19-R-0008_Q&A_FINAL.pdf

W911W6-19-R-0008 Attachment 1 - A-Team Subsystems Technology Development & Integration Question and Answer

Q1. Page 9, Section 3.1 Award Dates references a validity date of 12 months. However, page 12, Section 5.1 Submission, references a validity date of at least 6 months from government receipt. Please clarify.

- A validity date of 12 months is desired, not required, by the Government. A validity of at least 6 months is required.

Q2. Page 17, 7.7 Contractor Support lists company name, address and support provided. Are there contracting POC emails associated with each company that can be provided?

- Please see Amendment #3 to this Call for contractor POC information.

Q3. What safety qualification, airworthiness tasks and documentation will selected Offerors be responsible for, if any?

- Safety qualification, airworthiness tasks and documentation are not part of the scope of the current Call for proposals. They only apply if an Offeror gets selected to participate in the Government's Partial Capability Demonstrations or the MSITD. If selected for either, then the Offeror will have to generate documentation that describes their product, the safety aspects of its design and operational use, its performance and test results collected to date, the operational use instructions, and any other information relevant to assessing the risk to aircraft, crew and range safety when the product is actively used. This description should also provide proper substantiation regarding the safety of their product’s installation on the aircraft. Specific tasks and documentation required will vary based on the specific product.

Q4. The cost proposal calls for Part 2 to show a breakdown by SOW task, per month. A fair estimate of SOW tasks in each subtopic is 50 and there are 33 months in the Period of Performance. That totals 1500+ individual estimates per proposal. Instead, if proposers list costs per task per quarter, the number of entries per proposal is closer to 500. Would ADD consider this modification acceptable?

- The statement in the Master BAA is asking for a monthly cost breakdown. It is up to offerors to determine whether to break it down by task or subtask. Also, one subtask may take longer than one month to complete. Offerors may not have sub-tasks that extend the entire POP. The same goes for tasks - they may be short or long. That is why the monthly breakdown is necessary to determine: 1) how offerors came up with the cost and 2) what the level of effort will be.

Q5. The schedule graphic in Appendix A shows the ST D&I Increments ending in FY 22. Additionally, the schedule graphic appears to flow into late 2022, but the PoP for this call ends in March 2022. Does that mean that software needs to be feature-complete by FY22 (specifically March 2022) and that FY 23 is primarily a support effort?

- The schedule graphic in Appendix A includes PCD and MSITD tasks that are not part of this Call.

The Government intent is to demonstrate subsystem technologies in the MSITD that are ready, as well as to continue to mature promising technologies that are not mature for any of the PCDs or the MSITD. Please refer to section 3.5 of Attachment 1 (Description of Research Effort), “The period of performance for awards on this Call is approximately July 2019 through March 2022 and is expected to vary for each individual award.” With respect to “feature complete,” please refer to the last sub-paragraph of section 2.4, which notes that “Subsystem technology development awards that have successfully progressed through the tasks required in this Call may be selected for added scope and continued effort for integration into one or more of the Government’s PCDs and/or the MSITD.” During this continued effort, those STs “selected for integration into the MSITD… will have primary responsibility to modify their product to satisfy the interface requirements provided by the MSI Leads.” The Government may also decide that there may “be innovative subsystem solutions that show promise but are not mature or ready for integration into the PCDs or MSITD,” in which case “the Government may opt to continue their maturation for future technology insertion opportunities.”

Q6. Would you please provide a bit more guidance on what STD&I how many years should be bid for this data call? For example, should the contractors bid development and demonstration for each PCD in 2020, 2021, and 2022 but not bid integration and support from 2022 and 2023 because the current PoP is 33 months? For example, MSI integration maybe difficult at this time to bid based on the MSI selected, the architecture chosen and other subsystem technologies integrated by the MSI.

- Sections 2.4, 2.5, and 7.0 in the Attachment 1 document (Description of Research Effort) offer more insight into this question. The current proposal should include only technology development and, optionally, integration and evaluation of the subsystem technology in the Government’s simulation facility. Subsystem technologies will be assessed using a variety of key performance measures during the initial period of performance, which will inform the Government’s decision to request support of Partial Capability Demonstrations and/or Mission Systems Integrated Technology Demonstration. If participation in a demonstration is requested by the Government, the awarded contract may be modified at a future date to perform the work necessary to participate in these events, and this work should not be included in the current proposal.

Q7. The FY 20 PCD falls in the middle of the Increment 1. Is that likely to shift right to align with the end of the iteration or will it instead demonstrate incremental progress toward Increment 1?

- The number and duration of increments shown in the schedule in Appendix A are only notional.

Therefore, Offerors are not required to exactly match the number and duration of increments. The Government plans to conduct the FY 20 PCD as shown on the schedule. Appendix D (Outline of Demonstration Approach) provides more information on all the PCDs and the MSITD and is available by requesting the Supplemental Information Package (SIP). Please refer to section 7.2 of Attachment 1 (A-Team ST Description of Research Effort) for information on how to request the

SIP.

Q8. Appendix A shows milestone integrations for the FORCE simulator every 6 months, but they do not seem to fall within the developmental increments at the same interval. The BAA asserts that the FORCE lab is available to vendors every 6 months. Would you specify whether the Government will establish a schedule of coordinated FORCE integrations, or does each subsystem integrate with FORCE simulator independently, thus requiring a more flexible schedule?

- The emphasis in the A-Team program is on the use of simulation facilities for the use of subsystem capability tests and demonstrations over short durations rather than human-in-the-loop evaluations or experiments that require longer periods. This is primarily to ensure that facilities are available for access by multiple contractors to test their systems. Offerors should describe their intended use of the FORCE simulator and desired schedule that best aligns with their developmental schedule. The Government will work with selected Offerors to coordinate schedules for FORCE integrations and address schedule conflicts as needed. Also, the number and duration of increments in the schedule (Appendix A) is only notional and offerors are not required to exactly match them.

Q9. Does a contractor need to submit a Small Business Subcontracting Plan along with the Cost Proposal if a bid is over $700k or is it only required if selected for award?

- Yes, however please refer to FAR 19.702(b) to determine if your agency is exempt. If not exempt, FAR 19.702(a)(1) states “In negotiated acquisitions, each solicitation of offers to perform a contract that is expected to exceed $700,000 ($1.5 million for construction) and that has subcontracting possibilities, shall require the apparently successful offeror to submit an acceptable subcontracting plan. If the apparently successful offeror fails to negotiate a subcontracting plan acceptable to the contracting officer within the time limit prescribed by the contracting officer, the offeror will be ineligible for award.”

Q10. Appendix E. Regarding the FORCE simulation reference to the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), would you please provide the version # of the FACE standard that the FORCE simulation is conformant with (e.g. 2.2, 3.0 etc.) ?

- FORCE was designed to Edition 2.1 of the FACE technical standard.

Q11. Appendix E references H264 sensor video output (page E-9). We are assuming that this is video from a UAS or ownship. Does this video output include standard MISB KLV metadata (i.e. UAS Lat/Lon/Alt, sensor pointing coordinates, etc.)?

- The H264 sensor video output provides simulated full-motion video provided by sensors on UAS and ownship platforms. This video output does not currently include embedded MISB KLV metadata. However, data typically included in this embedded metadata are available via alternative sources within FORCE (e.g., TCP messages).

Q12. The requirements for subtopic area 5.2 Operations Management and 5.4 Situation Awareness Management both make references to “avoidance” data. Can you clarify whether obstacle and threat avoidance are data interfaces for Subsystem Techs should be able to interface with, or whether avoidance should be part of the proposed technology solution?

- The answer depends on the scope of functional requirements addressed in your proposal. The Government seeks avoidance solutions. An Offeror’s proposal may or may not include avoidance as part of their proposed technology solution.

Q13. Regarding the SOW section, is the formal SOW for each subcontractor supposed to be included in Section 5 of the Technical Volume and subject to the 35 page limit?

- Yes. The only severable section is the SOW, and it is included in the page count.

Q14. Are severable sections, which are isolated on their own page, subject to the page count as well?

- Yes. The only severable section is the SOW, and it is included in the page count.

Q15. Section 3.4 in “03 A-Team ST Call Technical Requirements Final.pdf” asserts that tasks for supporting this effort do not include supporting the Government’s technology demonstrations. Are the FORCES integrations, also excluded from the technical tasks proposed in this solicitation?

- Integration into FORCE is not required, but is available for Offerors to support their development efforts if desired. Offerors who choose to integrate technologies into FORCE should include the technical tasks necessary to complete FORCE integration in the current proposal.

Q16. Call W911W6-19-R-0008 refers the format of the technical volume to the instructions provided in the Master BAA (W911W6-19-R-0012). In the Master BAA, the technical volume proposal format lists the following items as required.

• Table of Contents

• Executive Summary

• Proposal

• Performance Goals

• Detailed Technical Approach

• Statement of Research Effort and SOW, schedule and milestones

• Deliverables

• Management Plan

• Facilities

• Government-Furnished Resources

• Resumes for Key Personnel

• Security Requirements

• Assertion of Data Rights

a. Is it the government’s intent to have each one of these items above as an individual section in the technical volume? For example, the content required in the section “Proposal” seems to overlap with the section “Detailed Technical Approach” by restating the following: “The Technical Volume shall provide detail that substantiates the selection of the technologies proposed, to include benefits of the proposed technology relative to the topic objective.”

- The Government is removing the requirement to include a brief description of the proposed objective under the “Proposal” header, and is removing the header from the format for this call through this amendment. Instead, Offerors should include a brief description of the proposed objective under the executive summary header. Details go in the Detailed Technical Approach.

b. Is it the government’s intent for the proposer to have substantively similar text in both sections?

- Please see the answer above.

Q17. Will a proposal be deemed non-compliant if the proposer deviates from the subheadings provided in the Master BAA?

- While the Government may not deem a proposal as noncompliant if the Offeror has deviated from the subheadings. It is highly recommended that the format for proposals stated in the Master BAA be used. The purpose of providing the format is to assist Offerors in including all of the requisite and requested information. Additionally, the standardized format helps the Government locate this information.

Q18. Can you provide additional clarity in the Master BAA for the technical volume subheadings and the requested content?

- Please refer to section 5.2.3 of Master BAA for description of each section.

Q19. For deliverable item #2 “Subsystem Design Description”, is the intent that the purpose of the update potentially required after completion of 4.4 and 4.5 would be to fill in the architecture information not known at the completion of 4.2?

- The intent is for Offerors to describe their subsystem technology in one deliverable starting with architecture and interfaces (Task 4.2), updated next to include details of the design description (Task 4.4), and again after build and test (Task 4.5) as required by changes. Data Item Description DI-IPSC-81432A provides content instructions.