MARK IV-B Follow On
Added: Aug 02, 2017 4:16 pm
Choose the funding level for this J&A Document:I IContracting Activity: SMC/PKL Purchase Request / Local ID Number: FA8823-16-R-0006 Program/ Project (and PE, if applicable): MARK IV-B Follow OnProgram Type (PEO or Other Contracting): PEOProgram Authority (include fulltitle): 10U.S. C. 2304 (c) (1), asimplemented by FAR 6.302-1 (a){2)(iii)(A) and FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii)(B)Estimated Contract Cost {including options): J&A Type : [gJ Class D Individual •I. Contracting Activity.•A. Contract: Meteorological Data Station, AN/UMQ-13 (MARK IV-B) Follow-On •B. Contractor:Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC) 230 Mall BlvdKing of Prussia, PA 19406-2902 •C. Acquisition Office: Remote Sensing Systems Directorate (SMC/RS), Weather Sustainment & Logistics Division •D. Contracting Office Location: SMC/PKL1050 E. Stewart Ave., Bldg 2025Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, CO 80914-2902 •E. Contracting Officer: Ms. Kimberly S. McGough DSN 834-2919, Commercial (719) 556-2919 •II. Nature and/or description of the action being processed.•A. This class Justification and Approval (J&A) document supports a sole source follow-on contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (hereinafter referred to as Contractor, Lockheed Martin, LMSSC, or Incumbent) for the MARK IV-B program. MARK IV-B is the common name for the Meteorological Data Station (MDS), AN/UMQ-13. AN/UMQ-13 is the Army/Navy identifier for the MDS. The follow-on contract will include a one-year base period and six one-year options, allowing for uninterrupted operation of the MARK IV-B government test bed and training suite and the eight permanent ground sites that ingest, process, store, and disseminate critical Meteorological Satellite(METSAT) and other sensor data on a 24/7 basis. The estimated award date is July 2017. •B. This J&A is designated as a class J&A. A class J&A is required as the estimated cost and requirements include Lockheed Martin's support to move the test bed and training suite (TB/TS). Because the timing and location of that move are currently unknown that effort will be negotiated in a future modification to this contract. While it is the Government's intent to negotiate a single contract to address the work and entire period of performance as described in Section III, the Air Force will experience a critical break in service if a follow-on effort is not awarded by 31 July 2017. Weather forecasting is a vital mission to ensure the safety of our warfighters and equipment. While there are other reference options for forecasters in the United States, warfighter forecasters in OCONUS locations rely heavily on the MARK IV-B program for forecasting purposes. Therefore, the Air Force reserves the right to break this action up into a modification for a smaller initial period of performance to avoid a break in service and a modification for the remainder of the period of performance in the event the Contracting Officer determines that a better negotiated agreement will result from this two-pronged approach.•III. Description of supplies/services required to meet agency needs.Under the contemplated contract, Lockheed Martin will provide the following supplies and services in sustainment of the MARK IV-B program: •A. Approximately staff-hours will be acquired each year for operations and maintenance support on the test bed/training suite located at the Contractor's facility and eight worldwide operational sites. The Contractor will provide program, risk, safety, and quality management; systems engineering; hardware and software maintenance; baseline configuration and data management; technical order management; planning, design, test, and evaluation for all system baseline upgrades driven by new space sensors and programmed system upgrades; programmed depot maintenance; emergency depot level maintenance; operator and maintainer training; system anomaly tracking, investigation and resolution; system trending analysis; equipment and software license obsolescence management; and processing of Time Compliance Network Orders for cybersecurity activities for network certification and accreditation. This portion of the effort will be firm fixed price. The period of performance of this effort will be a one year base period from 1 Aug 2017 to 31 July 2018 with six one-year options for a total period of seven years, and 3400 appropriations will fund the sustainment portion of this effort as described in this paragraph. •B. Staff-hours will vary greatly per fiscal year for projects, depending on funding and mission needs. Due to the dynamic nature of the program, each project is executed as an individual contract modification in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contract and are processed on an as required basis. One of the core requirements for the MARK IV-B system is to sustain an enduring METSAT ingest, processing, and dissemination capability for the Department of Defense ( DoD), Air Force, and Air Combat Command--Weather Requirements Division (ACC/A5W). The MARK IV-B system must keep current with the latest METSAT sensors, software data formats, higher data rates, and computer processing requirements as the latest series of satellites are launched. Beginning in 2016, newer satellites have been launched that have much larger data streams, ground station data storage, and processing requirements. These newer satellites represent the latest iteration put into orbit that require hardware/software/firmware adjustments to deliver the required capability. These projects may include but are not limited to: •1. Amend ground systems and sub-systems with associated hardware/software component refurbishment, set-up, tear-down, relocate, and/or redesign;•2. Maintain/improve/modify the MARK IV-B Forecaster/Viewer software applications and/or