RFI-Drone CLT

United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is conducting market research in accordance with FAR 15.101. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP).

The government is in the early acquisition planning stage and all activities at this time are considered market research. THIS SOURCES SOUGHT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. As stipulated in FAR 15.101, responses to this notice are not considered offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. This Sources Sought Notice is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information submitted in response. Respondents will not be notified of the results of any Government assessments. The information received will be utilized to assist in formulating the acquisition strategy. No classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. Responders are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this announcement and information submitted in response to this Sources Sought will not be returned. The information obtained through this Sources Sought is to obtain market information and capabilities. Responses will assist the Government in determining potential responsible sources and determining appropriate strategies to meet the Agency's requirements.

PURPOSE: Market research is being conducted to better understand industry capability and the levels of current expertise in performing spiral development, engineering services, and production of a SOF-peculiar munition.

The Headquarters (HQ) USSOCOM Special Operations Forces (SOF), Acquisition, Technology & Logistics (AT&L), Program Executive Office-Fixed Wing (PEO-FW) is performing market research to understand Industry capability to manufacture and employ Group 1 and/or Group 2 Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) from the Common Launch Tube utilized across SOF Air platforms.

Interested participants are requested to follow submission guidelines described to minimize expending extensive effort in preparing a "White Paper" that may not be considered or submitting unneeded proprietary information. All proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with FAR 3.104.

Respondents should include the following information in White Paper at minimum:

• Provide your company’s name, mailing address, CAGE code, DUNS identification number, Point of Contact (POC), telephone number, and email address.
• Clearly identify any proprietary data on the cover sheet and in the white paper body.
• Identify any available contract vehicles your organization currently holds (i.e. GSA Schedule, GWACs, etc.) with USSOCOM as well as the contract vehicle number(s).
• Describe your organization’s experience and capability with incorporating Agile practices in spiral, rapid development, engineering services, and production of a SOF-peculiar munition.
• Identify notional technical and programmatic processes used for engineering design and manufacturing and associated risks in process.
• Describe your organization’s systems analysis & design, requirements management, peer reviews, build, installation, integration, delivery, quality, test, evaluation, and configuration management plans processes.

• Describe your systems’ current MOSA (Modular Open Systems Approach) and WOSA (Weapon Open Systems Architecture) compatibility, to include any government assessment of your system
• Provide a notional timeline from organization’s past experience to deliver either a clean sheet design or build upon similar in-house capability.
• Provide a manufacturing assessment (Maturity level) and monthly manufacturing capability at start up and once line is established
• Provide a notional manpower requirement for the design and manufacturing phases.

Submitters should clearly indicate capability to design and manufacture an air-launch vehicle that has the following basic characteristics:

Employment method: Release from SOF fixed-wing air platforms utilizing the Common Launch Tube (CLT)

Munition Weight: Not-to-exceed 55 lbs

System form factor:

    For CLT form factor: 5.9 inch diameter, 42 inches max overall length

Seeker Assembly: Passive system (limited Radio Frequency emissions) with integrated Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) preferred

Warhead/payload weight: maximize kinetic warhead in conjunction with munition NTE weight

Payload: Electro-optical (EO) cameras, infrared (IR) sensors, warheads, or communication equipment

Employment Environment:

    Airspeed release window – 120 KTAS – 300 KTAS

    Altitude release window – 5000 Feet AGL – 35000 Feet MSL

    Contested and non-Contested with Intra Platform Communications

Minimum TRL 6

Describe any AltPNT technologies currently integrated, tested and planned

Range: min 75NM from launch point to loitering point

Loitering Time: min 40min once reaching loitering point at altitudes between 500-3000 AGL

Speed: 50 -100 kts cruise and loitering, 100kts+ minimum dash speed on attack profile

C2 Integration: System shall support government-owned FANTOM Core collaborative mission autonomy to command and control the platform flight controller via a machine-to-machine (M2M) API and/or C2 integration via BMS (Battle Management System)

Logical/electrical Interface Capability: Identify compatibly, with substantiation, of BMS Generic Canister  

Environmental Profile:

    Temperature: -40F to 135F

    Vibration: MIL-STD-810H, Category 8, 6-Bladed C-130

    Shock: Survives 2 foot drop test

    No icing environment

Mission Profile: Pre-planned routing with altitude changes and/or direct-to loiter point

Cost target: Best value at quantity points of 500, 1000, 3000 (ROM level costing sufficient)

Whitepapers should not exceed 10 pages. Submitted Unclassified white papers are discouraged from being marketing in nature. The HQ USSOCOM SOF AT&L PEO-FW office is looking for true innovative, out-of-the-box thinking, conceptual approaches, and ideas on how industry can expediently design, manufacture and deliver stated capabilities.

A Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimate is requested to evaluate the integration of an ALM onto a SOF platform for a capability demonstration. This estimate is intended for initial planning purposes only.

Scope: The ROM should address cost, schedule, assumptions/constraints, risks and any government furnished equipment (GFE) required for the following Efforts:

1. A single demonstration for evaluation on the AC-130J Ghostrider or another SOF platform utilizing CLTs.

White papers will be accepted for 30 days after date of RFI posting and can be submitted via email to the following:

Primary POC

Amy Chauvin, HQ USSOCOM SOFAT&L, KO

amy.e.chauvin.civ@socom.mil, (813) 939-2818