10--PM-SOF Survival, Support and Equipment Systems Industry information day

PM-SOF Survival, Support and Equipment Systems will be hosting an industry information day at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, Natick, MA on Thursday the 7th of May 2009. The topic of discussion will be the development of a capability or capabilities to determine if Special Operations Personnel Advanced Equipment Requirements (SPEAR) Body Armor Load Carriage System (BALCS) soft armor inserts have been compromised leading to degraded ballistic protection performance. The discussions will begin with a PM-SSES personnel brief on the requirements and detailed information on the desired capability. This will be followed by an open industry question and answer session. [Background] United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) soft armor ballistic inserts serve as a vital component of the SPEAR ballistic protection system. A mechanism does not currently exist to non-destructively evaluate the risk to performance through internal degrad ation of these vital pieces of equipment other than visual inspection (e.g. cuts, tears in the cover). Once an item is issued to the SOF user community, confidence in its ability to perform as designed may decline depending on operational use and environment. PM-SSES has determined that there is a need to develop a means of non-destructively evaluating soft armor to ensure that the users are fully protected. Some of the more common issues associated with a decrease in ballistic performance in soft armor are moisture/water contamination (through a perforation in the water proof barrier) and limited field life due to extreme environmental exposure. As well, the legacy labeling on soft armor is extremely degraded during its lifecycle making it impossible to outline the initial date of issue or manufacture. [Desired Technology] PM-SSES will be utilizing the BAA process to execute a review of any developmental technologies and capabilities that may, through further development , act as a possible technology insertion into the current soft armor program to quickly and effectively determine if they have been compromised. The desired technology must meet the interoperability need and be easily incorporated into the current SPEAR BALCS soft armor system. Additionally, the soft armor insert (with the identified technology insertion) must be able to meet all of the SPEAR BALCS soft armor performance requirements to include (but not limited to); ballistics testing, weight, environmental conditioning. Following the industry day, we will be soliciting for white papers from industry leaders from a wide variety of industries e.g. textiles, colors and dyes, sensors, etc. Vendors will have thirty (30) days to submit white papers for review to the outlined point of contact within the Natick Acquisition Center for consideration under the Broad Agency Announcement process. PLEASE NOTE NEW RESPONSE DATE OF 5 MAY 2009. Please send all responses to Mr. Jason Kruise at contact@example.gov