Here is what caught our attention, and what we think it means for your captures.
In this edition
Hot take from FedSavvy
Sampling of noteworthy wins
Award
FedSavvy take
$1.5BCACI International, U.S. Central Command. Recompete win for the OPIAS Apollo task order, taking the position from incumbent Peraton to support USCENTCOM and its mission partners.
The win is consistent with CACI’s focus and legacy strengths, and a strong trend for incumbent upsets in GSA AAS-run competitions. If you’re the incumbent and GSA AAS is running the competition, don’t get comfortable.Source: Intelligence Community News
$1.5BAnduril Industries & Leidos, DHS. Standout wins on both tracks of DHS’s five-year counter-UAS product-and-services IDIQ; CACI, BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Parsons and GDIT also won spots.
This is a big step into DHS for Anduril, which continues its expansion. Counter-UAS is one of many places neo-primes are testing how far they can push with their commercial-style offerings, though the list of traditional winners on this vehicle is long too.Source: Washington Technology
$876ML3Harris Technologies, U.S. Navy. Undefinitized Naval Air Systems Command modification for continued Next Generation Jammer Low Band development, including tooling, demonstration test pods and added cybersecurity work for the Navy and Royal Australian Air Force.
Undefinitized scope growth of this size signals Navy urgency to field NGJ-LB as the legacy ALQ-99 ages out. A program L3Harris secured only after a protest-driven recompete is turning into an electronic warfare franchise with an allied partner attached.Sources: Washington Technology, GovCon Wire
$863MNorthrop Grumman, U.S. Army. Five-year IDIQ to manufacture M1156 precision guidance kits and variants through 2031, awarded after a single bid.
This is the second single-response Army production award to Northrop Grumman in the same week. Guidance kits sit inside the munitions ramp-up, and a lone bidder says the competitive base for artillery guidance is thin.Source: GovCon Wire
$826MLockheed Martin, U.S. Air Force. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center modification for the JASSM and LRASM Large Lot procurement, bringing the contract’s cumulative value to $10.5B; Navy weapons procurement dollars are the largest funding line obligated.
Long-range standoff weapons remain among the clearest budget priorities, and the heavy Navy share points to LRASM demand for the Indo-Pacific. The large-lot structure concentrates years of magazine depth on one Lockheed Martin contract.Source: The Defense Post
$562MBoeing, U.S. Navy. Fixed-price incentive contract for Lot 1 low-rate initial production of the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned carrier-based refueling aircraft.
Carrier-based unmanned aviation moves from development into production, a milestone for an autonomy theme that has mostly lived in prototypes and OTAs. For Boeing, it is a second tanker line, this time uncrewed.Source: Defense News
$480MAccenture Federal Services, U.S. Army. Firm-fixed-price contract to build the AI-enabled Joint Enterprise Task Management System, replacing legacy task and correspondence systems across DoW.
Another Accenture Federal Services win built around AI, data and workflow management, and more momentum for AFS in DoW enterprise work. It is consistent with the commercial know-how and partnership strategy we laid out in our recent AFS blog.Sources: Washington Technology, GovCon Wire, FedSavvy blog
Value not disclosedNorthrop Grumman & True Anomaly, DIU / Space Systems Command. Selected to build GHOST-R prototype satellites for space-to-space imagery and custody of spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit, feeding the RG-XX constellation.
A venture-backed space firm selected alongside a legacy prime is the commercial on-ramp the Space Force’s new portfolio acquisition structure is designed to create. GHOST-R feeds a program with a five-year budget line near $2.8B.Source: Air & Space Forces Magazine
Corporate investments & M&A
Acquisitions
Deal
FedSavvy take
B&A (Bart & Associates), Intelligent Waves. A DFW Capital Partners portfolio company completed its acquisition of Intelligent Waves, adding cybersecurity, secure networking, systems engineering and data science work for DoW, Special Operations Forces and the intelligence community, plus proprietary products including GRAYPATH, Phantom and STRIKE.
