The Space Rapid Capabilities Office has awarded Modern Technology Solutions Inc. (MTSI) a $371,332,385 time-and-materials contract for systems engineering and technical assistance across the office's acquisition lifecycle, according to the Department of War's contract announcements for July 24, 2026. The award stands out less for its dollar value than for how it was made: on a sole-source basis under a seldom-used pilot program reserved for employee-owned businesses.
The Alexandria, Virginia firm will support the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (Space RCO) from a primary work location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with completion set for Aug. 23, 2031. The contracting activity is the Space RCO at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, under contract number FA254826CB006.
Background
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office is one of the smaller and less visible acquisition organizations inside the Department of the Air Force and Space Force, but it carries an outsized mandate. Modeled loosely on the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office that fielded programs such as the B-21 bomber, the Space RCO exists to move classified and time-sensitive space systems through development and into the field faster than the traditional acquisition system allows. It handles programs where speed and security take precedence over the deliberate, competition-heavy cadence of standard major-defense-acquisition procedures.
Organizations built for speed lean heavily on contractor systems engineering and technical assistance, commonly abbreviated SETA. These firms supply the engineers, program analysts, cost estimators, and technical advisors who sit alongside government program managers and help translate requirements into executable contracts, track schedule and cost, and evaluate the work of the prime contractors actually building hardware. Because SETA firms advise the government on how to oversee other contractors, they operate under organizational-conflict-of-interest rules that generally bar them from bidding on the production work they help shape.
What makes this particular award notable is the legal authority behind it. The Space RCO issued the contract as a sole-source acquisition under the Pilot Program for Employee-Owned Businesses established by Section 872 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024. That provision lets the Defense Department make noncompetitive awards to qualifying businesses owned by their employees, typically through an employee stock ownership plan, as a way to test whether the ownership structure can be encouraged through federal contracting. MTSI is an employee-owned small business, and the award appears to be one of the larger contracts placed through that pilot to date.
Key Details
The contract carries a ceiling of $371,332,385 and is structured as time-and-materials, a form in which the government pays fixed hourly labor rates plus the cost of materials. Time-and-materials arrangements are common for advisory and engineering support work where the exact scope and hours cannot be pinned down in advance, though they place a premium on government oversight because the contractor is not bound to a fixed price for a defined deliverable.
MTSI's scope covers systems engineering and technical assistance spanning the Space RCO acquisition lifecycle, meaning the firm's staff will support programs from early requirements and design through development, testing, and fielding. Work will be performed primarily in Albuquerque, near Kirtland Air Force Base, which hosts much of the Space Force's research, development, and rapid-acquisition enterprise, including the Air Force Research Laboratory's space vehicles directorate.
The performance period runs to Aug. 23, 2031, giving MTSI a roughly five-year runway to embed with the office's program teams. The GlobalSecurity.org mirror of the July 24 Pentagon contract list confirms the awardee, the $371,332,385 value, the time-and-materials structure, the systems-engineering-and-technical-assistance scope, the Space RCO customer, the sole-source basis, and the Aug. 23, 2031 completion date.
The award reflects a broader pattern in which the Space Force and its rapid-acquisition arms concentrate advisory work with a relatively small pool of specialized firms that already hold the security clearances and program knowledge needed to operate inside classified space efforts. MTSI has a long history in missile defense, space, and test-and-evaluation support, and the size and length of this contract position it as an anchor advisor to the Space RCO for the rest of the decade.
What It Means for Contractors
The Section 872 pathway is the most instructive element of this award for the contracting community. Firms that are structured as employee-owned businesses, and that can document that status under the pilot's rules, now have a concrete, high-value example of the authority being used for a large SETA requirement. Companies weighing an employee stock ownership plan or already operating as one should study how MTSI qualified, because the pilot offers a route to sole-source awards that competitors without the ownership structure cannot pursue. That is a meaningful differentiator in a market where SETA work is otherwise heavily competed.
For firms without that status, the award is a reminder that acquisition authorities, not just technical qualifications, increasingly shape who can win. A capable engineering firm may find itself locked out of a requirement not because it lacks the skills but because a set-aside or pilot authority steers the work elsewhere. Tracking which authorities the Space RCO and similar offices favor is now part of competitive positioning.
Subcontracting is the practical opening. A five-year, $371 million time-and-materials vehicle at a rapid-acquisition office will generate demand for niche specialists in areas such as space systems engineering, cost analysis, digital engineering, and test support. Firms that cannot prime this work should approach MTSI as a teaming partner, particularly those holding cleared personnel in the Albuquerque and Kirtland area, where the labor pool for classified space work is tight.
Finally, the concentration of advisory work at Kirtland underscores the value of geographic and clearance footprint. Contractors serious about the Space Force's rapid-acquisition mission benefit from a physical presence near Albuquerque and a bench of personnel already cleared into space programs. Those assets are difficult to stand up quickly and often decide whether a firm is credible when these awards, competed or not, come up for renewal.
