GovCon Wire Your Direct Source for Government Contracting News

A second GPS III satellite that Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) built for the U.S. Air Force has responded to commands and used an internal propulsion system while cruising toward its operational orbit.

David Egts, chief technologist for North America public sector at Red Hat, wrote in an FCW commentary piece published Thursday that there are four best practices federal information technology administrators should consider adopting to support their agencies’ IT modernization efforts and one is focusing on people and processes.

Atlas Research has won a contract to help the Department of Veterans Affairs update and simplify its platform for processing disability compensation claims. Washington, D.C.-based Atlas said Thursday it partnered with Amida and Prometheus Federal Services to develop a system for VA personnel to collect evidentiary materials needed to process claims for military veterans.

Enterprise Technical Assistance Services will provide technical support services to a Department of Energy project office that oversees environmental legacy cleanup efforts at Portsmouth and Paducah uranium enrichment sites under a potential $97.1M contract, according to a FedBizOpps notice posted Thursday.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) has developed a supercomputer named after astronomer Robert Grant Aitken designed to help NASA’s Ames Research Center run modeling and simulations to support the space agency’s lunar missions.

Richard Harkey, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Whitney, Bradley & Brown, has joined the board of directors at technical services contractor Cornerstone Defense. He joined WBB in January 2018 and oversees  financial, operational, contracting, information technology and facility-related activities there, Cornerstone said Thursday.

U.S. Navy Adm. Michael Gilday formally succeeded Adm. John Richardson, two-time Wash100 Award recipient, as chief of naval operations during a ceremony that took place Thursday in Washington. "Gilday is a true cutting edge warfighter, a surface warrior who, by virtue of his leadership at 10th Fleet, fully appreciates the challenges we face in the cyber warfare arena and the increasing pace of competition in new domains,” Richardson said.

Anne Hughes, a more than 30-year health care industry veteran, has been named vice president of business development at Cognosante's civilian health unit, FedHealthIT reported Thursday. Cognosante is headquartered in Falls Church, Va., and offers technology and business process outsourcing services to government health organizations.

VMware (NYSE: VMW) has agreed to acquire Pivotal Software (NYSE: PVTL) for approximately $2.7B and cybersecurity firm Carbon Black (Nasdaq: CBLK) for about $2.1B.

Diversified Maintenance Systems has won a potential five-year, $90M contract to provide specialty trade construction services at one U.S. Marine Corps installation and three naval bases located in California.