A mixed-reality software that lets scientists and engineers virtually walk on Mars currently acquired NASA’s 2018 Software of the Year Award. OnSight uses imagery from NASA’s Curiosity rover to create an immersive 3D terrain version, allowing customers to wander the real dunes and valleys explored via the robotic. The intention of the software program, a collaboration between Microsoft and JPL’s Ops Lab, is to carry scientists toward the revel in of being in the field. Unlike geologists on Earth, who can stand up close and private with the terrain they examine, Martian geologists have a harder time visualizing their environment via 2D imagery from Mars.

Feeling like you’re status on Mars actually offers you an exceptional feel of Mars than simply searching on the photos,” stated Parker Abercrombie, OnSight team lead. “And I think it’s a clearly effective manner to bring human beings to these places that they bodily can’t go to.” “Being capable of visualizing Curiosity’s drives and definitely stroll them before we certainly do it with the rover is simply helpful to give me a sense of how secure or challenging the terrain can be,” said Abigail Freeman, a member of Curiosity’s science group.

In addition to analyzing the geology of Mars, the software lets in scientists at any area to “meet” on Mars with avatars that can walk, point and interact with each other. These digital discipline trips assist the science crew in looking at Martian geology the usage of Curiosity information in a collaborative putting. In the future, OnSight will be adapted for the Mars 2020 rover and might be implemented in different intense environments, which might be hard to go to. “I experience as OnSight has developed into a majority of these specific subpaths,” said Alice Winter, a person-experience researcher for OnSight. “It’s about the scientists. However, it’s also about making the platform something that everyone can get entry to.”

The team is working to make a version of the software available to the public. An exhibit highlighting the OnSight experience, “Destination: Mars,” had a limited run at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center in 2016. “Access Mars,” a Google collaboration built on WebVR, changed into released in 2017 and runs on a desktop browser. NASA’s Software of the Year of the Year Award honors the high-quality software advanced at NASA. “We are commemorated to get hold of this recognition and thankful for the funding that the group has made in assisting this rising era,” stated Abercrombie.

Multiple Award Contracts Trends

You have probably heard approximately the imminent more than one award contract (MACs) on the horizon: NASA’s Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) SEWP V with the draft RFP already on the street, the quite arguable GSA’s OASIS, and even the Army’s ITES-3S possibly becoming a member of the ranks of multibillion-greenback automobiles. There are nearly 1,2 hundred non-time table MACs as of 2012, and their amount has tripled due to the fact 2006, in step with BGov analysts. Non-agenda MACs represent 16 percent of presidency procurement dollars, extra than double the value of GSA schedules.

Total MAC spending has been steadily increasing regardless of a lower general procurement spending. Additionally, the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act requires all contracts with a potential cost of at least $a hundred million to be presented thru MACs. In other phrases, greater paintings are going to be offered underneath MACs. $4.1 billion in mission orders expiring in the subsequent 3 years will pass to GSA’s Alliant and Alliant Small Business, with 5 venture orders valued at more than $30 million every to be completed in this financial year, according to Brian Friel’s latest document on BGov.

If you do not have the right portfolio of MACs, you may not be able to compete for the ideal contracts in your enterprise. Ironically, the opposition pool is exceedingly small. Only approximately 3, six hundred corporations out of hundreds of lots of presidency contractors take part in non-agenda MACs, and this number has stayed flat within the past few years. All the MAC money goes to a small fraction of businesses that recognize the IDIQs’ gain and understand how to make money at the motors. Agencies preserve choosing equal companies simultaneously as they grow the wide variety of competitors on their MACs.

If you are a small commercial enterprise, or a large enterprise teaming with true small groups, that is a while to grasp MACs to enjoy the contemporary traits, due to the fact the Feds are awarding increasingly work to small organizations under MACs, with double-digit annual percentage increases. It additionally means that the corporations who have learned “the system” for triumphing task orders on those automobiles will keep triumphing and growing their MAC footprint.

Once you get on a MAC automobile, you need to put a slew of measures in an area to maximize your venture order wins. Otherwise, you might not be capable of capture as much as those who’ve grown to become their concept machines into “factories”. The modern fashion is that the common assignment order size is shrinking because of this more opposition in leaner, lower-margin surroundings. You must know the way to get greater orders in an extra green manner.

You will want to designate someone to actively develop the business to perceive project order possibilities earlier than they ever hit the road and prepare resources, approaches, gear, and collateral to prepare notably competitive page-restrained proposals. Your gadget has to depend upon the cutting-edge, high-quality practices to get beforehand of your competition. IDIQs are difficult to master and require an initial investment earlier than they begin making you money. They are well worth it, even though, due to the fact they can foster a triple-digit boom, no matter the sequestration and shrinking budgets.