Page 11 – Defense Daily

Mack Defense Nabs Marine Corps Deal To Build Medium Tactical Truck Prototypes

The Marine Corps has awarded Mack Defense a deal to build two prototypes for its Medium Tactical Truck (MTT) program, which will inform a potential replacement for its Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) fleet.

The new award continues Mack Defense’s work on the MTT program along with ND Defense, which received its deal to build two prototypes in January.

Mack Defense Awarded Contract by U.S. Marine Corps to Develop Medium Tactical Truck (MTT). Photo: Mack Defense.

“These prototypes represent the next generation of purpose-built, specialty vehicles for the Marine Corps,” David Hartzell, president of Mack Defense, said in a statement on Monday. “By leveraging our commercial vehicle technology expertise and adapting it for military applications, we’re delivering a highly capable platform that can perform in the most challenging terrains, while incorporating advanced safety features and hybrid propulsion systems that meet the Marine Corps’ rigorous mission requirements.”

Mack Defense’s delivery of its two prototypes, which include a a 4×4 configuration with a 10-foot cargo bed and a 6×6 configuration with a 20-foot cargo bed, is expected around fall 2026, a company spokesperson confirmed to Defense Daily.

The Marine Corps in February 2024 announced it had selected Mack Defense and ND Defense for the MTT effort, with Phase 1 of the prototype program focused on design and development work (Defense Daily, Feb. 2 2024).

MTT is intended to inform a potential replacement for the Marine Corp’s MTVR fleet, built by Oshkosh Defense [OSK], to include the cargo, dump, wrecker, tractor and resupply variants.

The new $10.8 million contract modification to Mack Defense for Phase 2 of MTT was officially awarded on May 8, and brings the total value of the company’s Other Transaction Agreement for the program to $16 million.

ND Defense received its $17.2 million contract modification for Phase 2 on Jan. 17, which brought the total value of its work on MTT to $24.1 million.

Mack Defense said construction of its two prototypes is expected to be completed by early fall and it will then conduct its own testing on the vehicles at the Nevada Automotive Test Center (NATC) in the first half of 2026 before delivering them to the Marine Corps.

“The MTT prototypes incorporate significant technological advancements in driver safety and operational capability. These include advanced driver assistance features such as collision avoidance, blind-spot detection and vehicle dynamic control systems incorporating enhanced traction control and anti-lock brakes,” Mack Defense said in a statement.

Mack Defense noted the vehicles are integrated with hybrid-electric technology “delivering improved fuel efficiency while enabling critical tactical advantages such as silent watch capabilities using extensive onboard power storage and generation and exportable power for other military systems.”

Hartzell told Defense Daily in a February interview that NATC is also building a tech demonstrator to inform the Marine Corps’ plan for a potential MTVR replacement.

The Marine Corps has said that key requirements for MTT include integration of hybrid-electric technologies, on-board power generation, mobility capability for a 70 percent off-road and 30 percent on-road mission profile and a modular and scalable armor system.

Bell ‘Confident’ In Meeting Army’s FLRAA Acceleration, First Prototype Delivery In 2027

Bell [TXT] is “confident” it can meet the Army’s plan for a multi-year acceleration of the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program, a lead company official told Defense Daily, as it works toward delivering the first prototype in 2027.

“The intent on our side, and I think on the Army side as well, is to get the capability out to the warfighter as soon as possible,” Ryan Ehinger, Bell’s FLRAA program director, said in an interview last week. “We’re highly supportive and believe it is an executable plan.”

The V-280 Valor. Bell photo.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Randy George, the service’s chief of staff, told lawmakers recently the Army wants to accelerate the FLRAA program and speed up the timeline for fielding the aircraft, which had been planned for 2030 (Defense Daily, May 7).

Gen. James Mingus, the Army vice chief of staff, announced last week at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference in Nashville that the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell in Kentucky will be the first division to receive the new aircraft, and Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, the Army aviation branch chief, then confirmed the Army aims to begin that fielding by late 2028 or early 2029 (Defense Daily, May 14).

Ehinger told Defense Daily discussions have been “ongoing” with the Army on the acceleration efforts for FLRAA, which has been officially designated as the MV-75, adding the timeline Bell is working toward would align with officials’ comments about moving the fielding plan to the left.

“I think this is more an acceleration of the production aspects of the [program]. Our priority will remain on getting the prototype aircraft out there and into test and executing a safe test program, in parallel though having the confidence to start working those production aircraft,” Ehinger said in an interview at the conference.