A long-time middle-market prime is using its private equity backing to buy into defense and IC accounts along with product differentiators. Keep an eye on B&A; it is aiming higher.Source: Washington Technology
ITC Federal, Capgemini Government Solutions. Privately held and Blue Delta Capital Partners-backed ITC Federal acquired Capgemini Government Solutions from Capgemini, forming ITC Digital Solutions.
A commercial-first parent offloaded a comparatively small federal business to focus on core work, and privately held middle-market platform companies are the natural buyers. We’ve seen this play before, and it is only going to keep accelerating.Sources: GovCon Wire, Washington Technology
Arxis (Nasdaq: ARXS), StratEdge & Schatz Bearing. The industrial compounder, formed in partnership with Arcline Investment Management, closed acquisitions of StratEdge, a maker of high-frequency ceramic packages for defense and space, and precision-bearing maker Schatz Bearing.
This is private equity-style consolidation in the lower tiers of the defense and space supply chain, where RF packaging and precision bearings are real chokepoints.Source: PR Newswire
Strategic and vendor alliances
Alliance
FedSavvy take
Salesforce expanded its Missionforce platform with new AI capabilities through a partnership with OpenAI, and will add NVIDIA Nemotron-based models to the same agentic platform for agencies.
Commercial platforms are packaging frontier models into government-ready agentic stacks as the AI arms race escalates. AI or die.Source: Nextgov
BlackSky was named exclusive satellite provider for a proposed $1B AI-enabled imaging constellation led by Loft Orbital and Marlan Space, with Mistral and Orbitworks.
Space-based ISR capacity with onboard AI continues to be financed outside government budgets, giving intelligence customers more to buy as a service.Source: SpaceNews
Leadership changes at KBR / Trinzic, Serco and Cherokee Federal
Move
FedSavvy take
Michael LaRouche, Trinzic (KBR spin-off). Started Sept. 24 as president and CEO-designate of Trinzic, the spin-off of KBR’s Mission Technology Solutions business targeted to launch as a public company on Jan. 4, 2027, with more than $5B in revenue and roughly 18,000 employees. KBR also named Gabe Butler vice president-designate of investor relations ahead of a Nov. 12 investor day.
LaRouche ends his brief stint at Serco North America to move to the emerging Trinzic spin-off, bringing Serco, SAIC, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin experience to a portfolio anchored in air and missile defense with an increasing Golden Dome focus. The investor day will be the first real look at whether Trinzic sells itself as a technology growth story or a steady mission services company. Maybe the answer is “all of the above.”Source: GlobeNewswire
Barbara Supplee, Serco North America. Named CEO effective Sept. 28, succeeding LaRouche after less than a year in the role. Supplee led SAIC’s Army Navy Business Group and held senior roles at GDIT, CACI and BAE Systems; she takes over roughly 10,000 employees, more than 700 contracts and over $2B in annual revenue.
Serco now has its second consecutive CEO with SAIC leadership history, and more SAIC alumni are showing up in its ranks, such as CTO Andy Henson. Expect a new CEO to reboot the leadership team.Sources: GlobeNewswire, Washington Technology
Tom Watson, Cherokee Federal. Former Serco North America executive named president effective Oct. 1.
Cherokee Federal, normally flying under the radar, is quietly building its growth strategy from outside talent. Is it, like other super 8(a)s, feeling the squeeze of a changing market? Stay tuned.Source: GovCon Wire
New technologies and products
Development
FedSavvy take
GDIT launched its three-part Everest Zero Trust portfolio (Clarity, Flex and Unified), already deployed across more than 40 mission environments including over one million Air Force users.
GDIT continues to double down on Zero Trust with a more defined, named and repeatable offering, consistent with its VIA strategy. This is the playbook large and middle-market systems integrators have been running to stand out.Source: HSToday
Lockheed Martin flew two F-16s carrying networked Legion sensor pods that shared targeting data over an L3Harris data link without using radar.
Passive, radar-free targeting handoffs are a concrete multi-domain integration proof point both companies will cite in future competitions.Source: ExecutiveBiz
Hanwha Defense USA plans to invest $2.2B in a munitions manufacturing campus at the Army’s Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas.
