US NDC Purchase Order

Solicitation Number: FA7022-15-T-0003 Notice Type Award Notice Synopsis: NOTICE OF AWARD: The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) Treaty Monitoring (TT) Directorate, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, Contracting Office 25 AF/PK solicited and negotiated with one source to Leidos. The statutory authority for this acquisition is 10 U.S.C 2304(c) (1) as implemented by FAR 6.302-1. In accordance with FAR 6.302-1 (b) (1) (ii), only one source is available for this acquisition, to support the detection, location, identification, assessment, and reporting of nuclear detonations through seismic arrays, infrasonic detectors, and hydroacoustic arrays. The scope of this specific effort is (1) to sustain current US NDC system (24x7 mission system) which includes the operational subsystem, alternate subsystem and training subsystem, (2) to maintain geophysical data acquisition, data processing, reporting and archiving capability for the United States Atomic Energy Detection System (USAEDS) operated by the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC); (3) to acquire data from a global network of seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasonic stations; and (4) to receive, process, archive and report events of interest in monitoring nuclear treaty requirements. The contractor shall perform highly specialized services to support mission-critical 24x7 operations sustainment of the US NDC, thus preserving essential treaty monitoring functions. This justification is based on the Government's requirement for the original provider of the contracted services to perform a continuation of services from contract FA7022-11-C-0006, which is currently in an extension of services under FAR 52.217-8, and, therefore, only one responsible source is capable of satisfying agency requirements in aiding AFTAC/TT in its mission of monitoring nuclear test ban treaties. The current US NDC software, now 20+ years old, originally was written and now maintained by Leidos, contains over 1.2 million lines of code, is written in nearly a dozen different programming languages, and includes many components that require unique expertise to maintain and support the US NDC mission. Because of the complexity created by how this software has been maintained over the years, awarding to any company other than Leidos would create an unacceptable risk of mission failure. Since AFTAC, at this time is not positioned to completely replace the US NDC software, it has come to the point that the only way another company could successfully provide the critical software support would be to either subcontract with Leidos, or directly hire via incumbent capture the current Leidos employees who understand this complex software system. The inability for any contractor to perform software maintenance on the first day of the contract will severely degrade AFTAC's ability to perform its treaty monitoring mission. Therefore, this acquisition is in direct support of these highly specialized professional services, i.e. experience with and knowledge of a multi-location seismic, infrasonic, and hydroacoustic data acquisition, processing, and analysis system to include hardware and software requirements, research and operational elements. Redacted J&A is Attached.