SAIC's protest over $719M NASA competition falls short

Science Applications International Corp. has lost its battle to get a second shot at a potential $719 million engineering services contract with NASA.

NASA awarded the third iteration of its Omnibus Multidiscipline Engineering Services contract in April to a joint venture created by KBR and Intuitive Machines, known as Space & Technology Solutions.

SAIC filed its protest in early May, arguing that NASA improperly evaluated proposals including the bidders' small business utilization plans. SAIC is the incumbent on OMES II, which was awarded in 2017.

The Government Accountability Office hasn’t released the decision yet, but has updated its docket showing the protest as denied on Tuesday. GAO will release a redacted version of the decision after working with NASA, the joint venture and SAIC can agree on what gets released.

The contract supports the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The contract supports programs such as the Joint Polar Satellite System and NASA’s Exploration and In-space Services project, according to GovTribe data.

Work includes systems engineering, design, study, operations, testing and verification, and other work to enable future space and science missions.

SAIC and the Space & Technology Solutions joint venture were the only two bidders on the contract.

Space & Technology Solutions' website says that with the protest over, the JV expects to be notified in the coming days to begin the transition to the new contract. The JV is specifically recruiting people currently working on the OMES II contract to join their team and continue their support for NASA.