Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - June 10, 2019

On the same subject

• 

  May 14, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  La Luftwaffe ne posséderait que 4 chasseurs Eurofighter aptes au combat

  Suite à l'absence de munitions et à des problèmes techniques rendant les appareils «aveugles», seuls 4 des 128 chasseurs Eurofighter dotant l'armée de l'air allemande sont aptes au combat. L'écrasante majorité des 128 chasseurs Eurofighter équipant la Luftwaffe ne sont pas aptes au combat, relate l'hebdomadaire Der Spiegel, se référant à ses propres sources. D'après l'édition, la cause réside dans le problème que présentent des containers avec des capteurs spéciaux installés sur les ailes des appareils et appelés à déterminer l'approche des avions ennemis. Or, le système de refroidissement de ces dispositifs, précise Der Spiegel, présente de graves dysfonctionnements, ce qui rend les avions de combat «aveugles» et réduit l'efficacité de leur utilisation. Un autre problème cité par les interlocuteurs de l'hebdomadaire d'investigation résiderait dans le manque de munitions. Ainsi, selon les données fournies par l'édition, seuls quatre chasseurs Eurofighter sont actuellement aptes au combat suite au manque de missiles. Tentation dangereuse: le F-35 pour l'Allemagne, une menace potentielle pour l'Europe L'Eurofighter Typhoon est un chasseur polyvalent de la quatrième génération fabriqué par Eurofighter GmbH et exploité par l'Allemagne, l'Autriche, l'Arabie saoudite, l'Espagne, l'Italie et le Royaume-Uni. L'appareil en question est entré en service en 2003. Plus tôt, les médias allemands ont rapporté que les avions Tornado ne se conformaient pas aux normes de l'Otan. Il a été indiqué que les 93 appareils avaient besoin d'une lourde modernisation. En même temps, la ministre allemande de la Défense, Ursula von der Leyen, a déclaré que ces appareils seraient exploités jusqu'en 2035. https://fr.sputniknews.com/international/201805021036182820-luftwaffe-allemagne-chasseurs/

• 

  August 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - August 24, 2020

  ARMY Veraxx Engineering Corp., Chantilly, Virginia, was awarded a $218,000,000 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, fixed-price-incentive and time-and-materials) contract for advanced planning and preview systems, mission simulators and rehearsal capabilities that enable live, virtual and constructive training in support of special operation's unique joint training and mission requirements. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2028. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity (W900KK-20-D-0014). Astlanda Ehitus Ou, Harjumaa, Estonia (W912GB-20-D-0017); Framaco International Inc., Rye Brook, New York, (W912GB-20-D-0018); Relyant Global LLC, Maryville, Tennessee (W912GB-20-D-0019); Semi SA, Madrid, Spain (W912GB-20-D-0020); SKE Support Services GmbH, Goldbach, Germany (W912GB-20-D-0021); and Tartu Bryan JV, Colorado Springs, Colorado (W912GB-20-D-0022), will compete for each order of the $49,950,000 firm-fixed-price contract for providing real property repair and maintenance, design build, environmental work, force protection work and construction services for U.S. forces and/or facilities throughout Estonia. Bids were solicited via the internet with 11 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wiesbaden, Germany, is the contracting activity. Southwest Water Design LLC,* Albuquerque, New Mexico, was awarded a $40,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for civil works and hydrology and hydraulics services. Bids were solicited via the internet with 15 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 24, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the contracting activity (W912PP-20-D-0003). Phillips Contracting Co. Inc.,* Columbus, Mississippi, was awarded a $24,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for rental of construction equipment. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W91278-20-D-0076). B&K Construction Co. LLC,* Mandeville, Louisiana, was awarded a $15,218,859 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of hurricane protection features in Plaquemines Parrish, Louisiana. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in New Orleans, Louisiana, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 21, 2025. Fiscal 2020 civil construction funds in the amount of $15,218,859 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg, Mississippi, is the contracting activity (W912P8-20-C-0050). Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Connecticut, was awarded a $13,500,000 order-dependent contract for technologies to be developed and demonstrated in the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft technology risk mitigation and maturation effort. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W911W6-20-D-0005). GiaCare and MedTrust JV LLC,* Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was awarded a $7,779,386 modification (P00001) to contract W81K04-19-D-0021 for registered nursing services for the San Antonio Military Health System. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2024. U.S. Army Health Contracting Activity, San Antonio, Texas, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE SRC Tec, North Syracuse, New York, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $90,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for force protection Counter-small Unmanned Aerial System (C-sUAS) with Medusa sustainment. This contract provides for the acquisition, upgrade, sustainment, installation support and design and analysis support of C-sUAS and subsystems manufactured by SRC Tec. Work will be performed at locations to be determined in each delivery order and is expected to be completed Aug. 24, 2028. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal 2020 procurement funds in the amount of $2,137,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8730-20-D-0045). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Aurora Industries LLC,** Orocovis, Puerto Rico, has been awarded a maximum $25,608,088 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for coats. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. This was a competitive acquisition with 10 responses received. Location of performance is Puerto Rico, with an Aug. 23, 2021, ordering period end date. Using military services are Army and Air Force. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-20-D-1283). NAVY General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, is awarded a $15,485,103 modification (P00009) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-18-C-1063. This modification adds performance for site relocation activities and exercises an option to extend intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services utilizing contractor-owned/contractor-operated MQ-9 unmanned air systems. Work will be performed in Yuma, Arizona (34%); Poway, California (14%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (52%), and is expected to be completed in December 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $15,485,103 will be obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Management Services Group Inc.,* doing business as Global Technical Systems, Virginia Beach, Virginia, is awarded a $13,601,735 firm-fixed-price modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-20-C-5608 for procurement of network, processing, and storage technical Insertion 16 (NPS), Modification 1 storage equipment, which will be incorporated into area storage area network cabinets during production. The NPS program consists of enterprise products in use across surface Navy combat systems which introduce powerful commercially available off-the-shelf processors as part of a general strategy to achieve a modular and open architecture design. Work will be performed in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by June 2021. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy); fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2018 other procurement (Navy); fiscal 2015 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2014 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); and government of Australia funding in the amount of $13,601,735 will be obligated at time of award and funding in the amount of $2,069,033 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. Areté Associates, Northridge, California, is awarded a $9,745,580 cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, cost-with-no-fee contract for integration services supporting incremental upgrades, block upgrades and future generations of MK 18 Family of Systems unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), additional UUVs and remotely operated vehicles. This 17-month contract includes no options. Work will be performed at Tucson, Arizona (75%); and Valparaiso, Florida (25%). The period of performance is from Aug. 24, 2020, through Jan. 23, 2022. Fiscal 2020 funds will be obligated using other procurement (Navy). Funds in the amount of $6,885,495 will be obligated at the time of award. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract is awarded using other than full and open competition in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations Subpart 6.302-5 and 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(5). Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific in San Diego, California, is the contract activity (N66001-20-C-0025). *Small Business **Small disadvantaged business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2323086/

• 

  August 28, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  SOCOM seeking technologies for war in a post-cyberpunk era

