Air Force naming cyber security companies for potential $5 billion research project
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb., 9 Oct. 2015. Six U.S. cyber security companies will draw from a pot of money as large as $5 billion over the next five years for military cyber security and information systems research and development.
Officials of the U.S. Air Force Installation Contracting Agency at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., announced the contracts Thursday for the Cyber Security Technical Area Tasks (CS TATs) program. The contracts were awarded on behalf of the Air Force Combat Command.
The six companies announced Thursday involve the small business set-aside portion of the CS TATs. Additional companies taking part in the program's full-and-open-competition portion of the program have yet to be selected.
All companies ultimately selected for the CS TATs program will share the project's $5 billion set-aside fund. The six companies chosen Thursday will compete for separate cyber security jobs over the next five years. Each job will be worth as much as $3.5 million. Jobs for the program's future open-competition portion will be even larger.
The six companies chosen Thursday for the program's small-business portion are:
-- Barbaricum LLC in Washington;
-- BTRC Federal Solutions in Vienna, Va.;
-- Data Systems Analysts (DSA) Inc. in Fairfax, Va.;
-- Professional Project Services Inc. (Pro2Serve) in Oak Ridge, Tenn.;
-- SMS Data Products Group Inc. in McLean, Va.; and
-- Solers Inc. in Arlington, Va.
The contracts call for participating companies to perform research, development, test, and evaluation efforts for software analysis, information assurance, knowledge management and information sharing, and modeling and simulation.
Cyber security tasks may include research in complex, scientific and technical requirements that originate from emerging government requirements, and usually will involve a rapid response, Air Force officials say.
Related: Air Force asks industry for ideas on building cyber security and SIGINT systems
Separate tasks often will integrate the expertise from a diverse group of experts from across different disciplines, and work will be inside and outside of the Continental U.S. All CS TATs contractors have Top Secret facility clearances.
The location of each job will depend on the individual task order. Work should be finished by November 2020.
For more information contact the Air Force Installation Contracting Agency-Offutt at www.wpafb.af.mil, or the Air Force Air Combat Command at www.acc.af.mil.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
