SAIC to lead joint mission planning

Air Force officials announced April 18 that they awarded Science Applications International Corp. a $184.7 million contract to help develop a system that streamlines mission planning militarywide.

The System Engineering and Integration Contract calls for SAIC officials to help integrate more than 40 mission planning systems into a common computer environment called the Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS). The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract covers 12 years. Officials at the Air Force's Electronic Systems Center will start the procurement in December and complete it in March, according to an April 18 Defense Department contracts' statement.

"This allows the government to retain effective systems engineering and integration stability during the migration of all 40-plus weapons systems from legacy systems to JMPS," according to the DOD statement.

SAIC employees will work on JMPS with officials from five companies who received IDIQ deals from the Air Force in November under the five-year, $2 billion Mission Planning Enterprise Contract. Under that contract, officials at BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Tybrin compete for work to maintain existing mission planning systems.