Who Pays for a Recompete That Keeps Not Starting?

Yesterday afternoon the Space Acquisition and Integration Office posted an update to a notice that 101 companies are watching.

Three sentences, two typos, and no date in any of them.

"Due to continued mission challenges, the offical release of the CNECTS CSO will not be relased today. Government is revising the CNECTS acquisition schedule. The revised tentative schedule will be posted when available."

Then, in the bullets underneath, the part that matters: "Previous tentative acquisition schedule has been removed."

That is the fourth announced release date to come and go on this requirement since mid-September, and the first time the office has stopped announcing one (chart below).

"Who absorbs a delay on a competition that has not been competed yet?"

What CNECTS is

Communications, Network, Engineering, Cybersecurity, and Information Technology Services, out of FA2518 USSF SPOC/SAIO on behalf of the 21st Communications Squadron, consolidating communications work across Peterson SFB, Schriever SFB and Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station into one award.

NAICS 517810, PSC DG01, place of performance Colorado Springs. The notice's August 20 update puts it at $330M.

And it is not going out as a part 15 RFP. The 9 July update says it plainly: "when the solicitation is released, it will be executed as a 100% Small Business Set-Aside using the Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) phased evaluation process."

So: white papers, phased down-select, no competitive range, no FAR 15.306 discussions. DFARS subpart 212.70, titled Defense Commercial Solutions Opening, which runs all of six sections and gives a contracting officer a great deal of room.

Two of those went out of DoD in one night, incidentally. ACC-APG posted the TCS-PSS Call for Solutions at 20:04 Zulu the same evening, also under 212.70, seeking "a mix of single-award Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts and/or Other Transactions (OTs)" on a ten-year tactical communications framework.