The Defense Department this week said it has awarded $193.8 million in new projects aimed at quickly fielding new technologies to warfighters, the second tranche of fiscal year 2024 awards under the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program.
“Thanks to congressional support for APFIT in this year’s defense appropriation bill, R&E is accelerating the fielding of crucial capabilities to our warfighters, Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering (R&E), said in a statement.
Shyu’s office made 13 awards but made no mention of the awardees due to security considerations, a spokesman for her office told Defense Daily on Thursday.
The contracts include $12.9 million for the communications mobile gateway buoy for the Navy; $16 million for the Family of Systems for Assured Movement and Maneuver for Army Transportation Command; $10 million for the Gladius Micro-High-Altitude Balloon Deployed Glider for the Army; $11 million for the High Efficiency Phase Modulator for the Missile Defense Agency; $20 million for Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control for the Air Force; $18.5 million for Majestic Alpha for U.S. European and Special Operations Commands; $15.2 million for Project 711: Containerized Secure Units for the Marine Corps; a $13.7 million classified program for Special Operations Command; $22 million for Rack Mounted Optical Clocks for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and multiple services; $19.7 million for the Marine Corps Reducible Height Gunner Protection Kit; $15.4 million for the Space Force’s Resilient Networking for Space Domain Awareness; and $20.4 million for Ultra Long Endurance—Perpetual for the Army.
In February, the R&E office announced the first four APFIT awards with FY ’24 funds, which amount to $300 million. Three of the contracts were for a combined $38 million and for one of the awards the value was not disclosed. Up to 19 APFIT projects are expected to be awarded in FY ’24.
The purpose of the program is to accelerate the fielding of technologies and in turn help companies move beyond the prototype phase of projects and into production.