Air Force Research Laboratory brings $10B vehicle back from the dead
Gettyimages.com / Yuichiro Chino
By
Ross Wilkers
The lab's goal for the multiple-award vehicle remains the same: hire a group of companies that can help in unclassified research-and-development efforts, as well as tech transition.
The Air Force Research Laboratory has resurrected a potential $10 billion science and technology contract vehicle exactly one month after telling industry it cancelled the effort.
At that time in January, AFRL said it pulled the plug on its AMAC multiple-award contract to reassess the requirements and acquisition strategy. AFRL told industry this roughly eight weeks after proposals were due.
In reading the new draft solicitation posted Wednesday, AFRL is maintaining the AMAC vehicle’s basic vision and structure as covering a wide range of efforts in unclassified research-and-development.
AFRL is running this procurement on behalf of both the Air Force and Space Force, which are seeking to hire a pool of companies that can characterize new technologies and systems concepts.
Contractors will also be tasked with enabling transitions of new science and tech capabilities via prototyping or other methods to ensure those solutions are fielded quickly.
AFRL’s key technology areas of interest include the air domain, space domain, cybersecurity and electronic warfare, solutions that cut across multiple domains, and basic research.
The contract’s core work areas break out as follows:
- Basic and applied research
- Data science and analytics
- Technology development
- Digital architecture, via model-based systems engineering
- Modeling and simulation
- Manufacturing and fabrication
- Experimentation and testbed development
- Integration and demonstration
- Technology transition to military capabilities
Responses to the draft request for proposals are due by 4 p.m. Eastern time on June 15.