ROS Extension JA Sep2021_Redacted.pdf

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

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I. Agency and Contracting Activity.

USSF SPOC 45 CONS/PKDB

1201 Edward H. White II Street Patrick SFB FL 32925-3238

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

Approval is requested for an extension to contract FA2521-15-C-0063, Range Operations Support (ROS), by extending the contract for 12 months (01 October 2021 - 30 September 2022) with two 6-month options (01 October 2022 - 30 March 2023 and 01 April 2023 - 30 September 2023). This action will be a sole source modification extending the existing contract for up to 24 months. This extension will permit the continuation of mission critical supplies and services for all of FY22 with options to extend for all or part of FY23. This will also prevent an interruption of support, for the specified period of this extension, while the $250M Ascension runway project is being completed. It would also prevent interruption of support to Space Launch Delta (SLD) 45 Mission and Tenant Unit assets at Ascension Island and provide the agency with time to make a competitive award for the requirement under the Ascension Base Operation Support (ABOS) Contract. More specifically, this extension of ROS represents an immediate need for continued services that arises as a result of SLD 45's implementation of corrective action in response to a protest that was sustained before the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Said corrective action was subsequently protested to the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) and is currently pending a decision.

The current ROS contract is with Wolf Creek Federal Services. The hybrid contract utilizes Firm-Fixed-Price, Cost Plus-Fixed-Fee, and Cost Reimbursement contract line items. All contract options, including the option to extend services, have been exercised. The contract, originally awarded on 30 July 2015 with a $108M total contract value, included five one-year option periods with an additional six-month option IAW FAR 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services. Due to emerging Ascension Auxiliary Air Field (AAAF) and communication requirements during the first few option years, a Justification and Approval was completed on 5 April 2018 to increase the value of the total contract up to $185M. This increase in contract ceiling was to account for requirements that were not included in the original baseline as well as other requirements that were created due to mission changes. The contract contained FAR 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services, which allowed continued performance through 31 March 2021. A Justification and Approval was signed by Brigadier General Stephen Purdy on 30 March 2021 authorizing continued performance through 30 September 2021 while awaiting a protest decision concerning the follow-on acquisition, the Ascension Island Mission Services (AIMS) contract, described in more detail below.

The CONUS Communication Requirements of the ROS contract transitioned to the Eastern-Western Operational Communication Services (EWOCS) contract on 1 April 2021. The EWOCS contract was awarded on 30 December 2020 and assumed the Patrick SFB, Cape Canaveral SFS, and Vandenberg SFB communication requirements. The remainder of the ROS contract requirements (all Ascension Island requirements) were to transition to the AIMS contract.

The AIMS solicitation was released on 13 September 2019. AIMS was originally scheduled to be awarded in the summer of 2020 to allow for transition prior to the original contract expiration of 30 September 2020. Award was made on 30 June 2020 and transition was started; however, the award was terminated due to corrective action in response to a GAO protest. This termination prompted a six-month extension of the ROS contract. After corrective action was made and a subsequent SBA protest ruling was resolved, a second award of AIMS was made on 25 January 2021. In response to the second award, two GAO protests were received. While one of the two GAO protests was withdrawn, the GAO sustained the other remaining protest on 20 May 2021. The corrective action taken to resolve the most recent AIMS protest was to terminate the AIMS award, cancel the AIMS solicitation, and re-solicit the requirement as appropriate. Although this corrective action is currently in litigation at the Court of Federal Claims, SLD 45 is in the acquisition planning stage of the Ascension base operation support requirement in which SLD 45 plans to exclude the telemetry and radar tracking requirement.

