May 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND
Marine Terminals Corp., San Pedro, California, has been awarded a $95,835,034 firm-fixed-price contract (HTC711-20-D-R046) providing stevedoring and related terminal services at ports in Northern California. Work will be performed at the Military Ocean Terminal, Concord, California; and the Port of Oakland, California. The contract period of performance is from Aug. 7, 2020, to Aug. 6, 2025. Fiscal 2020 transportation working capital funds were obligated at award. U.S. Transportation Command, Directorate of Acquisition, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, in the contracting activity.
NAVY
AECOM-BAKER-CARDNO NAVFAC Atlantic Planning JV, Arlington, Virginia, is awarded a $95,000,000 maximum amount, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, architect-engineering contract for architect-engineer services for preparation of Navy and Marine Corps planning and engineering services for work located primarily in the continental U.S. east coast, but also worldwide. The work to be performed provides for: (a) Plans: global shore infrastructure plans; installation development plans; regional integration plans; functional plans; maintenance and sustainment plans; integrated product support plans; encroachment action plans; family housing and bachelor quarters comprehensive neighborhood plans; activity overview plans; and installation appearance plans; (b) Project Planning Documents: the preparation of military construction project planning documentation; preparation of construction cost estimates, preliminary and parametric cost estimates and siting-land use studies/analyses; special site approvals; economic analyses; asset evaluations; basic facility requirements documentation; facilities planning documents; preliminary hazard analyses; preliminary hazard lists, and sustainable design studies; (c) Studies: concept studies; special planning studies, business case analysis studies and traffic/parking/movement studies; facilities planning studies, feasibility studies, safety studies and air installation compatible use zones; range air installation compatible use zones studies; site studies; facilities life cycle studies; activity planning and management models and electronic land use/planning tools/studies. Work is expected to be complete by May 2025. No task orders are being issued at this time. The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) (O&M,N) contract funds in the amount of $10,000 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by O&M, N. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website and two proposals were received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N62470-20-D-0006).
Lockheed Martin Corp. Rotary and Mission Systems, Baltimore, Maryland, is awarded a $48,965,154 firm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract N63394-20-C0004 to exercise options for launch sequencer MK 5 Mod 2 production units in support of the Vertical Launch System. Work will be performed in Oldsmar, Florida. The Vertical Launch System provides area and self-defense, anti-air warfare capabilities, counter-air and land attack cruise missile defense and surface and subsurface warfare capabilities. Work is expected to be complete by April 2022. Fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $48,965,154 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, Port Hueneme, California, is the contracting activity.
The Boeing Co., Seattle, Washington, is awarded a $27,770,370 modification (P00174) to previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00019-14-C-0067. This modification procures integrated logistics support for the Boeing P-8A Poseidon warfare aircraft for the Navy, the government of Australia, and the government of the United Kingdom. Work will be performed in Seattle, Washington (68%); Jacksonville, North Carolina (16%); Whidbey Island, Washington (4%); Sigonella, Italy (3%); Kadena, Japan (2%); Bahrain, Bahrain (2%); Misawa, Japan (2%); Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii (2%); and various locations within and outside the continental U.S. (1%). Work is expected to be complete by March 2023. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $8,391,473; Royal Australian Air Force cooperative program funds in the amount of $256,187; and Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $133,083 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
DRS Laurel Technologies, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, is awarded a $26,047,878 firm-fixed-price modification to previously-awarded contract N63394-20-C-0002 to exercise options for launch control unit Mk 235 Mod 11 and Mod 12 production units in support of the Vertical Launch System (VLS). Work will be performed in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. This option exercise is for the manufacture, assembly, test and delivery of additional production units of the VLS launch sequencer launch control unit Mk 235 Mod 11 and 12, part numbers 7104280-119 and 7104280-129, respectively. The VLS provides area and self-defense, anti-air warfare, surface and subsurface capabilities, counter-air and land attack cruise missile defense, and is equipped with two redundant launch control units, each of which is electrically interfaced with all of the launch sequencers in the system. Work is expected to be complete by February 2021. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $26,047,878 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, Port Hueneme, California, is the contracting activity.
