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GALT Aerospace acquires electronic product maker

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:29:48 -0400

GALT Aerospace has acquired a maker of defense electronics products to push further into the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aspects in military technology development.

North Star Scientific Corp. opened for business in 2001 and builds radio frequency-amplifiers, transmitters, antennas and electronically scanned arrays. NSS designs these products to support missions in command-and-control, electronic sensing, and airborne early warning and control.

By purchasing NSS, GALT is also adding a Oklahoma City-based manufacturing facility that will be a centerpiece for innovation and technology transition efforts. Financial terms of the transaction announced Monday were not disclosed.

This is GALT’s first acquisition with the support of Godspeed Capital Management, which acquired the company in the spring. GALT is prioritizing tech development initiatives in its strategy that focuses on C3ISR – command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

C3ISR is a concept for bringing together data-gathering sensors and communication networks into a single framework for giving military commanders greater awareness of the battlefield and informing their decisions.

NSS describes its customer base as including the Air Force and Navy. The Navy portfolio includes Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Sea Systems Command and the Office of Naval Research.

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In a show-me market, Leidos continues to show up

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:19:20 -0400

It took just 30 days for Leidos to go from first conversations with the Defense Department to signing a customer agreement to develop a new cruise missile variant.

The company’s internal agility was needed to match the military’s need for a lower-cost munition that can be fielded quickly.

For Leidos’ chief growth officer Jason Albanese, the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles program is an example of how both the market has changed and the company had to change along with it.

“Our customers are in a show me mentality, not PowerPoint, not white papers, but show me your capability,” Albanese told Washington Technology. “You have to show up with real capability because they are moving fast when they find something they want.”

That alignment between customer urgency and Leidos' capabilities did not happen by accident.

Leidos unveiled its North Star 2030 strategy in 2024 and placed deliberate bets on specific markets — defense tech, energy, cyber, and space. The current administration's priorities landed almost exactly on top of them.

"A lot of times in our industry, you have to place big bets early and hope they pay off," Albanese said. "What we've seen transpire since then is really clear alignment between our strategy and where this administration is going."

Agility, not just size, has been a key to Leidos’ run as Company No. 1 company on the Washington Technology Top 100 for eight years in a row.

For Albanese, the focus on what he called the “softer” things is what is crucial in today’s market.

“The mindset across the entire company is a productive sense of urgency,” he said. “We all need to be operating faster.”

Sometimes that can mean long hours and working weekends.

“But the other thing that has allowed us to move quickly with our customers is being easy to work with.”

Understanding what the administration wants and what it is trying accomplish is crucial and helped Leidos make its plans ahead of need.

“Our customers have been asking us to put some skin in the game and build capacity and capability before the RFP (request for proposals),” he said. “Companies that lean forward and partner with the customer that are going to move faster.”

A second example from Leidos’ defense tech business is the Dark Eagle hypersonic weapon program, which transitioned from an Other Transaction Authority prototype to a $2.7 billion production contract awarded in May.

“That’s an example of us and our customer going through the research and development and proving that the capability is there,” Albanese said. “We are investing our own money where we feel most confident in that payoff.”

The Low-Cost Containerized Missiles program also illustrates that same commitment, but with the outcome still unwritten.

Leidos is using its own money to prepare for a flight test next year. If the test fails, that investment is gone.

"We are investing to get to the test flight on our own money," Albanese said. "If we're successful with that flight test, what comes on the heels of that is additional government funding for testing. And if we're successful there, that's when you end up with the purchase of thousands of missiles."

It's a calculated risk, but one grounded in what Albanese calls the company's "right to win" — the idea that aspiration alone doe not justify a bet.

"Just because you have the aspiration to want to do something, if you don't have the capability or the right to win, it probably doesn't make good business sense," he said.

CEO Tom Bell has the final approval over these investments.

“You have to explain why it makes strategic sense and need to appropriately weigh the risks,” Albanese said. “The last thing is the business case and why this financially makes sense for Leidos to do.”

Not all the bets pay off, but enough do to keep the needle moving. Leidos recorded $17.2 billion in revenue for calendar year 2026, up from $16.7 billion the year before.

Leidos’ push for capacity and speed also influences its partnerships.

“Partnering has a tremendous amount of value, but it is hard to do well,” Albanese said.

When looking at large companies like Leidos, it is easy to think that it can do everything and partnerships are critical. Part of Albanese’s responsibility as chief growth officer is explain the value of partnerships across the organization.

“Partnerships are a topic with every single bid that we talk about and everything we compete on,” he said. “It’s not just talk about the competition but what’s our differentiation from a partnership perspective.”

Albanese is also focusing on more enterprise-wide partnerships that can have multiple touch points across the organization.

“We're looking for those meaningful partnerships where we can go to market together,” he said. “It's not just one opportunity but multiple opportunities or a market that's mutually beneficial for both of us.”

Companies such as Leidos play a critical role for commercial companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI because of its deep customer knowledge.

“We offer them access because it is what we do day in and day out,” he said. “We have thousands of touch points with the customers they care about every single day.”

Good partnerships across industry also rely on being the partner that is easy to work with, Albanese said.

“When you are trying to go fast on high stakes things, relationships matter,” he said. “Any one of our 51,000 employees can make or break those relationships.”

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DHS finalizes first Cumulus cloud contract with AWS

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:34:15 -0400

The Homeland Security Department has finalized the first out of four awards under Cumulus, a centralized contract for acquiring commercial cloud computing services across the entire organization.

Amazon Web Services’ portion of the contract will have a $2.5 billion ceiling over up to five years, DHS said in a Friday Sam.gov notice.

The department is now working on awards to Oracle, Google Cloud and Microsoft with the goal of finalizing those by the end of the calendar year’s second quarter, or the end of this month.

Each award under Cumulus will cover a one-year base period and up to four individual option years.

DHS created Cumulus to have a mix of competitive and non-competitive awards across all aspects of commercial cloud to include infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service.

After signing the hyperscalers’ contracts, DHS will create a multiple-award competition to support the Cumulus effort with more details to be released at a later date.

The department sees Cumulus as its means to gain greater visibility into cloud spending and usage across all agencies and components with the goal of achieving more economies of scale and consistency in acquisitions.

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SBA proposes opening 8(a) program to white-owned businesses

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:29:19 -0400

A proposed rule by the Small Business Administration would fundamentally rework the 8(a) program by eliminating race-based eligibility presumptions for minority business owners and opening the door for white-owned firms to enter the program.

The proposed rule unveiled Thursday makes four distinct changes to the 8(a) program, including removing race and ethnicity-based presumption from the regulations.

The rule creates a new test for social disadvantage in which any individual — including white citizens — can qualify by showing that during their lifetime, a government agency, university, or corporation discriminated against their racial, ethnic, or cultural group, or favored a group of which they are not a member, and that the action caused them material harm.

SBA's proposed rule also includes white Americans as potential 8(a) applicants. Current rules exclude white Americans from participating.

The proposed rule would allow white Americans to highlight DEI programs, affirmative action policies, race-based quotas, and admissions discrimination as evidence of social disadvantage.

After the Ultima Services Corp. v. Agriculture court case, SBA stopped using the so-called rebuttable presumption to automatically qualify individuals from certain designated groups for the 8(a) program. SBA shifted to a non-presumptive standard, requiring individuals to submit a personal narrative describing how they had been discriminated against.

The proposed rule would replace the narrative with a self-certification plus evidence process. That evidence can include government or corporate policies, court decisions, website material, or administrative rulings.

In theory, applicants could use the SBA policies that the proposed rule eliminates as evidence of discrimination.

The proposed rule does not affect entity-owned firms. Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, Native Hawaiian Organizations, and Community Development Corporations remain eligible under existing rules.

Comments on the proposed rule are due July 13.

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WT 360: Key points (and questions too) from Trump’s fixed-price contracting and AI orders

Nick Wakeman and Ross Wilkers — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The second Trump administration has outpaced the first one in terms of executive orders signed by the president, but this current tenure has put more focus on government contracting than before.

Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council, starts out this episode with Nick and Ross by providing historical context to that statement. Then the discussion turns to President Trump’s newest executive orders that focus on fixed-price contracts and artificial intelligence.

Neither of those topics are new to the GovCon ecosystem, but executive orders bring them to the forefront like few other actions can. Kostro explains what contractors are looking to understand from those orders and how they likely will affect work with their customers.

Also on the agenda: the Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul, small businesses in today’s landscape and the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

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The 2026 Top 100 shows a market that bent, but did not break

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:43:39 -0400

Each year, the annual Washington Technology Top 100 rankings offer a glimpse into the current state of the market.

After a year of DOGE and massive government layoffs, the early expectation for the Top 100 was that we would see significant contraction across the market. We have not seen a significant impact overall.

Yes the aggregate value of the prime contracts is lower than last year, but the reduction is just 1.2%. One could characterize that as a flat market.

The fuller story shows more of a mixed bag when you dig a little deeper and look at the civilian and defense contracts separately.

The aggregate value of defense contracts rose by 1.8% to $91.3 billion. Again, you could argue that the defense market was flat.

But not so much on the civilian side. The aggregate value of civilian contracts fell by 4.8% to $71.1 billion. That is significant, but not surprising.

I will not predict that civilian spending will continue to fall, but we will watch if the defense-civilian gap will continue to widen and by how much. The defense share of the Top 100 now stands at 56.2%.

By another measure, 59 of the Top 100 companies had a larger defense contract number than a civilian contract number.

Given the conflict with Iran and the continuing war in Ukraine, defense spending has the potential to grow significantly and widening the gap further.

OTHER NUMBERS OF NOTE

There are 12 so-called newcomers on the Top 100, though newcomer is a bit of a misnomer. Some that are returning year or two off the list include Chenega, QinetiQ and Modern Technology Solutions. The rest are a mix of true first-timers and companies transformed by mergers-and-acquisition.

One true newcomer is already one of the best-known companies in the market – Amazon Web Services.

They have come close to the Top 100, but never cracked it until this year by debuting at No. 82.

Because the Top 100 measures prime contract obligations, AWS' ranking marks a shift in the market because more customers are buying directly from them instead of their integration partners.

We expect this trend to continue, so do not be surprised if AWS is higher on the list next year.

Two other newcomers worth noting are Cobham Ultra and Astrion. Both companies were created through mergers and acquisitions.

Cobham acquired Ultra in 2022 to create the U.K.-headquartered company. Cobham was on the Top 100 in 2009 and 2010, but its U.S. presence has diminished.

History could repeat itself as Cobham's private equity owner Advent International has divested several parts of the business.

Astrion is also a private equity-owned company. Brightstar Capital Partners put together Oasis Systems (a Top 100 company in 2024) and ERC in late 2023, and then added Axient in 2024.

They come in at No. 52 under the Astrion name this year. They likely should have been on the 2025 rankings. But often with M&A, there is a lag before FPDS and USASpending catches up.

A DIVERSITY OF COMPANIES

Many companies in the rankings qualify for various small business programs such as Alaska Native and tribally-owned, woman-owned and other categories.

This year, 22 of the 100 companies qualify as small businesses.

At the same time, 44 companies are publicly-traded and that now includes SpaceX at No. 58.

Seven companies are employee-owned and another five are nonprofits, such as Battelle Memorial Institute at No. 13 and Mitre at No. 24.

It is also worth noting that 13 companies fall into the value-added reseller and distributor category, with Carahsoft being the largest of those at No. 25.

Leidos is continuing its multi-year run at No. 1, but the rest of the Top 100 is anything but static.

As you will see in our upcoming coverage, making this list is not just a destination. It's also a demonstration of resilience and the ability to change.

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How DHA plans to end Leidos’ run as the military's health record integrator

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:24:11 -0400

As part of its plan to shift away from a lead systems integrator model for its electronic health record system, the Defense Health Agency plans to award five sole source contracts with the providers of the underlying technologies.

With the shift away from the current model with Leidos as the systems integrator, DHA will take on those responsibilities.

In 2015, DHA tapped Leidos to be the integrator to roll out the Cerner electronic health record and the Henry Schein dental record as part of a system of systems known as MHS Genesis.

The single award approach helped DHA to rapidly deploy the system. “As the system has reached full deployment and transitioned into the sustainment and optimization phase” problems have arisen, DHA said in a Sam.gov notice.

These problems included reduced cost transparency, duplicative layers of management and administration, limited government visibility into pricing structures, and constraints on the government’s ability to directly manage performance and enforce service level agreements.

The new model will allow DHA to buy directly from solutions providers, reducing reliance on integrators. The agency believes the new approach will improve overall acquisition efficiency.

The five sole-source contracts are with the providers of the underlying technologies for MHS Genisis:

Oracle Health (Oracle acquired Cerner in 2022.)
Philips North America (tele-critical care provider)
American Well Corp. (telehealth)
Henry Schein Inc. (dental records)
Solventum Health Information Systems (formerly 3M Health Information Systems, provider of clinical documentation and coding)

The agreements include critical system components, software licensing, and specialized services.

DHA plans to transition Philips and Amwell away from Leidos’ management by the end of July 2026. Oracle Health will transition by November 2026. Henry Schein and Solventum will follow suit by July 2027.

Leidos in a statement, said the company is “proud of our work helping the Defense Health Agency deploy MHS GENESIS across the military health system, supporting nearly 10 million beneficiaries around the world.”

The company also indicated that it will look for ways to keep working with DHA.

“As DHA moves into its next phase of sustainment and optimization, we respect the government’s acquisition decisions and remain focused on ensuring continuity of care, while pursuing future opportunities to continue contributing to this important mission,” the statement read.

DHA for its part has been direct about its rationale for the change. “By establishing direct, sole-source contractual relationships with the current proprietary solution providers now, the government stabilizes the core platform, preserves the unified federal baseline, and eliminates the legacy solution provider integrator's pass-through costs,” DHA wrote in its Sam.gov notice.

The agency indicates that it will introduce full-and-open competitions for services layers but not the platforms themselves.

The proposed sole-source contracts follow three years of market research efforts that ran from 2023 to early 2026. The sole-source contracts will be for no more than five years and will be firm-fixed price, outcome-based.

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Operations, tech and growth leadership moves across the market

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:19:49 -0400

Amyx

Jaclyn Robino has joined this IT-focused subsidiary of Tetra Tech as chief operating officer to help lead the next phase of its strategy, which is being led by newly-promoted President Richard Schult.

Robino most recently spent 15 years at the Homeland Security Department, including the past seven months as leader of its One Big Beautiful Bill Principal Executive Office.

Amyx cites her background as including leadership over enterprise operations, strategic sourcing initiatives and oversight of federal contract vehicles.

Avint

Jeff Bauerlein, a former chief information officer for the FBI, has joined the cybersecurity and digital transformation company as chief strategy officer.

The 26-year public sector veteran will help lead Avint carry out its vision and strategy that involves tech partnerships, growth initiatives and innovation.

His career at the FBI also includes service as deputy assistant director for infrastructure and operations, as well as chief enterprise architect.

Avometric

Todd Hughes has joined the security technology company as chief strategy officer, a role he brings 25 years of experience to.

Hughes will help lead Avometric’s push to grow its portfolio in areas such as assured autonomy, verifiable security and secure computing. He is a former program manager from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

He most recently worked as chief innovation officer at Scientific Systems. His career also includes tech leadership roles at BigBear.ai and CACI International.

Boeing

Bill Edmunds has joined the aerospace and defense giant as chief executive for its intelligence and analytics subsidiary, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

Boeing Intelligence & Analytics’ primary customers are agencies in the intelligence community. BI&A touts software engineering, systems integration and development, and rapid prototyping, as its core focus areas.

Edmunds most recently worked as a general manager at IntrepidGS. His career also includes executive roles at Science Applications International Corp. and CACI International.

Calibre Systems

Cassie Baxter has moved up to vice president of the defense division at the digital transformation company, which she first joined in 2012.

Baxter most recently led Calbire’s training and analytics solutions directorate, where 150 people support Army and joint training programs.

She now leads assigned projects within the defense portfolio and efforts to grow that part of the business.

Check Point Software Technologies

Damon Cabanillas has joined the cybersecurity company as vice president for the Americas public sector and global systems integrators unit, a role he brings 26 years of experience to.

Cabanillas announced his new role in a LinkedIn post that describes Check Point’s portfolio as including exposure management, threat intelligence, and managed detection and response.

He most recently was a vice president at Rapid 7 and his career before that includes stops at VMware, Juniper Networks and Cisco.

Godspeed Capital Management

Brennan Novak has joined the private equity firm as a vice president to help it source, evaluate and carry out new investments.

Novak will also work with Godspeed’s portfolio companies on their strategies and key growth initiatives.

He is a former senior associate with Arlington Capital Partners.

NEC National Security Systems

Shanna Dick has joined this subsidiary of Japan-headquartered IT and electronics company NEC as vice president of people and culture, a role she brings two decades of human resources experience to.

Dick most recently worked as head of human resources at MBL Technologies for four years and before that spent 10 years at Concert Technologies in HR leadership roles.

Her career also includes service as a training and policy program analyst at the FBI.

NorthStar Earth & Space

Kevin Benedict has joined this provider of space-based information services as vice president of business development for its U.S. operations, a role he brings two decades of industry experience to.

Benedict will help lead NorthStar’s pursuits of business opportunities in the U.S. defense and intelligence communities. His career includes senior growth leadership roles at Raytheon, Ball Aerospace, Peraton and OST.

NorthStar is headquartered in Montreal, Canada with offices in McLean, Virginia and Luxemborg.

OceanSound Partners

Kenneth Wolff has joined the private equity firm as partner and chief legal officer to help it navigate law-related issues as they pertain to transactions, portfolio companies and other governance matters.

Wolff most recently spent 27 years at the law firm Skadden, where he was a partner and co-head of its private equity group.

His career includes work on mergers and acquisitions by public and private companies, as well as PE firms like OceanSound.

OceanSound's portfolio of companies in the government market includes DMI and SMX.

OST

Kim Hayes, who founded The Ambit Group in 2004 and led it through its sale to DMI in 2022, has joined the technology and professional services provider as chief operating officer.

Hayes announced her new role in a LinkedIn post that references OST’s push to expand its offerings in data, digital transformation, mission support and engineering.

She most recently worked as an executive vice president at DigitalNet.ai, an artificial intelligence integrator founded by serial entrepreneur Ken Bajaj and unveiled back in the fall.

Sabel Systems

Robert Epstein has joined this defense- and space-focused digital engineering services provider as chief of strategy and mission architect for its work with the Air Force.

The 24-year defense industry veteran most recently worked as a senior solution architect at Leidos, a role he stepped into following his retirement from the Air Force after 26 years of service.

His most recent military assignment was leader of the Air Force gency for Modeling and Simulation.

SMX

Frank Reyes has joined the digital transformation specialist as senior vice president of mission solutions and technology, a role he brings two decades of experience to.

Reyes will lead SMX’s portfolio of work involving command-and-control, mission IT and other systems that link operators with combatant commands and coalition partners.

He most recently worked as vice president of solutions engineering and cloud solutions leader at Maximus, where he spent four years altogether. The former Navy civilian official also served as acquisition program manager at Naval Sea Systems Command.

VetsEZ

The federal health IT solutions provider has promoted a trio of executives to new roles in its C-level leadership team to lead the next phase of the strategy.

Bill Turner is now president with responsibility over day-to-day operations and execution of the strategy. He first joined VetsEZ in 2023 and is a 15-year industry veteran.

Jeff Udell is now chief operating officer with responsibility over enterprise functions relate to scalable delivery and program execution. He first joined VetsEZ in 2017 and is a 19-year industry veteran.

Nathan Pope is now chief growth officer with responsibility over functions in business development, capture management and partnerships. He first joined VetsEZ in 2016 and is a 21-year industry veteran.

