Testing plan sinks QinetiQ’s bid for a Polish aerostat surveillance system

QinetiQ lost a shot at a $625 million contract to support Poland's military because its interpretation of the solicitation was different than what the U.S. Army and the Government Accountability Office said was required.

QinetiQ competed for a task order to provide four airspace and surface radar reconnaissance aerostats to Poland under the foreign military sales program, losing out to TCOM LP.

The dispute centered around when the solicitation said testing was required. QinetiQ planned to wait until the aerostats reached Poland to conduct live target testing.

The solicitation was not explicit about requiring testing in the U.S. first, but the Army and GAO said the requirement was implicit — a concept known as "logically encompassed."

The protest also highlights the urgency the Army felt to get the aerostat surveillance system up and running on NATO’s eastern flank.

Unlike most protests, the QinetiQ challenge did not trigger an automatic stay or pause in the contract. The U.S. Army, which manages the procurement, said “urgent and compelling circumstances required it to override the statutory stay.”

The circumstances included “maintaining stability of NATO’s eastern flank, upholding alliance commitments, and protecting the U.S. military personnel deployed in the region,” according to the GAO decision unsealed Sept. 4.

The Army also cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “direct threat to Poland’s sovereignty.”

QinetiQ's protest challenged the Army’s evaluation of its proposal, including low marks it received for the plan it presented during orals.

Because this solicitation ran on oral presentations rather than a separate written technical volume, QinetiQ's oral presentation was effectively its technical proposal and it drew a rating of "Acceptable." TCOM earned "Good," while both companies received acceptable ratings for their small business participation and subcontracting plans.

During the oral presentations, QinetiQ described its plan to wait until the aerostats were in Poland to conduct live target testing. The Army did not like that plan.

QinetiQ argued that the solicitation did not include a provision for live testing. But the Army countered that the requirement for live testing was “logically encompassed” as part of the performance work statement, which included testing in the U.S. before the system reached Poland.

The Army gave QinetiQ two strengths and eight weaknesses for its technical proposal, while TCOM received five strengths and no weaknesses.

GAO could find nothing in QinetiQ’s protest to overturn the Army’s evaluation.

A key takeaway is GAO’s acceptance of “logically encompassed” concept that the Army leaned on. This concept means the government can rely on inferences in solicitation documents that are not necessarily spelled word for word.

A second issue is that GAO let slide a mistake the Army admitted making that involved export-license risk assessments.

But QinetiQ would have needed to show its proposal was technically superior to TCOM's for the export-license error to matter. Given eight weaknesses to TCOM's zero and a price gap of more than 10%, GAO said that bar was not met.