NASA delays release of multi-billion dollar tech contract

NASA has pushed back its multi-billion dollar solicitation to consolidate many of its agencywide contracts for infrastructure support services.

The space agency will not release the draft request for proposals for all five functional areas of the contract, known as I3P, until April 15. NASA had planned to issue the draft RFP in February and final RFP by April 15.

The final RFPs are scheduled for June 15, according to NASA I3P Web site. NASA says proposals are due July 30, and it expects to make awards by Dec. 31.

Under the contract that some in industry estimate to be worth $10 billion over 10 years, NASA is consolidating support services for its desktops, data centers, enterprise application services technology, integrated communications services and Web enterprise services.

All the areas except Web enterprise services will be bid under full and open competition. Web services will be set-aside for small businesses. NASA estimates the Web enterprise contract to be worth $70 million over five years.

"We had hoped to have two small business set-aside contracts, but after looking at the analysis it made sense to have only one small business set-aside," says Glenn Delgado, NASA associate administrator for small business programs. "We polled large and small businesses to see what is available, if it was too big as a whole for small business. We went out with an RFI and sources sought. Our market research on the datacenter contract did not come back to support that a small business could do it. The up front cost of buying a lot of the equipment and where to put it, would almost set up small businesses for failure."

But this doesn't mean small businesses will lose opportunities, Delgado says.

He says instead of setting aside another contract, NASA will hold the prime contractors to significant small business goals under each of the full and open functional areas.

"Some of the contracts are as high as 30 percent and others are as low as 10-to-15 percent," he says. "All of the goals were driven by responses and knowledge of what we are looking for and ability of the small businesses."

For instance, the integrated communication services contract has a goal of 32 percent for small businesses, 12 percent for small disadvantaged businesses and 8 percent for women-owned businesses. The goals flow down to veteran owned and historically black universities and minority institutions.

Delgado also points out that the goals are based on total contract value not total value to be subcontracted out-which is a big difference.

Delgado says what can happen is a prime contractor tells the agency when it bids that it will subcontract $10 million out of $100 million. But after award, the contractor will change their mind and only subcontract out $5 million so small businesses lose out.

But because NASA holds contractors to total contract value, small businesses are in better shape.

"If we evaluate based on total contract value, it is more beneficial for small business because there is less of a chance of that amount fluctuating," he says. "It helps put an insurance policy to keep the goals and make sure it works."

In fact, NASA will base some of the contract award fees for vendors on how well they meet their subcontract goals. Delgado says that means vendors will be penalized monetarily if they do not meet their stated goals.

Delgado says small businesses also will have opportunities to bid on prime contracts for specific requirements at each of the NASA space centers.

I3P is for technology that is used widely among all NASA centers, but Delgado says each location still has their own needs that have to be met outside of the consolidation.

"The scope of the work should be very small business friendly," he says. "We are looking at the analysis and there seems to be a lot of unique residual work left over."

Delgado recommends small firms work with center small business specialists to identify work and its timetable, go through the Freedom of Information Act to understand the current statements of work, and build a team to get ready to bid.

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