In a cryptic note on the U.S. government’s Federal Business Opportunities website on Friday, the US State Department cancelled its $1 billion UAS surveillance competition, saying that none of the proposals met its requirements.The note reads:
The Department of State has concluded its evaluation of all offerors. The evaluation was conducted strictly in accordance with the criteria set forth in the solicitation. Section M.6 of the RFP titled “Eligibility for Award” states in pertinent part: “To be eligible for award, offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements…”
None of the offerors met the minimum requirements of the Phase 2 UAV Demonstration evaluation for either Tier I or Tier II systems. Therefore, the DOS is hereby cancelling the subject RFP for UAV support services.
In the coming weeks, the Government plans to examine closely, the requirements stipulated in the solicitation with the intent of developing and releasing a new RFP for UAV support services.
The saga began on September 8th, 20111 when the Department of State pre-announced the RFP saying that the department had “a requirement for a qualified contractor to provide worldwide Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) support services. The mission of the UAV program is to provide real-time air surveillance of fixed installations, proposed movement routes and movement operations, and special events thereby improving security in high threat or potentially high threat environments. The UAV program shall provide the capability to:
•Achieve and maintain situational awareness.
•Automatically generate and disseminate high quality video imaging.
•Respond to a security incident at locations remote from the core of operations.
•Disseminate threat information for use in route planning.
•Receive, view, and analyze in route activity
The official RFP was not published until March 8th 2012, and the deadline for submissions was repeatedly postponed, with the last registered postponement date being set at June 11, 2012. A year later, on May 31 2013, the entire programme was quietly laid to rest.
To read the original notices, click here.
Source: FedBizOpps