21-400-0378 Roman Flight Damping System - JOFOC Final 20211216.pdf

Rev.:01/2021

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER (GSFC)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

FOR ROMAN SPACE TELESCOPE PROJECT DAMPING SYSTEM

1. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.303-2(b)(1) – Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Justification for other than full and open competition.”

This document is a justification for other than full and open competition prepared by National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

The procuring agency is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the contracting activity is Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

2. FAR 6.303-2(b)(2) – The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This justification provides the rationale for contracting by other than full and open competition to award a sole-source contract to Moog CSA Engineering for the Roman Space Telescope (Roman)

Damping System.

Moog CSA Engineering shall provide a flight damping system and one engineering test damper unit in support of the Solar Array and Sun Shield (SASS) subsystem of the Roman project.

3. FAR 6.303-2(b)(3) – A description of the supplies or services required, to meet the Agency’s needs (including the estimated value):

NASA requires a flight damping system and one engineering test damper unit. MOOG CSA

Engineering shall provide the material and labor to deliver the dampers to be used to absorb structural vibrations of the Roman SASS. These dampers will be incorporated by the Roman SASS subsystem team and will meet the damping performance requirements set by the Roman SASS subsystem.

The period of performance for this contract is approximately 12 months after award, with the contract award expected in April 2022. The total firm-fixed-price (FFP) value of this effort is approximately $900K.

4. FAR 6.303-2(b)(4) – An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. 2304(c) (1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, “Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.”

5. FAR 6.303-2(b)(5) – A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited:

The rationale supporting the use of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c) (1) is justified as described below:

Moog CSA Engineering is the only organization qualified to perform the subject requirements based on Moog CSA Engineering’s unique knowledge, extensive experience, and expertise that will ensure successful achievement of Roman schedule and technical performance requirements.

MOOG CSA is world-renowned in the field of structural damping. They have the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience with structural damping design, analysis, and hardware implementation that is not found anywhere else. Most companies focus on one very narrow damping mechanism that may or may not be appropriate for the Roman SASS damping system.

MOOG CSA, on the other hand, has analysis, design, and hardware implementation capabilities in a variety of damping approaches, such as viscoelastics, tuned mass dampers, passive magnetic damping, particle damping, piezoelectrics, isolation, and active control, and can compare the various damping approaches to determine which is best to meet Roman SASS’s damping requirements.

MOOG CSA has an extensive database of viscoelastic and magnetic material properties. The company has the facilities to perform both the design, analysis and testing of the vibration suppression devices. Engineers at MOOG CSA understand vibration problems at the system level and can rapidly determine the best solution to a specific problem. The company’s experience and expertise enable it to provide high-quality, cost-effective solutions to vibration suppression problems. No other one company can match MOOG CSA’s breadth and depth of experience in passive vibration suppression.

MOOG CSA provides vibration suppression services for applications in aerospace, manufacturing, mechanical, electrical, civil, medical, and semiconductor systems. MOOG CSA has performed vibration suppression work for NASA, Air Force, Army, Navy, Missile Defense Agency, Department of Energy, three national laboratories (Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore), National Science Foundation, many aerospace and government contractors including: Lockheed-

Martin, Boeing, United Launch Alliance, ATK/ Orbital Sciences, Ball Aerospace, Goodrich, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, Loral, and a host of commercial companies. MOOG CSA has developed and flown vibration suppression devices on many launch vehicles and satellites.

Specifically, MOOG CSA recently developed and delivered the tuned mass dampers (TMDs) for the

NASA Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope to protect the reaction wheels from launch vibrations, and low-frequency TMDs for the NASA Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) to reduce pointing system settling time. MOOG CSA is familiar with NASA requirements and verification processes, and has extensive spaceflight heritage for their damping systems.

Moog CSA’s specific experience and proven heritage for similar components used by NASA flight projects (NICER, LCRD, and GLAST) are unique and makes them the only responsible source for this work. Roman will be able to leverage from MOOG CSA’s past damping system development efforts to deliver a high-heritage, flight damping assembly. The heritage design will result in low non-recurring engineering (NRE) cost and short development and build schedule as well as minimal development risk.

The Roman SASS damper was meant to be incorporated as part of the deployment hinge. However, this design was met with a lot of technical concerns at the SASS engineering peer review pre-

Mission Critical Design Review (CDR) and would invalidate the Goddard heritage deployment mechanism design. The project made a late decision to change the SASS damper design in order to address these technical concerns. Now passed Mission CDR, Roman needs to finalize the SASS damper design and complete all impact assessment work by Fall 2022, as well as delivering it to meet I&T schedule by spring 2023. These schedule drivers require a contract award date no later than April 2022 to meet the Government’s requirements. Because of the strong heritage and low

NRE, only MOOG CSA will be able to meet the Roman schedule need while meeting all challenging technical requirements.

6. FAR 6.303-2(b)(6) – A description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under 5.202 applies:

A notice to the Government Point of Entry (GPE) website (beta.sam.gov) was published on

November 12, 2021, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source contract to Moog CSA Engineering. The results of this synopsis are summarized in Section 10 below.

7. FAR 6.303-2(b)(7) – A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the

Government will be fair and reasonable:

The Contracting Officer’s signature on this document indicates that the Contracting Officer has determined that the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable. The Contractor shall be required to submit a proposal to be evaluated and negotiated by the Government. Prior to execution of the contractual instrument, a proposal analysis will be performed. The proposed costs will be evaluated by the contracting officer’s representative and the contracting officer to determine that the direct labor rates, hours, and other costs, skill mix, and fee(s) are fair and reasonable.

The proposal analysis will ensure that the final agreed-to price for the contract action is fair and reasonable.

8. FAR 6.303-2(b)(8) – Description of the market research conducted, and the results, or a statement of the reasons a market research was not conducted:

An RFI was released on March 29, 2021, with responses due on April 19, 2021. Due to the period of time from the original RFI and now, the Contracting Officer released a second RFI on October 14, 2021, with responses due on October 28, 2021. The finding of the RFI process was that MOOG

CSA was the only vendor that provided a response which also meets the Roman critical requirements. No other vendor provided a response.

A separate market survey was performed on the internet. All relevant search results for dampers are geared toward civil engineering applications. Only MOOG CSA has the relevant experience for developing dampers for space applications.

Based upon our current knowledge and experience of the Contracting Officer’s Representative

(COR) and Roman project, no other entities currently exist that can perform the technical requirements of this procurement due to the reasons cited in Paragraph 5 above.

9. FAR 6.303-2(b)(9) – Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

None.

10. FAR 6.303-2(b)(10) – A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed an interest in writing in the acquisition:

A notice of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source action was synopsized on the GPE website

(beta.sam.gov) per FAR Subpart 5.2 (See Section 6 above).

The synopsis notified all interested sources that this requirement will be issued on a sole-source basis, and provided an opportunity to submit their interest and capabilities to the contracting officer by November 29, 2021.

No responses were received upon the expiration of the synopsis.

11. FAR 6.303-2(b)(11) – A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

The Agency will continue to examine the market in the future for alternative solutions or new sources before executing any subsequent acquisitions for the same requirements.