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Until the ABOS contract is available to support the AAAF base operations services requirements, if the current ROS contract is not extended, mission failure at AAAF would occur. Failure to extend the ROS contract would result in shuttering AAAF as the contracted workforce is required to keep the lights on, the personnel fed, and to support all the logistics, health and safety requirements on the installation. The contract also supports US treaty obligations with the United Kingdom and failure to extend the ROS requirements would impact the ability for the US to continue meeting those treaty obligations at AAAF. In addition, the space surveillance requirements, to include the 12.15 radar, would no longer be met without the AAAF BOS requirements continuing on ROS as the mission contractors would not have the base operations support available to maintain their on-site presence at AAAF. Additionally, the $250M+ joint US and United Kingdom runway replacement project described above requires base support from the ROS contract in order to support their workforce while that contractor works to replace the only runway on the island. Failure to extend the base services provided through the ROS contract would result in significant cost impacts and delays to the joint US / United Kingdom runway replacement contract. The need to capture the requirements for the ABOS contract and seek required acquisition approvals require the twelve-month extension to the ROS contract.

The two six-month options will be available to provide additional time, if required, to mitigate acquisition delays or to resolve other unforeseen problems in FY23.

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

The preponderance of the ROS contract involves essential elements of base operations support for the Eastern Range at AAAF. The contract is responsible for executing the base services requirements while also providing support to the SLD 45 launch mission at AAAF. These services are required to continue in order to meet mission requirements.

The estimated value of extending the contract up to 24 months is $53M. This forecasted amount includes the one-year extension, two six-month options, and additional value associated with a six-month extension in runway support requirements due to delays and schedule slip in the ongoing construction contract.

AAAF is a contractor-operated tracking and instrumentation station on a volcanic-rock island in the South Atlantic nearly 5,000 miles downrange from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The contract supports AAAF non-mission communications and has the following seven major areas of base operating support responsibility:

1. Responsible for a broad range of civil engineering services, including real property management, facility engineering, and infrastructure work.

2. Provides air field management, air traffic control, air crew services, and airfield ground support services.

3. Provides a variety of public health and medical services, including the implementation of a public health program, occupational health program, and the provision of acute, routine, and emergency medical services by credentialed healthcare providers.

4. Manages and provides emergency response, emergency medical response, and fire protection services for facilities, aircraft, and personnel.

5. Provides law enforcement services for surveillance and intrusion detection.

6. Provides an emergency management program that includes disaster avoidance, mitigation, and response, along with personnel accounting procedures.

7. Responsible for managing and providing lodging, housekeeping, custodial, dining, laundry, recreation, and other related support services for government tenants, contractor personnel, and visitors.

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

10 USC 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, applies to this contracting action as only one responsible source is capable of providing the services that satisfy agency requirements.

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10 USC 2304(d)(1)(B) establishes that for the purposes of applying the other than competitive procedures in the case of follow-on contracts for the provision of highly specialized services, the services may be deemed to be available only from the original source when it is likely that award to any other source would result in unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements. In the case of the ROS extension, award to another source would result unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements. No other offeror has demonstrated the ability to perform the work under ROS starting on 1 October 2021 without subjecting the agency to risk an unacceptable delay in performance of the ROS requirements (i.e., a break in service resulting in mission failure at AAAF). Thus, 10 USC 2304(d)(1)(B) permits the agency to continue services with the original source on an other than full and open competition basis.

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

1. Only One Responsible Source (FAR 6.302-1): An extension is required to guarantee there is not a break in service for the subject contract before the follow-on contract, is competed and awarded. Given the complexity of the systems used and the required expertise in specific methodologies and disciplines that are outlined in the Performance Work Statement (PWS), only the current contractor for ROS is capable of executing performance to avoid unacceptable delays in fulfilling the full scope of the PWS requirements. Wolf Creek, the current ROS contractor, continues to maximize operational availability of critical AAAF mission essential infrastructure, facilities, and communication systems and equipment, while extending their useful operational life. Much of the base infrastructure in place at AAAF has evolved over the decades to fit the island's unique location and maintenance requirements due to the corrosive nature of the environment.

2. The highly specialized services currently provided by Wolf Creek include support to SLD 45, NASA, Space and Missile System, commercial launch customers, Air Force Research Laboratories, Navy Research Lavatories, Naval Ordnance Test Unit and other tenant agencies. These services operate and maintain fire, security, air traffic management, logistics, facility maintenance, runway repair, lodging, food services, vehicle repair, and other related services for AAAF. This specialized knowledge is required to operate and maintain services for an Air Force installation 8,000 miles from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in one of the most corrosive environments on earth. Services performed on AAAF are required to support critical space surveillance, space launch tracking and AFRICOM flight operations.

