TSA OTSS Recompete: A Forecast $100M Requirement That Drew Two Bidders Last Time

What the TSA OTSS recompete covers, and who can bid on it

The TSA OTSS recompete covers Operational Test and Evaluation Support Services. That contract puts contractor test teams inside airports to prove new screening equipment works before TSA fields it. TSA’s forecast values the follow-on above $100 million, targets a solicitation for March 1, 2027, and runs performance to September 15, 2032. The forecast lists no set-aside. For a capture lead at a mid-market firm with a GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract, this is new-business capture. You have about five months to decide whether to build a bench. For Science Applications International Corporation, the incumbent on agreement 70T04022A7672N001, those same dates are a retention event.

Three things set this apart from a routine recompete:

• Independent operational test is structurally required. The Test and Evaluation Division is a DHS-approved Independent Test Agent whose evaluations feed Investment Review Board decisions.
• The current agreement is single-award, so every call flows to one firm. The forecast lists the follow-on’s contract type as undetermined.
• The last two generations drew one offer and two.

The demonstrated run rate is $22 million a year

Price this against roughly $22 million a year. The current agreement carries a $150 million ceiling, and across four years and 22 calls TSA has obligated $88,009,177 against it, or 58.7%. Five years at that rate lands near $110 million, just above the forecast band’s floor. The band states no upper bound, so it supports neither a cut nor a resize. It is a planning estimate, not a ceiling in a solicitation.

The obligation record splits into three findings a bidder can act on:

• Demand recurs every year. Calls arrive annually from three contracting offices, covering checkpoint and baggage testing, screening model validation and decoy support.
• Demand is concentrated. More than half the money sits in one call, whose period of performance ends September 20, 2026.
• Demand is smaller than the ceiling suggests. Pricing against the $150 million ceiling models roughly 36% more work than the run rate supports.

For a challenger, I would build the bid economics on the run rate.

Why the TSA OTSS recompete keeps drawing one or two bidders

The statement of work stacks five eligibility requirements that no proposal cycle can close, and that is the best available explanation for the bidder count. The 2020 generation was awarded on one offer received, the 2022 generation on two. TSA’s acceptance-testing agreements, bought through the same TSA contracting office in the adjacent year, drew four offers and five. Offers received on a fair-opportunity competition depend on how many schedule holders got the request. TSA does not publish that.

The OTSS-4 statement of work matches the current agreement by generation numbering and date sequence rather than by anything the document itself states. It stacks the requirements in this order:

1. Every contractor employee needs a favorable TSA suitability determination before starting work.
2. Key personnel, meaning the program manager, task order managers and operational test leads, need a SECRET clearance and must work for the prime or a schedule teaming partner.
3. Threat inject carriers move test items through live checkpoints. Each needs a SECRET clearance, and one test event takes one to twelve of them across multiple sites.
4. Threat inject analysis is classified and runs on government terminals at TSA sites.
5. The labor table names an explosives technician holding an ATF employee possessor permit under the company’s federal explosives license, a canine trainer with explosives detection experience, a human factors engineer with a master’s degree, and cybersecurity analysts for red and blue team testing.

TSA has not said whether the follow-on will carry these terms forward. A counterexample sits in the table below. The engineering and case studies agreement drew a single offer carrying none of this load, so clearance depth is not the only thing that thins a bidder field. The stack sets a timeline. Clearance sponsorship, an explosives permit and a schedule modification each run on their own clock, and none speeds up because a solicitation dropped. If you cannot name the people who would fill the key personnel slots today, you are funding a capability, not a bid.

Under FAR Part 8, a firm in the wrong schedule lane cannot quote

TSA competed both prior OTSS agreements under NAICS 541611, the North American Industry Classification System code for management consulting. The follow-on is forecast under NAICS 541330, Engineering Services. On the GSA Multiple Award Schedule those map to different special item numbers: Management and Financial Consulting for the old, 541330ENG for the new. A firm holding one and not the other needs a schedule modification first.

The forecast lists “BPA (FAR Part 8 or 13)” and leaves it open. A Part 13 agreement runs in the open market, outside schedule item numbers entirely. Both prior generations went Part 8, which is the reason to plan for it. SAIC holds both item numbers, so either way the change costs the incumbent nothing. A schedule modification takes processing time, and it must be complete before a quote is due.

