Air Force plans $1.5b systems integration
Within days, Air Force officials plan to release a request for proposals for a $1.5 billion, 15-year outsourcing contract to integrate the North American Aerospace Defense Command and Space Command's air, missile and space warning systems.
By Bill Murray
GCN Staff
Within days, Air Force officials plan to release a request for proposals for a $1.5 billion, 15-year outsourcing contract to integrate the North American Aerospace Defense Command and Space Command's air, missile and space warning systems.
Bids for the Integrated Space Command and Control Program (ISC2) contract will be due within 30 days of the RFP's release, and Air Force officials will select two finalists by Dec. 17, said Don Andres, a TRW Inc. vice president and that company's ISC2 program manager.
After a five-month, $2.5 million fly-off during which both vendors will work on-site at the Air Force's Cheyenne Mountain facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., site of the Space Command headquarters, officials plan to award a single ISC2 contract in May, he said.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co. and TRW officials said their companies will bid on ISC2. The chosen vendor will write an interface with the National Missile Defense Program and integrate 40 proprietary systems while assuring mission integrity, Andres said.
'In some cases, migration to Microsoft Windows NT will be considered' for Unix programs, he said of TRW's proposal.
Team effort
Electronic Systems Center officials are working with Space Command personnel to set ISC2's technical requirements, and ESC officials will manage ISC2.
An ESC official declined to comment on the RFP, pending a meeting late last week with a half-dozen Air Force officers about the project.
Winning vendors have to submit a two-year plan for managing ISC2, as well as a visionary plan for the next six years, said Philip A. Odeen, TRW executive vice president and general manager.
There will be more than 4 million lines of code in the common ISC2 infrastructure, with at least 12 million total lines, he said.
In part because the Air Force is spending approximately $100 million annually on maintenance for its command and control systems, service officials have designed ISC2 as a performance-based contract, with any contract savings put back into new systems development, Andres said.
Boeing Co., GTE Government Systems Corp. of Needham Heights, Mass., and Wang Federal Systems of McLean, Va., are on Lockheed Martin's team.
TRW's team includes Harris Corp., IBM Corp., ITT Corp., Oracle Corp., and Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego, Andres said. The Air Force runs 14,000 Oracle relational database management systems at the Cheyenne Mountain facility, said Steve Perkins, Oracle federal senior vice president and general manager.
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