General Dynamics takes out incumbent for $505M NOAA weather computer contract

General Dynamics IT has won a potential 10-year, $505.2 million contract to run a network of high-performance computers used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to create weather forecasting models.

NOAA technically awarded the contract to a proposal from CSRA, which GDIT acquired two years ago. A Federal Procurement Data System filing says the CSRA bid was chosen for the work over one other on Feb. 12.

This second iteration of the Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing Program contract covers work over an initial eight-year base period followed by a two-year transition period.

Solicitation documents indicate NOAA sought a contractor who could provide managed services for the WCOSS systems that process the agency’s satellite and non-satellite data, high-performance computing applications and output data.

The WCOSS network comprises of a forecasting model production suite and a transition-to-operations capability that support upgrades and development of new forecasts from research to development and then operations.

IBM is the incumbent and has booked approximately $249 million in task orders under the current contract awarded in November 2011 and slated to expire in November 2021, according to Deltek data.

That contract appears to be an expansion of another award Big Blue secured in 2002 to stand up an initial central computing system for NOAA.

For GDIT-CSRA, this is their second win of a large HPC-related job with NOAA in as many years. CSRA won a recompete two years ago of a potential $553 million contract for systems integration and operational support work.