The Missile Defense Agency’s Agile Professional Services Solutions program, known as MAPSS, is a $5.517 billion enterprise procurement spanning 28 contract requirements and approximately 3,000 Full-Time Equivalents from FY26 through FY36. It is MDA’s primary vehicle for achieving the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s 80% Spend Under Management goal and the principal successor to the legacy TEAMS Next contract structure. MDA has indicated that the majority of MAPSS requirements are expected to be met through small business set-asides via OASIS+. For defense contractors, capture executives, and proposal professionals pursuing government contracting opportunities in the defense advisory and assistance services market, MAPSS represents a decade-long pipeline that requires early positioning, precise OCI management, and a proposal strategy aligned with OASIS+ fair opportunity procedures. In this blog, we break down the full MAPSS structure, the functional domains that define each requirement, the security and facility clearance prerequisites, the OCI firewall requirements, the evaluation methodology, and the phased small business tranche schedule from Tranche 1 through Tranche 6.
Understanding the $5.5B MAPSS Opportunity
Program Structure and Strategic Context
MAPSS is MDA’s enterprise-wide Advisory and Assistance Services procurement supporting the Missile Defense System across its full acquisition lifecycle. The program spans FY26 through FY36, a ten-year ordering horizon, and covers approximately 3,000 FTEs across 28 deconsolidated contract requirements. Individual task orders carry 5-year durations structured as 2- to 3-year base periods with options.
MDA is deconsolidating 18 legacy TEAMS Next contracts into the 28 MAPSS requirements. This deconsolidation is deliberate. It narrows the scope of each individual requirement, reduces the concentration of work with a single large contractor, and opens more distinct competitive opportunities for smaller, more specialized firms.
The program serves two concurrent policy objectives:
- OSD Spend Under Management (SUM) Goal: MDA designated GSA OASIS+ as the primary contract vehicle for 24 of the 28 requirements, aligning with OSD’s mandate that 80% of eligible professional services spend flow through designated Best-in-Class contract vehicles.
- Small Business Access: MDA has indicated that the majority of MAPSS requirements are expected to be met through small business set-asides in OASIS+, including targeted 8(a), SDVOSB, and WOSB opportunities within the tranche structure.
Why Deconsolidation Changes the Competitive Landscape
Under the legacy TEAMS Next structure, large prime contractors held broad contracts covering multiple functional domains simultaneously. Deconsolidation into 28 distinct requirements means that firms must now compete separately for each domain. A contractor that previously held a single broad TEAMS Next contract covering engineering, intelligence, and test support functions must now compete for each of those functional areas individually under MAPSS.
For small businesses, this is the opportunity. Deconsolidation creates 24 separate, completed small-business requirements, whereas previously a single large contract covered the same ground. Firms that identify which specific MAPSS requirements align with their core capabilities and pursue those requirements with targeted proposals will outperform firms that try to position broadly across all 28.
Mapping Capabilities to Deconsolidated Functional Domains
The 28 Requirements Across Eight Functional Areas
MAPSS organizes its 28 requirements across eight primary functional domains. Each domain maps to a distinct area of MDA’s advisory and assistance support mission. Contractors must match their past performance, technical expertise, and workforce depth to the specific domain they are pursuing.
- Core Engineering: Systems engineering and technical assistance across the Missile Defense System architecture. This domain supports MDA’s integration engineering, requirements analysis, and technical planning functions.
- C2 and Sensors: Command and control architecture support, sensor integration, and battle management engineering. Contractors in this domain require demonstrated experience with DoD C4ISR systems and sensor network integration.
- Ground-Based and Sea-Based Weapon System Engineering: Engineering support for Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) and Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense systems. This domain demands direct prior experience with the specific weapon system platforms.
- Quality and Mission Assurance: Independent quality assurance, surveillance, and mission assurance support across MDA programs. Contractors must demonstrate QMA methodology rigor and prior experience performing independent assessments on defense acquisition programs.
