NRO rethinking classified research contract
By
Nick Wakeman
After a pair of protests, the National Reconnaissance Office is rethinking some portions of a classified research broad agency announcement.
The National Reconnaissance Office is taking action to correct problems it apparently sees with a competition for a large, multiple-award research contract.
ManTech International and General Dynamics IT protested over how they were left off the broad agency announcement to support the Fiscal 2020 Director’s Innovation Initiative Program. Their protests were dismissed last month: a clear indication that the NRO is taking a corrective action.
The work is classified so I haven’t been able to find much out about it outside of a GovTribe post from 2019 that describes the work in general terms: remote sensing, apertures, communications, system design, and “other disruptive concepts and technologies.”
Given that it is the NRO, a fair assumption is that the technologies are satellite-related -- either for payloads, ground system and links in between.
Multiple companies and entities such as academia and not-for-profit organizations were expected to bid on the BAA.
No word yet on who the winners of the BAA are or how the protests affected their work.
Protests over classified contracts go first to the agency to determine what GAO and lawyers for the protesters are allowed to see. The protests were filed March 18 and dismissed April 9, but it is unclear how far into the process it got before the NRO decided on its corrective action.