associated software applications to keep the capability relevant;•3. Maintain, update, and upgrade ingest and data servers in accordance with authorized projects;•4. Update the software, hardware and firmware baselines to maintain the capability to ingest evolving state-of-the-art weather satellite sensor data formats as required by ACC/A5W on a continuous basis;•5. Add, remove (including decommissioning) or update MARK IV-B sites and mission essential equipment, as required by ACC/A5W;•6. Update sites to meet or maintain Air Force guidance regarding cybersecurity requirements including moving server routing and any associated information technology system to the "de-militarized zone" at each site or to modify the systems to meet AF Cybersecurity requirements associated with Risk Management Framework; •7. Relocate and/or redesign the test bed/training suite and all associated spare parts; and•8. Resolve frequency spectrum sell-off issues and interference that impact the MARK IV-B system.•C. The above portion of the effort will be cost plus fixed fee. Projects may be ordered throughout the period of performance of the contemplated contract. The period of performance for these non-severable projects can be longer than 12 months when they constitute an entire job or single undertaking with a defined project that cannot feasibly be subdivided for separate performance in each fiscal year. Therefore, the period of performance for individual projects ordered during the last option period (FY 2023 to FY 2024) is estimated to extend approximately 24 months beyond FY 2024. Projects will be funded with 3080/3085 appropriations. The estimated project costs of are based on the previous nine years of actual project expenses. While funding for sustainment is limited each year by budgetary issues, the funding for projects has not exceeded per year. Spectrum Relocation Funding (SRF) is a funding allocation of provided after the frequency sell off initiated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Meteorological Satellite frequency was sold to commercial entities for cell phone use and the affected DoD entities received funding to mitigate the intrusion on their frequency. The Air Force has determined the funding may only be used at affected sites and only to mitigate L-band interference. It is anticipated that the funding provided by the Spectrum Relocation effort will not be fully used but is allocated as contingency to allow contract ceiling within the contract for as yet unknown projects and required sequestration tax. Projects related to SRF cannot be separated from the subject contract due to the necessity of using the Test Bed, located at the current contractor facility, to conduct testing. •D. Contract line items (CLIN) for this contract will include: Sustainment under Firm Fixed-Price, Travel & Materials under Cost Reimbursement, a Data CLIN that will be Not Separately Priced, two CLINs for Spectrum Relocation Funded efforts (3403 and 3085) and CLINs for projects as needed. The project CLINs will be Cost Plus Fixed-Fee and will contain at a minimum; labor, travel, materials, and fee. •E. Lockheed Martin will provide the following support in relation to the movement of the TB/TS: tear- down, packing, and shipping of the TB/TS components at the Lockheed facility; and at the new location they will set up, configure and coordinate the equipment and training with the new Contractor. This transition will take place over a 3-6 month period and will consist of a staggered tear-down/set-up as to not impede the mission. The transition will appear seamless to the user. •F. Approval for more than one fiscal year is necessary to allow time to complete the Basing Action Request (BAR) and Military Construction funding (MILCON) processes to move the program to a competitive stance for future acquisitions. The BAR process is estimated to take 12-18 months and the MILCON process is estimated to take 5-7 years. •IV. Statutory authority permitting Other than Full and Open Competition.10 U.S.C. § 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii)(A) and FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii)(B) and required by FAR 6.303-2 (b) (4). •V. Demonstration that the Contractor's unique qualifications or nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited above (applicability of authority).•A. Continued Performance of Highly Specialized Services:•1. The MARK IV-B system is highly specialized. The system is specifically designed to meet DoD, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and multiple international partner weather satellite data ingest, processing, and distribution requirements as defined for the program by ACC/A5W. The sustainment of the system covered under this justification is dependent upon the single highly- specialized test bed and training suite located at the Contractor facility in Pennsylvania. The MARK IV-B software, viewer application and ground system are all parts of a unique and technically complex system that is modern, modular, scalable, and networked.•2. Today, the MARK IV-B program is comprised of eight permanent ground sites located worldwide and which operate 24/7 by ingesting, processing, and disseminating METSAT data. The Contractor maintains a single test bed and training suite that mimics the operational baseline and is located within their facility at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The Contractor utilizes the test bed to perform day-to-day sustainment support for each of the eight operational sites. The current sustainment support contract with Lockheed Martin, FA8823-07-C-0001, expires 31 Jul 2017.