- Safety: System safety engineering across the Missile Defense System, including hazard analysis, safety assessments, and compliance with MIL-STD-882 and applicable DoD safety standards.
- Intelligence: Intelligence analysis, threat assessment, and indications and warning support to MDA’s mission planning and system performance evaluation functions. Personnel clearances in this domain extend to Top Secret and SCI levels.
- Test Support: Test planning, execution support, data analysis, and evaluation services across MDA’s flight and ground test programs. This domain requires familiarity with MDA’s test infrastructure and prior experience supporting tests on comparable defense programs.
Facilities Lifecycle Management: Facilities planning, programming, and management support across MDA’s domestic and international facility portfolio.
Selecting the Right Requirements to Pursue
The single most consequential capture decision in MAPSS is choosing which requirements to pursue. Firms that attempt to compete across all 28 requirements without a coherent capability map will dilute their proposal resources and produce weaker submissions across the board.
The disciplined approach involves conducting a gap analysis before any proposed investment. Map your existing past performance references against each domain’s specific scope. Identify where you have documented, verifiable experience at comparable scale and complexity. Prioritize requirements where that experience is direct and specific, not adjacent or analogous. Then assess your OCI posture for each targeted requirement before committing to pursue.
Meeting Rigorous Security, SCIF, and Cleared Workforce Standards
1. Facility and Personnel Clearance Requirements
MAPSS task orders require active Secret and Top Secret Facility Security Clearances at the time of proposal submission for requirements involving classified work. Specifically, requirements supporting intelligence, C2 and sensors, and certain weapon-system engineering domains require personnel clearances up to the Top Secret and SCI levels.
Firms that do not currently hold the required FCL at the applicable classification level must either begin the clearance process immediately or pursue teaming arrangements with a cleared prime. As with other DoD advisory services vehicles, FCL requirements apply at the time of proposal, not at award. A firm that cannot demonstrate an active FCL for a classified requirement is ineligible to submit.
SCIF management is a distinct requirement for several MAPSS domains. Contractors performing intelligence and certain command-and-control support functions must operate within, or provide access to, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities that meet the applicable ICD 705 physical and technical security standards. Firms without existing SCIF infrastructure must address this in their facility security plan and in their technical approach.
2. DCAA-Approved Accounting Systems
Several MAPSS task orders will be awarded as Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee Level-of-Effort contracts. Firms pursuing CPFF task orders must maintain a DCAA-approved accounting system that meets the cost accounting and reporting requirements applicable to cost-reimbursement contracts under FAR Part 31 and DFARS cost accounting standards.
Firms without a current DCAA-approved accounting system should begin the audit process well before submitting any MAPSS proposal. Approval timelines are outside the contractor’s control and can extend significantly beyond initial estimates. A firm that submits a proposal for a CPFF requirement without a DCAA-approved system creates a responsibility determination risk that can eliminate an otherwise competitive submission at the award stage.
3. Worldwide Cleared Personnel Deployment
MDA operates across major domestic locations, including Huntsville, Alabama; Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado; Fort Greely, Alaska; and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, as well as international locations that support Aegis Ashore and forward-deployed missile defense assets. MAPSS task orders require the deployment of cleared technical personnel across these locations, including OCONUS assignments.
Firms must address global deployment capability in their workforce plans. Specifically, staffing plans for OCONUS requirements must address compliance with Status of Forces Agreements, host-nation agreement considerations, personnel security requirements for international deployments, and the logistics of maintaining continuity of a cleared workforce across geographically distributed performance locations.
Managing Organizational Conflicts of Interest and SETA Firewalls
Why OCI Is the Most Complex Compliance Dimension in MAPSS
MDA’s OCI Guiding Principles under MAPSS are among the most stringent in the defense advisory services market. The fundamental conflict the program is designed to prevent is the same contractor simultaneously providing Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance support to MDA while also performing or pursuing hardware development, systems integration, or R&D contracts that benefit from that advisory access.
