03 Sol Att 3 Questions and Answers F.pdf

Question 1:

We would like to know if this is a brand new contract OR if there is (was) an incumbent performing these services. If not brand new, could you please provide the current / previous contract number?

Answer:

This is a brand new requirement.

Question 2:

Is there any incumbent/recompete or this is a brand-new project? If yes, could you please provide us with their award number or even if the customer bought similar services in the past.

Answer:

See answer to Question 1.

Question 3:

For planning and pricing purposes, approximately how many non-NCN CORS stations does NOAA anticipate will be processed, validated, and incorporated into coordinate-product development activities during the Base Period and each Option Year? Additionally, does NOAA currently maintain a candidate population of non-NCN CORS stations for evaluation under this effort and, if so, approximately how many stations are currently under consideration?

Answer:

Currently there are approximately 1800 active stations in the NOAA CORS Network (NCN). We do not have an exact count of how many additional stations are in the US but not part of the NCN. We do not maintain a candidate population on non-NCN stations. However, one possible resource is the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory at the University of Nevada-Reno. Their map shows several thousand stations in the US. We want as many stations as possible aligned to ITRF2020 at epoch 2020.00.

Question 4:

Should offerors assume the primary objective is development of a scalable onboarding and coordinate-processing framework, operational processing of all identified candidate stations, or both? Additionally, does NOAA anticipate periodic reprocessing of previously processed stations during the period of performance and, if so, can NOAA provide an estimated frequency, volume, or planning assumption for such reprocessing activities?

Answer:

The primary objective is the operational processing of stations to determine their coordinates in ITRF2020 at epoch 2020.00. We want as many stations processed as possible during the base year of the contract. A secondary objective is the development of a coordinate-processing framework that could be used during the optional second year of the project to process additional stations as they become available, and to re-process previously processed stations in the base year of the contract so as to improve consistency should methods evolve or new information come available.

Question 5:

Will NOAA provide access to existing station metadata repositories, equipment histories, monument information, associated station documentation, existing coordinate products, processing configurations, validation datasets, reference solutions, and other supporting artifacts that may be used during contractor processing and validation activities? Additionally, should offerors assume that all required GNSS observation data are currently available and archived, or should offerors include effort associated with identifying, acquiring, and recovering missing historical observation records?

Answer:

NOAA publicly provides access to station metadata repositories, equipment histories, monument information, station documentation, coordinate products, and reference solutions that could be used as validation for all stations in the NOAA CORS Network (NCN). Please visit our CORS website for such information. NOAA also provides public, free access to OPUS-S software for validation purposes. NOAA does not have the required GNSS observation data nor metadata for stations that are not in the NCN. Offerors should include effort associated with identifying and acquiring non-NCN GNSS data and metadata.

Question 6:

Does NOAA require use of any specific processing software, analytical tools, reference products, or existing workflows, or may the contractor propose alternative processing methodologies consistent with PWS requirements? Further, will existing workflows, processing configurations, datasets, documentation, software, or other artifacts developed under prior NOAA efforts be made available to the awardee?

Answer:

The contractor may propose processing methodologies consistent with PWS requirements.

Please see response to the previous question for items NOAA makes publicly available for use.

Question 7:

Does NOAA anticipate that contractor-developed workflows will be deployed within existing NOAA computing environments, or should the contractor assume responsibility for developing and maintaining a separate processing environment?

Answer:

The contractor should assume responsibility for developing and maintaining a processing environment.