HBG_RFP_80GSFC18R0078_ENCL_3.pdf

RFP 80GSFC18R0078

ENCLOSURE 3- SCENARIOS

Scenario 1:

GSFC is leading a major NASA Earth Venture Suborbital (EVS) project to study how changes in terrestrial ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are affecting land-ocean interactions and biogeochemical processes, and goods and services in the estuary. The principal biophysical parameters and processes to be measured include sediment transport, water temperature, salinity and organic content, forest structure and biomass, coastal carbon storage, conversion between land cover types, rainfall, coastal subsidence and sea level rise. The inter-disciplinary campaign team includes GSFC government and contractor personnel across several Hydrosphere, Biosphere and Geophysics (HBG) laboratories, other federal agencies, universities, and international partners. Co-ordinated in situ measurements and remote sensing observations, from satellites, several NASA and non-NASA aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), will provide a comprehensive, complex data set. Land and ship-based facilities will be established to support in situ and UAS data collection. Aircraft, requiring simultaneous operations, will be deployed from several airports in the region. The project will begin three months after the start of the Period of Performance for the new HBG contract and will continue for three years. Field and airborne data collection campaigns will last for three weeks and be conducted seasonally, beginning in the third month of the project.

As a key HBG support contractor for science, the contractor will support this project in achieving its science objectives. For the purpose of demonstrating an understanding of the work the offeror is required to support, please provide responses and approaches to the following questions, limiting your responses to the planning, execution and data collection phases of the campaigns. Do not include production and distribution of higher level products that would be done following campaigns.

1. What kinds of in situ and airborne instruments, satellite platforms, modelling capabilities and contractor skill mix would be essential to this project’s success?

2. What management strategies would be employed to ensure a flawless contract transition through the planning and deployment of the first field campaign? Discuss potential risks and how these be would mitigated?

3. In Year 3, five days prior to the start of a field and airborne campaign, a major hurricane develops and threatens the Florida coastline. NASA HQ decides to divert the principal NASA aircraft assets and airborne instruments from the campaign for a rapid response study of potential hurricane impacts. How would the offeror propose reprioritizing the existing contract resources to complete the field campaign while providing support for this unexpected rapid-response deployment?

Scenario 2:

NASA and GSFC have invested in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) airborne instruments such as

DBSAR (Digital Beamforming Synthetic Aperture Radar) and EcoSAR for the development and implementation of advanced digital beamforming techniques to measure the Earth’s terrestrial ecosystem structure, biomass, and for other applications. These technologies have been demonstrated using airborne platforms during field campaigns. GSFC is interested in updating its SAR technologies and developing an airborne instrument that integrates the capabilities of these instruments and demonstrates a design and components that can be space qualified for future use in low Earth orbit. GSFC’s Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate (AETD) will lead the instrument development. The Earth Sciences Division and HBG Laboratories will have the lead responsibility for testing and calibrating instrument performance in laboratory, ground, and in-flight settings. As a key Goddard support contractor, you will be responsible for planning and implementing that testing and calibration. For the purpose of demonstrating your understanding of the work you are required to support, please provide responses to these two questions.

1. To produce high-quality research data, the new instrument’s fundamental radar system parameters and performance need to be determined through testing and characterization.

Furthermore, the instruments need to be periodically calibrated. Describe the technical approach utilized to efficiently conduct this testing, characterization, and calibration. Describe the relevant interfaces between your management and technical staff and government teams, including within AETD, and any specialized facilities needed to successfully complete this work.

2. During the last five years there has been significant advances in performance and miniaturization of technologies for spaceflight sub-system components. Incorporating these advanced subsystems into next-generation, space-qualified instruments could improve measurement efficiency and data quality. Describe how the contractor’s support team would test if the incorporation of these or other innovative technologies in space platforms will improve system performance in order to meet the efficiency requirements defined by GSFC scientists and engineers.

Scenario 3

Many projects at Goddard have traditionally developed the majority of their data systems and analysis software with programs written in Fortran, C and C++ and with proprietary software, such as IDL and MATLAB, that have operated on local servers with large volumes of locally-resident data. Processes for testing and deploying software are manual often making rapid deployment of changes difficult. Computer systems are often purchased well in advance of the time they are needed in operations to allow time for delivery, installation and testing. To speed up these processes, Goddard has both on premises clouds, Goddard Private Cloud and ADAPT

Science Cloud, and approved commercial cloud offerings, e.g. Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provide on-demand access to computing resources. A challenge projects face is maintaining legacy computing capability while transitioning appropriate activities to a cloud-based environment.

1) Discuss the strategy to support the workforce for transition of specialized legacy software to a cloud environment, including plans for preserving technical and scientific expertise, retraining staff and maintaining a qualified staff in the highly competitive market for personnel trained in new technologies, e.g. cloud-computing.

2) Discuss metrics you would use to measure the progress and success of projects transitioning to the cloud.

3) Discuss how you will collect and document the information gained during a project’s transition to the cloud so that it can be applied to other projects.

4) Discuss what approaches and training you would recommend to shorten release cycles to better fit a cloud compute model.