Starburst Aerospace partners with Airbus Defence and Space to launch the combat cloud accelerator

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  October 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 23, 2020

  NAVY Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, is awarded a $149,238,311 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract containing cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost reimbursement and firm-fixed-price provisions. This contract provides services and supplies for the operation of the Naval Array Technical Support Center facility. Work will be performed in Newport, Rhode Island (99%); and Reston, Virginia; and Virginia Beach, Virginia (each location less than 1%), and is expected to be completed in November 2025. Service Cost Center funding (a type of overhead funding that is not authorized/appropriated in a particular fiscal year) in the amount of $13,837,718 will be obligated on the first task order and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured using full and open competition via the Federal Business Opportunities website with four offers received in response to solicitation no. N66604-19-R-0182. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Newport, Rhode Island, is the contracting activity (N66604-21-D-A000). Raytheon Co., Tewksbury, Massachusetts, is awarded a $12,699,161 ceiling increase and a 21-day period of performance extension modification to previously awarded, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N65236-18-C-8009 for Cross Domain Maritime Surveillance and Targeting. Work will be performed in Tewksbury, Massachusetts (53%); Cambridge, Massachusetts (24%); San Diego, California (10%); Woburn, Massachusetts (7%); Portsmouth, Rhode Island (5%); and Arlington, Virginia (1%), and is expected to be completed by November 2021. This modification brings the total cumulative value of the contract to $53,456,317. Fiscal 2020 research, development, testing, and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,527,793 will be obligated at time of award. Funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Information Warfare Center, Atlantic, Charleston, South Carolina, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY WGL Energy Services Inc., Vienna, Virginia (SPE604-21-D-7500, $35,243,557); Direct Energy Business Marketing LLC, Iselin, New Jersey (SPE604-21-D-7505, $22,671,935); Enspire Energy LLC, Chesapeake, Virginia (SPE604-21-D-7504, $16,476,727); and UGI Energy Services Inc., Wyomissing, Pennsylvania (SPE604-21-D-7502, $12,570,456), have each been awarded a fixed‐price with economic‐price-adjustment contract under solicitation SPE604-20-R-0407 for natural gas. These were competitive acquisitions with seven offers received. These are two-year contracts with no option periods. Locations of performance are Delaware; Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Virginia; Massachusetts; New York; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; and Maryland, with a March 31, 2023, performance completion date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, National Guard, Coast Guard and federal civilian agencies. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2023 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency, Energy, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Honeywell International Inc. Aerospace, Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded a maximum $15,851,900 firm-fixed-price delivery order (SPRPA1-21-F-Q800) against five-year basic ordering agreement SPE4A1-17-G-0016 for V-22 spare parts. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a one-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Arizona, with an Oct. 31, 2021, performance completion date. Using military service is Navy. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2022 Navy aircraft procurement funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency, Aviation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. National Industries for the Blind,* Alexandria, Virginia, has been awarded a maximum $13,676,269 modification (P00014) exercising the fourth one-year option period of a one-year base contract (SPE1C1-17-D-B003) with four one-year option periods for advanced combat helmet pad suspension systems. This is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Locations of performance are Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, with an Oct. 26, 2021, ordering period end date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2022 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. CORRECTION: The contract announced on Sept. 30, 2020, for Boeing Co., Mesa, Arizona, for $30,322,385, was announced with an incorrect award date and incorrect contract number. The correct award date is Oct. 22, 2020, and the correct contract number is SPRRA1-21-C-0002. AIR FORCE L3 Technologies Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, has been awarded a $23,836,458 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to perform survivable super high frequency (SSHF) upgrades to the E-4B platform. The SSHF upgrade seeks to build new capabilities that form the foundation for maintaining the E-4B as an effective nuclear command, control and communications platform. Work will be performed in Salt Lake City, Utah; and Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, and is expected to be completed by April 18, 2022. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and 67 offers were received. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $20,000,000 will be obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8612-21-C-5007). Palantir USG Inc., Palo Alto, California, has been awarded a $9,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the Palantir Gotham platform for the COVID-19 response at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. The contract modification is for the procurement and utilization of the Palantir Gotham Platform, which is a commercial software that will be accessed by the Air Force to facilitate the critical efforts necessary to coordinate decisions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Work will be performed in Palo Alto, California, and is expected to be completed April 30, 2021. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the full amount are being obligated at the time of award. U. S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity (FA8806-21-C-0002). SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY Perspecta Engineering Inc., Chantilly, Virginia, is awarded a $17,890,322 task order on an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide mission system engineering and integration support for the Space Development Agency's Tranche 0 capabilities. The awardee will provide overall technical leadership for integrating Tranche 0 elements and executing on-orbit tests and experiments, culminating in a Capstone event which demonstrates potential capabilities to the warfighter. Work will be performed in Chantilly, Virginia; Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Blossom Point, Maryland; Colorado Springs, Colorado; El Segundo, California; Huntsville, Alabama; Melbourne, Florida; and Space Development Agency, Washington, D.C. This award was made based on specifications in the Tranche 0 Mission Systems Engineering and Integration request for proposal HQ0850-20-R-0004. Funds obligated at the time of award are defense-wide fiscal 2021 research, development, test and evaluation funds. Space Development Agency, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (HQ0850-21-F-0001). DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY General Dynamics Mission Systems Inc., San Antonio, Texas, has been awarded a $7,869,884 modification (P00053) to previously awarded contract HR0011-16-C-0001 for classified information technology services. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $167,187,910 from $159,318,026. Work will be performed in Arlington, Virginia, with an expected completion date of February 2021. Fiscal 2020 research and development funds in the amount of $7,428,876 are being obligated at time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. *Mandatory source https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2391498/source/GovDelivery/