Gill, in a briefing last week, reiterated the Army is “100 percent committed to FLRAA” and accelerating the program, noting service officials met recently with Bell to discuss “shared risk” on speeding up the timeline.

“Our leadership has gone to Congress and said that’s what we want to do. They’re going to go find additional money to figure out how to accelerate that program,” Gill told reporters. “Like all things, we don’t want to own all of [the risk] nor do we expect them to own all of it. So we’ll come to some agreements through these negotiations on the appropriate shared risk for the development program.”

Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft was named the winner of the FLRAA competition in December 2022, beating out a Sikorsky [LMT] and Boeing [BA] team’s Defiant X coaxial rigid rotor helicopter offering for the program to find a platform that will eventually replace a sizeable portion of the Black Hawk fleet (Defense Daily, Dec. 5, 2022).

The Army’s initial FLRAA deal to Bell is worth up to $1.3 billion but could total $7 billion if all options are picked up.

Last August, the Army approved the Milestone B decision to move FLRAA into the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase, to include picking up the next contract option that will cover the build of six prototype aircraft (Defense Daily, Aug. 2 2024).

Ehinger noted Bell’s next major milestone for FLRAA is completing the Critical Design Review by late this year or nearly next year.

“Our focus right now is really on…that completion of the Critical Design Review, getting through all of that technical maturity, moving toward that initial prototype aircraft and getting into that flight test program,” Ehinger said. “The focus right now is making sure we’ve got the design right. [That provides] a level of confidence that when we do deliver that first prototype aircraft, it is going to do well in test and we won’t get the significant discoveries that you might see in flight testing programs of the past because we’ve got validated analytical models, because [both Bell and the Army] are both working in the design space and looking over things as we go, because everything’s 3D modeled and we’re doing maintenance and sustainment run throughs with augmented reality and other things to get ahead of those hardware discoveries.”

Delivery of the first prototype is planned for 2027, according to Ehinger, while he declined to offer a specific date for when an initial flight could occur.

Bell has begun manufacturing components for the prototypes, with Ehinger citing the company’s use of automated fiber placement and “higher tech” processes that “improve repeatability and quality” in the process as helping to enable some of the production acceleration.

“We started manufacturing a while ago. We’re starting to see some really strong proof points right now that some of the simplification that we’ve done in our manufacturing processes and some of the different ways that we’re designing for manufacturing is yielding very positively,” Ehinger said. “We pride ourselves on being very vertically integrated in a lot of the traditionally more complex, dynamic components. And so, Bell is doing not just final assembly [of the aircraft] but we’re doing the gearboxes, we’re doing the rotor blade systems, we’re doing the wing structure and the fuselage as well. A lot of that is in work now to support those early prototypes.

Ehinger also pointed to Bell’s model-based systems engineering work and prior risk reduction efforts with the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator program as having set “a strong foundation technically” to support acceleration efforts.

“The real-time collaboration in the same digital environment with the customer, I think [that] provides a high level of confidence to be able to move forward into some of these things in production,” Ehinger said.

USAF Cites ‘Design, Production, and Installation Cost Increases’ for B-52 RMP Breach

The U.S. Air Force B-52 Radar Modernization Program (RMP) has exceeded the 15 percent significant unit cost increase threshold “due to design, production, and installation cost increases,” the Air Force said on Monday.

The Air Force program executive office for bombers at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio submitted a program deviation report on B-52 RMP to the service’s acquisition executive office on Apr. 11 (Defense Daily, May 8).

The Air Force has said it has reduced requirements to focus on an initial “minimum viable product” to meet Air Force Global Strike Command needs.

“The Air Force is reducing B-52 RMP costs by pursuing production contract and modification efficiencies,” the Air Force said on Monday.

Last July, Air Force officials said that RMP was abutting a significant cost breach and that the program executive office for bombers was re-examining requirements that may be operationally irrelevant or too restrictive–requirements like the level of fidelity for the new radome and the number of hours required for B-52 “cold starts” (Defense Daily, July 31, 2024).

The Air Force has said that RMP for the 76 B-52Hs is to include a new, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar based on RTX‘s [RTX] APG-79; a new, wide-band radome by L3Harris Technologies [LHX] on the aircraft’s nose; two L3Harris 8 x 20 inch high definition displays for the radar navigator and the navigator; two new, hand controllers by California-based Mason Controls; and new display sensor system processors by L3Harris to interface between the radar and other B-52 systems.