•3. The operational sites are primarily comprised of a series of ground antennas that capture Polar and Geo METSAT data in the X, L, & S bands. Some of the antennas are housed in antenna radomes, and/or are situated on raised platforms to mitigate radio frequency obstruction. All of the operational sites have a fixed facility with heating and air conditioning capabilities that house the data processing equipment racks that are comprised of computer servers, switches, crypto equipment, tools and some minor spare parts.•4. Over three decades ago, the MARK IV-B ground stations were originally designed to support a single weather satellite constellation, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Over the years, the Air Force through the Air Force Weather Agency (now ACC/A5W) expanded the capability of the MARK IV-B systems to ingest and process additional resources. Today, the system has evolved to a 17ft Geo, 4.7m Geo, 2.4m C/Ku Geo, 10ft Polar, 1.5m Polar, and 3m Polar antennas that can ingest and process both domestic and international METSAT data.•5. Additionally, in 2004 the Air Force experienced an Air Force Specialty Code restructure whereby the Air Force no longer trained specific MARK IV-B maintainers for the operational sites. This change resulted in relocating the MARK IV-B training suite from Keesler AFB to the Lockheed Martin facility at King of Prussia in Pennsylvania. With this change, the Contractor assumed the task of training the Air Force maintainers as well as sustaining, maintaining, and operating the test bed and training suite at their depot facility. The MARK IV-B system ingests weather satellite data from 25 international satellites 24/7, each with a variety of sensors and data types. The highly specialized nature of the system requires the Contractor to have immediate access to the test bed and training suite to perform the sustainment functions on day one of a new contract award, as well as any associated 3080 projects in execution. Therefore, this acquisition is for the continued performance of a highly specialized service.•B. Unique and Highly Specialized Capabilities and Qualifications: Lockheed Martin has been providing system engineering design, test, evaluation, operations, maintenance, and sustainment support on the MARK IV-B systems for more than 25 years. Over these years, they have gained intimate knowledge and experience regarding the system's unique METSAT data servers and the Forecaster software applications. The Contractor has developed a unique resource skill-set required to understand modern and secure information systems that process satellite weather sensor data specifically for space, atmospheric, and surface meteorological phenomena utilized for weather modeling and forecasting purposes. This skill set comprises a mix of scientific and technical skills specific to DoD weather operational requirements. This specific combination of expertise along with the Contractor developed, highly specialized test bed and training suite are not a common commodity found in the marketplace based on the results of the market research conducted. MARK IV-B is the only DoD system to ingest, process, store, and disseminate satellite sensor data. As a result, Lockheed Martin possesses unique and highly specialized capabilities and qualifications to perform the subject effort.•C. Duplication of Costs and Unacceptable Delays:•1. The MARK IV-B program office believes that award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of costs to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition and unacceptable delays in fulfilling the Air Force's requirements.•a. FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii)(A): Substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition. •1) The MARK IV-B system's test bed and training suite are essential to maintaining the eight operational sites. However, the equipment is currently located in Lockheed Martin's private facility, contributing to a non-competitive environment. To remove this barrier to competition, the Government plans to relocate the test bed and training suite to an Air Force base. This requires completion of the Air Force's MILCON and BAR process, as well as planning and executing the move to the new location. •2) Based on a Business Case Analysis (BCA) completed by the program office, the Government estimates it will cost approximately to move the test bed and training suite to a Government location. Of this estimate, would pay for the construction of a new facility to house the test bed and training suite, spare equipment, and personnel work areas, while approximately would pay for the system transition from the Contractor's facility to the Government's facility. Approximately half of the aforementioned cost pays for equipment tear-down, packing, shipping, setting-up, and testing at new location, while the other half pays for dual Contractor support over a six-month period to accomplish knowledge transfer. •3) If a full and open competition resulting in award to a different Contractor was held today, it would lead to a substantial duplication of costs to the Government of approximately . Thewould be above the needed to relocate the test bed and training suite to a Government facility as it would only pay for the system transition from the incumbent's facility to the new Contractor's facility in the interim. This would not be recoverable with any anticipated savings across a standard five-year service contract and it would be a recurring cost the Government would pay every five years with the award of a new contract to a new Contractor to relocate the test bed and training suite. Therefore, while the initial costs to complete the move to an Air Force base appear to be double the costs of moving to a new Contractor location, those costs could be mitigated by only completing a single move to a neutral location for the life of the program. Further moves would erode any realized cost mitigation and contribute to a cycle of further cost duplication. •4) Accordingly, the Government believes that award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition for these highly specialized services.