DOW-UAP-D112 to D116: AAWSAP Contract Modifications P00001-P00005 - A $25 Million Option Year Funded at $11.9 Million and Extended to December 2010

Source file: DOW-UAP-D112_AAWSAP-Contract-Modification-P00001-September-2-2009.pdf; DOW-UAP-D113_AAWSAP-Contract-Modification-P00002-February-2-2010.pdf; DOW-UAP-D114_AAWSAP-Contract-Modification-P00003-May-18- 2010.pdf; DOW-UAP-D115_AAWSAP-Contract-Modification-P00004-May-18-2010.pdf; DOW-UAP-D116_AAWSAP-Contract-Modification-P00005-September-28-2010.pdf Originating agency: Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Virginia Contracting Activity, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C. Document type: Five modifications to contract HHM402-08-C-0072: Standard Form 30 ("Amendment of Solicitation/Modification of Contract"), revised line-item schedules, contract distribution lists and classification cover pages Date: P00001 effective 2 September 2009; P00002 2 February 2010; P00003 and P00004 18 May 2010; P00005 28 September 2010 Classification: Schedule pages marked "Unclassified"; the P00003 and P00005 cover pages state "Document Classification: Unclassified"; publicly released in 2026 Page count: 18 (D112: 4; D113: 5; D114: 3; D115: 1; D116: 5) VIRIN: 260918-D-D0360-1101 (D112), 260918-D-D0360-1102 (D113), 260918-D-D0360-1103 (D114), 260918-D-D0360-1104 (D115), 260918-D-D0360-1105 (D116) PURSUE Release: 6

Summary

These five files are the modifications, numbered P00001 to P00005, to AAWSAP contract HHM402-08-C-0072 between the DIA and BAASS (DOW-UAP-D111). Taken one by one they are routine contract paperwork: Standard Form 30s, revised line-item schedules and distribution lists. Read in sequence, they trace the funded life of the contract after its base year, from September 2009 to December 2010.

The central finding is financial. P00001 (September 2009) exercised Option Year 1 "subject to availability of funds" and priced it at $25,000,000; P00002 (February 2010) funded it at $11,948,810, about 47.8 percent of that figure, cut every deliverable line item by exactly the same proportion, and brought total obligations on the contract to $21,948,810. P00003 and P00004 (May 2010) concern a change of Contracting Officer's Representative, and P00005 (September 2010) extended the period of performance to 21 December 2010 at no cost.

The documents contain no technical content and do not mention UAP. The attachment describing the "impacts to deliverables" of the reduced funding is not in the release, and P00004 survives only as a distribution list.

Research Article

How to read these modifications

A change to a government contract is recorded on Standard Form 30, "Amendment of Solicitation/Modification of Contract". Modifications are numbered in sequence from P00001, and block 13 of the form states their type: a unilateral change order (A), an administrative change such as a new paying office (B), a supplemental agreement that the contractor signs (C) or another type (D). Block 12 gives the "Modification Amount", the money the change adds. Alongside the form, each file here includes revised schedule pages and a Virginia Contracting Activity "Contract Distribution List" showing who received copies: the contractor, the NSA payment office, the Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) or point of contact, and the contract file.

P00001, September 2009: the option year exercised without money (D112)

The distribution list (page 1) is dated 8 September 2009 and sends copies to ten recipients, among them the contractor, at 1899 W Brooks Ave in North Las Vegas, and the point of contact "AAP Person 1", who receives two copies. The Standard Form 30 (page 2) is effective 2 September 2009; block 13C is checked, a supplemental agreement under FAR 52.217-9, "Option to extend the term of the contract"; the modification amount is $0.00; and the contractor is required to sign. It was signed for the contractor by "AAP Person 4", with the handwritten title "OPERATING MANAGER" and the date 9/4/09. The Contracting Officer's name is redacted.

Page 3 is a "(Changed Line Item)" schedule headed "Option Year: 22 September 2009 - 29 September 2010", with every line marked "OPT": Monthly Status Reports $3,241,200; Project Management Plan $9,957,600; Research Report $6,006,000; Comprehensive Integrated Threat Assessment $460,800; Travel $115,000; and Other Direct Costs $5,219,400. The total, which the document itself does not state, is exactly $25,000,000, two and a half times the base year.

