Production and Installation of Integrated UHF SATCOM & EFMTE 4.2 Baseline Equipment for the Royal Navy's Type 26 Batch 2 Ships

Defence Digital Commercial, part of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MoD), has awarded a contract for the production and installation of Integrated UHF SATCOM & EFMTE 4.2 baseline satellite communications equipment for the Royal Navy's T26 fleet Ships 4 to 8 to STS Defence Ltd. This equipment will provide a communications service to support Information Exchange Requirements (IER) for simultaneous voice and data. Please note, a Voluntary ex ante transparency notice has previously been published for this contract on the Find a Tender website, which can be seen here: https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/029245-2024 STS Defence Limited have previously designed a bespoke UHF SATCOM 4.2 Design capability in partnership with SNXP Limited which is accredited for use by the MoD on the T26 Fleet. The installation of this capability in T26 Ship 1 was carried out by STS Defence Limited under a task on an existing MoD Contract. This Contract was competed, and STS Defence Limited was awarded the contract. Thereafter, the installation of this capability in T26 Ships 2 and 3 was directly awarded to STS Defence Limited under a separate contract for Technical Reasons pursuant to Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the DSPCR 2011, which is also applicable to this contract. Contractual timelines for the delivery of this Integrated UHF SATCOM & EFMTE 4.2 baseline equipment capability into T26 Ships 4 to 8 are already embedded within the existing Type 26 Ship Building Contract (Contract Ref. No. SHIPACQ036) as a requirement to enable repeat supply and fit. Only STS Defence and SNXP Limited have the technical ability and experience necessary to produce and install this Integrated UHF SATCOM & EFMTE 4.2 baseline equipment capability into T26 Ships 4 to 8 in a manner that is accredited for use by the MoD and meets the required timescales. It is not viable for another supplier to deliver an alternative design that meets the MoD's technical requirements within the necessary timescales. Further, the STS Defence/SNXP SATCOM design has been approved by Naval Command Headquarters (NCHQ) to ensure it is fit for use. This design and accreditation process took several years to complete. To bring in a third-party supplier to design new equipment, obtain MoD approval and accreditation for the new design and then build and install it on T26 Ships 4 to 8 would incur significant and disproportionate additional time and cost consequences to the MoD, which would also result in significant delays to Vessel Acceptance Date (the date by which MoD are required to have agreed that the newly built T26 Ship has been delivered to an acceptable level against the requirements defined in the T26 Ship Building Contract (Contract Ref. No. SHIPACQ036)), thereby causing an unacceptable capability gap to the Royal Navy.