Sounding Rocket Program 3

The Department of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded this Master IDIQ on March 19, 2008, for suborbital launch services of ballistic targets and orbital launch services for small payloads (0–400 pounds) to low earth orbit under the Small Rocket Program. Ordering closed on March 16, 2015, and the vehicle is no longer active; the last task order was awarded in September 2016 as a final closeout delivery against the ordering period. Sounding Rocket Program 4, awarded in November 2018, is the successor vehicle.

Nineteen task orders have been awarded with a combined potential value of $340 million, of which $312.2 million (92%) has been obligated. Activity was heaviest in 2012 and 2014, with four orders each year; ordering momentum slowed thereafter. The vehicle's scope ranges from concept studies (typically $50,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee awards) to major development and integration efforts, exemplified by a $196.6 million NASA Orion Abort Test Booster development contract and a $51.8 million Patriot test-range platform order.

Competition is highly concentrated. Aerojet Rocketdyne Coleman Aerospace Inc. holds a single but enormous order worth $196.6 million in potential value; Orbital Sciences LLC leads by order count with nine awards totaling $139.2 million in combined potential value. ATK Launch Systems LLC, L3 Technologies, Inc., and Space Vector, LLC account for the remaining three awards each. All 19 orders were issued under unrestricted competition with no set-aside designations.

Customer concentration mirrors the prime concentration. The Space and Missile Systems Center itself funded 11 orders (the primary customer, with $140.2 million in combined potential value), while the Air Force Materiel Command Research Laboratory funded six orders. The Missile Defense Agency funded one order valued at $196.6 million. All work was conducted under cost-plus contracts, either fixed-fee or cost-plus-incentive structures.

Since ordering authority expired in 2015 and no new awards are possible, this vehicle offers no current pursuit opportunity; it exists only as a reference point for understanding Air Force sounding rocket and launch-vehicle acquisition patterns under its successor program.

The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Launch Systems Enterprise, Experimental Launch and Test Division (SMC/LEX), Rocket Systems Launch Program (RSLP), Kirtland AFB, NM, has awarded a Master IDIQ for suborbital launch services of ballistic targets, and orbital launch services for small (0-400lb) payloads to low earth orbit under the auspices of the Small Rocket Program (SRP)-4.