Page 4 sets out the purpose: (A) extend the current period of performance to 30 September 2009; (B) revise the option-year dates to 1 October 2009 to 30 September 2010; (C) "Exercise Option year I subject to availability of funds"; (D) the text of the availability-of-funds clause, FAR 52.232-18; and (E) all other terms unchanged. The clause is unambiguous: "Funds are not presently available for this contract", and no government liability for payment arises until funds are made available to the Contracting Officer and the contractor is notified in writing.

The document does not reconcile its own dates: item B says 1 October to 30 September, the schedule heading says 22 September 2009 to 29 September 2010, and the line-item periods run from 22 September 2009 to 21 September 2010.

P00002, February 2010: funded at less than half (D113)

The P00002 Standard Form 30 (page 2) is effective 2 February 2010, carries requisition number 651-0003-10, is checked 13C under FAR 52.212-4(c) "Changes", and has a modification amount of $11,948,810.00. AAP Person 4 again signed for the contractor, on 2 February 2010, and the Contracting Officer, whose name is redacted, signed the same day. Item 14 lists four actions: provide $11,948,810 for the exercise of Option Year 1, thereby removing the availability-of-funds clause of P00001; "Identify impacts to deliverables as a result of reduced funding for Option Year 1. (see attachment)"; incorporate "the revised documentation showing utilization of 2010 funds and identify technical risks of reduced funding"; and increase the obligation so that "the total obligated amount for this contract is $21,948,810.00."

The schedule pages (pages 4-5) allow a direct comparison with P00001:

Our arithmetic, not the document's, shows that the cut was applied uniformly: every category fell to about 47.8 percent of its earlier value, and even travel, now split across two line items, adds up to exactly the same ratio. No technical area and no deliverable type was dropped; the line items still read "Tasks 3.a.1 - 3.a.12" with a quantity of 12. What the reduction meant in practice, which reports were delayed or scaled back, was described in the attachment, which is not in the release. The form carries a handwritten page count of six, while the released file has five pages, one of which is a second, unsigned copy of the form annotated by hand "legibility purpose".

Two further points. First, five months passed between the exercise of the option (2 September 2009) and its funding (2 February 2010), during which the government's liability depended on appropriations. Second, the line-item periods in P00002 run from 22 September 2009 to 21 September 2010, so the 1 October to 30 September revision in P00001 is not reflected.

The P00002 distribution list (page 1), dated 1 February 2010, addresses the contractor's copy to "Bigelow Aerospace Advanced" at 4640 S. Eastern Ave, Las Vegas, with the name "Robert T Bigelow" and a telephone number (not reproduced here). It is the only place in the five files where an individual on the contractor side is named. The COR/POC on this list is AAP Person 1; the "DI FE Representative" is redacted; and a name at the NSA payment office is withheld under (b)(6).

P00003 and P00004, May 2010: a new COR (D114, D115)

P00003 (D114) is an administrative change, effective 18 May 2010, checked 13B under FAR 43.103(b), for $0.00, and the contractor "is not" required to sign. Its purpose: "to Change the COR designation on Contract HHM402-08-C-0072". The new COR's name is redacted under (b)(3):10 USC 424, (b)(6) and is not given an AAP label. The modification adds four conditions for COR guidance to be valid: it must be consistent with "the Statement of Work for this Contract", and it may not constitute a new assignment of work or a change to the contract's terms, a basis for extending the period of performance, or a basis for increasing quantities or the contract value. The Contracting Officer signed on 18 May 2010. The third page is a cover sheet: "Document: P00003 | P00003 COR Change", "Document Classification: Unclassified". In the original text the apostrophe in "Officer's" is rendered as a trademark sign (™), a character-encoding artefact.

The change is visible in the distribution lists. On P00001 and P00002 the point of contact or COR is AAP Person 1. From P00003 on, the "COR/POC" line and the "DI FE Representative" line are covered by a single redaction under (b)(3):10 USC 424, (b)(6), with no label. The documents do not say why the COR was changed or what AAP Person 1's role was afterwards. The validity conditions contain a small detail as well: the contract rests on a Statement of Objectives (D110), while the modification refers to a "Statement of Work" that does not appear in the released contract file (D111).

P00004 (D115) survives only as a one-page distribution list dated 18 May 2010, with "REQ: Admin Mod", the Contracting Officer's name redacted, the contractor's copy addressed to AAP Person 4, and a handwritten distribution-completed date that appears to read 1 June 2010. Some fields are printed in red. The Standard Form 30 itself is not in the release, so the file does not show what P00004 changed. The official description, according to which it aligned internal recordkeeping with the COR change in P00003, cannot be verified from this page.