Management Services Group Inc.,* doing business as Global Technical Systems, Virginia Beach, Virginia, is awarded a $24,385,746 firm-fixed-price modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-20-C-5608 for procurement of network, processing and storage (NPS) technical insertion (TI) 16, modification (MOD) 1 production equipment, which provides computer processing and memory, data storage and extraction, network systems and input/output interfaces to host software applications of Navy combat systems. This contract combines purchases for the Navy (62%) and the government of the Commonwealth of Australia (38%) under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Work will be performed in Virginia Beach, Virginia. 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. NPS is comprised of two different common processing system enclosure assemblies and three variants: advanced storage area network, core computing system, and air-cooled processing and storage subsystem. Aegis weapon system Aegis modernization upgrade equipment systems are also included in this procurement and align requirements to include the Aegis local area network interconnect system, Aegis conversion equipment group Input/Output 1 and 2, and digital video display system. Work is expected to be complete by December 2021. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds; FMS Australia funds; 2015 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds; 2016 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds; and 2020 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $24,385,746 will be obligated at time of award, and funds in the amount of $39,356 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
Innovative Defense Technologies LLC,* Arlington, Virginia, is awarded a $22,506,572 modification (P00007) to previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00014-19-C-1054 for the Cloud to Edge Environment. This modification adds Options 5 through 10, and exercises Options 5, 9 and 10, which increases the contract value by $22,506,572. Under this modification, the contractor will continue work to deliver a secure development and operations (SecDevOps) environment enabling cloud-based collaborative development, simulation, testing and certification of evolving Navy software systems. Work will be performed in Arlington, Virginia (68%); Mount Laurel, New Jersey (23%); Washington, D.C. (6%); Rhode Island (2%); and various places below 1%. Work is expected to be complete by February 2022. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $77,844 are obligated at the time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $20,453,641 are obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity.
Alere San Diego Inc., doing business as Immunalysis Corp., San Diego, California, is awarded a $7,066,152 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for U.S. Food and Drug Administration and quality management documented fentanyl/norfentanyl immunoassay reagent kits for use with the currently installed Beckman Coulter AU5800 series systems for the Department of Defense Drug Demand Reduction Program. This is a two-year single award contract, and deliveries are expected to be complete by May 2022. Fiscal 2020 defense-wide, one-year operations and maintenance funds will be obligated on decentralized individual delivery orders during the base period. No funds will be obligated at the time of award and the minimum guarantee under the contract is 100 kits. The contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, and three offers were received. The Naval Medical Logistics Command, Fort Detrick, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N62645-20-D-5004).
ARMY
Raytheon Co., Tewksbury, Massachusetts, was awarded a $92,370,000 hybrid (cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, and firm-fixed-price) contract for sustainment, maintenance, training, refurbishment, overhaul, engineering services and spares to support ongoing operations of the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System. 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 Feb. 14, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-20-D-0008).
AECOM Management Services Inc., Germantown, Maryland, was awarded a $10,507,113 modification (0001BW) to contract W52P1J-12-G-0028 for logistics support services, including maintenance, supply and transportation. Work will be performed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 17, 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $10,507,113 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity.
Integration Innovation Inc.,* Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded an $8,310,128 modification (000117) to contract W31P4Q-18-A-0089 for the International Apache Technical Lifecycle Support task order. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of June 4, 2021. Fiscal 2020 Foreign Military Sales (Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom) funds in the amount of $8,310,128 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY
Creighton AB Inc.,* Reidsville, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum $12,080,120 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for men's and women's dress coats. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. Locations of performance are North Carolina and New York, with a May 20, 2021, performance completion date. Using military service is 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-1274).
AIR FORCE
LinQuest Corp., Los Angeles, California, has been awarded an $11,008,552 firm-fixed-price modification (P00047) to contract FA8819-15-F-0001 for the Space and Missile Systems Center technical support follow-on task order bridge extension. This modification provides continued technical support services for the Special Programs Directorate, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. Work will be performed at Los Angeles AFB, California, and is expected to be completed May 31, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $856,651; and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $3,000,000 are obligated at the time of award. The U.S. Space Force, Space and Missile Systems Center, Special Programs Directorate, Los Angeles AFB, California, is the contracting activity.
Central Coast Water Authority, Buellton, California, has been awarded a $7,600,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity delivery order to provide Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and outlying municipalities with potable water. Work will be provided at Vandenberg AFB, California, and is expected to be completed June 14, 2032. The cumulative value of this contract is $165,443,388. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $7,593,715 are being obligated at the time of award. The 30th Contracting Squadron, Vandenberg AFB, California, is the contracting activity (F04684-92-D-0013).
*Small business
https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2194990/source/GovDelivery/
May 31, 2023 | International, Other Defence
The Czech parliament's upper house approved a bill on Wednesday that will set the state's minimum defence spending at 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) from next year, matching its commitment to the NATO military alliance.
