Operations, Maintenance, and Sustainment Engineering Services for the Rescue 21 Coastal (R21-C) System

Purpose: This Sources Sought Notice is issued for market research purposes and solely to determine whether there are any other sources that could meet the Coast Guard's technical and schedule requirements for modification and sustainment of the Rescue 21 Coastal system. Interested companies must indicate whether they have access to General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) proprietary software elements at the beginning of their submission. Companies that believe they have the capability to sustain the existing system, with no degradation in availability, must submit a capability statement detailing how they would gain access to the support baselines and proprietary monitoring system, or replicate those services. They must detail how all modification and sustainment capabilities will be fully operational by March 2026. Companies must also detail how they would gain access to proprietary GDMS software elements or reproduce existing software. Companies must explain their design, integration, verification, testing and certification functions and provide a timeline to meet the schedule. Companies must also explain how an otherwise acceptable solution would be price competitive with GDMS. The capability statement shall also include the company's Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number, a discussion of any previous experience similar to this requirement, and a point of contact in the event the Coast Guard requires additional information. This notice does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. Proposals submitted based on this notice will not be accepted. Capability statements received prior to the closing date and time will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether a competitive procurement is possible. Please submit information via email to the Point of Contact Listed below no later than 5:00PM EST on 20 May 2024. All submitted information should be no more than 5 pages, excluding a cover page. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Description: This contract will provide the technical effort to continue sustainment of the legacy Rescue 21 Coastal system. The legacy R21 Coastal system provides simultaneous Very High Frequency (VHF)/Ultra High Frequency (UHF) communications, direction finding (DF), and digital selective calling (DSC) functionality for the Coast Guard to communicate with maritime users in the continental United States, Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Sustainment of the legacy R21 Coastal system includes all management, supervision, engineering services, personnel, labor, materials, and equipment required to perform organizational and depot level maintenance, including information assurance, system design maintenance, engineering escalation, technology refreshment, and obsolescence management. - 32 CG Sector (SCC) equipment suites (Backroom servers & (3) operator consoles per Sector) - 167 CG Station equipment suites with (1) operator console per Station/MSO/MSU - 258 Remote Fixed Facilities (RFF's) with typical configuration of 5 VHF transceivers, 1 UHF transceiver, voice & data servers, digital processors, data switches, Radio Frequency (RF) filters, RF interference mitigation, Direction Finding, equipment huts, tower, tower lighting, environmental sensor, antennas, and standby power generation subsystems. - 4 Disaster Recovery (DR) mobile equipment suites (portable RFF, portable tower/antenna, portable satellite communication suites, & portable generator suites) - 1 Disaster Recovery (DR) R21-C Sector Command Center equipment suite at CG OSC Martinsburg, WVA - 1 Rescue 21 Coastal Operator Training Simulation suite with 60 student workstations at TRACEN Petaluma, CA Sustainment of the legacy R21-Coastal system shall ensure the R21 critical functions listed below are provided at the specified availability, measured monthly within a Coast Guard Sector Area-of-Operational Responsibility (AOR). Rescue 21 Critical Functions, Operational Availability Receipt of distress and emergency alerts (VHF-FM Ch 16), 99.5% Digital Selective Calling (DSC) data, 99.5% VHF-FM Maritime Voice Communications, 99.5% UHF Voice Communications, 99.5% Protected Communications, 99.5% Caller Position Location. Single Line-of-Bearing (LOB) Information), 99.5% Archiving/Recording Functions, 99.5% Sustainment of the existing Rescue 21 Coastal System is currently sole-sourced due to its integration with GDMS support services and the proprietary nature of critical software elements. The existing Customer Care Center is integrated with user authentication, support, and depot services critical to operations. Status of the existing system is monitored, and corrections made remotely, using a proprietary software system. Media Services software, which manages all calls and is found in all elements of the system, is also proprietary to GDMS. The existing Customer Care Center is highly integrated with engineering, support, and depot services. Availability of critical capabilities must continue to be maintained at the 99.5% level (receipt of distress and emergency alerts, DSC alerts, VHF-FM maritime voice communications, UHF voice communications, position location and audio correlation) or the 95% level (protected communications). Current Government owned system technical information is limited to site drawings, Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) parts lists, high-level hardware and software design descriptions, operator manuals, and a system-level maintenance manual. Complete source code and detailed information on integrated support systems are not available. Note that system maintenance is highly dependent upon remote software image loading and equipment configuration provided by the Customer Care Center. Software and hardware changes to the legacy R21 Coastal system, which are necessary to meet system obsolescence and Coast Guard information assurance requirements, are validated prior to field deployment using three government-owned - development' and - test' equipment suites located in Scottsdale, AZ. An additional test suite in Scottsdale AZ is connected to the a - Test Domain' on the Coast Guard's private data network (i.e. CGONE) to ensure proposed information assurance patches and upgrades to the R21 Coastal system do not adversely impact CG enterprise services prior to installation of these changes at CG Sectors. Disclaimer: There is no solicitation at this time. This Sources Sought is not a request for proposals; submission of any information in response to this request is purely voluntary; the Government will not pay for any costs incurred nor is obligated to respond. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. After reviewing Sources Sought responses to this notice, and if the USCG still plans to proceed with the acquisition, a solicitation announcement may be published on the SAM.gov Contract Opportunities website or distributed to contract holders if a strategically sourced vehicle is deemed appropriate. It is the responsibility of the interested parties to monitor the Contract Opportunities website. Failure to respond or submit sufficiently detailed information may result in a company not being considered a likely offeror when making a decision on whether or how to set aside a solicitation for restricted competition. Regardless of the information submitted, the Government reserves the right to consider any arrangement as determined appropriate for this requirement.