BUSINESS JUSTIFICATION FOR GALILEO 2025.docx

This is a Business Justification for Sole Source Procurement document prepared by the Gulf Coast Geospatial Center, located in Long Beach, Mississippi, dated October 15, 2025. The document requests approval to procure Airborne Remote-Sensing services from Galileo Group for coastal and seagrass habitat assessment along the Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida Gulf coasts. The mission requires deployment of a high-precision hyperspectral imaging sensor with an integrated inertial measurement unit (IMU), airborne control computers, and current OEM calibration. The project must be mobilized immediately to meet an early-November operational window, with Galileo Group identified as the sole vendor capable of meeting all technical requirements within the required timeframe.

Galileo Group possesses a fully mobilized, ready-to-deploy system with current calibration documentation and immediate aircraft availability. The vendor's personnel hold unique technical expertise in coastal and aquatic vegetation mapping, large-scale environmental monitoring, and rapid analytical data product delivery, with extensive project history surveying seagrass, submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), and related habitat types across multiple U.S. coastal regions and inland waterways. The justification emphasizes that the specialized combination of sensor readiness, calibration currency, technical expertise, and deployment capability cannot be replicated by competing vendors within the seasonal window. The document indicates that competitive procurement would risk missing the November operational opportunity and compromise the scientific value of the resulting data. Debra Armstead, Business Services Manager, authorized the justification.