SOFMC TAK Technology AOI - SOF ATL-SDA.docx

Technology Area of Interest (AOI) US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) SOF Digital Applications Special Operations Forces Mission Command (SOFMC) Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) Development 01 July 2025

1. Purpose:

USSOCOM Special Operations Forces Mission Command (SOFMC) Program seeks Industry innovation and solutions for continuous development and fielding of collaborative Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) software. This initiative supports of all phases of SOFMC operations, including mission planning, rehearsal, and execution.

The program’s success hinges on integrating new capabilities and complementary tools into the existing suite of SOFMC software. The government objective is to rapidly enhance capabilities and streamline the Development Security Operations (DevSecOps) pipeline to quickly incorporate new technology that addresses emerging threats and improves battlefield awareness for mission planning.

This Technology Area of Interest (AOI) focuses on identifying novel commercial solutions with architectures and technical attributes that can be demonstrated within an estimated 8-week period, utilizing agile software development best practices and adhering to the DoD Software Acquisition Pathway (DODI 5000.87). Proposed solutions will target identified capability gaps or improve upon current capabilities.

The Government’s overarching acquisition strategy is to deliver SOFMC capabilities through an agile software development approach. This enables the rapid creation and delivery of integrated solutions leveraging DevSecOps processes and human-centered design focused products. The solutions seek constant feedback from operational units to gain user feedback and ensure development efforts meet validated requirements.

2. Background:

SOFMC’s TAK software is a critical tactical situational awareness tool that automates many aspects of joint operations, serving as a key enabler for the Special Operations Forces (SOF) operators decision cycle. It enhances force responsiveness and availability by leveraging near real-time data, advanced information management, and knowledge-based application tools with data-driven decision-making capabilities. When integrated with other fielded USSOCOM and DoD systems, tactical end-user devices, and relevant data interfaces, SOFMC provides an automated, fused mission planning and operations environment through a variety of software applications. This includes mission rehearsal, assessment and analysis, and execution applications that streamline and accelerate critical mission command activities for special operations forces.

TAK and associated TAK plug-in applications are key components of mission planning and execution systems. Originating in DoD Labs after a friendly fire incident, TAK has transformed into an ecosystem with development occurring across several DoD labs, supported by multiple programs serving as transition agents, investors, and implementation arms. TAK is now available in multiple form factors and is widely used within the DoD. The SOFMC Program develops, tailors, and fields TAK and all its variants to SOCOM users for mission planning and execution across land, air, and sea.

3. Requirements:

a. Required Technical Attributes: The Government will evaluate submittals and presentations based on their potential to replace or enhance tools within the legacy suite of software applications or bring new and novel capabilities to the program. Potential offerors SHALL identify their solution’s ability to meet the Government’s required technical attributes:

· Modular Open Systems Architecture:

· Enable machine-to-machine data transfer, minimizing manual data movement and the need for exceptions to media policy.

· Ensure interoperability within a common ecosystem of products.

· Ensure containerized software solutions are deployable across various platforms and environments

· Operate across Denied-Disconnected, Intermittent, and/or Limited Bandwidth (D-DIL) environments, providing access to planning data with and without a network connection.

· Synthesize Operational Military Battlespace Information: Receive, store, manage, and process all available battlefield information input received via manual or automated electronic means.

· Provide Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning assistance in planning to reduce cognitive load through automation for detecting, identifying, confirming, and labeling buildings/objects/routes.

· Operate on non-government furnished edge hardware without external processing requirements (e.g., Samsung S20TE or newer end user devices and GETAC S410G5, V110G7 or newer).

· Provide, at a minimum, Government Purpose Rights to enable unrestricted use of technical data, and software documentation for Government Purposes.

· Ensure integration with SOCOM Mission Planning software. To include but not limited to; ATAK, WINTAK, TAKX and WebTAK OASIS.

· Utilize Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards for export to support data sharing across software platforms.

· DEVSECOPS Pipeline: utilize tooling for cloud infrastructure, continuous integration/continuous delivery, containerization, virtual machines, monitoring, and test automation within their software development processes. Incorporate automated security scanning, automated regression testing, and review throughout the software development and delivery lifecycle.

· Leverage existing authorized DoD DevSecOps resources, or the offeror must self-certify compliance with NIST SP 800-218 (Secure Software Development Framework) and provide evidence of compliance for their own DevSecOps resources to meet the above requirements.

· Self-certify their software product complies or intends to comply with NIST SP 800-53 (Risk Management Framework) and provide evidence of compliance.

b. Desired Software Developer Technical Attributes:

· The government desires offeror processes that include agile project management and software development experience, software development platform experience, and Subject Matter Expert (SME) experience within the software development and SOF domain and will give them extensive consideration in both Phase I and Phase II evaluations.

· Offeror personnel have unique knowledge set of/experience with SOF domains, mission, and operational context to support SME level conversations, focused user centered design practices, and enable creative solutions to solve SOF specific requirements.

· Offeror may be required to provide Secret clearance to eligible personnel and provide personnel to perform security related functions to meet other security requirements.

· Intellectual Property Strategy: Government data rights are of critical importance to successful implementation of SOFMC TAK based capabilities. The Program Management (PM) team will assess intellectual property rights for both commercial off the shelf solutions with restricted data rights as well as solutions with unlimited or government purpose data rights.

· For any follow-on production award, any successful prototypes must transition to operational use on USSOCOM classified networks prior to fielding, which entails obtaining a favorable Authority to Operate (ATO) decision and ongoing cybersecurity risk acceptance for the product, along with other requirements.

4. Event Timeline:

Phase 1 – “Go/No-Go” Evaluation and Request for White Papers (6-pages) The Offeror shall submit a 6-page white paper for consideration no later than 1700 EST July 22, 2025. White paper submittals shall be no longer than 6 pages (excluding completed go/no go matrix, submitted as a separate attachment) in accordance with page size and format below and should demonstrate: an offeror’s current solution against the Government’s required technical attributes, current capability against the desired software developer technical attributes, offeror’s plan in meeting any desired/required technical attributes. Questions must be submitted NLT 3:00 EST on 15 July 2025 utilizing the question/answer matrix attached.

Phase 1, Part 1: Evaluation – “Go/No-Go Evaluation” IAW Attachment 01 (Go/No-Go Matrix) Attachment 01: Go/No-Go Matrix and the 6-Page white paper will comprise the Phase I evaluation. The government will evaluate the Go/No-Go matrix on a pass/fail basis. Any submission not satisfactory meeting all criteria listed in the Go/No-Go Matrix constitutes failure of the entire submission and the government will remove it from further consideration. Submissions successfully meeting all criteria in the Go/No-Go Matrix will receive an evaluation of 6-page white paper.

Phase I, Part 2: Evaluation – White Paper (6-page limitation): The following criteria will be used to determine whether the offeror’s proposed system is consistent with the intent of this request and of interest to the Government in continuing beyond the end of Phase 1.

· Technical Merit – feasibility and relevancy of the proposed solution to address the desired/required technical attributes in the AOI.

· If an Offeror is deemed to not meet one of the required technical attributes, the Government will forego the remainder of the white paper evaluation.

· Integration – degree to which proposed software can integrate into existing SOFMC TAK capabilities. Alignment of proposed software and interfacing of dependencies to Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) standards.

· Innovation – degree to which the government finds the Offeror’s approach to be compelling and/or the underlying technology to be unique to Special Operations.

· Per DFARS 212.70001, Innovative means—

· (1) Any technology, process, or method, including research and development, that is new as of the date of submission of a proposal; or

· (2) Any application that is new as of the date of submission of a proposal of a technology, process, or method existing as of such date.

The Government reserves the right to request further substantiating documentation about existing capabilities. IAW the AOI posting, the Government will proceed directly to Phase II (Capability/Prototype Demonstrations) after a successful Phase I evaluation.

Phase II: Capability/Prototype Demonstration:

After the first phase, the Government will solicit, and issue prototype awards to the most qualified offerors. Price fair and reasonableness will be determined on the basis of comparing proposed prices to competitive bids, historical prices paid by the Government and/or commercial customers, and/or other than certified cost and pricing data provided by the offeror. Upon prototype award, the government will issue a representative problem set for selected offerors to demonstrate their prototype capability The government will evaluate the prototypes against the Required Technical Attributes and the Desired Software Developer Technical Attributes listed above The Government anticipates making a down select to the most qualified offeror(s) based on the prototype demonstrations. Offerors invited to the prototype demonstration will demonstrate to the Government either in person or via an online platform lasting no more than 2-hours. In accordance with 10 U.S.C 4022 the OT agreement will include a provision for a potential follow-on production contract to be awarded without additional competition. Invited Offerors will be provided additional details on the date, time and location (if in person) of demonstrations.

5. Submission Instructions:

Potential Offerors must submit a White Paper no later than 1700 EST, 22 July 2025. The white paper submissions shall respond directly to the “Required Technical Attributes” and “Desired Software Developer Technical Attributes” requirements above. The Offeror should be clear, concise and include adequate detail for effective evaluation. The White Paper should not simply rephrase or restate the Governments requirements, but rather provide clear and convincing rationale to address how the Offeror intends to meet the requirements above. The White Paper should contain sufficient information to enable the Government to fully assess and determine the Offeror’s capabilities. Offerors are reminded to submit only the requested information in accordance with these instructions. Questions must be submitted NLT 3:00 EST on 15 July 2025 utilizing the question/answer matrix attached.

White papers must describe how the Offeror meets the Non-Traditional Defense Contractor requirement in accordance with 10 U.S.C 4022. If the Offeror does not meet the definition of Non-Traditional, the Offeror will need to determine the cost share with a Non-Traditional Defense Contractor.

The White Paper shall not exceed a total of six (6) letter-sized (8 ½ x 11) pages and must include appropriate classification markings if necessary. One page equals one side of a sheet of paper. Number the pages consecutively and use a 12-point font size in an easily readable font, such as Times New Roman or Arial. The 6-page limitation does not include the title page or information necessary to meet the requirements of the go/no go matrix, but if used, a table of contents, definition of acronyms, illustrations, or diagrams will count against the 6-page limit. The Government will not evaluate any materials exceeding 6 pages. Go/No-Go requirements will be submitted as a separate attachment to the White Paper and will not be included in the 6-page limitation.

Submissions shall be titled as follows: “Company Name_CAGE Code_TAK CSO AOI Submission_Date (mm-dd-year)” The White Paper shall contain:

1. Title Page (does not count against page limit) - Company Name, CAGE Code, Title, Date, Technical and Business Points of Contact, E-Mail Address, Phone, and Address.

2. Executive Summary (one page does not count against page limit) - Provide an executive summary of the technology.

3. Overview Diagram or figure – Include a visual representation of the technology solution.

4. Technology Solution: Describe the unique aspects of your technology and the proposed work as it relates to the specific AOI in accordance with Epic Statement Attachment 02.

5. Provide a notional schedule to perform an operational prototype demonstration to meet the epic statement.

6. Provide the government a plan of how the offeror intends to scale production team(s) required to annually develop, test, integrate, deploy, and sustain the requested TAK capability (capabilities). This plan should detail the team structure required, processes for managing the team(s), anticipated work location(s) to support SOCOM Enterprise and other DOD Federal entities following a 14-week Program Planning Increment cycle. Provide a statement addressing Organizational Conflict of Interest mitigation plan.

7. Describe the Software Deployment process for deploying your capability to Android for ATAK, Windows for TAKX, Virtual Machine (VM) and Kubernetes for TAK Server and WebTAK and how you plan to integrate with other applications within the SOFMC ecosystem (i.e. Application Programming Interface (API)). We will grant Tak.gov military Software Development Kit (SDK) access after we award the contract.

The Government will review White Papers to determine the most advantageous solutions/qualified offerors to the Governments requirements. One or more of the most advantageous solutions/qualified offerors may receive a prototype OTA award. The Government may award a production award to one or more offerors with successful prototype demonstrations.

6. Prototype Production Award Requirements:

Basic eligibility to receive a follow-on production contract or agreement will require the successful completion of the Phase II prototype demonstration. The follow-on contract or agreement is expected to be awarded under 1) the authorities set forth in Part V of Subtitle A of Title 10, U.S.C; 48 CFR Chapters 1 and 2; 4022(f), or 2) a similarly structured OT Agreement under the authority of 10 U.S.C 4022.

Offerors with successful prototypes may be awarded a follow-on production FAR contract or OT agreement. No award of a follow-on contract for production is guaranteed, however it is the Government’s intent to award one or more FAR contracts or OT agreements valued at up to approximately $100,000,000.00.

7. Points of Contact: All questions/request shall be directed to the points of contact listed:

Contracting/Agreements Officer:

HQ USSOCOM, SOF AT&L-KD

Attn: Christie Orlando 7701 Tampa Point Blvd MacDill AFB, FL 33621 christie.r.orlando.civ@socom.mil Phone: 813-860-4624 Contracting/Agreements Specialist

HQ USSOCOM, SOF AT&L-KD

Attn: Daniel E. Mittuch, Contractor 7701 Tampa Point Blvd MacDill AFB, FL 33621 Daniel.e.mittuch.ctr@socom.mil Phone: 931-952-0269

HQ USSOCOM, SOF AT&L-SDA SOF-MC

Acquisition Program Manager & AOR Attn: Jordan Boring 7701 Tampa Point Blvd MacDill AFB, FL 33621 Jordan.l.boring.civ@socom.mil Phone: 813-826-8922 Attachments:

Attachment 01 Go/No-Go Matrix Attachment 02 Epic Statement (AI/ML Enabled Gridded Reference Graphic (GRG))