Combined_Redacted_JOFOC_For_Posting.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

(In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.3 – Other than Full and Open Competition)

1. This document is a justification for other than full and open competition prepared by NASA’s

Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA’s GSFC):

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

NASA’s GSFC proposes to award a Cost-No-Fee contract to the University of Colorado at Boulder

(UCB) for the continued development and operation of the Snow and Ice (SI) Distributed Active Archive

Center (DAAC) for NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This document justifies the determination for using other than full and open competition to award a sole-source, cost reimbursement contract with the University of Colorado at Boulder. This contract would continue to develop and operate the SI DAAC, performing user services, product generation, data and information management, data archival and distribution, and related science support activities. The period of performance for this follow-on contract is 5 years (1 year base period plus 4 one-year options).

The anticipated award date for this contract is May 31, 2018.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including an estimated value:

NASA has established, under its Earth Science program, the Earth Observing System Data and

Information System (EOSDIS), which is a comprehensive data system managing the data from Earth science research satellites and field measurement programs. The SI DAAC is one element of EOSDIS.

The SI DAAC focuses on the receiving, archiving, transforming, validating, and distributing digital and analog snow and ice data products generated from numerous Earth Observation satellite instruments, airborne instruments, as well as in situ data sets.

The SI DAAC also maintains information about snow cover, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, freshwater ice, sea ice, ground ice, permafrost, atmospheric ice, paleo glaciology, and ice cores.

The tasks assigned to the SI DAAC under the subject contract include science data planning and product generation, system development, operations and maintenance, and user support. These tasks include identifying and making available sources of snow and ice data, supporting development and generation of new information products and services oriented to researchers who utilize these data, and providing these information products and services to a spectrum of users including fundamental and applied researchers, operational users, and the general public.

In addition, this follow-on contract will include the following specific requirements:

Implement improved geophysical algorithms in conjunction with the user community for cryospheric and polar processes including ice concentration and types, ice surface temperature, surface albedo, snow extent, and snow water equivalent;

Develop and improve methods for acquiring and assimilating data streams and producing research quality data products to meet science objectives for the cryosphere and polar regions;

Improve the ability to forecast and assess risks by providing snow cover (and water equivalent) and snowmelt forecasting;

Work with NASA to develop systems that take advantage of commercial Cloud-based systems to ingest, archive, and distribute snow and ice data including specialized science data services;

Transition current on-premise systems, operations, processes, procedures and policies to the

EOSDIS Cumulus cloud framework;

Develop greater support by scientists for broad science communication and education efforts;

Coordinate activities as necessary with EOSDIS, other organizations, agencies, DAACs, NASA

Centers, institutions and user working groups in order to accomplish the goals and objectives of this contract. This includes developing and maintaining interfaces with other EOSDIS organizational elements, other national and international agencies with which EOSDIS must cooperate;

Make information accessible to the broad continuum of Exploration Systems Mission Directorate

(E-SMD) information customers, including the general public, media, publishers, and industry;

and

Provide support for all required preservation content activities necessary to ensure long-term stewardship of NASA data assets.

The estimated cost of this contract follow-on is approximately [Text Deleted] based on a Government in-house cost estimate. The award date for the new contract is May 31, 2018.

4. 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)(3), as implemented by FAR 6.302-3, Industrial mobilization; engineering, developmental, or research capability; or expert services.

More specifically, FAR 6.302-3(a)(2)(ii), provides that full and open competition need not be provided for when it is necessary to award a contract to a particular source in order to establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, or development capability to be provided by an educational or other nonprofit institution or a federally funded research and development center.

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)(3) is the maintenance of essential capabilities described below.

According to FAR 6.302-3(b)(2)(ii), the use of the authority at (a)(2)(ii) is appropriate when it is necessary to:

Establish or maintain an essential capability for engineering or developmental work calling for the practical application of investigative findings and theories of a scientific or technical nature.

In 1976, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the UCB began as an archive of analog data and information on the world’s frozen realms: the snow, ice, glaciers, frozen ground, and climate interactions that form the Earth’s cryosphere. The combination of the science focus and the data science support makes for a unique support environment for NASA’s cryosphere data. For the years that UCB’s

NSIDC has supported NASA as a DAAC, they have been building on and improving techniques for mastering data ingest, archive, and distribution.

