General Dynamics IT drops challenge to lost $400M NASA contract

General Dynamics IT apparently has backed away from its fight to keep a $400 million incumbent NASA contract for financial and business support services.

GDIT withdrew the protest it filed in mid-July after Colsa Corp. captured the contract to support NASA’s Shared Services Center that provides procurement, financial management, human resources and other back-office support to the agency's 10 centers and other facilities around the U.S.

The center’s services support around 80,000 people at NASA and its affiliates. GDIT could tout nearly two decades of incumbency through its acquisition of CSRA in 2018, which took on the work in 2015 after its spinout from then-parent Computer Sciences Corp.

GDIT officials declined to comment on why it withdrew the protest it filed on July 10. The Government Accountability Office's docket tags the protest as having been withdrawn on Thursday.

Companies often withdraw if they realize their chances of a successful protest are slim. They can also withdraw if they decide to take their protest to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which has greater jurisdiction than GAO.

The rarest reason for a withdrawal is when the protester and winning company reach some sort of agreement. We doubt the last possibility happened here.

We’ll track the court docket to see if GDIT moves its protest there. But for now, Colsa stands alone with the contract.