$355.2M for MITRE from the US Air Force

The Headquarters Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, MA issued a $355.2 million cost-plus fixed-fee contract to the MITRE Corp. in Bedford, MA. The contract covers systems engineering and integration support for US Air Force programs in FY 2006, and will end by October 2006 (the end of the fiscal year). The support level is estimated at 929 direct staff years for the Air Force ceiling programs, and 131 direct staff years for the Air Force non-ceiling program. This effort also supports foreign military sales with Britain, France, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. MITRE was formed in 1958 as a not-for-profit corporation under the leadership of C.W. Halligan, and has a long-standing cross-fertilization with MIT. It manages three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs): one for the Department of Defense (known as the DOD Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence FFRDC), one for the Federal Aviation Administration (the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development), and one for the Internal Revenue Service (the Center for Enterprise Modernization). MITRE also has its own independent research and development program that explores new technologies and new uses of technologies to solve its sponsors’ problems in the near-term and in the future.