DFARS 252.209-7008 and 252.209-7009 establish the regulatory framework for OCI identification, mitigation, and neutralization on DoD contracts. Under MAPSS, MDA requires mandatory OCI mitigation plans from all offerors. The mitigation plan must identify all actual, potential, and apparent conflicts across the offeror’s corporate family, including parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, and teaming partners.
SETA Firewall Requirements
Firms performing SETA functions under MAPSS must maintain strict organizational and informational firewalls between their MAPSS advisory role and any hardware or R&D performance within the same corporate family. Specifically:
- Personnel performing MAPSS advisory functions cannot simultaneously support or transition to hardware development contracts covering the same MDA program areas
- Corporate information barriers must prevent the flow of MDA proprietary or source selection sensitive information from the SETA function to business development or proposal teams pursuing hardware work
- Firewall procedures must be documented, verifiable, and enforceable at the personnel level, not just at the organizational level
Firms that cannot credibly document and maintain these firewalls face OCI findings that can result in proposal elimination or post-award contract termination. The mitigation plan is not a checkbox exercise. It is a substantive compliance document that MDA will evaluate with the same rigor it applies to technical submissions.
Teaming and OCI
OCI analysis must extend to every member of a proposed team. A teaming partner whose parent company holds a hardware development contract covering MDA weapon system programs creates an OCI that flows to the prime’s submission. Firms must conduct a full corporate family OCI analysis on every potential teaming partner before formalizing any teaming arrangement. Discovering an OCI after a teaming agreement is signed and proposal resources have been committed is a problem that remediation often cannot solve within the available time.
Navigating Contract Types, Cost Efficiencies, and Self-Scoring Evaluations
CPFF and FFP Task Order Structures
MAPSS task orders operate under two primary contract structures. Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee Level-of-Effort task orders cover ongoing advisory and assistance support where the scope is defined by effort rather than by deliverables. Firm-Fixed-Price consumption-based task orders cover defined deliverables or discrete services where the government can specify outcomes and hold the contractor to a fixed price.
Firms must understand which structure applies to each requirement they pursue and build their cost proposals accordingly. CPFF proposals require full cost accounting transparency and must comply with FAR Part 31 cost principles. FFP proposals require a pricing model that protects execution margin against scope variability without pricing the firm out of the competitive range.
EO 14222 DOGE Efficiency Mandates
MAPSS proposals must address Executive Order 14222, which establishes Department of Government Efficiency mandates for federal professional services contracting. Specifically, proposals should demonstrate how the contractor’s approach reduces administrative overhead, eliminates redundant labor, and delivers mission outcomes at a lower total cost than the legacy TEAMS Next structure. Evaluators will assess efficiency narratives against the concrete workforce and cost data provided by the offeror.
HTRO Self-Scoring Under FAR Part 16 Fair Opportunity
MAPSS task order competitions under OASIS+ use the Highest Technically Rated Offeror methodology with fair opportunity procedures under FAR Part 16.505. Under HTRO, MDA validates self-scoring submissions against substantiating documentation. Claims that lack specific, verifiable supporting evidence score as zero, not as partial credit.
The self-scoring strategy for MAPSS requires the same documentation discipline as any HTRO vehicle. Every claimed point must trace from the scoring matrix, via a cross-reference index, to specific supporting documentation. Past performance references must be verifiable, recent, and directly relevant to the specific MAPSS domain being pursued. Personnel certifications must be current and documented at the individual level.
Firms that approach MAPSS self-scoring as a narrative exercise rather than a documentation exercise will discover the gap between their submitted and validated scores during evaluation. That gap, once created, cannot be closed after submission.
Securing Task Order Awards Across Phased Small Business Tranches
The Tranche Structure: Tranches 1 Through 6 (2025 Through 2030)
MDA is executing MAPSS through a phased tranche structure running from 2025 through 2030. The tranche schedule allows MDA to manage the transition from TEAMS Next to MAPSS without disrupting ongoing mission-critical support while simultaneously opening new competitive opportunities for small businesses at defined intervals.
