GSA on track with $3.5B satcom contract

Commercial satellite communications contractors had until 4:30 p.m. Aug. 12 to submit their bids for a slice of the $3.5 billion Custom Satcom Solutions acquisition.

Dubbed CS2, the multiple-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity program is part of the larger Future Commercial Satcom Services Acquisition (FCSA) and will be divided between CS2 Full and Open ($2.6 billion) and CS2 Small Business ($900 million).

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“Our target date for awards remains the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011,” said Kevin Gallo, satcom services program manager at the General Services Administration.

GSA and the Defense Information Systems Agency spent three years planning the joint procurement, which encompasses three expiring satcom contracts: DISA’s Defense Information System Network Satellite Transmission Service-Global, the agency's Inmarsat contract and GSA’s Satcom-II.

Overall, “the FCSA program is rapidly advancing,” Gallo said.

GSA has been receiving offers on the Federal Supply Schedules part of FCSA, he added. “We are currently evaluating the received offers, and we fully expect to make the first Schedule 70 contract awards later this year for both the ComSatCom Transponded Capacity and the Subscription Services Special Item Numbers 132-54 and 132-55."

“We know that DISA wants to issue task orders later this year, and we plan to be ready for them as well as for orders from other agencies,” Gallo said.

After soliciting and reviewing public comments on the CS2 program, “we modified the final [requests for proposals] where we deemed appropriate,” he said.

However, he added, “we have not modified the acquisition strategy.”