• Confirm whether your schedule contract carries item number 541330ENG. If not, weigh the modification against two open risks: the Part 8 path and the 541330 code surviving to solicitation.
• Count the employees holding both a SECRET clearance and a clean path to a TSA suitability determination.
• Check whether your company holds a federal explosives license and whether anyone on staff holds a canine detection credential.
• Pull your own award history for federal operational test work and confirm it names a test phase.

Competitive Landscape: TSA buys test and evaluation by phase

TSA does not buy test and evaluation as one market. It buys it by phase. Developmental testing asks whether a machine works. Operational testing asks whether it works in a live checkpoint against real passenger volume. Each phase is a separate acquisition vehicle.

In this portfolio, only Battelle clears the schedule gate. It holds a schedule contract carrying item number 541330ENG and runs the developmental phase immediately upstream of this one. Whether its developmental work carries the cleared key personnel and licensed explosives staff this requirement needs is undisclosed. Two things cut the other way. Its agreement ends February 11, 2027, eighteen days before the target solicitation, so it may be defending its own recompete instead of attacking this one. And a developmental-test incumbent bidding to become the independent operational test agent on the same systems raises a separation question. TSA has not addressed it.

• Analytical Services & Materials has already won under NAICS 541330 in this portfolio, and its agreement ended in May 2026, so capacity is free. Team on this generation, prime on the next.
• Total Systems Technologies and Global Systems Technologies both prime on small business set-aside agreements. This requirement, as forecast, carries no set-aside, so their move is a teaming position with a schedule-holding prime.
• Everyone else, including any systems integrator entering cold, bids against an incumbent with cleared staff already on payroll.

The developmental agreement has no recorded offer count, so read that row as unknown, not zero. Reasoning from “TSA test work is competitive” to “this agreement is competitive” merges lanes TSA keeps apart.

The FY2027 request points test demand toward late-stage work

The equipment this agreement tests is what TSA is asking Congress to buy. The FY2027 request puts procurement, construction and improvements at $286.9 million against $40.7 million under the FY2026 annualized continuing resolution. That includes $225.9 million for checkpoint property screening and $41.0 million for credential authentication technology. All of it is requested, not appropriated.

One line moves the other way. Innovation Task Force research is requested at $3.0 million against $8.1 million under that same continuing resolution, a 63% cut. Emerging alarm resolution research is requested at $11.0 million against $1.5 million. The current agreement already funds an Innovation Task Force testing call. Those lines point toward late-stage operational test and away from early-stage pilot support, favoring statisticians, human factors engineers and site test leads. That is an inference from a budget request, not a TSA statement.

So I would not start proposal work on the TSA OTSS recompete yet. Confirm which schedule lane applies, count the cleared bench, and open a teaming conversation with a firm that already holds TSA test past performance. Then watch for TSA’s next public step: a draft request for quotation, a sources-sought notice or an industry day. None exists today, and the first to appear is the first chance to shape the requirement. A bridge or sole-source extension to the incumbent tells you the opposite, as does a forecast revision putting the code back to 541611. TSA bridged an adjacent requirement in this contract family in May 2026, so treat March 1 as a target with slip precedent.

FAQ

What is the TSA OTSS contract, and what does a win pay?

A win pays nothing on its own. A blanket purchase agreement obligates no money at award. It sets prices and terms, and every dollar moves through calls issued afterward. On the current agreement that meant 22 calls over four years, from $296,410 to $46.8 million.

Who is the incumbent, and how exposed is it?

SAIC has held this requirement across two consecutive generations, winning the 2020 agreement on a single offer and the current one on two. One call carries 53.2% of everything obligated, and its period of performance ends September 20, 2026.

Which TSA contracting offices place the calls?

Three placed calls against the current agreement: 70T04, 70T05 and 70T02. They cover operational test support, checkpoint and baggage testing, screening model validation and covert performance testing. Treating the Test and Evaluation Division as the sole customer understates demand.

What would invalidate the case for investing here?

A sole-source award or bridge extension deferring competition past fiscal 2027, or a forecast revision reverting the code to 541611. A Part 13 follow-on would moot the schedule item number question.

What does this mean if I hold a schedule contract but no TSA test past performance?

Your realistic access is a schedule teaming position behind a firm that already holds it. Team members are co-primes who each hold their own schedule contract. Use the next two quarters to add item number 541330ENG and build cleared staff.