Up to $853M to Penn State for Naval Research

The Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory serves as a U.S. Navy UARC (University Affiliated Research Center) in Defense science and technologies, with a focus in naval missions and related areas. In September 2012, they were awarded a 5-year, maximum $415 million cost-plus-fixed-fee indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity task order contract. in return, they’ll provide up to 2,060,076 staff hours for research, development, engineering, and test and evaluation. An option for an additional 5 years could bring the maximum value to $853.3 million, and the cumulative staff hours to 3,935,759.

PSU’s ARL will work on guidance, navigation and control of undersea systems; advanced thermal propulsion concepts and systems for undersea vehicles; advanced propulsors and other fluid machinery for marine systems; materials and manufacturing technology; atmosphere and defense communications systems; and other related technologies. Individual task orders will be issued as needs arise. Work is expected to be completed by September 2017, or September 2022 with all options exercised. This contract was not competitively procured by US Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, DC (N00024-12-D-6404).

Rapid Fire September 12, 2012: DLA’s Performance-Based Logistics

• The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) on the rationale for Performance-Based Logistics (PBL):

There are 9 contracts among the services to support [the T700] aircraft engine, plus some DLA contracts. That sounds like someone put together a bunch of contracts without thinking it through, but nobody did it for nefarious reasons. Somebody saw a problem and put a contract in place to solve it. As long as there’s plenty of money to go around, industry is happy to do business that way. But now, they see the budget is coming down and they need to partner with us in creating efficiencies.”

• Allied Minds, a private investment firm in Boston, MA, made an agreement with three DoD labs and research centers to establish public-private partnerships through the funding of up to 100 companies a year focused on technology transfers and commercial applications. This follows a template Allied Minds says it has been applying in its relationships with more than 40 universities since 2007.

• SASC chairman Carl Levin [D-MI] doesn’t expect the Senate to take up the 2013 defense bill before the election. This is not a surprise when Senate majority leader Harry Reid [D-NV] seems more concerned with Paul Ryan’s marathon finishing times than getting to work on, well, anything of substance. Case in point: online gambling taking precedence over passing a defense bill. Reid came back from recess this week to announce a “very short and compact” fall session.