UAM_WTO_SOWFinal.pdf

STATEMENT OF WORK

FOR

Technical Problem Analysis Including Emerging Markets and Transformative NASA Research

Opportunities

1. Motivation/Background, CAS Project Background/Objective, and Objectives/Work to be

Performed for this Contract

1.1. Motivation: The Aviation Industry is changing rapidly. Non-traditional users, manufacturers, and service providers are rapidly shaping new and emerging markets and opportunities that may yield substantial impacts on our economy and way of life.

In NASA’s continued efforts to advance aeronautics, NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s (ARMD) Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) Project seeks to understand the directions, needs, and critical obstacles of the emerging and new markets in aeronautics that may have significant, and potentially disruptive, national and local benefits. Further, we seek to understand what analytical methodologies might be used to better understand the changing nature of aeronautics and identify potential innovative concepts that could have transformative impacts.

This solicitation focuses on exploring and understanding industry changes and the associated methods of analysis using one particular technical problem area of aeronautics as an example topic area to explore: Weather Tolerant Operations (WTO) for Urban Air Mobility (UAM). Previous NASA studies on UAM in particular may be found here: https://www.nasa.gov/uam. These UAM studies are references, not meant to be constraining for this solicitation, and other aeronautics domains (e.g., peripheral missions and vehicles) considered by the proposer may be included.

Using WTO in UAM and other area as the topic area, the two foci of this solicitation are:

1) Problem Analysis: Exploring and unearthing the multi-faceted systems-level needs, challenges, and potentially transformative opportunities of new and emerging directions in aeronautics considering human, societal, business, government, and technological perspectives (herein we call this “problem and market exploration and analysis”); and

2) Innovation Methods, Processes, and Tools (MPTs): Understanding the innovative problem and market exploration and analysis MPTs that can be used to conduct this complex systems problem and market exploration and analysis (herein we call this “innovation MPTs”. These innovation MPTs are commonly associated with: lean, entrepreneurial, venture capital, design thinking and other related approaches.

A potential follow-on effort will examine solutions to the needs, challenges, and opportunities identified in this effort.

https://www.nasa.gov/uam

1.2. Background/CAS Project Objective: The NASA CAS project has objectives of seeking the most innovative, disruptive, and novel approaches and technologies. As such this solicitation seeks to push the envelope in terms of using the most innovative problem and market exploration and analysis MPTs to identify the most significant opportunities for technological disruption.

Thus, while NASA regularly conducts extensive systems-level analyses of technical problem areas in aeronautics and uses these analyses to shape ARMD’s strategic portfolio decisions and Program investments, in this solicitation we seek to expand beyond NASA’s current system-level analytical approaches to push the envelope in terms of innovation. In this solicitation, we are seeking a greater focus on: non-traditional, novel, and emerging markets and industries; broader socio-business-technical understanding that considers the nexus of human and society-centered needs with business, government, and economic contextual viability with technological feasibility. In addition, we seek to understand the innovation MPTs that are less commonly used at NASA, and that may be used for conducting future studies.

With this approach, we hope to identify potentially disruptive or transformative opportunities for aeronautics. We also seek to understand how the most innovative business, market, design research or other innovation MPTs can be used to accomplish this objective.

1.3. Objectives for this Contract: Phase One (focus of this solicitation) will use Weather Tolerant Operations (WTO) for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and other aeronautics domains as the technical problem area

1.3.1. Use the most innovative business, market, and design research or related innovation MPTs to:

1.3.1.1. Explore and analyze current, emerging, and nontraditional markets, industries, and opportunities, (e.g., identified from parties whom NASA has not traditionally engaged).

1.3.1.2. Explore and understand the expressed and latent needs and challenges to identify the most important aspects of the technical problem area and how these are shaping developments in the technical problem area.

1.3.1.3. Take into account human and societal needs along with business, governmental, and economic considerations including areas related to civil infrastructure that may have little economic benefit but are important human, societal, or national needs or opportunities to improve quality of life.

1.3.1.4. Identify the technological challenges (regardless of how difficult they may be), that if solved, could lead to disruptive, game-changing opportunities in aeronautics nationally and globally.

1.3.2. Work collaboratively with a small NASA embedded team who will:

1.3.2.1. Observe the contractor’s MPTs and participate with the contractor to better understand the MPTs for potential subsequent use.

