B-299864; B-299864.2; B-299864.3, Harris Corporation, September 14, 2007

B-299864; B-299864.2; B-299864.3, Harris Corporation, September 14, 2007 TITLE: B-299864; B-299864.2; B-299864.3, Harris Corporation, September 14, 2007 BNUMBER: B-299864; B-299864.2; B-299864.3 DATE: September 14, 2007 *********************************************************************** B-299864; B-299864.2; B-299864.3, Harris Corporation, September 14, 2007 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Harris Corporation File: B-299864; B-299864.2; B-299864.3 Date: September 14, 2007 Thomas P. Humphrey, Esq., John E. McCarthy, Jr., Esq., Michael D. Newman, Esq., Rogelyn D. McLean, Esq., Dane Swanson, Esq., Derek A. Hahn, Esq., Crowell & Moring, and Ronald S. Blum, III, Esq., for the protester. Mark D. Colley, Esq., Drew A. Harker, Esq., Paul E. Pompeo, Esq., Patricia L. Stasco, Esq., and Antonella Karlin, Esq., Arnold & Porter, and Charles D. Coleman, Esq., for the Raytheon Company, the intervenor. Sandra Cain, Esq., Marian Ciborski, Esq., Robert Schlesinger, Esq., and Cheryl Parker, Esq., for the agency. David A. Ashen, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest of award of contract under downselect competition for naval satellite communications terminal is denied where agency reasonably determined that testing of awardee's prototype demonstrated that it met nearly all of the hardware and software specification requirements, while protester's prototype failed to satisfy many specification requirements, such that a significant amount of work that had been scheduled for completion in initial development phase had not been accomplished by protester, resulting in a medium to high risk in event of award to protester. DECISION Harris Corporation protests the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command's (SPAWAR) award of contract No. N00039-07-C-0012 to the Raytheon Company, pursuant to a downselect competition under contract No. N00039-04-C-0011, for the Navy Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Multiband Terminal (NMT). Harris challenges the evaluation of proposals and resulting source selection. We deny the protest. The AEHF NMT is a multiband-capable satellite communications terminal that will be installed on ship, shore, and submarine platforms to provide the capability to communicate with satellite systems (such as Milstar) using various frequency bands, communications protocols and data rates. The surface ship NMT comprises a below decks Communications Group and a topside Antenna Group that includes two antennas and two radomes. The submarine NMT includes a Communications Group and modifications, as necessary, to the submarine mast antenna and periscope antenna/high power amplifier (HPA) interfaces, provided as government furnished property (GFP). The shore NMT consists of a Communications Group capable of interfacing to the GFP shore Antenna Group, including modifications to the GFP shore Antenna Group, as necessary. On October 28, 2003, SPAWAR awarded Raytheon and Harris cost-plus-award fee contracts for system design and development of the NMT, with fixed-price, not-to-exceed options for production. Under the initial phase of these contracts, each contractor developed and fabricated four prototypes (two for surface ships, one for submarines and one for shore), which were to undergo a prototype test (PT1) to demonstrate that the prototypes were capable of meeting the requirements in the specifications (including SPAWAR-T-895, Navy Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Multiband Terminal (NMT) Specification). The specific subset of requirements to be verified in the PT1 testing, referred to as REQIDs, numbered 388 as listed in Appendix E, Test Matrix, of SPAWAR-T-895. NMT Statement of Work (SOW) sect. 3.4; Agency Report (AR) at 15. As discussed below, the results of the PT1 testing were crucial to the resulting downselect decision. On June 22, 2006, SPAWAR issued a downselect contract change package (CCP) that provided for selection on a "best value" basis of a single contractor to continue development, and then undertake production and logistic support, of the NMT terminal.