Good news for small business looking to break into Department of Defense contracting: the 2017 NDAA establishes a new prototyping pilot program for small businesses and nontraditional defense contractors to develop new and innovative technologies.

The DoD is putting its money where its mouth is: the new pilot program is funded with $250 million from the rapid prototyping fund established by last year’s NDAA.

The new pilot program is officially called the “Nontraditional and Small Contractor Innovation Prototyping Program.” Under the program, the authorized funds are to be used to “design, develop, and demonstrate innovative prototype military platforms of significant scope for the purpose of demonstrating new capabilities that could provide alternatives to existing acquisition programs and assets.”

Congress is relying on the DoD to develop many of the program’s parameters. The 2017 NDAA calls for the Secretary of Defense to submit, with its budget request for Fiscal Year 2018, “a plan to fund and carry out the pilot program in future years.”

In the meantime, Congress has authorized $50 million to be made available for the following projects in FY 2017:

(1) Swarming of multiple unmanned air vehicles.

(2) Unmanned, modular fixed-wing aircraft that can be rapidly adapted to multiple missions and serve as a fifth generation weapons augmentation platform.

(3) Vertical takeoff and landing tiltrotor aircraft.

(4) Integration of a directed energy weapon on an air, sea, or ground platform.

(5) Swarming of multiple unmanned underwater vehicles.

(6) Commercial small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites with on-board machine learning for automated, real-time feature extraction and predictive analytics.

(7) Active protection system to defend against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles.

(8) Defense against hypersonic weapons, including sensors.

(9) Other systems as designated by the Secretary.

In addition to sounding like something out of a science fiction movie, these categories provide insight into some of Congress’s (and DoD’s) prototyping priorities–particularly those in which small and nontraditional contractors are expected to be able to play an important role.

The 2017 NDAA authorizes the prototyping program through September 30, 2026. As the Secretary of Defense will not submit its implementation plan for the pilot program until its next budget request, it may take some time before the program hits full stride. In the interim, interested contractors can start positioning themselves to take advantage of this new opportunity.

2017 NDAA: The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 appears poised beneath the president’s pen for signing. It includes some massive changes as well as some small but nevertheless significant tweaks sure to impact Federal procurements in the coming year. For the next few days, SmallGovCon will delve into the minutia to provide context and analysis so that you do not have to. Visit smallgovcon.com for the latest on the government contracting provisions of the 2017 NDAA. 

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