1.3.2.2. Provide access for the contractor back to NASA technical subject matter experts (SMEs) as needed.

1.3.3. Prepare for a follow-on NASA-contractor collaboration effort (not contained in this statement of work) focused on:

1.3.3.1. NASA teams solving the identified technical challenges using the results of the problem and market exploration and analysis as guidance.

1.3.3.2. Using the problem market exploration and analysis results for program and project decision making.

2. The Technical Problem Area: Weather Tolerant Operations (WTO) for Urban Air Mobility

(UAM) and other Domains: NASA ARMD leadership has identified several strategic investment focus areas that are beyond ARMD’s current portfolio. It is requesting the CAS Project investigate these for transformational potential to: first, analyze the problem space in detail to identify crucial, unaddressed problems; and second (not contained in this statement of work), to develop and assess potential solutions. WTO for UAM and other domains is a critical focus area needing clarity and further analysis, (since WTO contains several sub-topic areas of unclear research value/priority), prior to NASA conducting further efforts in this area. Specifically for UAM, WTO is known to contain sub-topics including:

2.1. Operations up to vehicle performance limits in adverse weather:

2.1.1. Turbulent winds; up to the vehicle performance limits, including “micro-environments” – operations considering weather effects that are at the same scale as UAM vehicles. (e.g., gusty winds near buildings).

2.1.2. Precipitation.

2.1.3. Icing conditions.

2.1.4. Zero visibility (lowest of low visibility challenge for UAM).

2.1.4.1. Approach and departure operations (e.g, within 500 feet of surface)

2.1.4.2. En-route operations (e.g., obstacle avoidance).

2.2. Reliability of UAM service in adverse weather (e.g., on demand service, air traffic management service, communications services).

2.3. WTO and System Safety:

2.3.1. Vehicle operations that are able to seamlessly transfer between flight modes

(e.g., vertical to horizontal flight) in adverse weather.

2.3.2. Safe and effective decision-making through dynamic weather, (e.g., divert within weather with more range/trajectory than one has available).

2.3.3. Contingency Management in adverse weather – off-nominal operations (e.g., vehicle failures, bird collision, running out of fuel, etc.; communication/air traffic management failure).

2.4. Other TBD

3. NASA Teaming: NASA will work collaboratively with the contractor team as the contractor team takes the lead and conducts the analysis of the technical problem area. The goal of the NASA team in this collaboration is to learn, participate and provide access to NASA technical SMEs, and increase our understanding of the developing and final contractor analysis of the technical problem area. A team will derive from multiple NASA centers (e.g., NASA HQ, NASA Ames, NASA Armstrong, NASA Langley, and NASA Glenn). The NASA team will be tiered:

Tier One, the Embedded NASA team: Will be the lead NASA Technical Point of Contact

(POC) and an Embedded Team of approximately 1-2 people that will work directly with the Contractor team on a sustained basis. These embedded NASA personnel will also connect to NASA subject matter experts as needed.

Tier Two, the Core NASA team: Will be a CAS Core Team of approximately 3-5 additional people that will interface with the contractor team on a weekly or bi-weekly basis through the lead NASA Technical POC.

Tier Three, the Extended NASA team: Will be an Extended Team of approximately 8-12 senior leaders that will have interactive updates from the Contractor and Embedded NASA Team on a monthly basis.

4. Description of Work to be Performed: The Contractor shall perform the following tasks within 12 weeks using the Technical Problem Area as the basis for the work:

4.1. The Contractor shall study market and technology research previously conducted in the Technical Problem Area. This is to include existing market analyses identified by NASA or known to the Contractor.

4.2. Informed by the above market analyses, the Contractor shall conduct a deeper and broader examination of how related issues are affecting or are likely to affect developments in this area. This deeper and broader examination is to include three facets:

4.2.1. Examination of human, societal, and market participants and interested parties

4.2.1.1. The Contractor shall identify people, companies, communities, government agencies, investors, entrepreneurs, and other parties, (participating and potentially interested parties) who have or may have significant interests in, or who may be significantly affected by, developments in the Technical Problem Area and associated markets. The contractor shall include parties with needs whom NASA has not traditionally engaged, and shall focus particularly on potential and emerging markets.

4.2.1.2. The Contractor shall elicit information from participating and potentially interested parties regarding the Technical Problem Area and associated markets. This will be done towards understanding what their obstacles and interests are and why, and what their plans related to these markets and Technical Problem Area may be. Considerations for civil infrastructure-related parties (schools, public-works, emergency services such as fire-fighting, etc.) are encouraged.