EOSDIS is experiencing and will experience enormous growth in the future. Today the NASA Earth

Science data collection is approximately 22 petabytes in size. By 2021, the archive is expected to grow by more than 50 petabytes per year. To meet these challenges, the ESDIS project is rearchitecting the

EOSDIS infrastructure to manage both NASA and user needs.

UCB brings several specific unique data processing, archive management, and distribution techniques to meet the future challenges of large-scale data systems. UCB has worked closely with the ESDIS infrastructure and data system components since their inception. They have been the key leaders of early adoption, installation and maintenance of snow and ice data within the ESDIS infrastructure components known as the EOSDIS Core System (ECS). Because of their skills in data systems and remote sensing snow and ice products, UCB has unique capabilities to provide for NASA’s scientific and research needs.

Building on the ESDIS infrastructure of ECS, UCB has developed and maintained sophisticated data distribution tools to meet user needs, such as the IceBridge Portal, the Satellite Observations of Arctic

Change, and Atlas of the Cryosphere.

Pursuant to the FAR 6.302-3, the capability required to be maintained is for engineering work in the development, utilization, and calibration of essential algorithms to make the cryospheric research data sets usable to researchers. The application of these algorithms requires an expertise in cryospheric data and is accomplished by [Text Deleted] at the SI DAAC.

The SI DAAC has developed a “family” of grid transformations, such as the SSM/I Grids, Polar

Pathfinder Grids, and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) Sea Ice Grid. The DAAC may also develop new grids depending on the needs of the particular science investigation. The SI DAAC’s application of these algorithms to snow and ice data is indispensable, enabling outside entities to be assured that the data is valid and useful.

The development, utilization, and calibration of sea-ice algorithms require the application of complex scientific and technical theories. These theories are expressed in formulae that are used to make snow and ice data usable for further scientific research. These algorithms and their associated theoretical underpinnings are further explained below.

The skill sets required to perform the algorithm development, utilization, and calibration function include

[Text Deleted], who are involved in cryospheric study. SI DAAC [Text Deleted] and are specialized in the fields of geology, atmospheric physics, hydrology, and remote sensing. These skills are required in order to develop critical, ancillary products used in processing almost all data in the EOSDIS system.

As can be gleaned from the description of the effort, an expertise in software engineering is required since the algorithms are written in software. The various physicist disciplines are required since these efforts require a thorough understanding of the origin, characteristics, and potential uses of the data.

Through the expertise of these [Text Deleted], the data can be transformed, manipulated, and validated, and then used for scientific purposes.

NASA's Earth science programs shape an interdisciplinary view of Earth, exploring the interaction among the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, land surface interior, and life itself, which enables scientists to measure global climate changes and to inform decisions by Government, organizations, and people in the

United States and around the world. Further, the capabilities are essential to NASA in that they are necessary to fulfill NASA’s needs in the area of cryospheric research, and without them, NASA and scientific researchers will be deprived of important scientific data. These skills are necessary to continue to develop and improve geophysical algorithms for cryospheric processes and the production of research quality data products to meet science objectives for cryospheric research.

Without these skills, NASA’s GSFC would be unable to meet the needs of the EOSDIS in the area of cryospheric research. NASA would be unable to continue to develop and disseminate software tools which enhance the display of snow and sea ice data, as well as masking tools which limit the influence of certain variables, such as weather, on sea ice concentrations.

The contract is necessary for UCB to maintain this capability. Beginning in 1998, the SI DAAC has been supported solely through four 5-year NASA contracts with the UCB. Without the contract to continue the work, there would be no means by which the skills would be retained beyond the end of the current contract on May 31, 2018. This preexisting capability must be maintained in order for NASA to continue to provide for research in this important area. There are no other facilities available to do this work.

The very basis for the 10 U.S.C. 2304 (c)(3) is the recognition that the maintaining and nurturing of established essential capabilities is a long-term proposition and an appropriate basis for sole source. The alternative would be to try to develop this same capability elsewhere. In the unlikely event that another source could be identified that meets the Government’s minimum requirements, the use of another contractor would require a period of staffing up with its attendant increased programmatic risks and substantial duplicative costs.