Each tranche covers a defined set of the 28 requirements. Earlier tranches cover requirements where TEAMS Next transitions are most urgent. Later tranches address requirements where existing contract coverage provides more runway before recompete is needed.
For capture teams, the tranche schedule is the pipeline calendar. Firms must identify which requirements fall in which tranche, map those tranches to their internal capture milestone schedule, and begin pre-solicitation engagement, teaming development, and past performance preparation on a tranche-specific timeline rather than waiting for RFP release.
Small Business Set-Aside Landscape
Of the 24 small business set-aside requirements, MDA has designated specific requirements for 8(a), SDVOSB, and WOSB competition within the tranche structure. Firms holding these certifications should identify the specific requirements for their certification type and prioritize them in their capture planning.
Importantly, OASIS+ pool eligibility is a prerequisite for competing on all 24 OASIS+-routed requirements. Firms that do not currently hold an OASIS+ seat in the appropriate pool must either obtain one through the Phase II rolling on-ramp or pursue the requirement through a teaming arrangement with an OASIS+ prime that holds the correct pool seat and socioeconomic certification.
The interaction between OASIS+ pool eligibility, socioeconomic set-aside designation, and OCI posture creates a three-dimensional eligibility filter that eliminates many firms before the competitive evaluation even begins. Mapping all three dimensions for each target requirement is the foundation of a credible MAPSS capture strategy.
Teaming Strategy Across the Tranche Pipeline
Effective teaming for MAPSS differs from standard task order teaming in two important respects. First, OCI analysis must be complete before any teaming arrangement is formalized. Second, the ten-year ordering horizon means that teaming relationships established for Tranche 1 requirements will be evaluated by MDA for their sustainability across the full period of performance, not just for the initial task order.
Teams assembled for qualification purposes without a genuine long-term operational relationship produce proposals that experienced MDA evaluators identify as paper teams. Teams built on documented prior joint performance, complementary domain expertise, and a credible long-term delivery model produce proposals that hold up under the depth of evaluation that MAPSS warrants.
Also Read: How to Align Capture Plans With TMF Funding Opportunities
Key Takeaways
- MAPSS is a $5.517 billion, 10-year enterprise procurement covering 28 deconsolidated requirements and approximately 3,000 FTEs from FY26 through FY36. Of the 28 requirements, 24 are small business set-asides, and all 24 route through GSA OASIS+.
- Deconsolidation from 18 TEAMS Next contracts into 28 MAPSS requirements creates distinct competitive opportunities across eight functional domains. Firms must select target requirements based on direct capability alignment rather than broad positioning.
- Active Secret and Top Secret FCLs, SCIF management capability, DCAA-approved accounting systems for CPFF requirements, and worldwide deployment of cleared workforce are prerequisite qualifications, not proposal advantages.
- OCI mitigation plans are mandatory and substantive. SETA firewalls must be documented, verifiable, and enforceable at the personnel level. OCI analysis must extend to all teaming partners and their full corporate families before any teaming arrangement is finalized.
- HTRO self-scoring under FAR Part 16 fair opportunity procedures means every claimed point requires specific, verifiable supporting documentation. Unsupported claims score as zero.
- The tranche schedule running from 2025 through 2030 is the capture pipeline calendar. Firms must begin pre-solicitation engagement, teaming development, and documentation preparation on a tranche-specific timeline.
- OASIS+ pool eligibility, socioeconomic certification alignment, and OCI posture are all eligibility prerequisites that must be resolved before proposal resources are committed.
For defense contractors, capture executives, and proposal professionals pursuing MAPSS task orders via GSA OASIS+, whether through capability gap analysis, OCI mitigation plan development, OASIS+ eligibility assessment, teaming strategy, or full proposal development support, iQuasar’s GovCon360 and proposal development teams provide end-to-end support across every stage of the pursuit cycle. Contact us today to build a MAPSS capture strategy before the next tranche window opens.