Windward

Robert “Bob” Sharp, a former leader of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and retired Navy vice admiral, has joined the artificial intelligence tech outfit as chief maritime intelligence officer.

Windward designs its software offerings to fuse vessel traffic data, remote sensing signals and AI models to help operators look at global maritime activity.

Sharp’s 34-year military career also includes service as commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and director of the National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office.

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Navy awards 59 seats on $249M logistics IT contract

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:17:16 -0400

The Navy has awarded 59 companies positions on a five-year, $249.9 million contract for IT integration and support services to aid in logistics efforts.

Awardees will compete for task orders to help modernize and sustain enterprise IT systems that are used for maintenance and logistics operations, which the Navy is looking to infuse greater data integration and accessibility into.

Navy officials received 72 bids in total for this contract with the convoluted name of Logistics IT Integration and Support (LIIS) Capability Modernization, Deployment, and Support (CMDS). The Pentagon’s Thursday awards digest indicates work will be awarded via firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-reimbursable task orders.

Click here to view the full list of winners for LIIS CDMS.

Solicitation documents issued in February 2025 describe the contract’s five core functional areas as follows:

Maintenance, repair and overhaul
Supply chain management
Product lifecycle management
The logistics integrated data environment
Integration and infrastructure capabilities within the Navy’s integrated platform and development, security and operations pipeline.

Work will support the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Manpower, Logistics and Business Solutions. This organization manages a portfolio of at least 300 afloat and ashore IT environments with 150,000-plus users that include personnel in ships, carriers, submarines, aviation squadrons and expeditionary forces.

This is a brand new requirement with no incumbents.

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Woven Solutions purchases systems engineering outfit

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:06:17 -0400

Woven Solutions has acquired a provider of systems engineering and software development services as part of a continued push to build out technology offerings for national security agencies.

Insignis opened for business in 2017 to work with agencies on building, maintaining and securing their often-specialized IT infrastructures. The company was founded to blend systems engineering, network engineering and software development work.

By purchasing Insignis, Woven is looking to grow its base of engineers that are responsible for designing and sustaining complex tech environments. Financial terms of the transaction announced Thursday were not disclosed.

Insignis also touts its focus areas as including artificial intelligence, offensive and defensive cyber, multi-cloud solutions, and user experience.

This acquisition represents Woven’s fourth since it was initially was purchased by Falfurrias Management Partners in the summer of 2025.

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KBR wins $1.1B weather data collection recompete

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:59:13 -0400

KBR has won a five-year, $1.1 billion contract to continue helping the National Weather Service operate and maintain systems used for acquiring observational data from surface-based observing networks, commonly known as mesonets.

The National Mesonet Program functions as NWS’ primary program for purchasing non-federal data from those networks and others that provide observations of wind, temperature, moisture and other related quantities. NMP’s principal objective is to facilitate community efforts in predicting high-impact, local-scale weather events and fill in observation capability gaps.

NWS' parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, made the award on Wednesday and received two bids for this recompete of the Commercial Data Program, according to Sam.gov records. KBR was originally awarded the work in the spring of 2020 and has received $138 million in task order volume since, according to GovTribe data.

Solicitation documents from the fall of 2025 describe how NWS continuously seeks to extend and increase its observational capabilities by using non-federal platforms. These deployed at significantly closer spacing than the agency’s own platforms or in places where NWS does not operate them.

All non-federal weather data goes into the federal government’s Meteorological Analysis and Data Ingest system, which acts as a repository for NWS field offices to use in making forecasts and issuing alerts.

KBR is responsible for delivering that non-federal data via a commercial cloud-based offering that is analogous to MADIS in order to fuse it with federal data.

NWS also can use the contract to support individual pilot projects for evaluating new commercial data streams that can inform the agency’s forecast and alert mission.

The new contract’s last date to order is Aug. 31, 2031.

KBR is in the process of spinning out its government segment into an independent, publicly-traded company and targeting Jan. 4, 2027 as the effective date.

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Introducing the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:00:00 -0400

Follow this link to explore the 2026 edition of the rankings.

Washington Technology's 2026 Top 100 is based on Federal Procurement Data System reports that we analyze by using a set of product and service codes. We use codes that broadly define IT and include codes for hardware, software and services, system integration, professional services, telecommunications and space.

The rankings include information on each company including leadership, contracts and major customers.

We will supplement the rankings with coverage of individual companies and analysis of trends in the market.

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How we got our Top 100 numbers

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:00:00 -0400

Washington Technology's annual Top 100 ranks the largest government contractors providing IT, systems integration, professional services and telecommunication services to federal agencies.

The rankings are based on an analysis of reports in the Federal Procurement Data System and USASpending.gov.

Each government agency files reports to FPDS on their spending. All transactions exceeding $50,000 is assigned a product and service code, also known as a PSC.

We use a set of roughly 350 PSCs to analyze the procurement data and develop the rankings.

We account for mergers-and-acquisitions, subsidiaries and joint ventures to get the right spending reports assigned to the right companies.

From there, we rank the companies from the largest number of prime contract dollars down through No. 100.

Two important caveats: Pretty much all intelligence spending is not reported to FPDS because it is classified. We also do not count subcontracting dollars. We only gather data on prime contract obligations.

For the 2026 Top 100, we looked at spending for the federal government's 2024 fiscal year that spans Oct. 1, 2024 through Sept. 30, 2025.

There is no application or submission process for the Top 100. This is strictly a research project to identify the companies capturing the most contracts in the federal market.

Companies should feel honored to be among the largest contractors in the market, but this is not an award given by Washington Technology. These companies earned their spots on the Top 100.

Do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions.

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The hardest transition in GovCon: From founder to visionary

Evan Henris — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:25:28 -0400

According to conventional wisdom, you have to be a little crazy to start a business.

But after working with hundreds of government contractors, I’ve noticed that entrepreneurs who thrive are the ones who transform that touch of brilliant entrepreneurial madness into an evolution of themselves and their companies.

Entrepreneurs take huge risks, build something from nothing, and leave the easy path of W-2 employment behind. They know failure is always a possibility, yet nearly 6 million new small businesses formed just last year.

This spirit of innovation is also the cornerstone of nearly 78,000 small business federal government contractors. Their founders build incredible businesses after identifying problems and needs few others noticed. They work relentlessly to solve those problems for years, sometimes decades, within a highly regulated procurement system with layers of paperwork, and often, long waits for final payment.

Yet the skills required to start a GovCon company are often very different from those required to scale one.

Many founders succeed initially because they are exceptional business developers or technical experts. They identify need, win contracts, and build strong customer relationships. But as a company grows, the founder who insists on making every decision and micromanaging their team eventually becomes the bottleneck to their own leadership development and the company’s growth and profit.

