Air Force gives small businesses 3 days to respond to nuclear systems contract
A Minuteman missile on display at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in western South Dakota. Gettyimages.com/zrfphoto
By
Nick Wakeman
The contract nuclear missile engineering support has a compressed timeline from the initial sources sought notice to award.
The Air Force command overseeing nuclear deterrence operations has kicked off the recompete process for a small business contract to provide systems engineering support.
But if you want to shape this opportunity, you have to act fast. The Air Force Global Strike Command released the sources sought notice on Tuesday and it has a Friday deadline for responses.
A small business joint venture, SierTek-Peerless JV, holds the current contract. SierTek is an 8(a) firm headquartered in Beavercreek, Ohio and Peerless Technologies Corp. is a small business whose hub is in Fairborn, Ohio.
SierTek-Peerless JV won the current contract as a task order under OASIS Small Business vehicle. The sources sought notice and the performance work statement do not specify a contract vehicle, but do refer to OASIS labor categories.
The contract's core mission is to support command and control infrastructure for U.S. land-based nuclear weapons, specifically the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles and the transition to the new Sentinel ICBM system.
Key areas of support include ICBM operations such as software systems for targeting, launch and emergency war orders.
Other lines of work include include test and analysis, nuclear security and modernization planning for the transition to the Sentinel.
The contract will have one-year base and four one-year option periods. The Air Force is structuring the contract as a commercial firm-fixed-price contract, even though it involves highly specialized classified work. A value has not been disclosed, but Deltek data indicates the current contract has brought in over $20 million to SierTek-Peerless JV.
The quick turnaround on the sources sought notice is matched by the planned contract award timeline. The Air Force expects the new contract to begin on March 28.
That compressed schedule indicates that the Air Force already has a good sense of who the qualified bidders may be.