Operations, Maintenance, and Sustainment Engineering Services for the Rescue 21 Coastal (R21-C) System

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) intends to award a sole source five year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to General Dynamics Mission Systems (GMDS), 8201 E. McDowell Road, Scottsdale, AZ 85257. This contract will provide continued sustainment of the Rescue 21 Coastal (R21) system. The R21 Coastal system provides simultaneous VHF/UHF communications, direction finding (DF), and digital selective calling (DSC) functionality for the Coast Guard to communicate with maritime users in the continental United States, Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico.In 2015 the Coast Guard began to transition portions of the R21 System that would enable the Radio Control System and transceivers to be competitively acquired and maintained. However, the USCYBERCOM’s mandate to upgrade all systems from Windows 7 to the Windows 10 Secure Host Baseline in 2017 forced the USCG to realign all available funding to this requirement. Since then, additional mission critical projects have been

deemed to be a priority delaying transition.  Given the duration of the delay and  technology advancements that have been introduced in the IT arena, the USCG is currently conducting a study that will present  alternative technical solutions for the R21 Coastal system requirements and ensure that the most effective and efficient decision are made for this safety-of-life system going forward.  Until such time the USCG must maintain the legacy R21 Coastal system.Sustainment of the R21 Coastal system includes all management, supervision, engineering services, personnel, labor, materials, and equipment required to perform organizational and depot level maintenance, including information assurance, system design maintenance, engineering escalation, technology refreshment, and obsolescence management.• 32 CG Sector (SCC) equipment suites (Backroom servers & (3) operator consoles per Sector)• 167 CG Station equipment suites with (1) operator console per Station/MSO/MSU• 258 Remote Fixed Facilities (RFF's) with typical configuration of 5 VHF transceivers, 1 UHF transceiver, voice & data servers, digital processors, data switches, RF filters, RF interference mitigation, Direction Finding, equipment huts, tower, tower lighting, environmental sensor, antennas, and standby power generation subsystems.• 4 Disaster Recovery (DR) mobile equipment suites (portable RFF, portable tower/antenna, portable satellite communication suites, & portable generator suites)• 1 Disaster Recovery (DR) R21-C Sector Command Center equipment suite at CG OSC Martinsburg W VA• 1 Rescue 21 Coastal Operator Training Simulation suite with 60 student work stations at TRACEN Petaluma, CASustainment of the R21-Coastal system shall ensure the R21 critical functions listed below are provided at the specified availability, measured monthly within a Coast Guard Sector Area-of-Operational Responsibility (AOR).                Rescue 21Critical Functions Operational AvailabilityReceipt of distress and emergency alerts (VHF-FM Ch 16)                        99.5%Digital Selective Calling (DSC) data                                                            99.5%VHF-FM Maritime Voice Communications                                                   99.5%UHF Voice Communications                                                                        99.5%Protected Communications                                                                          99.5%Caller Position Location Single Line-of-Bearing (LOB) Information)            99.5%Archiving/Recording Functions                                                                     99.5%The existing Customer Care Center is integrated with user authentication, support, and depot services critical to operations. Status of the existing system is monitored, and corrections made remotely, using a GDMS proprietary software system. Media Services software, which manages all calls and is found in all elements of the system, is also proprietary to GDMS. The existing Customer Care Center is highly integrated with engineering, support, and depot services. Note that system maintenance is highly dependent upon remote software image loading and equipment configuration provided by the Customer Care Center. Availability of critical capabilities must continue to be maintained at the 99.5% level (receipt of distress and emergency alerts, DSC alerts, VHF-FM maritime voice communications, UHF voice communications, position location and audio correlation) or the 95% level (protected communications).Current Government owned system technical information is limited to site drawings, COTS parts lists, high-level hardware and software design descriptions, operator manuals, and a system-level maintenance manual. The Government does not have access to complete source code and detailed information on integrated support systems.This Sources Sought Notice is issued solely to determine whether there are any other sources that could meet the Coast Guard's technical and schedule requirements for sustainment of the Rescue 21 Coastal system. Companies that believe they have the capability to sustain the existing system, with no degradation in availability, must submit a capability statement detailing how they would gain access to the support baselines and proprietary monitoring system, or replicate those services. Companies must explain their design, integration, verification, testing and certification functions of how they intend to sustain the system, including any modifications to the current Rescue 21 Coastal system. They must also explain their strategy to gain access to proprietary GDMS software elements, or reproduce existing software and how an otherwise acceptable solution from the company would be price competitive with GDMS and provide a timeline to be fully operational by March 2021 to avoid a break in service. The capability statement shall also include the company's Dun and Bradstreet number, a discussion of any previous experience similar to this requirement, and a point of contact in the event the Coast Guard requires additional information.This notice does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. Proposals submitted based on this notice will not be accepted. Capability statements received prior to the closing date and time will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether a competitive procurement is possible.Please submit information via email to the Point of Contact Listed below no later than 5:00PM EST on March 10, 2020. All responses must be submitted to the Government point of contact at the email address Ted.Araya@uscg.mil. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.