September 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is in the midst of conducting what Army Futures Command Commander Gen. Mike Murray is calling “this generation's digital Louisiana Maneuvers” in the Arizona desert, as the service aims to bring key technologies together designed to fight across air, land, sea, space and cyber. The famed Louisiana Maneuvers, a series of mock battles during World War II, were designed to figure out how the United States could use its existing technology to fight in a fundamentally different way against the German military's airplanes, radios and tanks. “It was a combination of those three technologies and how the Germans put it together to execute what we call Blitzkrieg" that was “fundamentally different” than any of the capabilities the Allied forces, to include the U.S., brought to the battlefield, Murray told Defense News in an exclusive interview. In 2020, there are three key technologies that when paired together in novel ways can provide a strong advantage against possible conflict with near-peer adversaries, according to Murray: artificial intelligence, autonomy and robotics in the air and on the ground. “To make those three work in a digital environment, you have to have an underlying robust and resilient network,” Murray said, “and you have to have a data architecture and the data and the talent to put all that together.” Enter Project Convergence, the Army's weekslong “campaign of learning” to bring together the weapons and capabilities it envisions fighting with in the 2030s and beyond in a seamlessly networked environment. The capstone event began in the middle of August and will wrap up September 18 amid the global coronavirus pandemic. Murray reported there has been only one isolated case of COVID-19 at Yuma and that person was quickly isolated without the disease spreading. The effort aims to bring in as many capabilities across the Army's six modernization priorities as possible and put them through maneuvers that service's new Multidomain Operations (MDO) warfighting concept lays out. The service is particularly focused on three key phases of MDO at Project Convergence: Penetrating and neutralizing enemy long-range systems, contesting enemy maneuver forces from operational and strategic distances Disintegrating the enemy's anti-access and area denial (A2AD) systems taking out enemy long- and short-range systems while conducting independent maneuver and deception operations Exploiting freedom to maneuver to defeat enemy objectives and forces. “Convergence is one of the tenets,” Murray said. “The ability to converge effects across all five warfighting domains (air, land, sea, cyber and space) and we're really taking that tenant and putting it together in the dirt live and bringing multiple things together... and the key thing is here is being able to act faster than any opponent in the future.” Murray also discussed Convergence as part of the 2020 Defense News Conference. Getting the upper hand To act faster, the Army has moved a system called Firestorm out of a science and technology effort from Picatinny Arsenal's armaments center and into the exercise. Firestorm is being developed as the brain that connects the sensors on the battlefield to the right shooter through the appropriate command and control node, Murray explained. “I firmly believe on a future battlefield, the commander that can see first, understand first, decide first and the act first will have a distinct advantage and will ultimately win any future battle,” Murray said, “so that's this learning experience year to year.” While Project Convergence will have surrogate capability this year representing its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, as well as the Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, more and more technologies across the Army's modernization priorities will be brought in in subsequent years. The Army, this year, is also using available Air-Launched Effects (ALE) as well as a surrogate system called Titan — at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington State — that will process targeting information from ground and air autonomous vehicles using artificial intelligence. Titan is managed by the Army's Multidomain Task Force's Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Space (I2CEWS) battalion. The system will pass targeting information to a fire control element sitting at Yuma. The service is also experimenting with space sensing capabilities this year and bringing it all together using new network architecture. “The network is a huge piece of this and so we are building out mesh networks, communications between the air in terms of Gray Eagle [unmanned aircraft system] and ALE and [Future Vertical Lift] surrogates to the ground.” The hope from the first year is to walk away with conclusions about whether technology currently being developed works, Murray said. “Can we actually link multiple sensors and shooters right? In this case, it's not a huge number. It's less than a handful,” he said, “but the ability for Firestorm to figure out the right shooter against the right target is one of the key things we're driving and then can we do this in near-real time.” During National Training Center rotations, “it takes a while to clear fires,” Murray said. “So what is that order of magnitude we can do this faster, to see faster and really put rounds on target faster.” Early intel out of Project Convergence is that Firestorm has already shown “great success” and “the ability to put lethal effects on a target much, much, much faster than we do right now in an order of magnitude that is at least 10 times faster,” Murray said, “but we still have a ways to go.” Spiraling in capability Project Convergence this year came together quickly, Murray said. The inspiration came from an AI-focused effort through the Army's Next-Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) modernization outfit dubbed Project Quarterback, which paired automated target recognition with future combat vehicles. Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, who is in charge of the NGCV cross-functional team, discussed what he was doing with Murray over the winter, with the latter saying “It just occurred to me, it should have occurred to me a long time ago. It is so much bigger than that.” The Army is already wrapping up its plans for Project Convergence in 2021 and setting its sites on what is possible in 2022, according to Murray. While the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), the command and control system for the Army's future air-and-missile defense system, was tied up in Limited User Test this year, the service is looking for a way to integrate that into the effort next year. IBCS will be going through its Initial Operational Test and Evaluation at that time, but Murray said he is hopeful there is a way to bring the integral capability of the system to the event. Another test of the Precision Strike Munition (PrSM) will also be executed during the event next year. The missile had three successful test shots this calendar year. And while the exercise this year had roughly 500 people at Yuma this year, most of those are data collectors, Murray said. The exercise represents a platoon-sized operation, but in 2021, Murray said he intends to bring in an operational headquarters element to drive the learning in terms of how “we organize and how we fight the capability in the future.” Ideally, the Army would involve one of the MDTF units, but due to conflicts in schedule this year it wasn't possible to bring them into the event, so the service is working with U.S. Army Forces Command to incorporate MDTF participation. Next year will also bring in joint participation. While the Air Force will be present at Project Convergence this year, the Army plans to use the F-35 fighter into the architecture. Joint participation is critical to developing Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), which is the joint warfighting doctrine now in development of which MDO as a concept is a part. “Convergence is our contribution to an all-domain command-and-control,” Murray emphasized, “and it is not in conflict with what the Air Force is doing with JADC2 and the [Air-Battle Management System].” In 2022, Murray said the plan is to bring coalition partners and so far the United Kingdom has committed to participation and Australia will also likely sign on to attend. “We've been very open-kimono in terms of the technology that we're bringing and there's been a lot of crosstalk between the three nations,” he added. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2020/09/10/army-conducting-digital-louisiana-maneuvers-in-arizona-desert/
March 16, 2020 | International, C4ISR
By Andrew Eversden The Department of Defense requested 120 days to “reconsider certain aspects” of its decision to award its controversial enterprise contract to Microsoft. The request from the DoD in a March 12 court filing comes after Court of Federal Claims Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith issued a temporary restraining order directing the Pentagon to stop all work on its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, after AWS alleged that the DoD made mistakes in its source selection process. The court granted Amazon's request for an injunction Feb. 13. While Amazon challenged both the technical evaluation and political interference, the court's decision to impose the injunction rested on AWS' technical challenges to the DoD selection, which included issues with how the Pentagon considered data storage capabilities. “DoD wishes to reconsider its evaluation of the technical aspects of Price Scenario 6, and intends to issue a solicitation amendment and to accept limited proposal revisions addressing the offerors' technical approach to that price scenario,” Defense Department lawyers wrote in the document. In the court filing, the DoD also said it wants to reconsider its evaluation of Microsoft and AWS' online marketplace offerings and “may conduct” clarifications with the two tech giants. The DoD will reconsider other technical challenges presented by AWS, but “does not intend to conduct discussions with offerors or to accept proposal revisions with respect to any aspect of the solicitation,” other than price scenario six of the RFP, which deals with storage capabilities. In a statement, Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw said the DoD made the “correct decision.” “However, we support their decision to reconsider a small number of factors as it is likely the fastest way to resolve all issues and quickly provide the needed modern technology to people across our armed forces. Throughout this process, we've focused on listening to the needs of the DoD, delivering the best product, and making sure nothing we did delayed the procurement process. We are not going to change this approach now," Shaw said. “Over two years the DoD reviewed dozens of factors and sub factors and found Microsoft equal or superior to AWS on every factor. We remain confident that Microsoft's proposal was technologically superior, continues to offer the best value, and is the right choice for the DoD.” The JEDI cloud contract is potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years. This court filing is another significant setback for the DoD, even after the continuous challenges the contract has faced for about two years. Earlier in the court battle, Amazon sought to depose President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, DoD CIO Dana Deasy and several other DoD officials involved in the in the final decision. An Amazon spokesperson said the company was “pleased” with the decision. "We are pleased that the DoD has acknowledged ‘substantial and legitimate' issues that affected the JEDI award decision, and that corrective action is necessary,” a spokesperson said. "We look forward to complete, fair, and effective corrective action that fully insulates the re-evaluation from political influence and corrects the many issues affecting the initial flawed award.” https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/cloud/2020/03/13/the-pentagon-was-to-reconsider-its-jedi-award/