Foreign-parented primes are using U.S. munitions capacity as their entry ticket, chasing a broader and more robust industrial base without necessarily easing concerns about foreign-owned suppliers. This one lands on an Army installation.Source: ExecutiveBiz
Funding rounds for defense technology and space technology firms
Round
FedSavvy take
DoW committed $450M in redeemable preferred equity to The Elmet Group through the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program to expand domestic tungsten and molybdenum processing.
The department continues to act more like an investor, not just a customer, and equity-style tools are becoming a regular part of industrial base policy. Where do the lines blur in terms of objectivity in contracting?Source: War.gov
IBM subsidiary Anderon finalized a $1B CHIPS and Science Act award with the Department of Commerce for a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry in Albany, New York.
Quantum manufacturing capacity is where durable market positions get built — get out of the lab and into production.Source: GovCon Wire
Sedaro will receive up to $45M in SpaceWERX STRATFI funding to expand mission-analysis software already used by Space Systems Command.
STRATFI is the bridge from SBIR to program of record, exactly the kind of growth engine acquirers told us they value.Source: SpaceNews
From the room: Growth Officers Association (GOA-TSS) M&A discussion
We sat in on an interesting Growth Officers Association discussion on what buyers want. Our notes:
- Buyers want to see customer meetings and real customer access.
- Growth engines such as SBIRs matter more than a list of contract vehicles.
- Do not claim your people are special; show what is actually unique.
- Buyers want to understand the incumbent management team and its impact, unless the target is being absorbed into a platform company, in which case it matters much less.
- Some private equity owners inject their own people to “season” a management team ahead of a sale.
- What matters more? Scale versus specialization? Specialize. The value is in the niche.
- SBA size standard changes may accelerate M&A for “super smalls.” Maybe this makes super 8(a) businesses sweat more?
- Fewer deals are being announced because sellers do not want a target on their backs. No big M&A reveal, just quietly grow until they really break out.
Bid protests
Case and outcome
FedSavvy take
Partially sustainedBattelle Memorial Institute v. National Science Foundation. Challenge to the roughly $8B Antarctic research support award to KBR. GAO rejected most of Battelle’s grounds but found NSF improperly credited KBR with an affiliate’s past performance record, and directed a reevaluation that accounts for the spin-off of the KBR business unit (Trinzic) that will manage the contract.
Past performance belongs to whoever will do the work. When a business unit is being spun off mid-competition, as Mission Technology Solutions becomes Trinzic, evaluators must account for whose record and resources stand behind the proposal. This was an atypical sustainment, but will it actually matter? Magic 8-ball says “reply hazy, try again.”Sources: Washington Technology, GAO
DeniedKearney & Company and NextGen Federal Systems v. U.S. Army. Pre-award protests of the $50B Marketplace for Acquisition of Professional Services (MAPS) IDIQ, challenging the evaluation criteria including ambiguities in the self-scoring scorecard and allegedly restrictive requirements; decisions on other firms’ protests are expected into October.
Challenging how an agency defines its needs rarely works, because GAO gives agencies wide latitude. Self-scoring rewards documented evidence, and if you cannot validate your score, that is a capture problem to fix before the proposal, not in a protest. Sadly, we have another massive multiple-award IDIQ bogged down in protests. Does anyone remember CIO-SP4? The horror!Source: Washington Technology
Filed and pendingOasis Systems (Astrion) v. U.S. Army. Protest over the $665M OASIS+ counter-UAS test and evaluation task order awarded to Parsons, alleging scoring flaws and an organizational conflict of interest because Parsons also makes counter-UAS products; a decision is due by Dec. 24.
OCI challenges are always tricky because the burden of proof is on the protester and GAO gives agencies wide latitude. The Army is normally strict on OCI, so the question is whether this is sour grapes or a real breakdown in mitigation for a firm that builds what it may test.Source: Washington Technology
Many of these fights trace back to what a capture and proposal failed to prepare to cover. Our latest blog covers the common lies teams tell themselves in black hat reviews, and how to avoid them. We have met the enemy and it is usually ourselves. FedSavvy blog
Upcoming opportunities
Pursuit
FedSavvy take
$21.6BDISA Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability Unified Cloud Marketplace (JWCC UCM) Core. A 10-year, full-and-open multiple-award IDIQ for U.S. hyperscale cloud providers delivering anything-as-a-service from unclassified through TS/SCI and out to the tactical edge. Solicitation released Sept. 8; offers due Oct. 6.
