Air Force switches award of $12B nuclear weapon support recompete
An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operation test on Feb. 23, 2021 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Photo by Carrie Campbell / U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command
By
Ross Wilkers
Guidehouse emerges as the winner of this re-evaluation after having successfully protested for at least a second chance.
The Air Force has wrapped up its year-long work to reconsider the award of a potential $12 billion systems engineering and integration contract focused on support for the U.S.' fleet of nuclear missiles.
Guidehouse has emerged as the winner in this new evaluation for the second iteration of the Integration Support Contract 2.0 over four other bidders, the Pentagon said in its Wednesday awards digest.
Which means the end result here, for now, is the Air Force going in a different direction and with someone other than the incumbent in BAE Systems' U.S. subsidiary.
BAE Systems Inc. won the original ISC contract in 2013 and initially won the recompete in the summer of 2022, an award that was successfully protested by Guidehouse and Jacobs later in the fall.
In siding with the protestors, the Government Accountability Office recommended the Air Force re-evaluate the proposals and make a new best-value tradeoff analysis after finding the evaluations of employee compensation and cost realism to be unreasonable.
But given the contract's size and specs, no one should be surprised if GAO ends up having to hear another round of protests after the Air Force explains its re-evaluation to the bidders.
At the moment: Guidehouse is poised to take over the role of lead software and systems integrator for ICBMs that includes responsibility for assessing deficiencies, providing solutions for them, managing data and transferring knowledge.
ISC 2.0 covers intercontinental ballistic missile systems such as the current Minuteman III and emerging Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.
Work under the new contract will take place over up to 18 years.