July 07, 2003

Contracts Awarded

Army Consolidates Transportation Information Continuing to work toward a single transportation information system, the U.S. Army has awarded a contract for system integration, information processing and other services for its Transportation Information Systems (TIS) program. The TIS program is responsible for four major systems: the Transportation Coordinator’s Automated Information for Movement System (TC-AIMS II), Automated Airload Planning, the Transportation Coordinator Automated Command and Control Information System, and the Transportation Information Systems–Theater Operations. TC-AIMS II, the largest of the four, will ultimately incorporate the functions of the other three. Under the $146 million contract, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), El Segundo, California, will develop and deploy blocks three, four and five of TC-AIMS II; integrate the Army’s multiple transportation information systems into a single enterprise management system; and provide personnel and services for the TIS integration support program. Activities include local area network implementation, configuration management, software and hardware maintenance, network and enterprise systems management, integration, help desk, disaster recovery, software development and training. The CSC team includes Anteon and SRA, both of Fairfax, Virginia; Binary Consulting, Bethesda, Maryland; A&T Systems, Raleigh, North Carolina; BBN, Arlington, Virginia; and Software ADE Incorporated, Vienna, Virginia.   Merger Agreement Terminated Lockheed Martin Corporation has opted out of a deal to merge with the Titan Corporation. The decision followed several attempts to salvage the merger by extending the deadline for Titan to meet closing conditions concerning allegations that Titan consultants had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The two companies entered into a merger agreement in September of 2003, and in February of 2004, Titan announced that it was under investigation for bribing foreign officials. In April, the companies amended the agreement. Titan was to either obtain written confirmation from the Department of Justice that the matter is resolved and that the department will not pursue any claims against Titan, or Titan must have entered into a plea agreement and completed the sentencing process by June 25. Titan failed to resolve the issue, and Lockheed Martin terminated the merger agreement on June 26. Lockheed Martin is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and Titan is in San Diego.   Wireless Priority Service To ensure that federal, state and local government leaders and critical private sector decision makers have priority wireless service during crises, the National Communications System, Arlington, Virginia, has reached an agreement with Nextel Communications Incorporated, Reston, Virginia, to improve emergency communications for authorized users. The wireless priority service is to be fully deployed across Nextel’s network by the end of 2004. The National Communications System is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate and is responsible for ensuring the availability of a viable national security and emergency preparedness communications infrastructure.   Force Management The U.S. Army is seeking to develop an integrated force management system to assist in transforming itself into a highly modular organization of mobile and versatile forces. The goal for the new force management system is to streamline the Army’s force management process, greatly reduce the workload required to develop the force structure and then quickly reconcile the doctrinal force structure to budget constraints. In 2002, SRA International Incorporated, Fairfax, Virginia, developed and deployed an interim system, the Structure and Manpower Allocation System, now in-use. Under a $22.5 million contract, the company will integrate four existing systems and implement improved business processes to create a single force management system. SRA also will sustain operation of the current information systems during the migration to the new system. The SRA team in the project includes CACI International Incorporated, Arlington, Virginia; Richard S. Carson & Associates Incorporated, Bethesda, Maryland; and Northrop Grumman Corporation, Los Angeles.   Reliability Testing for Naval Aircraft Capitalizing on its expertise in the prediction of aging aircraft component failure, ManTech International Corporation, Fairfax, Virginia, has won a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division to support the U.S. Naval Air System Command (NAVAIR) Engineering Department. ManTech will provide reliability, maintainability, testability, quality assurance as well as diagnostic and system safety analysis during the design, development, production and in-service cycle of naval aircraft. Work for the $49.8 million contract will be performed at NAVAIR locations in Patuxent River, Maryland; Lakehurst, New Jersey; and Lexington Park, Maryland.   Secure Communications for DHS Northrop Grumman Information Technology and Raytheon Company will be working together to provide the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a modern infrastructure for secure communication of classified information. DHS selected Northrop Grumman to design, implement and operate the Homeland Secure Data Network (HSDN) project. Northrop Grumman has hired Raytheon to provide the information security systems for the program. The contract vehicle is the Millennia Government Wide Acquisition Contract administered by the General Services Administration Federal Technology Service. Northrop Grumman Information Technology is located in Herndon, Virginia, and Raytheon Company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.   Business Continuity Planning Robbins-Gioia LLC, Alexandria, Virginia, will be partnering with RecoveryPlanner.com, Shelton, Connecticut, to provide comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for both private and public sector entities. RecoveryPlanner’s scenario-based tool focuses individuals on their appropriate responses. Robbins-Gioia concentrates its work on impact and risk analyses, business-process documentation, determination of recovery alternatives, risk management and contingency planning, activation, and ongoing testing. In making this announcement, Robbins-Gioia officials cited a General Accounting Office study documenting progress in 34 executive branch continuity of operations plans. Fifty percent of the plans failed to prioritize essential agency functions. Less than 30 percent identified mission-critical systems and data. Three agencies had no plan at all.   Software Defined Radio Research Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tennessee, has selected Spectrum Signal Processing Incorporated’s software defined radio (SDR) platform for research on the potential of SDR. ORNL researchers will use Spectrum’s flexComm SDR-3000 platform to demonstrate multistandard radio frequency identification readers. The platform comprises high-performance field-programmable gate arrays from Xilinx, PowerPC processors from Motorola and IBM, a preconfigured Wind River VxWorks operating system and Harris’ software communications architecture core framework. Spectrum Signal Processing (USA) Incorporated is located in Columbia, Maryland.   Secure Wireless The National Security Agency (NSA) has ordered $1.2 million worth of SecNet 11 Plus, Harris Corporation’s secure wireless local area network product. SecNet 11 Plus is an NSA-certified, 802.11b wireless network interface card that employs type 1 cryptography to deliver secure data, video and voice over Internet protocol at the secret level at a data rate of 11 megabits per second. Harris will supply the cards as well as wireless bridges and auxiliary equipment such as cables to U.S. government departments or agencies and their contractors, NATO, and foreign military customers with valid communications security accounts through the NSA. The five-year contract has a potential value of $23 million.   Gun-Hardened Sensors Navigation systems for precision long-range hypersonic projectiles are being developed to function when global positioning system guidance is unavailable or jammed. Archangel Systems Incorporated, Auburn, Alabama, is in phase three of a Small Business Innovative Research Program contract with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Virginia, for research and development of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) annular rotating sensor (MARS) gun hardening. Gun-hardened means that a device is designed to survive and operate after being fired from a gun. The goal of the project is to enable construction of extremely accurate and durable inertial measurement units. The phase three contract with a $10 million ceiling entails expanding the technology to a more usable form that can become an integral part of ongoing Navy development efforts. Work will be performed in Auburn and is expected to be completed by June 2009. The Naval Surface Warfare Center administers the contract for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.   Air Traffic Management The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is moving forward with plans to modernize portions of the National Airspace System. Computer Sciences Corporation, El Segundo, California, which built the FAA’s current traffic flow management system, will establish an open architecture platform and upgrade the core elements of the existing system. The company also will network fragmented components of the FAA’s information technology infrastructure and assist in re-engineering the traffic flow management business processes. CSC envisions 80 percent of the work to focus on modernization of current infrastructure and functionality, and the remaining work will involve adding new functionality to the system. The initial design phase of the contract is valued at $13.5 million. The total potential value of the performance-based contract is estimated to be $589 million.