The most successful founders eventually stop trying to be the best salesperson, contract manager, and problem solver in the organization. Their job becomes building the team, systems, and culture that allow the company to perform without them being involved in every decision.

One of the most common mistakes I see is founders treating every opportunity as one that must be pursued. Early in a company’s life, that mentality can drive growth. Later, it can strain working capital, overwhelm teams, and create operational risk.

Transformative thinking separates companies that grow from those that stall. Many firms can win work. Far fewer can build the infrastructure needed to navigate and sustain growth through multiple business cycles and market shifts.

Perhaps the most challenging part of growth for GovCon companies over the last 18 months has been financial, due to government market uncertainty. Many contracting officers who long held approval authority left their roles with contracts often delayed or cut.

During periods of uncertainty, founders often feel pressure to pull decision-making closer to themselves. In my experience, the opposite is usually required. Companies that navigate disruption successfully already invested in strong teams, disciplined financial controls, strategic financial partnerships, and trusted advisors before the disruption arrived.

The final benefit for a visionary leader willing to evolve is stakeholder trust. Federal agencies need to know that prime contractors will deliver on their commitments. Prime contractors depend on subcontractors who then rely on suppliers, advisors and financial partners. Success depends on every link in that chain performing consistently and delivering on its commitments.

Not only have I seen these leadership growth strategies succeed with our clients, but it has been my professional journey as well. I started at Parabilis early in my career and had the opportunity to work through virtually every role within the firm, and was involved in developing many best practices we still use today. But becoming CEO has given me an opportunity to see the bigger picture both for our company and the greater GovCon market.

The GovCon market has been hit by disruption after disruption, especially since the pandemic. Organizations across the sector navigated many uncertainties and shifting federal priorities. Unfortunately, those challenges proved terminal for some contractors stuck in their own status quo.

Entrepreneurship will always require courage and that little drop of crazy. Companies that thrive are those with a leader who sees beyond the company’s immediate positioning and evolves to grab the future. They see challenge as an opportunity and manage accordingly.

There is now growing optimism that the industry is entering a new period of opportunity as we are starting to observe a growing volume of solicitations and renewed agency spending.

For the first time since early 2025, most financing requests we receive are tied to growth opportunities rather than cash flow challenges. Borrowers report stronger proposal pipelines, increased solicitation activity, and healthier cash flows after an extended period of uncertainty. While challenges remain, we see encouraging signs that many government contractors are shifting from navigating disruption to pursuing expansion.

Opportunities ahead will not belong to companies with the biggest ambitions. They will belong to companies with the leadership, discipline, and financial infrastructure necessary to execute on them.

In GovCon, great ideas often open the door. But it’s long-term strategic thinking that transitions as the business scales that keeps that door open.

Evan Henris is a former entrepreneur and current CEO of Parabilis, where he and his team help finance the future of federal contracting.

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White House discussions are weighing giving CISA Mythos access

Alexandra Kelley — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:19:00 -0400

Recent discussions among top federal officials have floated designating the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as the nexus to coordinate vulnerability scans across federal agencies with Antropic’s high-powered AI model Mythos.

Three sources with knowledge of the discussions, one a White House official, told Nextgov/FCW that the idea is for CISA to scan federal agencies’ digital networks for public-facing vulnerabilities and other security flaws using Mythos.

The discussions have occurred over the past few weeks, with the White House official telling Nextgov/FCW that, while CISA doesn’t yet use Mythos, agency access to the model is “imminent.”

The launch of Mythos has rattled the cybersecurity landscape in both public and private sectors. Along with unveiling Mythos in early April, Anthropic announced Project Glasswing, an initiative that granted a cohort of private sector tech companies access to a beta version of the AI model to test in a more secure environment. Project Glasswing has since expanded, with Anthropic announcing the addition of new partners last week.

As the private sector sees more access to Mythos, federal agencies’ tech leaders have received little guidance on the model. Agency chief information officers have grown frustrated by the lack of communication on Mythos from the Office of the National Cyber Director, and are reaching out to industry partners for more insight into Mythos’s capabilities, several sources recently told Nextgov/FCW.

The AI executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week addresses agency access to advanced frontier models and calls for the creation of a binding operational directive that would issue new policies for securing government digital networks. CISA released the directive on Wednesday and the cyber agency will also participate in creating a clearinghouse specifically for AI cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

CISA Acting Director Nick Anderson said during the Business Software Alliance’s Transform event on Wednesday that while AI is set to be an effective tool in safeguarding digital assets, leveraging AI will involve “a training curve.”

“Nothing's a magic wand when it comes to vulnerability remediation, when it comes to addressing your technical debt and your infrastructure responsibilities,” Anderson told reporters Wednesday. “There's just some good … things that organizations still need to focus on where AI is going to be able to help them, but it's not going to solve all their problems.”

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Oracle wins $396M federal HR systems overhaul contract

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:11:18 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management is sticking with the incumbent as the agency moves forward with a plan to modernize human resource systems across the government.

OPM has picked Oracle for the 10-year, $395.8 million Federal HR 2.0 contract that will cover more than two million federal employees.

OPM received seven bids in total for the contract, according to Sam.gov records. Oracle faced challengers such as Workday, IBM, SAP and Economic Systems Inc.

IBM and Economic Systems filed protests earlier this year objecting to terms in the solicitation. IBM withdrew its protest and GAO denied Economic Systems’ protest on June 1. Once the protests were resolved, OPM was clear to make its award.

Much of what OPM uses to manage HR functions is run on PeopleSoft, which Oracle acquired in 2005. Oracle recently extended its support for PeopleSoft through 2037, which includes updates and fixes.

The contract is structured as a firm-fixed-price award with a 10-year ordering period. Requirements include core HR and personnel action processing, payroll and benefits integration, audit-ready reporting, and time and attendance tracking.

The system also has to comply with security standards such as FISMA and FedRAMP, as well as be interoperable with existing federal IT systems.

OPM wants the core implementation to be completed by the fall. Other phases will follow for agency transitions, and then licensing and sustainment.

More than 100 HR systems currently operate across the federal government. Federal HR 2.0 is OPM’s attempt to wrangle all that into a single, integrated platform.

The goal of the program is to centralize HR functions across government agencies. OPM wants a platform that can be the infrastructure for a data-driven federal HR ecosystem, according to solicitation documents.

Some of the functions OPM wants include position management, personnel action, records processing, workforce analytics, and employee and manager self-service capabilities.

Given that the award was announced Wednesday, the clock is ticking for competitors to file protests. Companies generally have 10 days to file after a debriefing.

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GSA gets moving on second batch of Polaris SDVOSB awards

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:53:40 -0400

The General Services Administration has lined up a second batch of service-disabled/veteran-owned small businesses it wants for the Polaris government-wide IT contract.