4.2.1.3. The Contractor shall develop descriptions of participating and potentially interested parties to include but not limited to:

4.2.1.3.1. Who they are.

4.2.1.3.2. How they are connected to the market(s).

4.2.1.3.3. The role they play or may play in the market(s).

4.2.1.3.4. Their motivations, interests, and needs in this market area.

4.2.1.3.5. Their potential growth areas.

4.2.1.3.6. Additional considerations that will be informed by market participants and potentially interested parties are noted in 4.2.2 and 4.2.3.

4.2.2. Examination of broader system-level considerations, to include but not limited to combinations of:

4.2.2.1. Geographic considerations, including any location-specific issues and trends;

4.2.2.2. Economic considerations including motivations, needs, trends, and business viability issues;

4.2.2.3. Social and/or demographic considerations including needs and trends;

4.2.2.4. Environmental considerations including needs and trends;

4.2.2.5. Government, regulatory, public policy, or political considerations.

4.2.3. Examination of technical considerations related to the above market participants and broader system-level considerations

4.2.3.1. The Contractor shall extend the existing research into technological needs, challenges, and barriers that are likely to affect developments in the Technical Problem Area.

4.2.3.2. The Contractor shall identify potentially disruptive and/or future technological challenges and opportunities and growth areas at any technical system level that, if solved, are likely to affect developments in the Technical Problem Area and associated markets.

4.3. Recommended Issues NASA Aeronautics can uniquely address: The Contractor shall work with NASA to identify and describe four or more specific issues and problems that NASA aeronautics is or may become uniquely qualified to address, including any additional as-yet-unidentified opportunities for NASA to address.

4.4. Innovation MPTs used: It is anticipated that the Contractor may use human-centered design methods, design thinking, lean, business innovation and forecasting methods, market research methods, and/or similar approaches, processes, tools to carry out this work.

4.4.1. The Contractor shall describe the innovation MPTs that it used to develop the above work products.

4.4.2. The Contractor shall advise NASA on innovation MPTs that may be best suited to enable NASA to better work with partners such as the Contractor and partners identified in the studies described herein to more effectively contribute to or carry out similar research in the future.

4.5. Travel: The contractor shall propose a travel plan to accomplish this contract. As the

Contractor makes plans for travel to conduct research and analysis in support of the tasks, the Contractor shall inform NASA of these plans, to allow the NASA team to accompany the Contractor and participate as much as possible. Required travel to interact with NASA stakeholders for at least 1 East Coast and 1 West Coast meeting shall be included. Potential NASA locations include NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Glenn Research Center, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, and NASA Headquarters.

5. Deliverables/Milestones:

5.1. Within 1 week of purchase order issuance: Provide a plan and schedule for each week of the task.

5.2. The Contractor shall provide biweekly progress reports in the form of a 1 hour presentation with the NASA Tier two/Core team. Biweekly reports shall include a summary of the:

5.2.1. Description of work accomplished during the reporting period;

5.2.2. Work-in-progress descriptions of, or new information about:

5.2.2.1. Participating and potentially interested parties;

5.2.2.2. Technical and system-level challenges, problems, issues, and needs that these parties are facing, and opportunities that have been identified;

5.2.3. Work to be performed during the next reporting period

5.3. By eight weeks into the contract period, the contractor shall deliver to NASA a summary presentation or report on work done to that point, focusing on work done on tasks 4.1-4.4.

5.4. By end of Phase One contract period (12 weeks), the Contractor shall provide to NASA a formal report and presentation, covering all tasks 4.1-4.6.

5.4.1. The Contractor shall submit the final report with detailed descriptions of the analyses of the Technical Problem Area and participating and potentially interested parties and markets.

5.4.2. The Contractor shall include detailed recommendations issues and problems NASA can uniquely address with additional considerations identified (task 4.3).

5.4.3. The Contractor shall include detailed descriptions of the MPTs it used for Phase One as described in 4.4.

5.4.4. Detailed descriptions may include, but are not limited to textual and visual material that may be created or used in the course of developing the work products. Examples of these are as follows:

5.4.4.1. Graphs, tables, and charts;

5.4.4.2. Profiles or personas of people, organizations, communities, or companies that are representative of participating and potentially interested parties, and contextual descriptions of why they might have a stake in the problems described;

5.4.4.3. Conceptual prototypes along with a synopsis of feedback given by any potentially-interested parties.

6. Period of Performance: The period of performance shall be 12 weeks from award.