Government Information Group will host GIT Rockin’ 2007, government IT’s 2nd annual battle of the bands that showcases the alter egos and talents of professionals from across the government information technology community. The finalist bands were chosen in a “blind panel” judging, and had to include two members of the government IT community (government and vendor executives were both eligible to participate).
Proceedings will be kicked off by Australian-born Specialist Vicki Golding of the D.C. National Guard’s 257th Army Band, winner of the 2006 Military Idol competition. The selected GIT Tockin’ bands and their affiliations include:
The DISA-Peering Act (Verizon Business at DISA, Unisys at TSA, Canadian Army Special Ops for the JTF at DISA HQ, USMC for the JTF at DISA HQ). Our favorite band name;
The Groove (EMC Software, Formatta Corporation);
The Moogly Blues Band (VDOT, VITA);
Outta Scope (NIH, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, DOD/State Department, WTEC) Does this band go to 11?; and
Tacocat (AT&T Government Solutions, Perot Systems Government Services, Skjei Telecom)
The event will be hosted on Thursday, Oct 18/07 at the State Theater in Falls Church, Virginia. Tickets are $20 each, with an event maximum of 800 tickets. Proceeds from all ticket and band voting sales will be donated to the United Services Organization of Metropolitan Washington (USO-Metro). Git your tickets here.
The Upgraded M36E3 Thermal Sight System is designed to improve the USMC’s AAV7 “Amtracs” amphibious vehicles; as Military Aerospace & Electronics notes, the Amtracs don’t have thermal sights. Instead, the current system employs image intensifier (aka. “starlight scope”) technology that amplifies existing light and has a range of less than 1 km (0.6 miles). Nor do current sights provide the ability to see through smoke, fog, sand or other obscurants to visible light.
The work-in-progress Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle will include far superior optics, but the Marines can’t wait that long. With Amtracs being pressed into service as armored personnel carriers far inland in theaters like Iraq, that’s a serious handicap. The replacement AAV7A1 day/night sight must provide daylight as well as nighttime sighting ability to detect targets to 4.7 km/ 3 miles, recognize targets to 2.5 km/ 1.5 miles, and identify targets at 700 m. See full solicitation specifications [HTML | MS Word].
It would appear that procurement in earnest is now underway…
The US Army’s $120+ billion Future Combat Systems program has been subject to a great deal of criticism over its history. It was always planned as a development process with staged spinoffs, but a combination of pressure on the program and the field needs of the troops on the front lines is pushing that schedule. As FCS hits the 2 1/2 year mark in its System Design and Development (SDD) phase, there are plans to start delivering some of its elements beginning in 2006, for fielding and then upgrading as the program continues.
According to eDefense Online, the spinouts will occur progressively but can be broadly grouped into four main waves for timing purposes:
In the wake of the USA’s Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) 2005 process, Aberdeen Proving Ground is preparing for an influx of new personnel – including Team C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) from the U.S. Army’s Fort Monmouth.
To help Maryland’s business community understand and capitalize on these future changes at APG, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), the Tech Council of Maryland (TCM) and APG will jointly host the event “Aberdeen Proving Ground: Current and Future Capabilities for Business Opportunities.” Co-sponsored by the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, the event is designed to highlight new collaboration and commercialization opportunities for businesses, government agencies and academia.
Small business qualifier Bristol Design Build Services LLC in Anchorage, AK received a $9.2 million firm-fixed-price contract for design and construction of a Department of Homeland Security border patrol station in Sumas, WA. Work is expected to be completed by June 30, 2008.
Bids were solicited via the World Wide Web on Oct. 12, 2006, and 5 bids were received by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Seattle, WA (W912DW-07-C-0005).
Defense Update covers the UAE’s IDEX 2007 show, which ended last Thursday. IDEX is the premier Middle East arms exhibition, and one that is growing in both size and global prominence given regional spending trends. During the show, the UAE Armed Forces announced that it has signed deals with worth over 1.34 billion Dirhams (currently about $360 million) with local and international companies. The UAE’s defense procurement process is widely respected, and carries influence beyond its borders. Announcements included:
Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City (NSWC PC) is busy preparing to host the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Performance Demonstration, called AUV Fest, on June 4-16, 2007. These events started in 1997, and are hosted at 18 month intervals or so. NSWC PC’s AUV Fest 2007 Coordinator Phil Bernstein said that this AUV Fest is expected to draw more than 100 teams from government, industry, academia, and foreign military, bringing in excess of 80 unmanned vehicles equipped with a variety of sensor packages. He believes this will be the world’s largest-ever in-water unmanned systems demonstration.
Underwater mines will be a particular focus of AUV 2007, and cooperative behavior will be another area of special interest. the center of operations will be conducted from NSWC PC’s Littoral Warfare Research Facility, but would also involve coordination with multiple facilities located throughout Naval Support Activity Panama City. AUV 2007 will operate from the Joint Gulf Test Range; there will be a total of 14 operational areas in St. Andrews Bay and the Gulf of Mexico involved in deploying and testing Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs).” See US Navy Newsstand release.
The EU’s European Defence Agency recently released a “Long-Term Vision report” intended to serve as a compass for defence planners over the next twenty years. The report was the product of 11 months of study involving officials and experts from governments, defense bodies, academia and industry across Europe, and was debated by the EDA Steering Board which consists of the Defence Ministers of the Agency’s 24 participating Member States and the European Commission.EDA head Javier Solana:
“Given the lead times typically involved in developing defence capability, decisions we take, or fail to take, today will affect whether we have the right military capabilities, and the right capacities in Europe’s defence technological and industrial base, in the third decade of this century…”
Against Solana’s speech, we offer the Jane’s Group’s description of their October 10, 2006 conference “Europe – Policies. Budgets. Markets“:
