Peraton gets second shot at $655M AF contract

Peraton has prevailed in its protest of a $655 million Air Force award for services that support its space mission.

The contract was won by Engility (now part of Science Applications International Corp.) in late January. Peraton filed its protest on March 5 after going through the new enhanced debriefing process that the Defense Department is using.

On June 11, the Government Accountability Office announced that it had sustained the protest, meaning it sided with Peraton’s argument. The written decision hasn’t been released yet so few details available.

I do know that Peraton was challenging how the evaluation and the best-value tradeoff were conducted, but that’s about it.

I’ve gotten no response from Peraton’s lawyer or the company and GAO isn’t saying much at this point beyond the information on the public docket. A GAO spokesman said that the decision is still under a protective order as the companies and the Air Force hash out what can be publicly released.

Generally in these cases, GAO recommends that the government re-evaluate proposals in light of GAO’s findings. That doesn’t mean an automatic win for the protester.

Other times, GAO recommends that the agency correct specific mistakes (mistakes according to GAO) and ask for new proposals. Again, no guarantee that the protester ultimately ends up with the award.

Given the size of this contract -- $655 million over seven years – and the mission, I’m sure Engility/SAIC is just as anxious as Peraton to be the ultimate winner.

The contract is known as the Engineering, Development, Integration and Sustainment Contract, or EDIS. Lockheed Martin was the incumbent on the predecessor contract but the Air Force expanded the scope of the work under EDIS. It will support the Space Enterprise Vision and the related Enterprise Ground Services requirements. The Space Enterprise Vision is the Air Force’s strategy to improve the resiliency of the space domain in case a conflict expands to space.