DRFP Cover Letter 5-13-20 TS.pdf

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Island, VA 23337

May 13, 2020

Reply to Attn of: 210.1

TO: All Potential Offerors

SUBJECT: DRAFT Request for Proposal (DRFP), Solicitation No. NNG20WATBD NASA Balloon Operations (NBOC) II Contract

You are invited to review and comment on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)/Wallops Flight Facility’s (WFF) NASA Balloon Operations Follow-on Contract (NBOC) II draft solicitation. The principal purpose of this requirement is to acquire services for the operation and maintenance of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) and overall management of the launch and operations, mission and engineering services, and potential hardware development to support the NASA Balloon Program. CSBF is a Government-owned facility located in Palestine, Texas, with a permanent balloon staging facility at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

The Statement of Work, Attachment A, describes the scope of the requirement.

Potential offerors are encouraged to comment on all aspects of the draft solicitation, including the requirements, schedules, proposal instructions, work breakdown structure and evaluation approaches. Potential offerors should identify unnecessary or inefficient requirements. Potential offerors are encouraged to comment on any perceived safety, occupational health, security (including information technology security), environmental, export control, and/or other programmatic risk issues associated with performance of the work. Potential offerors are also encouraged to comment on the clarity of the Representative Task Order and Scenarios.

This acquisition will be conducted as a full and open competition. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 541330 and the small business size standard is $16.5M.

This competitive procurement will result in a Hybrid Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee (CPFF) Core requirement and an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) requirement with the ability to issue CPFF task orders. The contract will have a total potential period of performance/effective ordering period of 7 years. This potential 7 year period would consist of an 18 month Base Period, a 24 month Option Period 1 and 2, and an 18 month Option Period 3. Phase-In will be conducted, under a separate contract or purchase order, during the 60-day period prior to the effective date of the contract.

The contract will be performed at GSFC/WFF, CSBF, Fort Sumner, New Mexico and offsite at the Contractor’s facility, as well as other TDY locations that may be specified in the SOW and IDIQ task orders such as foreign remote launch sites at either Wanaka, New Zealand, Esrange (Kiruna, Sweden) or Alice Springs, Australia. Launches from Wanaka, Esrange, Alice Springs or other remote locations are conducted depending upon Science Mission Directorate requirements.

Please note, a facilities clearance is not required for this procurement.

The current planned release date for the Final Request for Proposal (RFP) is on or about June 2020, with proposals being due approximately 30 calendar days later.

The Presolicitation Conference will be held on or about TBD at CSBF. Notice will be posted on the procurement website noted below. Offerors, individuals, or interested parties who plan to attend the pre-proposal/pre-bid conference must provide the Contracting Officer in writing, at a minimum, full name of the attendee(s), identification of nationality (U.S. or specify other nation citizenship), Lawful Permanent Resident Numbers in the case of foreign nationals, affiliation and full office address/phone number. The name(s) of all company representatives to attend the conference must be provided at least (3) working days in advance of the conference, except for foreign nationals. For foreign nationals from a non-designated country, the name, a copy of passport, and a copy of visa shall be provided at least

(7) working days in advance of the conference due to the longer badging and clearance processing time required. Foreign Nations from a designated country cannot be accepted at this time. All company representatives will need a Government issued identification to be allowed onsite. Due to space limitations, representation of any potential Offeror may not exceed (2) company representatives/persons per Offeror.

All documents related to this procurement, including this letter, the solicitation, attachments, exhibits, and any amendments will be attainable electronically from the World Wide Web through the Beta.Sam website at https://beta.sam.gov.

Additional information can also be found on the NBOC II online Reference Library at:

https://elibrary.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Potential offerors are requested to periodically monitor the website for updates.

NASA FAR Supplement (NFS) clause 1852.215-84, OMBUDSMAN, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html.

This DRFP is not a solicitation and NASA GSFC/WFF is not requesting proposals. The DRFP contains standard clause 1852.228-78, Cross-waiver of Liability for Science or Space Exploration Activities Unrelated to the International Space Station (OCT 2012), however, NASA is seeking a deviation to this clause which would be updated with the Final Request for Proposal.

This DRFP does not commit GSFC/WFF to pay any proposal preparation costs, nor does it obligate GSFC/WFF to procure or contract for this requirement. This request shall not be construed as authorization to proceed with, or be paid for charges incurred by performing any of the work called for in this DRFP.

Any comments regarding the DRFP should be submitted via e-mail to the Contracting Officer at Lisa.B.Hall@nasa.gov, within 20 calendar days after the release of this DRFP. The Government will consider all comments received in preparation of the Final RFP. To the extent a comment leads the Government to revise the acquisition approach or requirements, the change will be reflected in the Final RFP. Some DRFP questions and comments may receive a posted response on the website at beta.sam.gov if the Contracting Officer determines that a response would facilitate additional understanding of the solicitation. The Government will respond via website at beta.sam.gov to comments and/or questions received following the issuance of the Final Request for Proposal (RFP).

Lisa B. Hall Contracting Officer