Commercial Satellite Imagery Leaders See Increased International Demand

ST LOUIS — Commercial satellite imagery and sensing leaders see growing demand in the international market for geospatial intelligence and are looking at ways to increase collaboration and streamline the way U.S. government and international partners can access commercial insights.

“We’re seeing a speed to adoption in the international market that’s accelerated like never before,” Maxar Intelligence

CEO Dan Smoot said Monday at GEOINT 2025 here.

Smoot referenced to the situation in March of this year when the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) temporarily suspended Ukraine’s access to the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery system (GEGD), which allows access to commercial satellite imagery. In media statements at the time, Maxar said it temporarily suspended access to Ukrainian users through GEGD. Access was later restored.

Smoot said the shutdown was an “interesting time,” and that it opened the world’s eyes to how impactful commercial GEOINT is for defense and intelligence missions. “I think sometimes there’s an understanding about what we did for mapping but truly how the information is used to help the warfighter really became apparent in these discussions,” Smoot said.

He described a shifting geopolitical landscape as European and NATO nations are looking to invest more in space capabilities.

“We’re seeing that nations are stepping up, realizing that they don’t have time to go and build assets. … Commercial is its path to develop capabilities needed moving forward,” Smoot said. “Our operational capabilities to deliver this information in a timely manner is becoming more and more important for them every day, for more national security. There’s been a major shift because of recent policies to help open up the international markets.”

BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole echoed “strong momentum” from international government customers, saying these governments want to move faster with commercial capabilities.

“Our partners want to more rapidly build internal capacity, either through sovereign satellites, but also in software and AI. I think that’s where the opportunity is right now — countries around the world see the need to accelerate their space-based intelligence capabilities. Commercial is a really good way to get there very quickly that leverages things that are already on orbit, plus entering into long-term partnerships that help build that capacity,” O’Toole said.

Motoyuki Arai, CEO of Japanese synthetic aperture radar (SAR) company, said that Synspective sees “huge demand” from the Japan Ministry of Defense and the Japanese government has an advanced strategy to deploy its budget for technology, including space capabilities.

“This is a good opportunity for us, but we have to leverage this opportunity to make collaboration to [meet] international demand, not only for national security but also for commercial businesses as well,” Arai said.

Speaking to commercial imagery’s role in Ukraine, Capella Space CEO Frank Backes said Ukraine showed the value of Earth Observation (EO) data from a military tactical perspective and not just an intelligence perspective — driven by speed of access.

“The barrier and the driver there is latency. How quickly can we get from tasking to the satellite capturing the data that you’re interested in, getting that back in the hands of the warfighter who’s interested in that particular piece of information,” Backes said. “Latency has been a big challenge, without question.”

Earlier this month, quantum networking company IonQ announced a deal to acquire Capella Space to accelerate its plans in quantum networking. Backes said that merging with a quantum company will lead to improved latency and security.

“One of the reasons that we’re excited about the IonQ acquisition merger with us, is getting after what latency represents. The other side is security — the need for us to be able to deliver reliable, secure data to those customers is more critical than it’s ever been. Being able to take the technology and be able to create sovereign control and sovereign access is really what the next generation of the commercial systems are going to represent,” Backes said.

IC Exploring How To Reform Procurement Process To Expand Opportunities, Gabbard Says

ST. LOUIS—Mirroring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s priority of opening up the DoD procurement process to find the best solutions, the intelligence community is doing the same, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Monday.

The goal is to avoid using the same prime contractor “over and over and over again” and instead find the best solutions wherever they come from, Gabbard said at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium here.

Traditional ways of contracting can be too costly and make it difficult for startups and other small businesses to do business with the IC, Gabbard said.

“How do we make sure when we’re bringing in a startup, for example, who may just have a simple solution to provide a single source HR contract that can be used across all the IC elements?” she said. “How do we make sure there’s not another second or third layer of contractors built on top of that to supervise, and then have another layer of supervisors to supervise the supervisors.”

One challenge is “there is some internal resistance” to these changes, she said, highlighting the revolving door between industry and government at times as a problem.

“This is where the revolving door can be dangerous, where you’ve got folks who are working in the intelligence community, who’ve made friends with the big prime and they want to get a job as they go out the door, and they’re kind of, you know, seeding the landscape for that,” Gabbard said.