GSA finalized 23 phase one awards to SDVOSB companies in the fall, then added four more firms to this track of Polaris in December and January. Original apparent awardees DecisionPoint-Agile Defense Joint Venture, Mindven, Paragon-Vertex Joint Venture and Sugarloaf Technologies were left off the final list and subsequently put back on.

In a Tuesday update to Sam.gov, GSA lists 17 SDVOSB companies as apparently successful offerors as part of this track’s second phase of awards. This move opens the window for companies to file protests of whether this group of contractors are, in fact, small businesses or not.

That notice also reiterates what GSA has told industry all along, in that no companies are eliminated from the competition as the agency continues to evaluate bids via its phased approach.

GSA received 251 proposals for the SDVOSB pool.

Polaris is a 10-year vehicle that covers emerging technologies and IT solutions in areas such as artificial intelligence, automation, immersive technology, distributed ledger technology and edge computing.

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NIH pulls the plug on its government-wide contracts

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:18:49 -0400

After floundering for over a year, the National Institutes of Health have officially pulled the plug on its program for government-wide acquisition contracts.

NIH's IT Acquisition and Assessment Center has released the end dates for the CIO-SP3 and CIO-CS contracts.

The last day for making task order awards will be Oct. 29. The period of performance must end by Dec. 31, 2028. Task orders awarded after June 8 also cannot have period of performance beyond Dec. 31, 2028.

The end of the NITAAC program has been widely expected since the start of the Trump administration, but the troubles date back to at least 2022. NITAAC struggled to get CIO-SP4 awarded and its attempts faced rounds of challenges at the Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Many of the complaints revolved around the self-scoring cut-off line that NITAAC used to eliminate bidders. Bidders argued that the threshold was arbitrary.

The Trump administration came into office with a focus on streamlining acquisition and consolidating more contracts at the General Services Administration.

In February, NITAAC told told the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that it was cancelling CIO-SP4 to align with Trump’s executive order “Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement.”

The announcement this week sets the end date for CIO-SP3, CIO-SP3 Small Business and CIO-CS.

NITAAC will essentially shutter at the end of 2028.

NITAAC is also telling agencies to download their order file documents from the Electronic Government Ordering System (eGOS) by Dec. 31, 2028.

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CACI's Gray to retire

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:16:15 -0400

After nine years at CACI International, DeEtte Gray will retire as president of U.S. operations on June 30 and transition to a strategic adviser role for the remainder of the year.

CACI announced Gray’s impending retirement in a regulatory filing posted Friday. As a public company, CACI is required to disclose key transitions in its corporate officer group and board of directors as they happen.

Gray’s current responsibilities cover strategic planning, serving customers, driving market growth and investing in technology development. She leads a group of 20,000 employees that work across business areas such as C3I, cybersecurity, digital solutions, enterprise IT, mission engineering and support, space, and spectrum superiority.

She first joined CACI in 2017 as president of U.S. operations, then was appointed president of business and IT solutions in 2019.

In the spring of 2022, Gray participated in a two-part episode of our podcast to discuss both CACI's enterprise technology strategy and her advice for future female executives in the industry.

Gray returned to the president of U.S. operations role in 2024.

Prior to CACI, Gray worked as president of the intelligence and security sector at BAE Systems U.S.’ subsidiary for nearly five years.

Gray also spent 13 years at Lockheed Martin, including as vice president of enterprise IT solutions for the defense unit within the company’s former IS&GS services segment. That role involved programs in enterprise architecture, software, cybersecurity and network operations.

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Lack of White House guidance has complicated agency Mythos adoption, people familiar say

Alexandra Kelley and David DiMolfetta — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:16:00 -0400

Several senior federal technology officials responsible for agency cybersecurity and IT systems are frustrated by the lack of White House guidance on adopting Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, several sources told Nextgov/FCW.

Agency chief information officers, or CIOs, manage swaths of digital infrastructure that supports government operations and are facing renewed pressure to better defend agency networks as officials assess how powerful AI systems could help hackers find and exploit vulnerabilities faster.

Anthropic surgically rolled out Mythos access to select organizations in early April and recently expanded this effort — dubbed Project Glasswing — to partners in industry and other nations. The model has been going through a non-public distribution process on grounds that, in the wrong hands, it can significantly boost adversaries’ hacking capabilities.

Select parts of the U.S. government, such as the intelligence community, already have access. But many federal tech leaders have privately complained that the White House Office of the National Cyber Director hasn’t sufficiently briefed officials on plans for accessing, implementing and using the model to scan agency networks for vulnerabilities, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about their knowledge of issues with the White House.

The agitation varies across agencies. Some CIOs have taken issue with a lack of direction in how they would use Mythos to scan for digital flaws, while others are more concerned with why they haven’t gained access to the model altogether.

There has been “tremendous frustration” with ONCD, the first person said. The ire stems, in part, from the fact that ONCD has largely prevented government tech leaders from making decisions about AI model use, while at the same time devoting much of its energy toward engagements with industry about AI policy.

“There’s frustration watching the private sector utilize [these models]” while many agency CIOs “are arbitrarily blocked,” said the first person, adding that there’s been a “general prohibition” imposed on anyone who wants to engage with Anthropic further. They said there’s been near-complete silence from ONCD, despite many government agencies wanting to use Mythos to find unseen vulnerabilities and fix them to better defend their networks.

“Nobody briefed us on [Mythos],” the second person told Nextgov/FCW. “I think the frustration stems from there being zero communication on the topic from ONCD.”

Absent guidance from ONCD or other executive branch agencies, Anthropic held briefings for federal CIOs in early May to help them learn more about Mythos and how it would impact the broader cybersecurity landscape, Nextgov/FCW first reported.

The concerns are significant because they suggest that some of the federal government’s most target-rich agencies may lack clear direction or consistent access to a tool that could help them find and fix security flaws more quickly.

The federal enterprise is a prime target for hackers, as adversaries have for years sought access to government emails, employee records and other sensitive data.

Several top officials have made plans to leave the White House cyber office in the last few weeks, including its head of policy.

ONCD did not respond to a request for comment. Anthropic declined to comment.

The third person, who has held discussions with at least three federal CIOs, said several are asking the private sector to help them learn more about Mythos and protect their networks from AI-supported cyberattacks.

“Federal CIOs are taking a system-wide view and approach to their technology,” the third person told Nextgov/FCW. “While they are interested in frontier AI models’ capabilities to identify vulnerabilities in their networks, they know they can’t wait for access. So they’re taking steps now to coordinate with industry to accelerate their patching process, receive vulnerability disclosures as quickly as possible and operationalize a more automated remediation process.”