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  December 3, 2023 | International, Land

  Canola Council, Bombardier register to lobby feds

  The Canola Council of Canada and Bombardier were both named in new lobbying filings.

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  May 27, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Will defense budgets remain ‘sticky’ after the COVID-19 pandemic?

  By: Eric Lofgren Congress' unprecedented fiscal response to COVID-19 has many in the defense community wondering whether belt tightening will hit the Pentagon. On May 19, the Congressional Progressive Caucus wrote a letter arguing for substantial defense budget cuts to support additional spending on the pandemic. Nonprofit progressive supporters have been asking to cut a much larger $350 billion each year from the Pentagon in their “Moral Budget” proposal. What the progressives perhaps do not fully appreciate is the “stickiness” of defense budgets. In economics, stickiness refers to rigidity in the movement of wages and prices despite broader economic shifts pushing for new equilibrium. The phenomenon is apparent in defense budgets as well. Most expectations are that the fiscal 2021 budget will remain over $700 billion. Consider an analogy: the 2008 financial crisis. Lehman Brothers collapsed just a couple weeks before fiscal year 2009 started, leaving that $666 billion defense budget largely beyond recall. The following years' budgets were $691 billion, $687 billion, $646 billion and then finally in FY13 a more precipitous 10 percent fall to $578 billion. It took four years for the Pentagon to really feel the squeeze of the financial downturn. The uninitiated may believe COVID-19 happened with enough of lead time to affect the FY21 budget. Congress received the president's budget in February 2020 and has until the start of October to make targeted cuts without encountering another continuing resolution. The defense budget, however, represents the culmination of a multiyear process balancing thousands of stakeholder interests. It reflects a vast amount of information processed at every level of the military enterprise. The Pentagon's work on the FY21 budget request started nearly two years ahead of time and includes a register of funding estimates out to FY25. Moreover, defense programs are devised and approved based on life-cycle cost and schedule estimates. Cuts to a thorough plan may flip the analysis of alternatives on its head, recommending pivots to new systems or architectures and upsetting contract performance. Not only are current budgets shaped by many years of planning, but they get detailed to an almost microscopic level. For example, the Army's FY21 research, development, test and evaluation request totaled $12.8 billion, less than 2 percent of the overall Pentagon request. Yet the appropriation identifies 267 program elements decomposing into a staggering 2,883 budget program activity codes averaging less than $10 million each. Congressional staff is too small to understand the implications of many cost, schedule and technical trade-offs. To gather information on impacts, the Pentagon is thrown into a frenzy of fire drills. More draconian measures, like the FY13 sequestration, leading to indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts can sidestep hard questions but comes at a significant cost to efficiency. Targeted cuts at a strategic level, such as to the nuclear recapitalization programs and other big-ticket items, can expect stiff resistance. First, there is real concern about great power competition and the damage that may be wrought by acting on short-term impulses. Second, targeted programs and their contractors will immediately report the estimated number of job losses by district. Before measures can get passed, a coalition of congressional members negatively impacted may oppose the cuts. Resistance is intensified considering the proximity to Election Day. Budget stickiness is built into the political process. The FY22 budget is perhaps the first Pentagon budget that can start inching downward. More than likely, severe cuts aren't in the offing until FY23 or FY24 at the very earliest. That gives time for policymakers to reflect on the scale of the rebalancing between defense and other priorities. In some important ways, congressional control of the Pentagon through many thousands of budget line items restricts its own flexibility. For example, continuing resolutions lock in program funding to the previous year's level until political disagreements can be resolved. The military cannot stick to its own plans, much less start new things. If budget lines were detailed at a higher level, such as by major organization or capability area, then the Pentagon could make more trade-offs while Congress debates. Similarly, if the Pentagon had more budget flexibility, then Congress could more easily cut top lines and allow Pentagon leaders to figure out how to maximize with the constraint during the year of execution. Congress could gain the option to defer the hard questions that can make cuts politically difficult. The Space Force recently released a proposal for consolidating budget line items into higher-level capability areas. It reflects the idea that portfolio-centric management is an efficient method of handling rapid changes in technologies, requirements or financial guidance resulting from economic shocks. Until such reforms are pursued, expect defense budgets to remain sticky. Eric Lofgren is a research fellow at the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. He manages a blog and podcast on weapon systems acquisition. He previously served as a senior analyst at Technomics Inc., supporting the U.S. Defense Department's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/26/will-defense-budgets-remain-sticky-after-the-covid-19-pandemic/