Air Force begins $900M prototyping vehicle on-ramp
Gettyimages.com / Andriy Onufriyenko
By
Ross Wilkers
The branch wants even wider industry participation beyond the 93 companies already involved.
The Air Force has opened up a potential 10-year, $900 million technology prototyping contract vehicle for more companies to show their interest in as part of an on-ramp process.
Proposals for the on-ramp are due to the Air Force by April 10. One important item for industry to keep in mind is that any on-ramp awards will have a shortened period to line up with the original expiration date of December 2032, the Air Force said in this Sam.gov notice Wednesday.
A total of 93 companies won seats on the contract in December 2022 with this somewhat convoluted name: Architecture and Integration Directorate Multiple Award Indefinite Quantity Contract, or AFLCMC/XA MAC IDIQ.
That directorate resides within the Air Force's Lifecycle Management Center, which is a part of the service branch's Materiel Command.
The directorate is charged with providing what it calls "innovative solutions" across the Air Force to help build a foundation for integrating new and emerging technologies into the overall operation.
For this contract specifically, the Air Force is acquiring industry support for the prototyping and development of multi-domain systems capabilities on a rapid turn so they can be transitioned quickly.
Digital engineering and synthetic training environments are of interest to the Air Force along with cybersecurity, modified hardware and software, and data models.