got geoint?

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? As always, we hope you had a restful weekend and a recharged and ready to take on the world. The big news we cover this week is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarding $1 billion in engineering contracts as part of its “TASER” program, as well as Army Gen. David Petraeus’ support of closing the prison camps at Guantánamo and more. As we always say, fire up that second cup of coffee and read on!

NGA Awards $1 Billion In IT Contracts
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has awarded $1 billion in engineering contracts to several large consulting firms — including Accenture, Lockheed Martin and Boeing — to deliver new technology for gathering intelligence information via satellite, among other services. Boeing, Raytheon, Computer Sciences Corp., Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics One Source, Northrop Grumman, OG Systems, QVine Corporation and Science Application International also will share the agency’s Total Application Services for Enterprise Requirements contract, also known as “TASER.” The contracts are for five years with no option to renew. Congrats to all these consulting firms. Read more of the full InformationWeek article here.

Intel Community Gets New CHCO
Paula Roberts, the head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s human development directorate, will be the next chief human capital officer of the intelligence community. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Roberts will oversee the design, development and execution of human resource strategies and policies to support the 16 agencies in the intelligence community. “Paula will continue our efforts to build a diverse workforce with the technical and linguistic skills and cultural understanding necessary to help us meet our wide-ranging mission requirements,” Blair said in a statement released last week. Read the full FedLine blog post here.

US to Pursue Pressure Track on Iran: Petraeus
The United States is raising the stakes in its bid to halt Iran’s nuclear program, putting the issue on a “pressure track,” top US general David Petraeus said Sunday. The US and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran for its refusal to comply with repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and agree to a UN-backed nuclear fuel deal. President Barack Obama had talked about a dual-track approach to dealing with Iran’s suspect nuclear activities, involving efforts to engage Iranian leaders backed up by the threat of further sanctions. Read the full AFP article here.

Petraeus Backs Closing Camps, Interrogation Limits
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the Pentagon’s top commander of forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Sunday he still supports closing the prison camps at Guantánamo and is not troubled by President Barack Obama’s inability to do so by a Jan. 22 deadline. Petraeus, answering questions on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, also said he did not believe that the use of Bush-era harsh interrogation tactics on captives taken in the ongoing U.S. military offensive in Afghanistan against the Taliban would produce better intelligence. Read the full Miami Herald article here.

Launch of European Climate Satellite is Delayed
The launch this week of a European satellite designed to monitor the response of icesheets to climate change has been delayed by a technical worry, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Friday. CryoSat-2 had been scheduled to be launched from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next Thursday. The operation “has been delayed due to a concern related to the second stage steering engine of the Dnepr launcher,” ESA said in a press release. Read the full AFP article here.

Tags: Boeing, GEOINT, geospatial intelligence, got geoint?, Guantánamo, Guantánamo Bay, Lockheed Martin, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, NGA, NGA Contract TASER, OG Systems, Petraeus, QVine, TASER, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, USGIF