Gabbard was asked about opportunities for the intelligence community to use more commercial solutions and do so faster. She replied that the IC’s “archaic procurement laws” are an impediment.

Before her lunch keynote, Gabbard walked the exhibit floor at the symposium and visited with some vendors.

“It’s something I’ve known for a long time,” she said. “Small businesses often may be the ones who have that capability, because you’re small and you’re agile and nimble and able to get after a problem set, perhaps more quickly than a bigger business or contractor, but you don’t have the ability to get inside the door and make your pitch.”

Culture change and education within the intelligence community are needed to open doors for these companies, Gabbard said. She added that some personnel are scared that the artificial intelligence-based technologies that some of these small companies are offering will replace them.

Instead, these employees need to understand that AI will enhance their work, she said.

“We’ve got some doors to kick down and some barriers to break through, but ultimately, this is the time to do it,” Gabbard said. “We’ve got a president who is interested in delivering solutions.”

Kilby: HELIOS Laser Weapon Problems Delayed Testing, Not At Full Power

The Navy’s top officer revealed a laser weapon installed on a destroyer to test an ability to disable drones and small boats has had problems in testing and is still not up to its full advertised 60 kW power output.

“We had some problems with testing, but now we’re up to one-third of the power, and we’re going to continue to test that weapon system to make sure it works,” Acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby said about the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system during a May 14 House Appropriations Committee hearing.

HELIOS is installed on the

Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Preble (DDG-88). The Navy means to use it to test disabling unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and small boats with its laser weapon. It has a secondary use as a counter-UAS intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) dazzler that blinds or confuses UAS sensors. HELIOS also feeds more ISR data into the destroyer’s combat system.

HELIOS is also fully integrated with the Aegis Combat System.

Lockheed Martin [LMT] first delivered the 60+kW-class laser system to the Navy in 2022, ultimately installed on the Preble (Defense Daily, Aug. 18, 2022).

Kilby’s note about HELIOS delays adds more details to what a former Navy and current company official said in January during the WEST 2025 conference (Defense Daily, Jan. 30).

At the time, Vice President of Strategy and Naval Systems at Lockheed Martin’s missile and fire control division Thomas Copeman underscored HELIOS was on the Preble for 25 months by then but with very limited test time.

“The problem is the prioritization of everything else that’s going on in the world and the maintenance and operations and stuff has limited the amount of underway test times, test days that we’ve had with the system,” Copeman said. Copeman previously served as a former commander of Naval Surface Forces.

Last year, Commander of Naval Surface Force (SWOBOSS) Vice Adm. Brendan McLane said he wants to see the Navy significantly accelerate deployment of directed energy systems like HELIOS to deal with the kind of weapons Houthis forces have used in the Red Sea (Defense Daily, Jan. 9, 2024).

At the time, McLane expressed frustration that there have been few deployed advanced in the past decade, since he saw the Afloat Staging Base Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) test with a 30-kW Laser Weapons System (LaWS) while commander of Destroyer Squadron 50 in Bahrain.

In 2021, Joe Ottaviano, then-director of Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Product Solutions business division, said while HELIOS is targeted for a 60kW output, it is classified at 100-kW and the modules can be popped out to make it capable of delivering a higher power output level upward of 150 kW to target some kinds of missiles (Defense Daily Jan. 11, 2021).

The original Navy contract with Lockheed Martin would have allowed production for up to nine HELIOS systems, but the Navy never executed those orders.

During the hearing, Kilby repeated his recent argument about having “buyer’s remorse” about choices while serving as the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (OPNAV N9) earlier in his career. N9 serves as the fleet architect and integrator for warfare systems requirements, including procurement.

“I was focused on a laser between 500 kilowatts and one megawatt, because that’s what it takes to knock down an anti-ship cruise missile. I wish I had been a little bit more thoughtful and taken a lesser power weapon that would have been capable against UASs,” Kilby said.

While the Navy is continuing to test HELIOS, he reiterated they are also strapping several cheaper systems for the counter-UAS mission on the Ford Carrier Strike Group, set next to deploy from the East Coast. This may include the Coyote missile, high velocity projectile from the five-inch gun, or Longbow missile.

“So we’re going to put those on that system. They’re not fully integrated with the combat system, but I think they’ll be very effective. And we’ll test them out at sea, and then we’ll procure them at scale if we need to,” Kilby said.

