Justification and Approval 20210219_Redacted.pdf

Justification and Approval (J&A) for Other Than Full and Open Competition

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I. Agency and Contracting Activity.

Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Directed Energy Directorate, Directed Energy Contracting Division, High Power Electromagnetics Contracting Branch (AFRL/RDKP), Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, 87117

II. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The contemplated action is for a new sole source contract for research and development to Counter Electronic High-Power Microwave Extended Range Air Base Defense (CHIMERA) prototype. The CHIMERA prototype was procured under a previous contract, (HQ0727-16-D-0006 Task Order number HQ0727-18-F-1614) awarded by the Defense Microelectronics Agency (DMEA). It is requested that approval be granted for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate to enter into a sole source contract with Raytheon Company located at 1151 E Hermans Road, Tucson, AZ 85756 (CAGE Code 15090) to conduct this effort.

The anticipated contract is a $6,000,000 C-type Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) type contract. The anticipated contract period of performance will be 15 months of technical performance followed by a 90 day reporting period.

III. Description of supplies/services required to meet agency needs (including the estimated value).

CHIMERA will conduct research to develop and demonstrate an advanced High Power Microwave (HPM) Air Base Air Defense (ABAD) System. HPM weapons can provide Combatant Commanders with a unique capability to engage multiple targets with scalable effects applicable to a variety of warfighting missions. CHIMERA will produce a transportable system that can non-kinetically defeat multiple air base threats, while providing a deep magazine and low cost per shot. Under the contemplated contract, Raytheon will take the CHIMERA prototype through tests and demonstrations to verify and validate that it performs as expected. This effort will also develop a command and control interface, develop a user interface, and demonstration of CHIMERA with and without integrated command and control interfaces, and support of the system during Air Force (AF) Directed Energy (DE) Experiment . AF DE Experiment is a department-wide test and demonstration effort, the goal of which is to gather operational prototype directed energy systems and place them in a simulated deployed environment to ascertain their usefulness and examine possible operational concepts. The development of the command and control interface and the user interface is required to participate in Experiment to prove military utility of the technology. For the command and control interface development, the Government will be pursuing unlimited rights and will accept no less than Government purpose rights for software used strictly to tie the current CHIMERA Interface Control Document (ICD) into an already existing Government owned command and control system ICD. It is to ensure that the ICD of CHIMERA and the chosen command and control system can properly talk to each other. This contract is not to produce a final version of a system for further acquisition such as low-rate production. After proving military utility of the technology, any future acquisitions would be performed by Life Cycle Management Center (LCMC) or some other Systems Program Office (SPO) organization and would involve further development of a ruggedized deployable system with limited rights. This contract will include the procurement of spare components and other ancillary items needed to conduct the experiment. The anticipated value of this contract is $6,000,000 with a technical period of performance of 15 months and a 90 day reporting period.

IV. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 USC 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1 - Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

Use of this authority may be appropriate when there is a reasonable basis to conclude that the agency's minimum needs can only be satisfied by unique supplies or services available from only one source with unique

March 2020 Page 4 of 7 capabilities or the existence of limited rights in data, patent rights, copyrights, or secret processes, or similar circumstances make the supplies or services available from only one source.

V. Demonstration that the contractor's unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited above (applicability of authority).

CHIMERA is a unique, experimental prototype designed and developed by Raytheon and AFRL under a prior contract. The technical data required to complete the test and demonstration of the prototype is proprietary to Raytheon and the Government only has limited data rights. Raytheon is the original manufacturer of the CHIMERA system, and as such has a depth of expertise and knowledge of the prototype unique to it that cannot be found elsewhere. Access to the technical data, as well as Raytheon's expertise as the original manufacturer, is essential to assure successful testing and demonstration of the prototype, which is to verify and validate that it performs as designed. This contemplated contract is primarily for the testing and demonstration of a prototype already built under a previous contract. The Government has already invested in the development of this demonstrator prototype and it would be fiscally irresponsible for the testing of the system to be incomplete. To award to any other source would require substantial time and financial resources to replicate work that has already been completed. Raytheon solely owns the technical data package for the CHIMERA prototype and, as such, they are the only source capable of procuring any spare components or maintaining the current prototype without incurring unacceptable additional costs stemming from this information being proprietary. Furthermore, Raytheon is the only source that can properly interface with the proprietary components for both the user interface development and command and control system integration.

This effort can only be accomplished by Raytheon as it owns the technical data package for the prototype which contains proprietary technology to which the Government only has limited data rights and they are the prototype's original manufacturer. Due to the proprietary technology, no other source will be able to manufacture the necessary spares, support and maintain the current prototype, or provide interfaces to the proprietary components required for proper command and control integration. As a result, this will prevent substantial duplication of costs to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition

VI. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under

FAR 5.202 applies.

Market research efforts did not reveal any other sources that has the expertise, knowledge or access to the proprietary technical data needed to conduct this effort.

A literature search was completed on 24 April 2020 for organizations who had conducted previous work in building and testing large ground-based High Power Microwave (HPM) systems. The results of the initial search yielded only work conducted by Raytheon. No other results within Industry or DoD with relevant experience were retrieved. Search results were expanded to include non-ground based HPM systems. The majority of the results were for work conducted by Raytheon. About half of the non-Raytheon results can be binned into two categories.