P00005, September 2010: ninety more days at no cost (D116)

P00005 is effective 28 September 2010, a supplemental agreement by "Mutual Agreement", for $0.00, and the contractor is required to sign. Item 14 is brief: "Bilaterally extend the POP from 09/22/2010 to 12/21/2010"; the extension is made under FAR 52.217-8, "Option to Extend Services"; "No funding is required for this extension"; and "No other changes are made as a result of this modification." The extension is exactly 90 days. AAP Person 4 signed for the contractor on 28 September 2010, with a handwritten title cut off at the edge of the redaction box and beginning "administ"; the Contracting Officer signed the same day (page 1).

The schedule pages (pages 2-3) mark all option line items 1001 to 1009 "(Changed Line Item)", with the P00002 amounts and a new period of performance of 22 September 2009 to 21 December 2010, although the heading still reads "Option Year: 22 September 2009 - 21 September 2010". An unclassified cover sheet and a distribution list dated 29 September 2010 follow (pages 4-5). This is precisely the schedule that appears in the "original" contract copy, D111, which shows that copy was produced after P00005.

What the record shows, and what it leaves out

With D111, the five modifications allow the contract's financial timeline to be reconstructed: a base year from 22 September 2008 at $10,000,000; one option year, exercised in September 2009 and funded in February 2010 at $11,948,810; and performance extended to 21 December 2010. P00005 adds no money, so as far as these documents show, total obligations on the contract remained $21,948,810 through December 2010. None of them exercises a second option year, although the Statement of Objectives anticipated four. The official description says the program was active until 2012; the release contains no modification after P00005, so these documents cannot show what happened between December 2010 and 2012.

Missing: the P00002 attachment on impacts to deliverables and technical risks, and the P00004 Standard Form 30. Redacted: the Contracting Officers' names on every Standard Form 30 and on the "CS" and "KO" lines of the distribution lists, under (b)(3):10 USC 424, (b)(6); the new COR; the "DI FE Representative"; and a contact at the NSA payment office, under (b)(6). Two pseudonyms stand in for names: AAP Person 1 on the government side, and AAP Person 4, who signs for the contractor and is the addressee of the contractor's copy on the P00003 to P00005 lists. The documents do not say who AAP Person 4 is, and this archive does not infer it.

Significance

These are not dramatic documents, but they are the primary source for how much money AAWSAP's contract received and when. They show that the contract's second year was planned at $25 million, exercised without available funds, and finally funded at less than half that amount, through a uniform cut applied to every deliverable and all twelve technical areas. They show that government oversight passed from the official labelled AAP Person 1 to another COR in May 2010, and that the contract was last extended, as far as the release shows, to 21 December 2010 without additional funding.

They also mark the limits of the record. The one document that would have explained what the cut meant for the research, the P00002 attachment, is missing, as is the substance of P00004. The DIRDs dated 2010 (DOW-UAP-D119 to D151), all written within this option year, should therefore be read against a year funded at $11.9 million rather than $25 million, without inferring which of them were affected.

Key People

Locations

Key Concepts

Notable Quotes

"Exercise Option year I subject to availability of funds" -- D112, page 4

"Funds are not presently available for this contract. The Government's obligation under this contract is contingent upon the availability of appropriated funds from which payment for contract purposes can be made." -- D112, page 4

"a) Provide funding in the amount of $11,948,810.00 for the Exercise of Option Year I of Contract HHM402-08-C-0072 and thereby removing the availability of funding clause referenced in modification P00001 dtd 9/02/09." -- D113, page 2

"b) Identify impacts to deliverables as a result of reduced funding for Option Year 1. (see attachment)" -- D113, page 2

"c) Incorporate the revised documentation showing utilization of 2010 funds and identify technical risks of reduced funding." -- D113, page 2

"As a result, the total obligated amount for this contract is $21,948,810.00." -- D113, page 2

"The purpose of this modification is to Change the COR designation on Contract HHM402-08-C-0072 in accordance with the terms below:" -- D114, page 2

"a) Bilaterally extend the POP from 09/22/2010 to 12/21/2010." -- D116, page 1

"c) No funding is required for this extension." -- D116, page 1