As USAF Looks to Future Requirements for CCA Radars, Raytheon Announces First Flight of PhantomStrike

RTX‘s [RTX] Raytheon said this month that its PhantomStrike radar had a first flight test on the Raytheon Multi-Program Testbed (MPT) aircraft in Ontario, Calif. The MPT–known as “Voodoo One” for its call sign–is a converted Boeing [BA] 727 airliner that Raytheon uses for avionics testing.

PhantomStrike–an air-cooled, gallium nitride-powered fire control radar for long-range detection, tracking, and targeting–“tracked several airborne targets and accurately mapped the terrain,” Raytheon said. “At nearly half the cost of a typical fire control radar, it delivers superior radar capability due to its faster, more agile digital beam, advanced target detection and resistance to jamming.”

Bryan Rosselli, Raytheon’s president of advanced products and solutions, said in the Raytheon statement that PhantomStrike “can make enhanced situational awareness available to a broader set of our partners and allies – offering unparalleled performance and potential U.S. weapons integration – at an affordable price.”

Designed for fighters, light-attack aircraft, helicopters, ground towers, and drones, PhantomStrike “harnesses the fire control power of a fighter in its lightest form factor ever – weighing nearly half of a modern active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.”

As part of a Block 20 upgrade, 36 Korea Aerospace Industries

‘ FA-50PL light combat aircraft for Poland are to have PhantomStrike. In 2023, KAI chose the 150-pound PhantomStrike over the Northrop Grumman [NOC] APG-83 AESA radar.

Raytheon said that it builds PhantomStrike in Forest, Miss.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Scotland.

“For most of the fighter fleet, the Department of the Air Force recently pursued fire-control radar (FCR) modernization to meet contemporary requirements,” the U.S. Air Force said in response to a question on whether the service is considering PhantomStrike for use on platforms, including manned fighters and Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

“While RTX’s announcement on PhantomStrike appears to indicate it is achieving advancements in FCR technology, whether the system can provide the right capability, at the right time, at the right price to meet emerging requirements is something that must be determined through Air Force acquisition processes,” the Air Force said.

In December 2019, the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman an up to $1 billion contract for 372 of the Northrop Grumman APG-83 scalable agile beam radars (SABR), including those for 72 Air National Guard (ANG) F-16s in response to a Joint Emergent Operational Need from U.S. Northern Command in 2017 for homeland defense to provide better detect and track capability against Russian cruise missiles (Defense Daily, Aug. 31, 2020).

Electric Boat And UAW Union Avoid Strike In Tentative Agreement

General Dynamics Electric Boat [GD] and the Marine Draftsmen’s Association (MDA) UAW Local 571 union reached a tentative agreement Sunday night, avoiding a strike by the 2,500 draftsmen, designers and other technical workers that would have started at midnight on May 19.

First announced to union members in a Facebook video minutes after concluding the agreement, UAW Region 9 director Brandon Mancilla said the agreement “forced the company to put some real money on the table…[and it includes] unprecedented wage increases of 30.6 percent, compounded over the life of the agreement. That right there is worth over three times the value compared to the last contract.”

Mancilla added the wage increase value to members is worth $225 million compared to $70 million in the previous contract agreement.

He said beyond “historic” wage increases, there are changes to the membership’s progression grid.

Ultimately, Mancilla said members “will see an increased value of $115,000 per member on average over the life of the agreement.”

This works out to a total of upwards of $286 million more money for union members over the contract period.

Other benefits include supplementary retirement security for all members including new ones, additional Flexible Time Off, other new wage step opportunities for those working for 20-plus years, and it will not introduce new tiers for retirement security.

Ultimately, the majority of union makers must vote for the contract to approve it, but they continue working through the process.

“Electric Boat and the Marine Draftsmen’s Association (MDA) have reached a tentative deal on a five-year contract. The bargaining committees worked diligently to find common areas of interest that resulted in wage and benefits enhancements that positively impact employees’ quality of life, and achieve fair and equitable results. This package recognizes the essential role of the MDA members in the production of submarines for the U.S. Navy,” the company and union said in a joint statement.

In April, the union announced over two-third of members voted to approve a potential strike, if an agreement was not met by May 19. The previous five-year contract for Local 571 expired on April 4 (Defense Daily, April 15).

Union officials said the negotiating committee “unanimously endorses” the new agreement.

