-Earth, medium-Earth and geostationary orbits plus cislunar space. The company’s federal portfolio includes Space Force’s $1.8 billion Andromeda program, a contract awarded in April to develop satellites and related technologies for activities in geosynchronous orbit.

Bridenstine’s appointment to the CEO post at Quantum Space follows its completion of an $80 million Series A capital raise to support further work on Ranger, which is being eyed for launch no earlier than the second quarter of 2027.

Quantum Space is working to develop Ranger for mission sets such as space domain awareness, counter-space operations and missile defense.

Kerry Wisnosky, who co-founded Quantum Space in 2022 alongside executive chairman Kam Ghaffarian, has transitioned to the role of president. Wisnosky will focus on spacecraft engineering and development efforts.

RealmOne

Matt Ford, president and chief operating officer at the cybersecurity and intelligence solutions provider since 2024, will succeed founder Gary Daigle as CEO on May 31.

Ford is a 10-year veteran of RealmOne and is credited with helping lead the company through its graduation from small business status. He first joined RealmOne in 2018 after nearly a decade at other companies, such as CACI International and ManTech.

In moving up to chief executive, Ford will lead the next phase of RealmOne’s strategy that centers around cyber and data technology solutions for defense and intelligence agencies. Artificial intelligence is also a core focus area for RealmOne.

Enlightenment Capital launched the RealmOne branding and identity in early 2024 following the investment firm’s acquisitions of iNovex, Innoplex, Secure Innovations and HTS Infosys.

Daigle founded the iNovex business in 2005 as a software development outfit focused on cybersecurity, signals intelligence and data analysis. Enlightenment backed iNovex in the fall of 2022 as the foundational piece for a midsized national security tech company, which became RealmOne.

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FinCEN eyes contractors to help draft its own regulations

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:37:08 -0400

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is exploring whether it should bring in contractors to help draft regulatory documents.

FinCEN is responsible for collecting and analyzing information about financial transactions to combat domestic and international crimes like money laundering and terrorist financing, among others.

Work under the contract would include writing guidance, Federal Register notices, reports and other materials so the agency can comply with the 2020 Anti-Money Laundering Act and the 2025 Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, the latter of which is also known as the Genius Act.

The potential contract would also cover research and analysis and process public comments on rulemakings, according to the Sam.gov notice posted Wednesday.

If FinCEN develops the contract, most of the work would take place at Treasury locations in Washington, D.C. and Vienna, Virginia. Any remote work would need to be approved in writing. The contractor also needs to have a Secret facility clearance in place.

Treasury is interested in hearing from large and small businesses as it develops the acquisition strategy. The contractor will work at the direction of FinCEN staff.

An appendix released as part of the notice breaks the requirements into five areas:

Regulatory and policy development and drafting
Regulatory and policy research and analysis
Interagency consultation and stakeholder engagement support
Federal Register materials and engagement
Public comment processing and evaluation

The notice asks for a high-level capabilities statement that describes lines of business, relevant experience, and a technical narrative addressing each of the products and services listed in the appendix.

Responses to the request for information are due May 13.

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