Weekly GEOINT Community News

AP Posts Interactive Imagery of Olympic Campus

Associated Press (AP) Interactive is offering virtual tours of the 2018 Winter Olympic venues in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Explore a high-resolution, geo-tagged map of the Olympic grounds created with DigitalGlobe imagery and powered by Esri, as well as AP drone video footage and on-the-ground photography.

General Dynamics to Acquire CSRA

General Dynamics and CSRA announced they have entered into an agreement under which General Dynamics will acquire CSRA for $9.6 billion. Phebe Novakovic, chairman and CEO of General Dynamics said of the agreement: “CSRA’s management team has created an outstanding provider of innovative, next-generation IT solutions with industry-leading margins. We see substantial opportunities to provide cost-effective IT solutions and services to the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and federal civilian agencies. The combination enables GDIT to grow revenue and profits at an accelerated rate. It will allow us to deliver even more innovative, leading-edge solutions to our customers.”

Fulcrum IT Acquires The PTR Group

Fulcrum IT Services acquired The PTR Group, a provider of software engineering and cyber services. The acquisition strengthens Fulcrum’s presence in cyber, robotic control software, and satellite engineering, and expands the company’s client portfolio to include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Naval Research Laboratory, and NASA.

Lockheed Martin Launches “Open Space” Satellite Project

Lockheed Martin published technical specifications for the LM 2100 satellite platform, the LM 400 small satellite, and two variants of the new LM 50 nanosat series as part of a satellite innovation project called Open Space. To strengthen collaboration among industry, Lockheed is inviting start-ups and other companies to propose non-proprietary technologies for integration with Lockheed satellite platforms. Interested companies or individuals may submit concepts until May 11.

PAR Technology Wins Air Force Research Contract

PAR Technology’s government systems subsidiary was awarded a $4.5 million synchronized command and control multi-domain test and integration contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory. PAR Government’s ISR unit will lead a three-year research and development campaign focused on C4ISR solutions in cyber, air, and space.

Cubic Awarded Extended EUCOM Analytical Contract 

Cubic Corporation’s Global Defense unit was awarded a contract to continue providing analytical support to the U.S. European Command’s Joint Training and Exercise Division. Cubic personnel will develop and deliver training and exercise services for joint operations, strategic partnerships, and interoperability. The contract extends a three-year history of direct support to EUCOM’s Joint Exercise Program.

Woolpert Upgrades Aerial Acquisition Capabilities

Woolpert announced multiple equipment and technology investments to improve its aerial acquisition capabilities. Among the upgrades are new LiDAR sensors, an expanded fleet of airplanes and pilots, imagery processing automation tools, and geospatial storage hubs. Woolpert also invested in the RealTerrain workflow solution, which consists of Leica Geosystems’ TerrainMapper LiDAR sensor and accompanying HxMap software.

OGC Requests Responses to Portrayal Concept Development Study

The Open Geospatial Consortium announced the Portrayal Concept Development Study, an investigation into aesthetic symbology for web-based mapping. Current web-based maps often neglect cartographic concepts of color, symbolism, patterns, and shapes, and OGC aims to create standards that enable production-quality representations of raster, vector, and other data. To do so, OGC is requesting suggestions from the geospatial community about the portrayal of data in web-based mapping tools. Email OGC at portrayalcds-response@opengeospatial.org to contribute.

Photo Credit: Associated Press Digital Products