Project Sabre - Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO)

The Department of Air Force (DAF) Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) has issued a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) solicitation, "Project Sabre – Call 001," to procure innovative commercial items, technologies, and services. The CSO aims to mature, prototype, and develop tooling for Open Architectures (OAs) across five focus areas: SOSA Consortium Nano Hardware, SOSA 3U Hardware Conformance Tool, MBSE Automated Documentation, Code Generation, and Analysis, Big Iron (BI) and AMS GRA Transition Guide Maturation and Training Material, and AMS GRA Software Conformance Tool. This is a two-step solicitation, with Solution Briefs due by March 6, 2026, followed by invitations for technology demonstrations and full price proposals for selected offerors. The Government intends to award Firm Fixed Price contracts or Other Transactions for Prototype Projects, prioritizing solutions that demonstrate strong technical merit, commercial viability, and alignment with data rights objectives. Evaluation criteria for Solution Briefs emphasize CUI environment capability, technical approach, data rights strategy, and budgetary estimates. Step 2 involves a technical demonstration and a price proposal, with technical merit being more important than price.

Project Sabre, led by the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center (AFLCMC), is a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) designed to acquire innovative commercial solutions for mission system capabilities within weapon system platforms and munitions. Utilizing open architectures and standards, the CSO aims to revolutionize warfighting capability delivery by leveraging commercial technologies to solve integration challenges and reduce vendor lock. It operates under 10 U.S.C. 3458 and DFARS 212.70, allowing for FAR Part 12 Contracts or Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs). The process involves

This document is a Q&A for CSO Project Sabre, Call 001, dated February 26, 2026, addressing vendor inquiries across five focus areas. General questions clarify that individual call instructions take precedence over base CSO requirements, limiting submissions to five pages or ten slides, with cover pages excluded from the count. Graphics, tables, and headers/footers are exempt from the 12-point font rule if readable, and PDF briefing slides are allowed. The initial effort for most focus areas is approximately three months, aiming for a minimum viable product. The government has not decided on the number of awards per topic. The contract vehicle could be an OTA or FAR-based, with the determination influenced by the offeror's proposal. Focus Area 1 emphasizes vendor discretion on technical details for jamming demonstrations. Focus Area 2 seeks proposals for testing SOSA 3U PICs for conformance. Focus Area 3 indicates no preference for on-premise or cloud solutions, with MBSE models being CUI or unclassified. Focus Area 4 details a 12-month period of performance with an initial 3-month award. Focus Area 5 focuses on automating AMS GRA rules and proposes changes, with vendors expected to provide their own MPUs. Only Firm Fixed Price (FFP) or Fixed Price Incentive (FPI) instruments will be awarded.