The fourth person cautioned that, while there are frustrations, CIOs’ concerns are not necessarily uniform across government. Pure access to powerful AI tools like Mythos is “not some magical silver bullet,” the person said, because agencies would still have to validate the vulnerabilities they flag and determine how to respond. Some CIO offices may be more eager for Mythos access than others, depending on their cybersecurity maturity and other factors, the person added.

While ONCD may be perceived as an obstacle, the office has been lobbying for broader access to frontier model capabilities in some cases, though its approach “may not be uniform,” this fourth person said.

Access dynamics could change in the coming months. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is planning a binding operational directive that would push agencies to prioritize the most urgent risks to federal networks, a shift informed in part by AI-enabled cyber threats, the agency’s acting director said Tuesday.

The administration’s approach to AI has shifted in recent months as officials confront an emerging class of cyber-focused models that can rapidly identify vulnerabilities across computer networks, becoming a major driver of discussions over how AI systems could reshape defensive and offensive cyber operations.

President Donald Trump recently signed an AI security executive order that encourages developers to submit powerful new models to a 30-day government review before public release. On Friday, he signed a memorandum aimed at speeding up government use of advanced AI across the military and intelligence community.

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DHA plans shift in approach for electronic health record follow-on

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:21:09 -0400

The Defense Health Agency has decided to go in a different direction for the follow-on contract to operate and maintain the military’s electronic health record, which was declared fully deployed in the spring of 2024.

DHA previously signaled it would take the same approach used in 2015 for the original single award to Leidos, which won the 10-year contract that designated it the lead systems integrator. The Oracle Health EHR, known as Cerner in 2015, and the Henry Schein dental record are part of the systems of systems known as MHS Genesis.

But DHA is now looking to set up the new contract with a more modular approach that brings a “fundamentally different and more competitive acquisition strategy” to the MHS Genesis ecosystem, the agency said in a Monday Sam.gov notice.

As DHA works on that blueprint, the agency is planning an extension of the contract with Leidos for another potential 12-month period that also lays out its pathway for the shift away from a single lead integrator.

One key priority for DHA and the Leidos-led team involves the migration of the EHR into Oracle’s cloud computing infrastructure, a move aimed at enabling communications between the MHS Genesis solution itself and military treatment facilities around the world.

DHA’s justification and approval notice for the extension indicates the agency will work to establish a direct relationship with Oracle for the hosting responsibilities during the bridge period.

Certain software licenses will also transition away from Leidos during the bridge period as DHA enters into new license maintenance and subscription agreements with software-as-a-service product providers.

Those key action items are part of DHA’s larger effort to work with Leidos on completing cloud migration activities, finalizing system documentation and transitioning responsibilities to additional contractors.

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Tyto Athene buys cloud migration provider

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:43:43 -0400

Tyto Athene has acquired a cloud computing migration specialist focused on the U.S. intelligence community as part of an ongoing push to grow the portfolio of offerings for this particular customer set.

Ready Support Services opened for business in 2010 to help intelligence agencies and others across the national security ecosystem transition their IT assets to cloud platforms and shared services environments.

By purchasing RSS, Tyto is also looking to add IT service architecture and design services that work across multiple security enclaves. Financial terms of the transaction announced Tuesday were not disclosed.

"RSS brings deep, mission-tested expertise in enterprise service management, IT asset management, and a comprehensive ServiceNow operations focus,” Tyto Athene CEO Dennis Kelly said in a release. “Their specialized cloud migration and on-premises deployment capabilities deliver exactly the tailored support the IC requires when transitioning and securing its most critical applications.”

RSS’ relationship with and specialty in ServiceNow centers around on-premise deployments in classified environments.

Tyto is owned by the private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners, which first purchased the integrator in 2019 and has supported several add-on acquisitions since.

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JP Donovan gets Godspeed's backing

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:34:57 -0400

JP Donovan, a general contracting firm that focuses on specialized infrastructure construction, has received an investment from private equity firm Godspeed Capital Management to support the company’s space and defense growth efforts.

JP Donovan opened for business in 1998 to carry out construction, engineering, fabrication and precision machining work for projects in areas such as space infrastructure, heavy civil and design-build. The company is one of three primes on a potential three-year, $100 million contract NASA awarded in 2023 for ground support equipment for Artemis lunar missions.

In getting a new investor like Godspeed, JP Donovan is looking to further build out its infrastructure delivery capacity that includes fabrication and precision machining efforts. Financial terms of the transaction announced Monday were not disclosed.

William “Bill” Deane will continue as JP Donovan’s chief executive, a role he started in January after 22 years in federal engineering and construction. Founder John Donovan will hold a significant ownership stake in the company alongside Godspeed and is staying on as chief construction officer.

JP Donovan now becomes Godspeed’s second portfolio company focused on U.S. space programs alongside Aurex, whose core focus areas include missile defense and hypersonics.

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Trump memo pushes national security agencies to move faster on AI

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:30:00 -0400

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a national security memo aimed at speeding up government use of advanced artificial intelligence across the military and intelligence community, while also trying to harden those systems against foreign theft and manipulation.

The National Security Presidential Memorandum reflects a growing view inside the White House that U.S. security agencies are moving too slowly to adopt frontier AI tools, even as the evolving technology improves rapidly and rivals like China seek ways to craft their own versions.

It calls for agencies like the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the National Cyber Director to build “deep, proactive” relationships with AI companies so that cutting-edge models can be made available to national security personnel faster.

It also instructs officials to identify areas where AI could improve government operations, including intelligence analysis and cyber threat detection. At the same time, the memo says the tools cannot be used for unlawful surveillance of Americans, language that speaks to long-running civil liberties concerns over how agencies collect, analyze and process data.

The memo also focuses heavily on protecting U.S.-developed AI models from foreign adversaries. It directs senior officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and NSA Director Gen. Joshua Rudd, to work with private-sector companies on security protocols meant to prevent advanced models from being stolen, copied or compromised.

One area of concern is model distillation, a technique in which an AI system repeatedly queries another AI system in an attempt to mimic its performance and build out a separate model. The White House in April accused China of carrying out “industrial-scale” distillation attacks on U.S. AI systems.

The memo also directs agencies to work with industry to secure the infrastructure that supports frontier AI, including the data centers that store the enormous amounts of computing power needed to run advanced models. Data centers have recently become more attractive targets during periods of geopolitical tension.

Trump recently signed an AI security executive order that leans heavily on voluntary cooperation with industry. That order encourages developers to submit powerful new models to a 30-day government review before public release.

More AI-related guidance is expected soon. Nick Andersen, CISA’s acting director, said last week that the cyber agency is preparing a binding operational directive focused on AI-enabled cyber threats.

The administration’s approach to AI has shifted in recent months as officials confront a new class of cyber-focused models, including Anthropic’s Mythos, that can rapidly identify vulnerabilities across computer networks. The model has become a major driver of government discussions over how advanced AI systems could reshape both defensive and offensive cyber operations.

