Air Force makes awards on $900M tech prototyping vehicle

The Air Force has selected nearly eight dozen companies for positions on a potential 10-year, $900 million contract vehicle for broad technology prototyping and development services focused on multi-domain systems capabilities.

A total of 92 firms won seats on the contract and only two other proposals did not receive an award, the Defense Department said in its Friday awards digest with the full list of winners.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Subsequent to this story's posting, the Pentagon added Microsoft to the pool of awardees as stated in DOD's Dec. 19 contracts digest)

Companies will compete for work to study technologies and systems, conduct regularly-scheduled demonstrations, rapid development and prototyping, and to help in transition efforts.

Solicitation documents released in March outline how the Air Force is particularly interested in digital engineering, plus efforts related to synthetic testing and training.

Cybersecurity, modified hardware and software, and data models are among the key focus areas within the program's digital engineering aspect.

The synthetic development environment will encompass hardware and software solutions to support training across more than one security level and geographic location.

The contract is a brand new requirement with no incumbent.