AURORA Operations, Sustainment, And Agentic AI Deployment
Overview
Buyer
Place of Performance
NAICS
PSC
Set Aside
Original Source
Timeline
Qualification Details
Fit reasons
- NAICS alignment with historical contract wins in similar service areas.
- Scope strongly matches core technical capabilities and delivery model.
Risks
- Past performance thresholds may require one additional teaming partner.
- Potential clarification needed on staffing minimums before bid/no-bid.
Next steps
Validate eligibility requirements, assign capture owner, and schedule partner outreach to confirm teaming strategy before submission planning.
Quick Summary
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), under the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has posted a Limited Sources Justification (LSJ) for the AURORA Operations, Sustainment, And Agentic AI Deployment opportunity. This LSJ supports awarding a short-term, one-year bridge task order to the incumbent contractor, Palantir Technologies, Inc., for the sustainment of the ARPA-H Data Program Management Organization (DPMO) and the AURORA platform. This bridge contract is necessary to maintain continuous functionality while ARPA-H develops requirements for a future competitive, long-term contract.
Scope of Work
The awarded task order will cover:
- Sustainment of existing DPMO and AURORA functions.
- Deployment of additional functionalities as required.
- Provision of personnel, services, software licenses, and cloud infrastructure for organizational data management and analysis.
- Option for integrating Agentic Artificial Intelligence agents to automate ARPA-H workflows.
- Adherence to federal IT standards, including FedRAMP (moderate level) and NIST SP 800-53 security controls.
- Obtaining an Authorization to Operate (ATO) for the system.
- Documentation and standardization of AURORA's architecture, data models, interfaces, pipelines, and security controls to enable future competition.
Contract & Timeline
- Contract Type: Firm-Fixed Price
- Period of Performance: Anticipated June 1, 2026, through May 31, 2027 (one-year bridge period).
- Contract Vehicle: GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract 47QTCA-24-D-004L.
- Published: June 10, 2026
Evaluation
This document is a justification for a limited source award, not a solicitation for proposals. The evaluation is based on the justification for limiting sources.
Eligibility / Set-Aside
This is a Limited Sources Justification, citing that "Only one source can provide the supplies or services required at the level or quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized" (GSAR 538.7104-3(b)(1)(ii)) and "An urgent and compelling need exists" (FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(A)).
Additional Notes
The current contract expires on June 5, 2026. This bridge order is critical to prevent a lapse in service and facilitate the development of requirements for a future competitive, long-term contract. Market research indicated that alternative platforms would incur significant cost duplication and schedule risk for this short-term requirement.