Last week, Anthropic said it is expanding Project Glasswing — its controlled-access program for giving trusted organizations early access to Mythos — to about 150 additional entities. The new group spans more than 15 countries and includes organizations in water, healthcare, communications and other critical infrastructure sectors.

OpenAI’s recent release of GPT-5.5-Cyber, which also demonstrated sophisticated cyber capabilities, has further heightened concerns in Washington over how quickly these systems are advancing and how they could reshape both cyber defensive and offensive operations.

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Blue Origin rocket explosion shows ‘fragility’ of national-security launch plans

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Hours after a Blue Origin rocket blew up on a Florida launch pad last month, a SpaceX rocket lofted a military payload from a nearby site—neatly illustrating concerns about whether the commercial launch industry can actually add providers quickly enough to match the Pentagon’s accelerating demands.

The incident should be “a moment to step back and reassess the fragility of our space launch infrastructure” and how little competition exists for the nation’s military launch missions, said Todd Harrison, the American Enterprise Institute’s defense space expert.

Just two companies are certified to launch the nearly 100 National Security Space launch missions the Pentagon has budgeted for in the next five years: SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

Several companies are working to introduce new heavy-lift rockets, which handle payloads between 22 and 55 tons. But the ill-fated Blue Origin test failed to move the New Glenn rocket closer to qualification and ULA’s Vulcan heavy rocket is still sidelined amid a probe into a solid rocket booster anomaly. That leaves Elon Musk’s SpaceX with a heavy-lift monopoly, at least for now.

That’s not where service leaders, who plan a steep increase in launches, want to be.

Just before Blue Origin’s May 28 mishap, service officials awarded a task order to the Jeff Bezos-owned company for a National Reconnaissance Office mission by late 2027 or early 2028. Soon afterward, they reiterated their plans to count on the company.

“The U.S. Space Force (USSF) and NRO remain committed partners with Blue Origin and will work with them on the New Glenn vehicle anomaly experienced during its integrated vehicle hot fire test yesterday evening,” Space Systems Command said in a May 29 press release.

AEI’s Harrison suggested the incident was a reminder not to count too heavily on plans.

“I think it hurts some of that optimism that the Space Force may have had about getting a third provider, but I think, in a practical sense, it's not as if there are near-term missions that we're depending on New Glenn,” he said. “I think it’s just taking some shine off the rosy projections for the future, that there are going to be more hiccups like this along the way.”

‘We are the primary launch provider’

Congress is also concerned about the lack of launch providers.

The House Armed Service Committee’s initial draft of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act asks the Air Force Secretary to brief lawmakers on how the Space Force is “investing in capability and capacity” to increase the service’s launch cadence. It also asks for ideas to “accelerate development and reduce barriers to participation by nontraditional defense contractors” to meet the growing mission demand. That report is due by March 2027.

“The committee has a continued interest in maintaining and growing competition across the space enterprise, to include launch,” one HASC staffer said.

In the meantime, SpaceX dominates the market.

“We are the primary launch provider for the U.S. government,” the private company wrote last month in its S-1 filing, part of the paperwork for its highly anticipated initial public offering.

SpaceX rockets launched 11 of last year’s 12 national-security launches, and holds the contracts for five of seven high-profile launch missions in the current fiscal year. SpaceX also launches its own satellites for the Starlink communications constellation, which has become crucial for military operations.

SpaceX has a huge lead against companies trying to take on future national security space missions, said Victoria Samson, the Secure World’s Foundation’s chief director of space security and stability.

“It does speak to how complicated these issues are, how far SpaceX is ahead of its competitors, and the, I would say, unlikelihood of any real competitor to SpaceX in the near future,” Samson said.

But SpaceX’s IPO filing also revealed weaknesses. Its launch business lost roughly $657 million last year. Despite a huge push to field orbital data centers in space, its AI segment lost $6.3 billion. The only profitable segment of the company was Starlink, with $4.4 billion in income.

And several national-security analysts noted that SpaceX is less than fully focused on military launches.

Byron Callan, a managing director at research firm Capital Alpha Partners, said in a note about SpaceX’s prospectus that “does not suggest that SpaceX is being positioned as a major defense contractor” and instead is more aligned with other technology sectors.

Harrison said that SpaceX’s other ambitions could pull focus away from its launch business.

“SpaceX today enjoys a near monopoly on military and national security space launch, and that's a vulnerability, because we're talking about a company that has evolved its focus over time from being a space launch company to being a SATCOM company to being an AI data center and space company,” he said. “Launch is an increasingly small part of the SpaceX portfolio.”

More missions, more launchpads

It’s unclear just how long it will take Blue Origin to recover from the explosion, which damaged its only launch pad.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said this week on X that the company plans to have another New Glenn rocket in the skies by “the end of this year.” But SpaceX needed more than a year to repair its own launch pad after a 2016 Falcon 9 explosion.

Kiko Donchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, didn’t comment on Blue Origin’s timeline, but described in a post on X how extensive the investigation and cleanup process is.“In the initial days and weeks, you’re using a scalpel, not a bulldozer,” Donchev said, “Cleanup has to be done with a sense of urgency, but extreme precision. It’s literally launch pad surgery.”

The company reportedly has plans to build a second launchpad at the Space Force base and another site is in the works at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, officials said in April.

Still, the mishap underscores how the paucity of launch pads is a bottleneck for the Space Force’s plans.This year, the service plans to launch more than 200 rockets from the Cape and Vandenberg. In the next decade, that could increase to more than 3,000 launches per year, according to the service’s ambitious “Objective Force 2040” document.

That same document also warns that increased reliance on those two bases “creates enduring vulnerability to natural hazards, operational disruption, and degraded performance during periods of peak demand.”

Last month, the Commercial Space Federation, an industry group, sounded an alarm about the increased tempo of launch missions on traditional sites.

“U.S. orbital launch demand has surpassed 180 launches per year, straining infrastructure that

must be developed years in advance of its need,” the report said, adding that the Defense Department, NASA, local governments, and private companies should “coordinate infrastructure upgrade investments” to improve launch facilities amid growing tempo.

Service leaders told Defense One in April that they’re looking at expanding launch capabilities to other sites and to more providers.

Harrison said the Blue Origin mishap also shows why the government can’t leave the expansion of launch infrastructure to for-profit companies.

“You need to invest in some excess capacity, so that you have it when you need it. It could be a rocket failure that takes out a pad, it could be a hurricane, it could be an earthquake, fire, a wildfire,” Harrison said. “But if you want to have a robust launch enterprise, then you've got to build in some redundancy and some resilience that the commercial sector, which is trying to maximize profits, would not necessarily do on its own.”

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