•b. FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii)(B): Unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements. •1) The program office estimates that the MILCON and BAR process described above will take approximately 7 years. The intent of the program office is to move the TB/TS to a government facility to allow a competitive environment for future contract. The BAR and MILCON process must be worked in a linear fashion, e.g. the site must be located first before MILCON can be requested. The BAR process takes 1-2 years and the MILCON process can take anywhere from 1-5 years for funding to be allocated. A new Contractor would then require an additional 6 months of transition/overlap with the current Contractor for the extensive training and knowledge transfer required. Even if a new contract were to be competed now, it would take at least 1 ½ to 2 years for a new Contractor to be selected and move the equipment to the new Contractor site once the new Contractor was identified. Just as important, competing the work now would not remedy the lack of direct access to the test bed and training suite which is in place at the incumbent's facility. The test bed and training suite are a key agency requirement to sustain the program. •2) During the resulting gap in service, the Government would continue to have a need for the critical 24/7 METSAT data processed and disseminated by the MARK IV-B system. A break in service would leave the Government without current weather data for a significant period of time and be detrimental to the DoD's tactical and strategic military operations around the world. Weather forecasting is a vital mission to ensure the safety of our warfighters and equipment. While there are other reference options for forecasters in the United States, warfighter forecasters in OCONUS locations rely heavily on the MARK IV-B program for forecasting purposes. As explained in Section VIII below, no company has the ability to perform the sustainment support for MARK IV-B's operation systems without direct access to the test bed and training suite. Presently this direct access only exists with the incumbent Contractor and the Government cannot provide another Contractor with direct access to the equipment without unacceptable schedule delays. •3) At this time, the program office believes that a sole source follow-on contract to the Contractor for seven years would enable the Government the time required to thoroughly execute the logistics of relocating the test bed and training suite to a Government location. The extensive time required to complete the Air Force's MILCON and BAR process as well as planning and executing the move require a longer than standard five year contract period of performance. However, unlike repeated moves to different Contractors' facilities, a move to a Government location need only be done once, and once accomplished, would remove the most significant barrier to competition today--location of the test bed and training suite on a private Contractor's facility. •D. Conclusion: Accordingly, Lockheed Martin is the only firm capable of providing the services described herein without the Air Force experiencing substantial duplication of costs and unacceptable delays in fulfilling its requirements. •VI. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable.•A. The program office and the contracting officer conducted market research to ascertain if competition was feasible. On 14 January 2014, the contracting officer posted a sources sought synopsis to FedBizOpps.gov. Two large businesses (LB) and one small business (SB) responded to the synopsis.Responders included (LB), (LB), and (SB). It should be noted that and responded several months after the Statements of Capability (SOC) due date. On 2 April2014, the program office held an Industry Day in which three large businesses (LB), (LB), (LB) and one small businessparticipated. On 24 April 2014, the contracting officer posted a Request for Information (RFI) to FedBizOpps.gov seeking industry input on contract type, length, and incentives. Four large businesses and one small business responded to the request. Responders included (LB),(LB), (LB), (LB) and (SB). Results of the market research are further discussed in Section VIII. Market research has been on-going during the source selection process but there are no new players in the industry and no new contractor capabilities within the weather sustainment field. •B. This acquisition will require a synopsis in accordance with FAR 5.201. A pre-solicitation notice for the contemplated contract will be posted to FedBizOpps.gov. This announcement will provide a Notice of Contract Action. The Request for Proposal will be issued no earlier than fifteen days after publication of the notice. •VII. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.The contracting officer believes the costs for this acquisition will be fair and reasonable. The Contractor will be required to submit certified cost or pricing data. The program office will perform a complete technical evaluation. The contracting officer will perform both price and cost analyses. In addition, the contracting officer will request support from the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) as needed to obtain information on previous actuals, material costs, and rates. •VIII. Description of the market research conducted and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.