About 30% are not relevant because they only include individual sub-systems or components such as pulsed power or sources, but not fully integrated large ground-based HPM systems. About 20% only include studies that had no hardware associated with them. The other 50% of non-Raytheon results aren't relevant for a myriad of reasons, some of which are not being HPM, being communications, being modeling and simulation, being optics, or being effects. Based upon the information results from literature research, currently no other organizations has built and tested large ground-based HPM systems for base defense other than the current contractor, Raytheon ABQ, who is currently developing the CHIMERA prototype.

A Request for Information (RFI) was published on 06 May 2020 through beta.SAM.gov to gather information about industry capability on topics relating to transitioning CHIMERA to a program of record. The RFI listed seven topics, focusing on the test and demonstration of CHIMERA as well as all activities required to support the topics.

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The seven topics included: 1) Procurement of Spare System Components, 2) Development of Software, 3) Participate in Experimentation Campaign, 4) Support Warfighter Integration Exercise, 5) Antenna Characterization, 6) Risk Reduction Test, and 7) Design Study. Topics 1, 2, and 6 are required in support of topic 3.

Topics 4, 5, and 7 do not directly support Experiment . Topic 4 is currently not going to be pursued by the Government and Topics 5 and 7 can be accomplished without access to the technical data package. The Government program management team decided to split off these topics into separate contracts.

Six responses were received from large and small businesses. Raytheon was the only source determined capable of providing the expertise to perform the RFI topics of this proposed contract. This determination was based on Raytheon's ownership of proprietary information to which the Government has limited data rights.

In accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.201, none of the exceptions in FAR 5.202 applies and a Notice of Contract Action (NOCA) is required.

VII. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer will evaluate the sole source proposal received in accordance with FAR 15.4 to determine the proposed costs are fair and reasonable while utilizing proposal analysis techniques to make a price reasonableness determination as part of the best value determination. Additionally, the Government program office will complete a technical assessment of the proposed approach, labor hours, skill mix, subcontracts and other direct costs/travel.

VIII. Description of the market research conducted and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.

Market research efforts conducted to support this acquisition include a literature search completed on 24 April 2020 for organizations that conducted work in building & testing large ground-based HPM systems. The results of the initial search yielded only work conducted by Raytheon. No other results within industry or DoD with relevant experience were retrieved. Search results were expanded to include non-ground based HPM systems. The majority of the results were for work conducted by Raytheon. About half of the non-Raytheon results can be binned into two categories. About 30% are not relevant because they only include individual sub-systems or components such as pulsed power or sources, but not fully integrated large ground-based HPM systems. About 20% only include studies that had no hardware associated with them. The other 50% of non-Raytheon results aren't relevant for a myriad of reasons, some of which are not being HPM, being communications, being modeling and simulation, being optics, or being effects. Based upon the information results from literature research, currently no other organizations has built and tested large ground-based HPM systems for base defense other than the current contractor, Raytheon ABQ, who is currently developing the CHIMERA prototype.

An RFI was published on 06 May 2020 through beta.SAM.gov to gather information about industry capability on all topics to transition CHIMERA to a program of record. The RFI listed seven topics and focused on the test and demonstration of CHIMERA as well as all activities required to support them. This included:

Topic 1: Procurement of Spare System Components Topic 2: Development of Software Topic 3: Participate in Experimentation Campaign Topic 4: Support Warfighter Integration Exercise Topic 5: Antenna Characterization Topic 6: Risk Reduction Test Topic 7: Design Study

Six responses were received from three large and three small businesses. Based on an assessment of the RFI

March 2020 Page 6 of 7 responses only Raytheon was determined to meet the requirements of all seven topics due to ownership of proprietary information for which the Government has only limited rights. Other responders would require Raytheon's proprietary information to be able to perform the tasks.

While Raytheon was capable of performing all seven topics, market research determined that other sources were capable of performing Topics 5 and 7, which does not require access to Raytheon's proprietary data. Topics 5 and 7 will be solicited under a separate acquisition utilizing full and open competition.

Since the release of the RFI, the Government determined not to pursue Topic 4 due to the absence of available funds.

No other information searches have been conducted. A formal review of other current contracts has not been conducted.

As a result of the market research, the topics from the RFI will be split into two separate actions. A sole source award to Raytheon for Topics 1, 2, 3 and 6 (the subject of this J&A) and a separate acquisition utilizing full and open competition for Topics 5 and 7.

Through the market research techniques used, it is determined that it is in the best interest of the Government to award a sole source contract to Raytheon for RFI Topics 1, 2, 3 and 6.

IX. Any other facts supporting the use of Other Than Full and Open Competition.

None

X. List of any sources that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

The following sources expressed interest by providing a response to the RFI issued on 06 May 2020:

Raytheon Missiles and Defense, 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.

AFRL/RDH is conducting further research and development of the next generation of this capability to remove barriers to competition. This includes pursuing a separate contract that will be a full and open competition for designs of a next generation system (RFI Topics 5 and 7) where the Government will be pursuing unlimited rights and will accept no less than Government purpose rights. This new design along with adequate Government data rights should allow for full and open competition for any future work related to building and testing future generations of this technology.

XII. Certification by the Contracting Officer.

As evidenced by my signature above, I have determined this document to be both accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

XIII. Certification by the technical/requirements personnel.

As evidenced by my (our) signature(s) above, I (we) certify that any supporting data contained herein, which is my (our) responsibility, is both accurate and complete.

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