- The IC is hosting both competitions focused on new entrants and big-budget solicitations
- These also feature fast-growing capabilities like identity, credential and access management
- Hear what FEOC changes mean for cybersecurity at the 2026 Intel Summit on Sept. 24
It’s a great time for GovCons to pursue intelligence community business. Not only is the IC pursuing full and open competitions that open the door to new entrants in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Global Services Proxy III, but it also features fast-growing investment areas like identity, credential and access management.
IC business also features one of the most lucrative programs in the national security space. The Defense Intelligence Agency’s Contract Operations for Missile Evaluation and Testing, or COMET, is a potential $14 billion indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity opportunity that should be attractive to companies with technical intelligence and missile and space analytical depth.
Discover the five most consequential IC contract opportunities and the paradigm-shifting technologies they seek.
Foreign entities of concern regulation changes are transforming the business of intelligence. Learn what they mean for cybersecurity by attending the Potomac Officers Club 2026 Intel Summit on Sept. 24. Our Navigating the FEOC Frontier panel discussion features top government officials like Rebecca McWhite, National Institute of Standards and Technology technical lead for cybersecurity supply chain risk management. Discover how FEOC rules are impacting cybersecurity contract eligibility, teaming arrangements and subcontractor relationships. Sign up now!
What Are the Five Most Consequential Intelligence Contract Opportunities?
1. DIA ICAM and AD Services
The Defense Intelligence Agency is seeking information from industry about providing enterprise identify, credential and access management, or ICAM and active directory services, efforts to provide a secure, resilient and adaptive access management environment.
This anticipated requirement encompasses the implementation and sustainment of advanced ICAM and AD solutions across multiple secure networks, including the modernization of legacy systems, seamless integration with enterprise services and ongoing evaluation of emerging technologies.
This requirement is organized across five integrated mission areas:
- Enterprise ICAM and AD
- Zero trust
- Cybersecurity
- Risk management framework
- Technology modernization
Responses are due Sept. 15.
2. DIA COMET
The DIA’s COMET is extremely valuable as it could be worth as much as $14 billion. COMET provides lawmakers, homeland security and IC agencies, weapons manufacturers and operators with intelligence assessments of international weapon systems.
According to a RFP posted on SAM.gov, COMET will have a multiple-award IDIQ contract spanning a five-year base period with a five-year option. Task orders may have one year base periods and as many as four option periods under time and material, cost-plus fixed fee and firm-fixed price contract terms.
There are five mission task areas for COMET:
- Foundational and technical intelligence analysis. Expertise here includes, but is not limited to, structured analytic techniques, analytic tradecraft standards and collection posture and plans.
- Foreign materiel exploitation. This includes the reverse-engineering of foreign weapon systems to analyze and understand their capabilities and vulnerabilities.
- IT operations. This involves the performance of hardware and software integration and supporting multiple computer infrastructures, networks and labs.
- Modeling and simulation. This covers software and tool development, computer-aided design, finite element analysis and receivers and signal processors, among others.
- Business processes. This helps the services provide responsive, efficient and reliable business operations that align with DIA’s strategic program management and mission management goals.
Responses for COMET were due April 27.
Interested in investment insights into space intelligence technologies? Then you cannot afford to miss the Potomac Officers Club 2026 Intel Summit on Sept. 24. It features a keynote by Maj. Gen. Brian Sidari, Space Force deputy chief of space operations for intelligence and one of the federal government’s leading space intelligence professionals. Hear directly from Sidari about the Space Force’s plans for proliferated satellite architectures and commercial space integration. Secure your seat today for this eagerly-anticipated GovCon event!
3. IARPA Solutions Marketplace
The IARPA Solutions Marketplace is leveraging a unique pitching strategy in its quest to accelerate the acquisition of innovative technologies for the IC. The marketplace is using a video-based approach where contractors make their pitch in a video no longer than five minutes instead of submitting the piles of paperwork typical for government technology solicitations.
The IARPA Solutions Marketplace is also using a “ready to award” solutions design that has been embraced by defense innovation organizations like the Army Application Laboratory’s DevX Autonomy and the Air Force’s Platform One. The ready to award design leveraging the Rapid Acquisition Model created by the Applied Research Institute provides government procurement officials the ability to browse pre-vetted responses and make faster progress toward contract without having to start an acquisition from the beginning.
Since the ready to award model provides bidders broader access to potential customers throughout the defense and IC sectors, it increases revenue opportunities through just one submission.
IARPA is accepting proposals for its Solutions Marketplace on a rolling basis through July 2027.
4. BIG-ST BAA
The NGA’s Boosting Innovative GEOINT-Science and Technology, a.k.a. BIG-ST, broad area announcement invites proposals of innovative research and development concepts to address hard GEOINT problems around these domains:
- Foundational GEOINT. This is focused on the creation of always accurate, high-resolution and continually-updated representations of Earth’s properties, available on demand, including topics of interest like Earth gravitational models and geopositioning.
- Advanced phenomenologies. This portion employs new methods and strategies to drive development and delivery of improved spatially-, spectrally- and radiometrically-resolved data from a growing number of traditional and non-traditional sources.
- Analytics technologies. Topics of interest in this domain include water security, derivation of GEOINT from non-traditional data in cyberspace and automated target recognition.
The request for abstracts and proposals are transmitted via topic calls published separately during the open period of the general solicitation. Previous topic calls that are now closed included the following capabilities:
- GEOINT Foundational Model
- Magnifying University Science Expertise
- Better Ingested GEOINT-Identifying AI and Manually-Manipulated Media
The Production of Radio Frequency Surveys from Commercial On-orbit Passive RF was a cancelled topic call. A topic call that was active prior to Aug. 18, Lidar Analysis for Surface and Environmental Reconnaissance, or LASER, is now on hold.
BIG-ST is open through Dec. 14.
5. NGA Global Services Proxy III
The NGA intends to conduct a full and open competition for its Global Services Proxy III requirement, according to a pre-solicitation notice posted on SAM.gov. GSP is a cross-domain system that disseminates geospatial intelligence and connects international partners both bilaterally and multilaterally.
GSP III seeks to achieve goals of continued sustainment and enhancement of the GSP system, which serves as the policy decision point or the policy enforcement point and the network boundary between U.S. data services and partner domains.
A classified draft request for proposal was posted in June. Responses were due July 29.
