The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in plans to boost its purchases of inspection systems used to screen checked baggage for explosives while holding the line technology purchases for checkpoint screening, according to the budget documents delivered to Congress following the release early in March of the Obama Administration’s FY ’15 budget request for the federal government.
TSA is requesting $139.6 million to buy medium-speed Explosive Detection Systems (EDS) and desktop Explosive Trace Detectors (ETD) for screening checked baggage, according to the FY ’15 Congressional Budget Justification. The agency is asking Congress for $130.8 million for 109 EDS systems and $8.8 million for the ETDs.
In FY ’14 Congress approved $107.1 million for TSA to acquire EDS systems, with $104.4 million carved out for 87 medium-speed systems and $2.7 million for reduced-size systems. There are no funds for ETD systems this year.
The agency is requesting $190.5 million for the installation of the EDS and ETD systems. The installation funding is also used for independent verification and validation testing, facility modification and site preparation, warehousing, operational test and evaluation, and program support.
TSA buys its medium-speed EDS systems from Safran Group’s Morpho division and L-3 Communications [LLL]. Once FY ’15 begins in October, the agency expects to have fielded maintenance requirements for 665 of Morpho’s CTX EDS systems and 629 of L-3’s eXaminer EDS systems. The agency also expects to have fielded maintenance requirements for 559 reduced-size EDS systems supplied by Leidos Holdings’ [LDOS] Reveal Imaging business unit.
TSA for several years has been working with three companies on high-speed EDS systems that, unlike current systems, are based fixed gantries to reduce life-cycle costs. These companies are L-3, OSI Systems’ [OSIS] Rapiscan division, and SureScan although Morpho’s high-end CTX systems are also capable of high-speed parcel throughput. TSA says in the budget documents that it will begin developmental testing in FY ’14 of high-speed EDS systems.
The agency’s funding request for EDS maintenance in FY ’15 is $176.8 million, with $78.9 million pegged for Morpho’s systems, $65.6 million for L-3’s, and $32.1 million for the Reveal systems.
The ETD systems are purchased from Morpho and Smiths Detection. TSA maintenance requirements for ETDs in FY ’15 include 900 of Smiths’ IonScan 400Bs and 600 of the IonScan 500DTs. For the Morpho systems maintenance is expected on 1,278 Itemiser DX’ and 22 Itemiser Ws.
For the ETD systems, TSA is requesting $25.7 million in maintenance funding, with $15.6 million planned for the Ionscan systems and $7.6 million for the Itemisers. The agency plans to buy $2.5 million worth of consumables related to its ETD systems.
Checkpoint Technology Request
While TSA is planning for a solid uptick in spending on checked baggage equipment, the request for checkpoint technologies is basically level $98.5 million, $200,000 above the FY ’14 enacted appropriation.
Just over $25 million of the request for checkpoint screening technologies is going to the actual purchase of systems, according to the budget documents. The largest equipment purchase, $10.5 million, is slated for Bottled Liquid Scanners (BLS), which so far have been purchased from CEIA and Smiths Detection.
The next largest chunk of spending for new systems is $10.2 million for Advanced Technology (AT) X-Ray machines that screen carry-on bags. Most of these systems have been purchased from Smiths Detection and Rapiscan, although several dozen have been acquired from L-3.
In Sept. 2013, Rapiscan won an approximately $67 million contract to supply TSA with 550 of its AT X-Ray systems but that award was terminated for default shortly thereafter once the company disclosed that its winning bid included a component that had not previously been certified by the agency as part of Rapiscan’s system. Now the Department of Homeland Security is reviewing whether to debar the company from bidding on federal contracts for a period of time.
Meantime, TSA says it plans to recompete the AT X-Ray contract during FY ’14. Whether Rapiscan will be in a position to bid on that award is uncertain at the moment.
The request for checkpoint screening technologies also includes $3.3 million for the new version of the whole body imagers, the Advanced Imaging Technology-2 systems. TSA plans to buy 25 AIT-2 systems in FY ’15, bringing its full operational capability to 99 percent.
In FY ’14 TSA plans to conduct operational test and evaluation of AIT-2 systems, which if successful will lead to the purchase of 150 systems using prior year funding in addition to the 25 planned in FY ’15. Currently the only deployed AIT systems are supplied by L-3 although a competition is underway for the AIT-2 systems.
The agency also plans to purchase 50 Credential Authentication Technology scanners for $1.3 million to go with the 1,400 systems it plans to buy with FY ’14 funding and prior-year funding.
The checkpoint technology request also includes funding for testing and installing new screening equipment as well as upgrading existing equipment such as the AT X-Ray systems to the AT-2 requirements for detection.
For checkpoint technology-related maintenance in FY ’15, TSA is requesting $76.7 million, with the largest single line item of $14.9 million slated for 746 of Smith’s AT X-Ray systems followed by $13.6 million for 749 of L-3’s AIT systems. The agency is slotting $11.5 million for 851 of Rapiscan’s AT X-Ray systems and $1.2 million for L-3’s 50 AT X-Ray machines.
Additional checkpoint maintenance line item requests include nearly $10 million for Smiths’ and $7.8 million for Morpho’s ETD systems, $1.2 million for CEIA’s walk-through metal detectors, and $1.2 million for Smith’s and $685,600 for CEIA’s BLS scanners respectively.