The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Friday denied Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] protest of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Cheyenne Mountain Complex-Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment (NCMC-ITW/AA) and Space Support Contract (NISSC) award to Raytheon [RTN].
Lockheed Martin argued that the agency failed to conduct meaningful discussions that treated offerors equally. GAO denied this, saying the Air Force led offerors into the general areas of their proposals requiring amplification or revision and tailored the discussions to concerns specific to each offeror’s technical proposal. 
Lockheed Martin also challenged the Air Force’s technical evaluation and best value determination. GAO also rejected this, arguing the record demonstrates that the evaluations and tradeoff decision were reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation.
GAO denied Lockheed Martin’s protest that the Air Force failed to enforce page limitation in evaluating Raytheon’s proposal as Lockheed Martin’s proposal exceeded the page limit in the same way it alleged Raytheon did. GAO said the requirement was similarly waived for all offerors while Lockheed Martin failed to show a reasonable possibility of prejudice.
In two of the four evaluated categories, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon were rated the same. In the other two–sustainment activities and systems engineering projects–Raytheon was rated good/low risk while Lockheed Martin was rated acceptable/moderate risk. GAO said Lockheed Martin’s evaluated cost was $178 million while Raytheon’s was $200 million.
The NCMC-ITW/AA program provides ITW/AA authorities with warning and attack assessment of air, missile and space threats. With the program, the NCMC-ITW/AA system provides combatant commanders command and control (C2) information, capabilities and tools to support air, space and missile warning missions located at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colo.; Peterson AFB, Colo.; Offutt AFB, Neb.; Vandenberg AFB, Calif.; and other locations. Lockheed Martin was the incumbent under the predecessor Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) contract for the past 15 years.