A powerful House committee chairman blasted NASA for awarding a new $1 billion-plus contract for the Space Communications Networks Services (SCNS) despite the committee asking NASA to delay the award pending investigations.

The House Science and Technology Committee (HSTC) and the NASA office of the inspector general are probing "serious allegations of conflicts of interest that may have affected the procurement," Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), the committee chairman, stated.

He noted that he and Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), chairman of the HSTC investigations and oversight subcommittee, specifically informed NASA in two letters last month that they were interested in probing the SCNS contract, which then was pending a new award after a successful protest of an earlier award.

"Chairman Miller and I had specifically asked NASA not to do this until our investigative work was finished," Gordon noted.

The letters went to NASA two months after its previous administrator, Mike Griffin, had resigned effective Jan. 20, as is customary when a new administration takes office. President Obama was sworn in Jan. 20, succeeding former President Bush. But Obama has yet to name a new NASA administrator.

"I hope that a new administrator would want to review the SCNS procurement process," Gordon said.

The letters he and Miller sent to NASA went to acting Administrator Chris Scolese.

That contract award could be worth more than $1 billion, and this is a crucial matter, Gordon observed.

"The Committee has received allegations that the organizational conflicts of interest involving ITT Corp. as a … contractor may have compromised the competitive process," Gordon wrote in a letter dated March 6.

In a request to NASA, the committee leaders had sought information and documents relating to the matter, though Gordon later complained that NASA didn’t provide all the requested material.

As for the original contract itself, ITT announced last October that NASA selected the firm to provide the SCNS telemetry, tracking and command services for near-Earth missions, a pact worth up to a potential $1.26 billion if all options were exercised.

"For more than 25 years, ITT has provided engineering services for NASA’s near-Earth communications networks, and since 2003, has provided maintenance and operations support services for its Deep Space Network, an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions," ITT stated at the time.

Under the SCNS contract, ITT would support NASA’s Space and Near Earth Networks, which provide most of the communications and tracking services for a wide range of Earth- orbiting spacecraft, including the International Space Station, the space shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Earth Observing System satellites.

Some major contractors were on the ITT team. They are CSC, LJT & Associates Inc., The Boeing Co. [BA], ASRC Aerospace Corp., Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB], SaiTech, Inc., and Braxton Technologies.

Under the contract, ITT was to perform mission network planning and integration services, systems and network engineering, operations, maintenance, and development and sustainment engineering at NASA space centers across the United States and around the world. The contract provided for the operation and maintenance of NASA’s Space Network, which includes Tracking and Data Relay Satellites and associated ground systems in the United States and Guam. Additionally, the contract provided for operation and maintenance of NASA’s Near Earth Network that includes satellite communication and tracking stations located around the world.

But a competitor on Dec. 4 protested the contract award to ITT, appealing to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the government umpire agency.

Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc., protested the award to ITT, asserting that the space agency evaluation of bids and subsequent award of the contract were improper.

Further, Honeywell contended that NASA discussions with Honeywell regarding its proposal were inadequate and misleading, that ITT had an impermissible organizational conflict of interest, and that by retaining a former NASA official as a consultant in violation of statutory procurement integrity provisions, ITT gained an unfair competitive advantage."

The GAO Jan. 27 upheld the Honeywell protest regarding NASA evaluations of past Honeywell contract performance, but didn’t consider a conflict of interest complaint because Honeywell didn’t timely raise the issue.

As far as the conflict of interest, Gordon noted his committee — unlike the GAO — isn’t limited by that legal time constraint, and would like to probe the matter. The chairman referred to "the employment of a former senior NASA official."

The committee asked for information relating to Robert Spearing, former deputy NASA associate administrator for space communications, inquiring as to any ethics guidance, recusal directions and/or post-employment restrictions that NASA may have imposed upon him. He retired from NASA in April 2007.

Gordon detailed his concerns in the two letters to NASA: