JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR USE OF OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION 1. Contracting Activity. Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave SW, Washington DC, 20375-5000 2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved. The proposed action is for approval to issue a sole source contract modification under contract N00173-10-C-2026 to complete the Fountainhead project. This modification will result in an approximate increase to the estimated cost and fixed fee of the contract from $94,713,285 by $1,848,000 to $96,561,285, and extend the period of performance from October 26, 2015 to April 26, 2016. 3. Description of the supplies or services. The Fountainhead project is a high risk space prototype flight development effort to evaluate the on-orbit performance of a new R&D focal plane. As the project has progressed, it has become obvious to the sponsor that the performance of the system is of sufficient quality that the development effort must be lower risk and more reliable. The project began with one prototype EM (Engineering Model) electronics set and one FM (Flight Model) electronics set. It has now evolved, by sponsor direction, into two complete EM units, additional custom test beds for Software and Operations planning, multiple additional electronic card builds, and more recently a request for a second FM set of hardware, including testing. The original project would clearly have been completed under the POP of this contract; however the sponsor-directed additional materiel requirements and quality assurance provisions have required additional hardware, software, and schedule to complete. The approval of this extension will allow the completion of these efforts without impacting the delivery of this critical hardware and software to the overall system. The technical efforts associated with this support consists of the development of more than 8 unique electronics modules that are custom designed and fabricated for this application, and integrated with flight software, mission tasking software, and test systems software to create a high performance spacecraft data, control, and routing platform. The contractor efforts include parts procurement, inspection, screening, board fabrication, assembly, analysis, software, test systems, project management, and specialized engineering. Mission operations (tasking and data analysis) software support is also provided. 4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. Section 2304 c1, as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements. 5. Rational Justifying Use of Cited Authority. Orbital Sciences is the current contractor for this effort. Their expertise with the Fountainhead project is integral to the research and development of the items currently being developed. This includes specialized design, analysis, and most importantly assembly techniques custom to the ongoing development. The contractor has developed the ability to specify, purchase, fabricate and assemble the latest in electronics parts including quad flat packs, pin grid arrays, ball grid arrays, column grid arrays, surface mount components, as well as standard thru-hole devices. Orbital has qualified processes to install column grid arrays on space flight printed wiring boards including 1,752 pin field programmable gate arrays. In addition to designing and assembling custom modules, Orbital maintains the material flow for contracted sub-assemblies integral to the overall design, including Processor and Memory modules. This makes them uniquely qualified to complete this project. Orbital Sciences has developed a base of custom test equipment and custom software necessary to validate the flight hardware under development. This is unique to the items under development and is necessary to continue the ongoing developments. The time to train new personnel on the technology and techniques required to complete the development and assembly efforts for the Fountainhead project would exceed the project schedule by at least a year and significantly increase the cost to the Government. This contract action is to complete essential work that only the current contractor can complete. 6. Description of Efforts Made to Solicit Offers from as Many Offerors as Possible. The proposed contract action is made under the terms of an existing contract that was previously synopsized in sufficient detail to comply with the requirements of FAR 5.207. Orbital had no competitors during the competitively awarded contract process for contract N00173-00-C-2026 awarded in the year 2000. They were the only offeror on a competitively awarded NRL contract (N00173-10-C-2026) that they're exe-cuting currently. A Request For Information (RFI) was posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) resulting in one vendor submitting a Capability Statement but were founded responsive but inadequate by our technical evaluation team. 7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost. The Contracting Officer will determine, thru any of the appropriate methods in FAR 15.4, that the anticipated cost to the Government for effort covered by this J&A to be Fair and reasonable. 8. Actions to Remove Barriers to Future Competition. NRL continues to proactively engage industry and solicit feedback in the future procurement of the Space Systems Prototype Development by issuing a request for information posted. Any potential future acquisition for similar services will be re-evaluated for competitive procurement. CERTIFICATIONS AND APPROVAL TECHNICAL AND REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION REQUIRED BY FAR 6.303-2(b) I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance which are included in this justification which form a basis for this justification are complete and accurate. Technical Cognizance (Signature) ___________________________ Name and Title Code Phone Date Requirements Cognizance (Signature)____________________________ Name and Title Code Phone Date CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION REQUIRED BY FAR 6.303-2(a)(12) I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to be best of my knowledge and belief. (Signature) ____________________________ Name and Title Code Phone Date APPROVAL BLOCK REQUIRED BY FAR 6.304 (see FAR 6.304 and DFAR 206.304 for Approving Official): APPROVED: (Signature)___________________________ Name and Title Code Phone Date
