Navy Is Upping Its Game in the Pacific

The USS Gabrielle Giffords, the Navy’s newest littoral combat ship, is deploying to the Indo-Pacific theater. The deployment is the latest sign that the Navy is upping its game in the Pacific. US Navy photo

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

The littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords deployed last week from San Diego packing the US Navy’s new naval strike missile, reports Defense News, transforming the LCS from an under-gunned concept-ship gone awry to a legitimate threat to Chinese warships at significant ranges.

As Hurricane Dorian made its way up the Eastern Seaboard last week, there were several military bases in its path that, among their other missions, form the backbone of the US response plan during homeland emergencies. A former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem, asked in an opinion piece in The Washington Post: What do you do when your hurricane backup plan is under water?

President Donald Trump pulls the plug on Afghanistan and Taliban peace talks, reports The New York Times, blaming a return return to violence by the Taliban for the canceling of what was to be concluding meetings at Camp David in Maryland. Concerns that the deal  could easily be violated by the Taliban, as US officials told Reuters had been growing before Trump decided to stop the talks.

Iran has unveiled its latest military drone. UPI reports the Kian drone comes in two versions, and is capable of surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as continuous flight for defense missions.

The US has launched its first-ever joint naval drills with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, reports Asia Times, maneuvers that could add fuel to tensions in the South China Sea.

DoD says diagnoses for mental health conditions among active-duty US military personnel have remained steady over the last four years, reports Military.com, with 8.3% of the total force diagnosed in 2018, compared with 8% in 2014. Read the report here.

As the Army moves ahead with its effort to replace the Bradley fighting vehicle, reports Military.com, it will be another three years before senior leaders decide what to do with the service’s Cold War-era M1 Abrams tank.

Defense Systems reports the Army is using its latest advancements in facial and voice recognition tech to help track and identify potential terrorists and other adversaries for overseas intelligence personnel.

The Eurofighter Typhoon will not compete for the Canadian 88-fighter jet contract, reports FlightGlobal. This whittles contestants down to three — the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin F-35A, and the Saab Gripen.

Labor officials say Lockheed Martin violated federal pay and contractor laws at its Crestview facility in Florida, reports the Orlando Sentinel. The company had to pay back wages to 20 employees.

Lockheed Martin has committed $3 million to the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering for supersonic flight experiments, reports WTOP News. The $3 million, three-year contribution will fund high-speed flight experiments up to Mach 8, or 6,000 mph, at the school’s hypersonic wind tunnel.

Three military projects — two at Fort Meade and one at Joint Base Andrews — were among those canceled last week as the Trump administration looks at ways to fund a wall on the US southern border with Mexico, reports Maryland Matters.

The Navy’s newest expeditionary fast transport ship will be named USNS Cody, reports Seapower. The future USNS Cody is the first ship named in honor of the city of Cody, WY. At least 28 other US Navy ships have been named after Wyoming’s cities, places, and people.

Contracts:

GP Strategies Corp., Columbia, Maryland, was awarded a $12,693,583 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Life Cycle Logistics Support and Chemical Demilitarization Training Facility operations and maintenance in support of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity, Recovered Chemical Materiel Directorate. 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 Sept. 23, 2020. US Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W52P1J-15-D-0087).

General Dynamics Information Technology, Fairfax, Virginia, was awarded a $7,237,568 modification (P00017) to contract W81XWH-17-F-0078 for support services for the US Army Medical Materiel Development Activity. Work will be performed in Fort Detrick, Maryland, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2022. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $7,237,568 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Medical Materiel Development Activity, Fort Detrick, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

PAE Applied Technologies LLC, Arlington, Virginia, is being awarded a $52,268,318 modification to previously awarded contract N66604-05-C-1277 to reinstate 6 month periods of performance and increase target cost for Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center. Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) is the Navy’s large-area, deep-water, undersea test and evaluation range. Underwater research, testing, and evaluation of anti-submarine weapons, sonar tracking and communications are the predominant activities conducted at AUTEC. The contractor performs services required to perform AUTEC range operations and maintenance of facilities and range systems. In addition, the contractor is responsible for operating a self-sufficient one square mile Navy outpost. This modification increases the value of the basic contract by $52,268,318. The new total value is $853,017,162. Work will be performed in Andros Island, Commonwealth of the Bahamas (80%); and West Palm Beach, Florida (20%), and is expected to be complete by March 2020. No funding will be obligated at time of this modification award. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport Division, Newport, Rhode Island, is the contracting activity.

Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia, was awarded a firm-fixed-price, single-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract, HC1047-19-D-5001, in support of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Defense Collaboration Services (DCS) program. The primary place of performance will be at DISA, Fort Meade, Maryland. The ID/IQ ceiling value is $49,500,000, with the minimum guarantee of $5,000 funded by fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds. Proposals were solicited via FedBizOpps (FBO.gov), and one proposal was received. The ordering period is Sept. 8, 2019, through Sept. 7, 2024. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, National Capital Region, is the contracting activity (HC1047-19-D-5001).

UPDATE: Maryland Industrial Trucks, Linthicum Heights, Maryland (SPE8EC-19-D-0043), has been added as an awardee to the multiple award contract for commercial trucks and trailers, issued against solicitation SPE8EC-17-R-0008, announced April 20, 2017.

DLT Solutions LLC, Herndon, Virginia (N66001-19-A-0045); EC America Inc., McLean, Virginia (N66001-19-A-0119); Carahsoft Technology Corp., Reston, Virginia (N66001-19-A-0120); RightStar Systems Inc., Vienna, Virginia (N66001-19-A-0022); Belarc Inc., Maynard, Massachusetts (N66001-19-A-0118); and Immix Technologies, McLean, Virginia (N66001-19-A-0121), are being awarded a multiple-award, firm-fixed-price Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) blanket purchase agreement (BPA) in accordance with the firms’ General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule contracts. This BPA provides for purchase of this category’s software products and services by the DoD, US intelligence community, and Coast Guard. The overall estimated value of this BPA is $820,450,000. The individual agreements are awarded for multi-reseller and multi-publisher providers of commercial-off-the-shelf information technology asset management software; software maintenance support; information technology professional services; and related services in support of DoD ESI in the enterprise software category. The resellers/software publishers are: DLT Solutions (Netscout and Tripwire); EC America (Riverbed, Netscout, Commvault and Microfocus Solutions); Carahsoft Technology (Safenet, Zscaler, Datalocker, Hytrust, Nlyte Microfocus Solutions, Beyond Trust, and Oblong); RightStar (Nlyte); Belarc Inc.; and Immix Technologies (BeyondTrust and Microfocus Solutions). The ordering period will be for a maximum of 10 years from Sept. 6, 2019, through July 11, 2029. The BPA is issued under DoD ESI in accordance with the policy and guidelines in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, Section 208.74. This BPA will not obligate funds at the time of award. Funds will be obligated as task orders using operations and maintenance (DoD) funds. Requirements will be competed among the awardees in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 8.403-3(c)(2), and the successful contractor will receive firm fixed-price orders. This BPA was competitively procured via the GSA E-Buy web site among 679 vendors. Eight offers were received and eight were selected for award. Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity.

Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $266,203,768 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract special tooling and special test equipment in support of F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and non-U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) participants. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (50.30 percent); San Diego, California (13.18 percent); Orlando, Florida (7.30 percent); El Segundo, California (5.45 percent); Samlesbury, United Kingdom (5.23 percent); Papendrecht, Netherlands (3.90 percent); Cheltenham, United Kingdom, (2.49 percent); Rochester, United Kingdom (2.29 percent); Nashua, New Hampshire (1.95 percent); Phoenix, Arizona (1.66 percent); Williston, Vermont (1.47 percent); Marietta, Georgia (1 percent); Palmdale, California (0.73 percent); East Aurora, New York (0.59 percent); Endicott, New York (0.55 percent); Kongsberg, Norway (0.43 percent); Marion, Virginia (0.34 percent); Hauppauge, New York (0.30 percent); Boulder, Colorado (0.24 percent); Owego, New York (0.23 percent); Sylmar, California (0.22 percent); Mississauga, Canada (0.06 percent); Avon, Massachusetts (0.04 percent); Montmorency, Australia (0.02 percent); Garden Grove, California (0.02 percent); and Ontario, California (0.01 percent). Work is expected to be completed by July 2022. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy); and non-US DoD participant funds in the amount of $266,203,768 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This modification combines purchases for the Air Force ($117,424,737; 44 percent); Navy ($80,246,876; 30 percent); Marine Corps ($36,674,989; 14 percent); and non-U.S. DoD participants ($31,857,166; 12 percent). The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N0001919C0074).

Harris Corp., Roanoke, Virginia, is being awarded a maximum $249,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the purchase of Squad Binocular Night Vision Goggle systems; spare and repair parts; contractor logistics support; and test article refurbishment. Work will be performed in Roanoke, Virginia, and is expected to be complete by September 2024.Fiscal 2019 procurement (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $328,203 will be obligated at time of award and funds will expire the end of fiscal 2021.This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with six offers received. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M67854-19-D-1501).

Orbis Sibro Inc., Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (N39040-18-D-0003); Q.E.D. Systems Inc., Virginia Beach, Virginia (N39040-18-D-0004), Delphinus Engineering, Eddystone, Pennsylvania (N39040-18-D-0005); and Oceaneering Intl., Chesapeake, Virginia (N39040-18-D-0006), are being awarded a combined cumulative $37,884,834 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple-award modification to exercise Option Period One to provide non-nuclear production support for U.S. naval submarine projects/repairs. The services under these contracts cover marine electrician, industrial fire watch/laborer, marine pipefitter, outside marine machinist, marine painter, weight handler, marine ship fitter, shipwright, welder, sheet metal, marine insulator, abrasive blaster, deck time setter and sound tile setter for upcoming submarine availabilities. Work will be performed in Kittery, Maine, and is expected to be completed by October 2020. No funding will be obligated at time of award. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine, is the contracting activity.

QED Systems Inc., Virginia Beach, Virginia (N64498-19-D-4006); and McKean Defense Group LLC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (N64498-19-D-4032), are being awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity type contracts with cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price line items for engineering and technical services in support of Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division (NSWCPD) Hull, Mechanical and Electrical (HM&E) systems Modernization Program. The contract being awarded to QED Systems Inc. (QED) will be awarded for $19,847,942, and the contract being awarded to McKean Defense Group LLC (McKean) will be awarded for $21,458,714. Work under the QED contract will be performed in Virginia Beach, Virginia (20 percent); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (20 percent); and various Navy port locations worldwide (60 percent). The work under the McKean contract will be performed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (40 percent); and various Navy port locations worldwide (60 percent). Work at all locations is expected to be completed by September 2024. Fiscal 2019 Navy working capital funding in the amount of $100,000 ($50,000 per contract) will be obligated at time of award via individual task orders and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. In accordance with 10 US Code 2304(a), these contracts are the result of a full and open competitive procurement via the Federal Business Opportunities portal, in which three offers were received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity.

AS and D Inc., Beltsville, Maryland, is being awarded a $16,118,830 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00173-14-D-2016 for engineering and operational support for the command, control, data collection and mission management operations at Blossom Point Tracking Facility (BPTF). Work will be performed in Welcome, Maryland, and is expected to be complete by Aug. 26, 2020. Fiscal 2019 working capital funds (Navy) in the amount of $194,791; fiscal 2019 operation and maintenance funds (Navy) in the amount of $322,000; and fiscal 2019 research and development funds (Air Force) in the amount of $486,000, will be obligated at time of award. Contract funds in the amount of $516,791 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Contract funds in the amount of $486,000 will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.