Enterprise cloud consolidation keeps the prime seats with hyperscalers, so the integrator opportunity is in the task orders and marketplace services layered on top. Zero trust and disconnected-edge requirements are where differentiation will show. Will this devolve into an Oprah contract (you get a contract and you get a contract!) to move past the inevitable protest? Magic 8-ball surfaces again and says “It is likely.”Source: GovCon Wire
Value not disclosedDepartment of Veterans Affairs enterprise AI services. A potential three-year contract to roll out AI capabilities to 540,000 users. The final solicitation is expected shortly.
This would be one of the largest civilian enterprise AI deployments yet. It will show whether AI at scale goes to model providers, platform vendors or traditional health IT integrators.Source: Washington Technology
Value not disclosedDHS network, cloud and cyber consolidation vehicle. Vehicle to centralize IT operations at headquarters and across components, on a fast-track schedule with awards expected on a compressed timeline.
Consolidation vehicles redraw incumbent maps across components. Contracts and protests attorneys should plan for their next round of in-ground pools.Source: Washington Technology
$440M+DHS governmentwide biometric capture devices. Covers fingerprint, face, iris, palm and multimodal tracks, with at least three IDIQ awards planned per track. RFP timing not yet announced.
Identity and analytics remain a DHS priority, and the track structure favors specialized hardware makers and their integration partners over generalists.Source: FedScoop
Other regulatory or legislative moves
Development
FedSavvy take
The FAR Council proposed its next Revolutionary FAR Overhaul rules, spanning Parts 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 28, 35, 36 and 52, incorporating the fixed-price contracting executive order, deleting two parts and giving contracting officers more flexibility on contract type.
Assume fixed-price is the default and prepare accordingly. Basis-of-estimate discipline and margin visibility now carry more of the win than they did under cost-type norms.Source: Washington Technology
A continuing resolution holds Space Force funding at FY26 levels through Dec. 11 and bars new starts, freezing roughly 10 percent of its programs against an FY27 request of $71.8B.
Any pursuit that depends on a new start is slipping. Watch reprogramming requests for the programs the department is willing to protect.Source: Defense One
The SBA’s Office of Advocacy downplays the number of current contractors that would gain small-business status under the Aug. 20 size-standard proposal, versus the roughly 114,500 firms SBA first projected. SBA extended comments on both proposed rules to Nov. 20 after nearly 70,000 submissions, with feedback running mostly negative; the proposal collapses nearly 1,000 standards into 338 industry groups.
Do fewer firms cross into small than first feared? The “super smalls” are gaining a longer runway and a better exit story. Either way, M&A wins and true smalls likely lose.Sources: Washington Technology, SBA Office of Advocacy, Federal News Network
DoW codified the CMMC Phase 2 third-party assessment pause through a binding class deviation.
The pause buys time, not relief. Expect a push to bake CMMC expectations into teaming agreements regardless, so subs should not slow down.Source: Nextgov
Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg signed a “Fostering One Strong Industrial Base” memo directing a shift from government-unique cost accounting standards toward commercial GAAP and confining the heaviest audit requirements to work that truly needs them.
Lower compliance overhead lowers the barrier for commercial entrants. Expect more non-traditional names on your competitor lists.Source: War.gov
The Pentagon and Red Cell Partners piloted a $100M other transaction agreement built on shared savings, where the vendor is paid only for costs it eliminates.
Outcome-based OTAs move risk to the vendor. Winning them requires hard baseline cost data, which most capture teams do not have ready.Source: DefenseScoop
From FedSavvy and upcoming events
- New on the blog: Accenture Federal Services revisited, and how commercial IT know-how and partnerships are driving its growth. Read the blog
- New on the blog: It’s a Trap! Common lies black hat teams tell themselves, and how to avoid them. Read the blog
- Join our competitive intelligence boot camp to sharpen how your team collects and uses CI in captures. Details and registration
- Reminder: the AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition, Oct. 12 to 14 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., is a show NOT to miss. AUSA
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