•A. The market research conducted as part of the follow-on acquisition revealed that the test bed and training suite being resident at the Contractor's facility was a barrier to open competition. A contractor would need direct access to the test bed to provide sustainment support for the operational systems. •B. As described in Section VI above, market research was conducted in accordance with FAR Part 10, through a sources sought synopsis, an industry day, a request for information and a notice of contract action. The results are described below. •C. Sources Sought Synopsis: The contracting officer received three responses to the 14 January 2014 sources sought synopsis. One response was a small business interested in teaming with a large business. The other two responses were from a large business and the incumbent. The response from the large business that was not the incumbent indicated that the company could perform similar sustainment services but the response was not directly responsive to the specific MARK IV-B requirements. Unable to determine whether a full and open competition for the MARK IV-B follow-on was a viable acquisition approach based on the responses to this synopsis, the program office decided to conduct an industry day and one-on-ones with industry. •D. Industry Day: Participants at the 2 April 2014 industry day included the incumbent, two other large businesses, and a small business. During the industry day, the program office presented information on system site locations and configuration, test bed and training suite configuration, technical refresh efforts currently underway, and budget. The small business again indicated that it was interested in teaming or subcontracting opportunities. After consulting the SMC Small Business Office, in accordance with FAR 19.502-2, the contracting officer determined that given there exists no reasonable expectation that offers will be obtained from at least two responsible small business concerns, a small business set-aside was not appropriate for this acquisition Based on the feedback from the incumbent and the other large businesses, the contracting officer and program office determined that a competitive acquisition might be viable for the MARK IV-B requirements. •E. Request for Information: Following the 24 April 2014 request for information, the contracting officer received responses from the same small business interested in teaming and subcontracting opportunities, the incumbent, and three other large businesses. Industry provided feedback on contract period of performance, contract types, and incentives. However, during the evaluation of responses to this request for information, it became clear that substantial costs would need to be incurred to move the Government's test bed and training suite out of the incumbent's facility and into a new Contractor's facility. Further, these costs would have to be incurred each time the Government re-competed the effort and it was not likely that the Government would recoup these costs as a result of the competition. As a result of this feedback, the Government determined that competition was not viable until the Government moved the test bed and training suite out of the incumbent Contractor's facility. •IX. Any other facts supporting the use of Other Than Full and Open Competition.N/A •X. List of sources, if any, that expressed interest in the acquisition.See Section VI above. •XI. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before making subsequent acquisitions for the supplies or services required.•A. The program office is working to relocate the test bed and training suite to an Air Force base to enable future competition. •B. Specific steps to be taken include working with Air Force Space Command--Strategic Planning (AFSPC/A8) on the MILCON process, working with base Civil Engineering groups on potential site locations, performing an economic analysis at potential locations and working with AF Program Element Monitors (PEMs) to ensure funding will be available at necessary times to keep the process moving. The program office does not have control of the MILCON process or funding but will continue pursuing the test bed move until all options are exhausted. Failing to receive permission, capability or funding to move the test bed would be detrimental to the program's ability to procure a competitive acquisition and would require the AF to accept the risk associated with long term sole source contracts to the incumbent. Estimated Timeline for the move is as below: •1. 2016- 2018 - Basing Action Requests (BAR) process helps to choose a site•2. 2018-2019 - Site plans drawn up, MILCON application prepared•3. 2019 MILCON application submitted, 3400 funding POM'd•4. 2022 MILCON approved•5. 2023-2024 New site prepared, move to new site complete •C. It should be noted that the Government also investigated other options short of moving the test bed and training suite to an Air Force base, but found them to be infeasible. For example, the Government askedif it would lease its facility to another Contractor to allow access to the test bed and training suite, but declined citing space limitations. The Government also investigated relocating the test bed and training suite to a leased commercial facility, but this option proved infeasible because it did not guarantee unobstructed field of views for the ground antennas should a private commercial entity choose to build new structures near the MARK IV-B systems. This option would also require the Government to invest approximately or more in establishing secure network connections for data transfers. •XII. Certification by the Contracting Officer.The contracting officer's signature on the Coordination and Approval Document evidences that she has determined this document to be both accurate and complete to the best of her knowledge and belief (FAR 6.303-2(b)(12)). •XIII. Certification by the technical/requirements personnel.As evidenced by their signatures on the Coordination and Approval Document, the technical and/or requirements personnel have certified that any supporting data contained herein, which is their responsibility, is both accurate and complete (FAR 6.303-2(c)).
FA8823-16-R-0006 Department of the Air Force Space Command Space and Missile Systems Center
8/2/17, 4:16 PM