PAE Government Systems Inc., Arlington, Virginia, was awarded a $26,022,182 modification (P00014) to Foreign Military Sales (Afghanistan) W56HZV-17-C-0117 for the National Maintenance Strategy Ground Vehicle Support effort. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Kabul, Afghanistan, with an estimated completion date of March 1, 2020. Fiscal 2019 Afghanistan Security Forces, Army funds in the combined amount of $26,022,182 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity.

Lynxnet LLC, Suffolk, Virginia, was awarded an $18,207,432 firm-fixed-price contract to operate and maintain the command and control and infrastructure operations for headquarters, US Army Intelligence and Security Command. One bid was solicited with one bid received. Work will be performed in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 18, 2020. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $8,490,400 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W911W4-19-C-0010).

Motorola Solutions Inc., Linthicum Heights, Maryland, was awarded a $10,173,475 modification (P00002) to contract W52P1J-18-D-0036 to upgrade and expand the Pacific Japan and Korea land mobile radio system, connect sites to the current joint Japan land mobile radio system and to upgrade the Army backup core infrastructure in Japan. 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 May 24, 2023. US Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC (JHU/APL), Laurel, Maryland, was awarded a non-competitive, single-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for essential engineering, research, and/or development capabilities, in line with the core competencies established by the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering, which designated JHU/APL as a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). The place of performance will be at JHU/APL, Laurel, Maryland; and at the Defense Information Systems Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland. The contract ceiling value is $245,000,000, funded by multiple appropriation types. The minimum guarantee of $5,793,933 is satisfied through the issuance of the first task order in conjunction with the contract, which is funded by fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds. This is a sole source award, and as such, only one proposal was received. The ordering period is Sept. 30, 2019, through Sept. 29, 2024. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, National Capital Region, is the contracting activity (HC1047-19-D-0001).

Trace Systems Inc., Vienna, Virginia, was awarded a single-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract in support of providing the full range of Mission Partner Environment (MPE)-compatible support services and associated equipment to design, implement and operate the MPE enterprise. The contract ceiling value is $98,000,000. At the time of award, the minimum guarantee of $500 will be obligated using fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funding. All other funding will be obligated at the task order level. The places of performance will be at contiguous US and outside continental US designated MPE Services (MPE-S) support sites including Washington, District of Columbia; Fort Meade, Maryland; Air Force facilities in Fairfax, Virginia; US Africa Command, Stuttgart, Germany; US Central Command, Tampa, Florida; Kuwait; Bahrain; Afghanistan; US Southern Command, Miami, Florida; US Northern Command, Colorado Spring, Colorado; US Special Operations Command, Tampa, Florida; Joint Communication Support Element, Tampa, Florida; and US Forces Korea, Youngsan Air Base, Osan Air Base, Kunsan Air Base, and Camp Humphries. Additional places of performance are to be determined based on customer requirements and real world events. The specific place(s) of performance will be specified in individual task orders. A competitive solicitation utilizing full and open competition was the basis for the single-award contract. Proposals were solicited via the Federal Business Opportunities website and four proposals were received. The ordering period is five years from the date of contract award. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, National Capital Region, is the contracting activity (HC1047-19-D-4002).

Bowhead Cybersecurity Solutions & Services LLC, Alexandria, Virginia, has been awarded a $19,689,460 firm-fixed-price contract for the Air Force National Tactical Integration Program. This contract provides for real-time, two-way interactive information exchange among the combined/joint force air component commander, other joint and Air Force customers, and the national intelligence community. Work will be performed at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas; Fort Meade, Maryland; Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona; Fort Gordon, Georgia; Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina; Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida; Hurlburt Field, Florida; Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii; and Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. The performance period includes four option periods with expected completion by Jan. 30, 2024. This award is the result of a sole source set-aside acquisition. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funding in the amount of $1,446,615 are being obligated at time of the award. The Acquisition Management & Integration Center-Detachment 2, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the contracting activity (FA7037-19-C-A009).