The contractor shall provide independent technical assessments and analysis for the NASA independent program assessment office (ipao), the NASA engineering and safety center (nesc), the langley…

The contractor shall provide independent technical assessments and analysis for the NASA independent program assessment office (ipao), the NASA engineering and safety center (nesc), the langley research center s science support office (SSO), the earth system science pathfinder program (essp) and other offices and NASA centers as designated in task orders. The contractor shall provide independent engineering assessment support to meet NASA s mission, goals and objectives. The purpose of these independent assessments (IA) is to provide NASA management with timely, objective, and non-advocacy assessments of program and project readiness. The key technical areas of IAS are concept design, technology readiness, risk identification and mitigation, and life cycle cost. The contractor shall perform work in design, analysis, test, operation, and management of space transportation systems, spacecraft, instruments, aerospace research, risk assessment, schedule assessment, life cycle cost estimation capabilities, cost research, cost data collection, cost tools and model development, and independent cost verification and validation. While working on assessments, the contractor shall interface with, but remain distinctly independent from, all elements and contractors of NASA program/projects being assessed. The contractor shall independently validate program or project technical risks, cost estimates, and schedules and perform integrated technical, cost and programmatic risk assessments. The contractor shall also provide systems engineering analyses which support determinations by NASA of program status and identify associated risks. The contractor shall be responsible for identifying issues, proposing risk mitigation solutions, and verifying risk resolution for each program assessed. The contractor shall conduct evaluations of proposals and competitive mission concepts covering technical, management, and cost. The contractor shall conduct assessments of current and potential future NASA programs. The contractor shall also conduct management, scientific, and technical studies. The contractor shall participate in multi-discipline teams to assess engineering concerns for selected high-profile NASA programs. Such participation shall include expert consultation; appropriate limited testing, modeling and analysis; and drafting, reviewing and publishing of findings. The contractor shall participate on teams relating to specific engineering disciplines to identify and resolve issues within those disciplines that have the potential to impact multiple NASA programs. The contractor shall conduct studies and development efforts related to data gathering, manipulation, management and archiving using its expertise, independent viewpoint and technical and management capabilities. The contractor shall provide systems engineering studies and analyses for NASA. A unique requirement of the overall effort is that the effort shall be conducted in a completely independent fashion with total freedom from bias that would result from a predilection toward a particular hardware and/or software design or approach. The requirements described herein may occasionally involve classified information. In these cases, all classified work will be defined in specific task orders issued by the contracting officer.