NASA has spent nearly 20 years and over [Text Deleted] modifying the NSIDC facility, which includes not only the equipment, but also the knowledge and expertise in SI data needed to successfully operate the NSIDC facility. The next few years will be transitional as the GSFC ESDIS Project starts moving the

EOSDIS datasets into the approved commercial cloud environment. This transition is estimated to take several years, during which operations at the SI DAAC must remain stable, so as not to jeopardize data ingest and distribution from missions that are currently planned for launch in the next 2-3 years. While the move to use of commercial cloud is expected to increase competition for NASA services, a change at this time would be detrimental to the ESDIS schedule.

NASA’s GSFC has determined that this procurement is essential to the maintenance of an essential capability for theoretical analysis, exploratory studies, and engineering work in the receiving, transformation, validation, and distribution of cryospheric data.

6. 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 Federal

Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.2:

A notice to the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website was published on November 28, 2017, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA GSFC’s or intent to award this sole-source contract to the University of Colorado, and provided potential sources with the opportunity to be considered based on their qualifications and capability statements due by

December 21, 2017. The results of this synopsis are contained in Section 10 below.

7. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The University of Colorado Boulder (UCB) will be required to submit a proposal to be evaluated and negotiated by the Government. Negotiations of cost will be determined fair and reasonable based on historical cost information and the Independent Government Estimate (IGE). The GSFC Contracting

Officer and the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) analyze UCB’s proposed cost for reasonableness and will monitor UCB’s performance. UCB will be required to submit technical progress reports and financial management reports to be reviewed and analyzed by the Government, and the

Office of Naval Research will review all costs incurred for allowability.

8. Description of the market research conducted, and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted:

Market research was conducted to determine the availability of potential sources for the requirements.

Market research was conducted by posting notice of the Government intent to procure a snow and ice distributed active archive center, along with a draft statement of work for the effort. The draft SOW and accompanying Request For Information (RFI) were posted on August 2, 2017 with a response deadline of August 16, 2017. This response deadline was subsequently extended to August 21, 2017.

The evaluation of the responses to the RFI reveals that the required services are not commercially available. There were only two responses to the RFI, one from the [Text Deleted] and one from the University of Colorado (incumbent). In subsequent discussion with the [Text Deleted]

[Text Deleted], they withdrew their RFI response stating that on secondary assessment, the [Text

Deleted] would be unable to meet the needs of a SI DAAC in the specified timeframe. Based on a review of both technical responses, the UCB was the only entity determined to be fully capable of meeting the government’s need for an SI DAAC.

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: None.

10. Sources, if any, that expressed an interest, in writing, in the acquisition:

As stated above, in accordance with requirements of FAR 5.203 (a), a Notice of Intent to award a sole source contract to the University of Colorado at Boulder was synopsized on the Federal Business

Opportunities (Fed Biz Opps) website. The synopsis notified all interested sources that this requirement will be issued on a sole source basis and provided them an opportunity to submit their interest and capabilities to the Contracting Officer within 15 days of the synopsis publication. One response was received upon expiration of the synopsis from [Text Deleted], which was evaluated for capability to perform the requirement.

[Text Deleted] is a data science consultancy and services company that provides analytics, software and training. [Text Deleted] experience does not include data centers or archive development or operating or managing large science data systems. The documentation provided does not demonstrate the necessary relevant expertise or the ability to manage a NASA Distributed Active Archive Center. The capabilities described by [Text Deleted] do not support their ability to accomplish the DAAC mission. [Text Deleted] has not shown a viable technical approach or ability to meet the needs of the EOSDIS system for snow and ice data.

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

Over the past several years, NASA Headquarters has released several AOs for developing data systems, analysis software, and related activities. These opportunities have funded many complementary activities that will support future data center functions. In addition, NASA has taken additional efforts to engage the community in data center and data systems issues. These include:

Holding conferences to discuss the roles and responsibilities of science operations functions and data systems;

Establish a library of documentation produced using Government funds to make the knowledge (reports, drawings, etc.) available to all potential competitors; and

Require the current data centers to openly discuss what they are doing, what they have learned, and what they have that is available to others in open forums like the American

Geophysical Union and Earth Science Information Partnership meetings.

Providing comprehensive information about EOSDIS, EOSDIS components and services, the

ESDIS project and organization via the Earthdata website at https://earthdata.nasa.gov and its accompanying public facing wiki.

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.

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/