Local 571 president Bill Lewis said both the union and company did not want a work stoppage, but these were the “hardest negotiations we have been through, at least in my time.”

“I have not ever been as proud as I am today to represent this local union and all of you for what you’ve done to this point,” he added.

Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), whose district covers Electric Boat’s shipyard, applauded the agreement.

“As Local 571’s bargaining committee led by President Bill Louis pointed out, the agreement contains both an historic increase of wages and reform of the wage structure – which will achieve greater fairness for this highly talented, unique group of employees.”

Courtney boasted the wage package “reflects the goal of special funding Congress approved last December to help submarine shipyards recruit and retain the talented workforce required to execute our nation’s aggressive submarine construction plans. This has been a challenging, arduous process and all the principals deserve the respect and admiration of the community for their perseverance.”

He was referring to the December Continuing Resolution that extended funding into March and added $5.68 billion to fund fiscal year 2025 submarines and workforce wage and non-executive salary improvements for the submarine workforce (Defense Daily, Dec. 18, 2024).

Electric Boat is the prime contractor for Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, with HII‘s Newport News Shipbuilding [HII] as the major subcontractor that shares production work.

Intelligence Community-Focused Vibrint Acquires Ampsight Adding New Customers

ST. LOUIS—Vibrint on Monday said it has acquired Ampsight, a small company with expertise in cloud, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence that adds to its customer base in the intelligence community, including the geospatial intelligence space.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The addition of Ampsight boosts Vibrint’s employee count by about 50 percent to more than 220, Tom Lash, Vibrint’s CEO, told Defense Daily at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium.

Ampsight accelerates Vibrint’s strategy around cloud migration, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence and machine learning, areas where the company has “nascent” capabilities, Lash said. Ampsight has a tool that helps agencies understand if cloud migration is right for them, and if so, how to do it, and how much they should.

Ampsight also bolsters Vibrint’s work with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and adds new customers within the intelligence community, he said in a brief interview.

New opportunities for Vibrint following the acquisition include “Ampsight’s differentiated work in explainable AI for geospatial data and multimodal analytics, a rapidly growing priority across the federal landscape,” Vibrint said.

About 50 percent of Ampsight’s business is with intelligence agencies. The remainder of the company’s work is national security-related support such as critical infrastructure protection for federal civilian agencies followed by the Defense Department, Andrew Heifetz, Ampsight’s CEO, said alongside Lash.

In the cybersecurity space, Ampsight provides customers cyber threat hunting, including around ensuring wireless communications are secure. Vibrint is partnered with Pure LiFi, which provides light-based secure wireless communications. Lash said his company expects to leverage Ampsight’s cybersecurity expertise around secure wireless communications and apply it to the hardware and software Vibrint has developed for LiFI.

Vibrint is based in Maryland near Fort Meade, home to the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. Ampsight is headquartered in Northern Virginia.

The acquisition is the third by Vibrint, which is owned by a consortium of private investors. The company acquired two companies in 2023, Meadowgate Technologies and Engineering Solutions Inc.

The

McLean Group and Executive Council PLC served as financial advisers to Ampsight, and Baird advised Vibrint.

Key Geospatial Intel Lesson Of Ukraine War Is Closing Kill Chain, NATO Official Says

ST. LOUIS—The use of geospatial intelligence to accelerate decision making from the time a potential target has been detected until an effect is put against it has been an important lesson in the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War, a NATO official said on Monday.

Having situational awareness, and then taking advantage of this to impact targeting is critical, Maj. Gen. Paul Lynch, deputy assistant secretary general for intelligence on NATO’s International Military Staff, said at the annual GEOINT 2025 Symposium.

“I think the key role that this discipline plays in ensuring that decision makers are able now to make decisions on sensor-to-shooter in minutes rather than hours, or potentially even longer, that has been honed by meticulous and necessary practice by the Ukrainians over the last three or three tragic years,” Lynch, an officer in United Kingdom’s Royal Marines, told attendees.

Knowing what your adversary is doing, and “ideally what they’re about to do,” is the goal, he said. And then having the ability to put an effect on that adversary, he said.

Ukrainian forces have relied on Western supplied GEOINT and their drones to find Russian targets in their war against Russia’s illegal invasion of their country that began in February 2022.

Lynch said the top lesson from the war has been the need for a high quality intelligence architecture followed by “sufficient stocks and material,” and then the people and training that enable all of it.