NG_JA_Finalapproved_Redacted.pdf

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER, AIRCRAFT DIVISION

21983 BUNDY ROAD, BLDG 441

PATUXENT RIVER, MD 20670-1127

J&A_25_0033

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

FOR USE OF OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) Patuxent River, MD

2. Description of the Action Being Approved

This Justification and Approval (J&A) authorizes and approves the award of a contract on a sole source basis for the integration, testing, experimentation and engineering support of Millimeter Wave (mmW)/5G for Mesh Networking in support of global battle management command and control to Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation (NGSC).

3. Description of Supplies/Services

The contractor will support the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD R&E)�s STARRY NITE (SoTA Radio fRequencY gallium NITridE) and SHIP (System Heterogenous Integrated Packaging) programs to develop associated antenna unit and radio units. The contractor will also support the 5G Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) prototyping with the NAWCAD Rapid Prototyping Experimentation and Demonstration (RPED) Department at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland to include the resources required to support and conduct relevant experimentation to mature the technology being developed. The activity will support risk reduction and inform the various stakeholders � PMA-299, PEO(U&W), and the United States Air Force - through lab and bench testing, which may lead to aircraft integration and flight testing, in assessing the 5G ORAN prototypes and the subsequent capabilities. The vendor is to support the Government in experimentation and risk reduction activities associated with prototype advancements with specialized Antenna Units (AU) and Radio Units (RU) that supports multi-domain missions. The AU and RU contain specialized capability enhancements leveraging commercial technologies. These experiments will begin in April 2025 and conclude June 2029.

Further, the effort is to support the Department of Defense�s (DoD�s) Combined Joint All- Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) vision by leveraging commercial technologies to provide resilient, interoperable and secure information dominance solutions that take advantage of higher bandwidth and low-latency data rates and supports the DoD vision of connecting of executing this requirement without a substantial duplication of cost.

NGSC�s matured knowledge base is vital for proper testing in relevant operational environments, and their integration with the NAWCAD test infrastructure is critical for rapidly maturing the capability. NGSC has invested in their own test-as-a-service infrastructure that the program plans to leverage to risk mitigate and reduce costs. This existing infrastructure and prior performance in similar programs allow for seamless evaluation and adjustment of future capabilities.

Identifying a new vendor at this stage and conducting a competition would introduce both cost and schedule delays. Based on the previous collaboration between the Government and Industry, on the above-mentioned OTA and the incurred actuals from that effort, NAWCAD estimates approximately in duplicate costs would be added executing a competition for this effort.

A new contractor would have to reverse-engineer the previously achieved optimizations, resulting in the cost impact. Further, transferring the test support to Government only and/ or another vendor, would result in additional schedule impacts. It is estimated that executing a competition for this effort would add approximately 18 months. Identifying a new vendor at this stage would introduce unacceptable risks of technical delays, supply chain breakdowns, and the loss of critical knowledge, jeopardizing both the program�s timeline and the timeline for support to Indo-Pacific Command�s (INDO-PACOM) mission success. Moreover, the Government estimates an additional delay of approximately 12 months in order to get another vendor up to speed on the capabilities, bringing the total delay to 30 months; resulting in the urgent need to fill significant communication gaps, as identified by INDO-PACOM, not being met. No other vendor has this detailed knowledge of the specific ways in which the unique micro-electronics technologies from each foundry must be integrated to meet program specifications for the airborne, ground, surface, and space variants. The reverse-engineering required by a new contractor would result in time-consuming redesigns, which would introduce unnecessary risk to the program�s success.

6. Description of Efforts Made to Solicit Offers from as Many Offerors as Practicable

The Request for Information/Sources Sought required by DFARS PGI 206.302-1 was waived.

The proposed contract was synopsized on the SAM website on December 19, 2024, and only NGSC expressed an interest in this requirement. No additional market research was conducted because it is not practicable, for the reasons discussed in paragraph 5 above, for any company other than NGSC to provide the required supplies and services.

7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost

The Contracting Officer has determined the anticipated cost to the Government of the supplies/services covered by this J&A will be fair and reasonable.

8. Actions to Remove Barriers to Future Competition

For the reasons set forth in Paragraph 5, NAWCAD has no plans at this time to compete future contacts for the types of supplies/services covered by this document. If another potential source emerges, NAWCAD will assess whether competition for future requirements is feasible.