  By: Kelsey Atherton The great trick of computers is that they enable people to be more than human. In a new request for information, the United States Special Operations Command is looking for a range of computer and computer-enabled technologies, all designed to make Special Operators function in some way more than human. These technologies range from sensors to nano-drones to biomedical performance enhancements. Taken together, the list of desired capabilities is a preview of what may be possible in the near-future to shape the intimate fights on the edges of wars. Miniature robot scouts, hyper-aware data collection and monitoring riding along low-bandwidth nodes, tailorable hyperspectral imaging sensors, biometric tracking resistance, and go-pills without adverse effects are all on asking, and that's just a handful of the dozens of capabilities sought. The full request for information is available online. To parse through it, here are some of the standout categories. Robots, blood-transporting robots How many pounds of blood is a reasonable amount of blood for a robot to carry? Ten pounds, answers the SOCOM request. Specifically, SOCOM is looking for an unmanned aerial blood delivery system that can do vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), or at least operate without a runway. The 10 pound requirement is a minimum, and roughly approximate to the amount of blood in a person weighing 150 pounds. In order for the blood to be useful, it has to be kept between 35-46 degrees Fahrenheit, ideally through passive means, all the way from loading through transit, delivery, and unloading. That unloading should “minimize shock to the payload for any proposed delivery concept,” because again, this is about making a robot that can deliver blood in a useful and life-saving state. Blood transport drones already exist, and have safely demonstrated blood transport in small amounts and over modest distances. SOCOM wants a blood drone that can transport its cargo over 100 miles and back, while staying in contact and control of human operators. That's an ambitious ask, and it's one of just five named categories of drone technology sought by SOCOM. Another is a platform-agnostic desire for an expeditionary ISR platform, which can operate as individuals, in pairs, or in meshed swarms. These drones will have modular payloads, carry at least two sensors, and require minimum logistics support. One asked-for way to sustain these drones is by “alternative power through environment,” like directly sipping power from power lines or incorporating a way to charge off renewable energy. The other three categories of drone are ambitious, though in more familiar terms. There's a listing for a Nano VTOL drone, with a takeoff weight of 2.6 ounces that can fly autonomously inside and avoid collisions, with a human monitoring but not directly piloting the drone. Ten times the size is the Micro VTOL drone, at about 1.6 pounds, capability of all-weather an autonomous flight, and able to operate both without GPS and in caves. The biggest non-blood-carrying drone SOCOM is looking for is a hand-launched or fixed-wing VTOL vehicle that can be recovered without special equipment, will weigh no more than 7.8 pounds, and can fly for at least 90 minutes at sea level. These drones are familiar machines, mostly, even if some of the payloads are a little unusual. Sensors in a robot are common enough. SOCOM is also looking for a way to increase the sensors carried and used by a person on foot. Hyper-sensors Collecting information is nothing without processing it into a useful form, and this SOCOM RFI seeks information on both. While the specific means are not detailed, there's a desire for “edge computing” to “derive useful information at the point of collection through sensor fusion and forwards processing without reliance on high bandwidth, long haul communications.” That likely means computers and AI already in the field and embedded in equipment carried by the special operations forces. Making that information intelligible is one task a Heads Up Display (HUD), but SOCOM is also open to audio cues and haptic feedback, among other means, for relaying processed information in a useful and immediate form. Collecting that information will be a new suite of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, designed with the limitations and hard conditions of present and future special operations missions in mind. That means working without “owning the air domain,” a break from decades of assumptions for conventional and counter-insurgent warfare, but a break that acknowledges the likely presence of cheap drones on all sides of future battles. These sensors will include visual spectrum, infrared, hyper-spectral imaging, LIDAR, electronic warfare, can operate autonomously and be mounted on drones or scattered on the ground to work and transmit data remotely. For good measure, SOCOM is also asking for technologies that would allow drones to work as something like a universal translator even in denied connectivity environments. With linguistic expertise, regional dialects, demographic information and cultural sensitivities programmed in, the drones will do the fraught social massaging around war. If there is anything that will convince a local population about the right intentions of the people presently fighting nearby, it's a robot that's hip to the local slang. More than human All this collecting and transmitting information is likely to produce a host of signals, so SOCOM is also looking for technologies that “help avoid physical detection by acoustic, thermal, radar, visual, optical, electromagnetic, virtual, and near infrared means.” Finding a way to remain discreet in an information rich environment is a challenge for everyone in society today, one tacitly acknowledged by an ask for a technology to “help manage digital presence within the realm of social media.” (Step 1 for that is probably not using a jogging app with geolocation turned on.) Biometric technologies (think: facial recognition, etc) are often seen as a tool of the powerful, wielded by governments against vulnerable populations. While they certainly can be that, they can also pose a challenge to individuals in the employ of one military trying to evade the sensors used by another. To that end, SOCOM is looking for technologies that provide resistance to biometric tracking. (While it's not specified, Juggalo-style face paint might work for this exact purpose). Finally, once a special operator has evaded detection, used the sensors on hand, and has an adequate amount of robot-delivered blood to keep going, there is an interest in human performance and biomedical enhancements. These include drugs and biologics that can enhance cognitive performance, increase “peak performance sustainability, including increased endurance, strength, energy, agility, and enhanced senses” and a whole other wish list of capabilities that officers from time immemorial have demanded of the people under their command. Most promising, perhaps, is the ask for “medical sensors and devices that provide vital sign awareness and send alerts,” and “austere trauma treatment,” both of which don't require transformative properties in the people using them. Science fan-fiction It's too early to say how many of the asks in this RFI are realistic, though some are already delivered technologies and others certainly seem near-future plausible. More importantly, the request as a gestalt whole suggests a desire for people that are more than human, and capable of performing everything asked of them in remote battlefields, far from home. As the United States approaches its 17th continuous year of war abroad, asking that science deliver what science fiction promised feels at least as plausible as imagining a future where deployments abroad are scaled back. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2018/08/28/socom-seeking-technologies-for-war-in-a-post-cyberpunk-era