3. Wolf Creek is the only contractor that is capable of performing the work on AAAF by 1 October 2021. It would take a minimum of 12 months to compete and award this requirement and the competition for the extension would run simultaneously with the competition for the follow-on contract dividing resources for both the offeror and the Government evaluation team. It would take any other contractor at least 60 days to transition in order to complete hiring, inventory property, and to set up accounting systems and needed logistics with current flight and COVID quarantine restrictions. Due to the vast isolation of Ascension Island, on-boarding new contractor personnel and in-processing them at Ascension Island is a relatively slow process. In particular, Ascension Island currently has a COVID-19 quarantine period of 8-14 days for individuals traveling to the island and flights to the island occur approximately every 14 days with approximately 14 seats at most available to contractor personnel. Given such travel limitations coupled with the complexity of the PWS, no other company is capable of completing the necessary transition requirements by 1 October 2021.

4. Award to any other source would cause unacceptable delays in fulfilling the USAF/USSF requirements.

Completion of a competitive short-term interim contract cannot be completed by the time the current contract expires on 30 September 2021. Inability to increase the contract term would result in critical mission impacts. In particular, it would cause the following impacts:

i. Inability to provide logistics, base support, lodging and meals to 200+ runway support contractors currently supporting the $250M runway contract. Due to the remoteness of the island, no other existing

April 2021 Page 5 of 6April 2021 Page 5 of 6 facilities or mess accommodations can be acquired to support this workforce. Loss of contract support would greatly impact overall schedule and cost of the runway project because all base support requirements are provided by the ROS, and the subsequent follow-on contract.

ii. Inability to hire specialized / skill labor to support evolving runway support requirements. Due to the remoteness of the location, hiring process for new employees can require significant time and logistics which is not feasible during a short-term bridge contract. SLD 45 does not have organic capability to support launches from AAAF and relies on contractor support for critical space launch efforts. The USAF only has three AF members on the island and fully relies on the ROS contractor workforce to support AAAF base services and facilities.

iii. Disruption to AAAF base operations would result in facility outages and the failure to provide critical logistics, lodging, power, communications and food services. This disruption would also lead to the inability of AAAF to continue space tracking, launch tracking and to provide AFRICOM support.

5. The incumbent contractor, Wolf Creek, is the only company capable of providing the supplies and services described in Section III above without creating unreasonable delays to the ongoing runway contract or disruptions that would result in unacceptable delays in fulfilling range requirements.

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 was accomplished through a synopsis published on 14 July 2021 on www.sam.gov. One response was received to the notice of contract action; however, the offeror was deemed not capable of meeting the requirements in the time required. While the response indicated a capability to perform the services contemplated under this extension of ROS, the response did not articulate how it would do so within the timeframe needed for the services to begin, even after specifically requesting that the interested offeror provide more information addressing the transition timeline. Thus, while another offeror could theoretically perform the underlying services, the agency is unaware of any offeror other than Wolf Creek who could perform the services within the stated timeline without introducing unacceptable risk and/or delay.

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

Since this is a request for continuation of the existing contract, the Contracting Officer will determine fair and reasonable cost/price in accordance with FAR 15.4. The cost/price analysis will be based on historical costs incurred, certified cost and pricing data, the independent government cost estimate, technical evaluations, and audit support from the Defense Contract Audit Agency, as appropriate.

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

As described in Section VI above

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

None

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

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.

The agency originally competed the ROS contract that resulted in award to Wolf Creek. The follow-on contract, AIMS, has been in litigation and is currently awaiting a decision from the Court of Federal Claims concerning the agency's decision to cancel the AIMS solicitation and resolicit the Ascension Island requirements under ABOS as a result of requirement changes that have occurred since the initial AIMS solicitation was posted in September 2019.

The agency anticipates robust competition for ABOS.

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 signature above, I certify that any supporting data contained herein, which is my responsibility, is both accurate and complete.