WASHINGTON - The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has awarded Riptide Technology Inc. in Alexandria, Va., a $27.7 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research and development in support of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) involving integrated operational space and ground systems.
The contract is valued at $27,736,469 and includes options that could bring its cumulative value to $148,293,255. Work will be performed at NRL in Washington and is expected to be completed by August 2031.
NRL obligated $2,505,749 in fiscal 2026 research, development, test, and evaluation funding at the time of award. The contract was competed as a small-business set-aside, with five offers received through the federal government's SAM.gov Contract Opportunities system. NRL is the contracting activity under contract N0017326C2426.
Related: Lockheed Martin, Saildrone launch JAGM from USV at RIMPAC
Available information indicates the effort involves systems engineering and analysis for space and ground systems supporting Navy C4ISR missions.
Riptide identifies maritime domain awareness as a core area of expertise. The company says its engineers have experience with vessel identification, ship tracking, and cargo tracking, as well as deriving maritime port-call and passage-transit information from high-volume worldwide ship-movement data. Its intelligence personnel have experience correlating and fusing electronic intelligence, signals intelligence, acoustic intelligence and radar-track data, along with automated imagery analysis for independent verification and validation of GEOINT sensor products.
The company also says its engineers have developed emulation and visualization capabilities for designing and configuring space-based communications and data-transmission networks.
Those capabilities provide context for the new NRL award, although the contract announcement does not identify specific satellite constellations, sensor systems, onboard-processing architectures, or operational applications. The available information also does not establish that the effort is intended specifically to accelerate a sensor-to-shooter or find-fix-track-target-engage-assess (F2T2EA) process.
Riptide describes itself as a veteran-owned, woman-owned small business that provides professional information-technology services to government clients. The company says it was founded in 2011 and has experience with intelligence production systems supporting the U.S. Navy, including systems associated with NRL and the Office of Naval Intelligence.
The new contract gives Riptide a potential five-year role in NRL research on integrating space and ground systems for Navy C4ISR applications. The relatively small initial obligation compared with the $148.3 million potential contract value reflects the use of contract options, which would be exercised and funded separately if required.
