This week we™re going to take a look at some of the recent significant contract activity that occurred at the very end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. Recent contracts include:

• The U.S. Air Force choosing nine companies for a $496M Datalink enterprise support IDIQ
• DARPA issuing the final RFP for a potential five-year, $850M technical & analytical support IDIQ
• Serco Inc. receiving a spot on a $600M FEMA IDIQ
• Raytheon landing a $634M USAF missiles contract
• BAE Systems winning a $1.7B U.S. Army contract to produce more howitzers and ammo carriers
• Boeing securing $6.5B in foreign military sales to Qatar and Japan
• Oshkosh Airport Products landing a $687M DLA contract for fire & emergency vehicles

On January 9^th the Department of Defense announced that nine companies won spots on a potential $496 million IDIQ contract to support time-sensitive applications and tactical platforms for the U.S. Air Force DataLinks Enterprise network. The nine contractors will aid the service branch in processing command and control data, as well as a multitude of geospatial intelligence, full-motion video and signals intelligence data. The awardees are: BAE Systems, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cubic Corporation, L3 Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Rockwell Collins.

DARPA released a final RFP for a potential five-year, $850 million contract for analytical and technical support services on January 2^nd. The FedBizOpps notice says that DARPA intends to award a multiple-award, IDIQ contract with a base period of five years. The Technical and Analytical Support Services contract will cover several support areas such as technical, financial, acquisition, administrative, business process & affairs, legislative affairs, general counsel, and conferences. DARPA will accept questions regarding the final RFP on January 17^th and noted that responses to the solicitation are due by February 8^th.

Also occurring on January 2^nd, Serco Inc. secured a spot on a potential five-year, $600 million contract from FEMA to support disaster recovery and emergency response missions. Serco said that it will hire and deploy personnel as part of the Public Assistance Technical Assistance Contract IV to help states, local agencies, tribes, and other organizations respond to and recover from critical situations via FEMA™s Public Assistance Program. Dave Daquino, chairman and CEO of Serco, said that many of the company™s departments will be engaged in assisting FEMA at the state and local levels in the event of a presidentially declared disaster.

Raytheon announced on December 28^th that it received a $634.2 million U.S. Air Force contract to supply the service branch with advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles and 10 foreign military sales customers. The fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract is for lot 31 AMRAAM systems composed of missiles, spares, and telemetry kits. The Department of Defense noted that the contract includes $219.6 million in total FMS transactions with Bahrain, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Morocco, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Spain, and Turkey. Raytheon™s missile business will perform contract work through January 31, 2020.

The Department of Defense announced on December 22^nd that BAE Systems had been awarded a potential $1.7 billion U.S. Army contract to manufacture additional howitzers and ammunition carrier vehicles. BAE will initially supply 48 vehicle sets to the Army and will produce an additional 60 sets annual over a three-year period thereafter, provided the service branch exercises options for the full-rate production phase. Adam Zarfoss, vice president and general manager of BAE™s combat vehicles business, said œBy working closely with our customer we were able to design a vehicle that meets the needs of the current forces and provides the system infrastructure and electrical power generation that leaves ample room to incorporate future capabilities.

The Department of Defense also announced that Boeing had received two FMS contracts worth a combined $6.5 billion on December 22^nd. The FMS contracts were awarded by the U.S. Air Force and are for the delivery of fighter jets to Qatar and an aerial refueling aircraft to Japan. Boeing™s Defense, Space and Security business will provide 36 new F-15QA fighter jets to the Qatari air force under a potential $6.2 billion contract that will run until December 30, 2022. Boeing will also deliver one KC-46A aerial refueling plane to Japan through a potential $288.7 million FMS contract that is set to conclude on Feb. 28, 2021.

Oshkosh Airport Products was awarded a five-year, $687.1 million contract to deliver commercial fire and emergency vehicles for the Defense Logistics Agency on December 22^nd. The company will produce the vehicles at a facility in Wisconsin for customers such as the four U.S. military branches and federal civilian agencies. The DLA will finance the contractor work using defense working capital funds for fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2023.