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NASA is partnering with a commercial space company in a bid to replace the cumbersome "metal cans" that now serve as astronauts' homes in space with inflatable bounce-house-like habitats that can be deployed on the cheap.
News and buzz in the acquisition and IT communities that you may have missed this week.
Federal regulators say they are ordering a comprehensive review of the critical systems of Boeing's 787s, the aircraft maker's newest and most technologically advanced plane, after a fire and a fuel leak earlier this week.
The Network Services 2020 initiative will not be a large worldwide contract as the Networx and FTS procurements were over the past 20 years. GSA still is developing the overall strategy, but plans to use a similar approach it used with DISA on the recent satellite communications contract.
After the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) certified the first cloud-computing services company last month, the General Services Administration is predicting a steady wave of new approvals later this year. The length of time it has taken the initial 78 companies or products in the FedRAMP pipeline to gain approval is a testament to the rigorous process, said Dave McClure, GSA's associate administrator in the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies.
The first Navy ship is undergoing an overhaul to implement the CANES system, one of up to 23 authorized under Pentagon's go-ahead for limited deployment.
The Federal Acquisition Regulations Council's proposal would implement part of a July 2012 memo from the Office of Management and Budget. The memo directed agencies to take specific steps to ensure accelerated payments to small businesses.
The blanket purchase agreement lists 15 tools and 11 service areas that DHS wants vendors to provide to improve agency cybersecurity.
Latest edition of a biennial survey, sponsored by a contracting industry group, finds acquisition leaders have the same challenges they had a decade ago. But they fear tighter budgets will reverse progress toward improving the government's acquisition workforce.
Preliminary results from a Grant Thornton survey of contractors show profits, revenues and overall participation in the government market is down. The pressure from the administration's steps to reign in high risk contracts and reduce spending is having an impact on most contractors. The Navy, for example, is trying to be more disciplined in how it buys goods and services.
The Coalition for Government Procurement has called on senior administration leaders to take more action to combat increasing contract duplication, largely from the spread of multiple-award contracts (MACs). Member companies say they are seeing more duplicated contracts and that has added to their costs, according to a CGP survey.
Fred Hochberg, the Export-Import Bank president told The Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp that unlike other agencies, his agency has been able to pay money to the government rather than take money from the government.
Organizers for the Executive Leadership Conference, which was canceled this year because of Hurricane Sandy, said they will begin processing refunds this week.
The Pentagon releases Better Buying Power 2.0 with a new focus on professionalizing the procurement workforce. The updated program includes seven major focus areas with 36 initiatives. Ashton Carter, the deputy secretary of Defense, said version 2.0 takes the lessons learned and data from the last two years to further improve efficiency and cost savings of DoD procurement.