201A_ D-Code Signed 015_80MSFC22CA004 JOFOC 12152023 Final.pdf

Rev.:4/2023

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

GEORGE C. MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER (MSFC)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

(JOFOC)

FOR NOVEL TECHNOLOGIES TO SUPPORT SCIENCE DATA SYSTEM,

CONTRACT 80MSFC22CA004

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) George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The procuring agency is NASA, and the contracting activity is MSFC.

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 new work modification to Contract 80MSFC22CA004 with Development Seed (herein referred to as Dev Seed) for an increase in scope for Task 2 Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) and to incorporate Green House Gas (GHG) requirements as part of the VEDA task. The current contract period of performance (PoP), base through Option Period 2, is January 1, 2022 through September 30, 2024, and will remain unchanged with the incorporation of the expanded scope. Option Period 3, if exercised, will cover the period of October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025.

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):

Contract 80MSFC22CA004 provides support for NASA’s Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) at MSFC. IMPACT engaged the highly specialized competence of Dev Seed in cloud native architecture research, design, and development.

Currently Dev Seed uses NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Mission Cloud Platform services (which uses Amazon "cloud" Web Services (AWS)). Cloud native architecture is a design methodology that utilizes cloud services such as AWS to allow dynamic and agile application development techniques that take a modular approach to building, running, and updating software through a suite of cloud-based microservices versus a monolithic application infrastructure. Dev Seed’s prior experience in developing Earth Science imagery applications, and its highly specialized and extensive experience with IMPACT projects has been instrumental to meet IMPACT’s goals to build partnerships with other Federal agencies, the applications community, decision makers, Non-Government Organizations, and other organizations to encourage the adoption of NASA’s Earth observation data into their workflows and operational models. Dev Seed will enhance NASA’s existing data infrastructure, tools, and services to encourage broader use of NASA’s data for all users and will enable technology and innovation to remove barriers to using complex Earth observation data.

Task 2 under the Dev Seed Contract 80MSFC22CA004 was originally known as Dashboard Evolution. Due to the tremendous success of the dashboard providing high-quality imagery for public dissemination and the high applicability of the dashboard to other NASA Earth Science interests, NASA Headquarters expanded the Dashboard Evolution project, almost simultaneously with the start date of this contract, to what is now titled as the VEDA project.

The scope of effort associated with the Task 2 project is summarized below:

Data System in the NASA Cloud: Incorporate multiple types of data, including raster, vector, and tabular data, into the data system; Integrate heterogeneous datasets from various sources, including satellites, ground measurements, and other sensors, ensuring compatibility with different sensors, spatial and temporal resolutions; Integrate various data sources and accommodate different metadata profiles; Develop and implement data governance framework.

Platform and System in NASA Cloud: Develop a uniform data ingestion pipeline to facilitate data transformation and integration; Implement a light-weight metadata catalog to organize and manage metadata effectively; Provide Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for data discovery, access, and visualization; Develop a mapping interface for geospatial data visualization and interaction; Establish a pipeline to ingest, publish, and display derived insights in a user-friendly manner; Develop GIS compatible data services and plugins for data in the system.

Usability: Design the system to support different user personas in both exploratory and explanatory modes; Offer appropriate data visualizations based on data type and narratives, including customizable widgets for user personalization; Provide overview information for quick data understanding and offer detailed information on demand.

General: Adopt a modular design approach to allow for the replacement or upgrading of system components as technologies evolve; Ensure that the platform and system are performant and capable of supporting interactivity with large-scale data; Support existing projects: Earth Information System and NASA-ESA-JAXA trilateral dashboard; Develop tools to collect and report metrics.

Open Science: Develop the system and its ecosystem as open and reusable software, adhering to open science principles; Engage the community in the development process to encourage buy-in from a diverse pool of developers and users; Align design choices, including APIs and data formats, with existing and evolving community standards and best practices.

GHG: Implementation of the VEDA System for the GHG Center Monitoring and Information System; Implement the VEDA system as a redeployable technology stack to support the GHG Center Monitoring and Information System within NASA cloud; Data Ingestion, Publication, and Visualization; Information Curation and Management; Establish an information curation and management team to work collaboratively with agencies;

Implementation of an Information Management System; Feedback Mechanism and Help

Desk to support users.

Due to NASA’s highly publicized and critically important VEDA project, interruption of Dev Seed’s contributions to VEDA will pose serious adverse consequences for NASA achieving critical interagency milestones, particularly near-term GHG usage of VEDA for important Earth science collaborations starting with the American Geophysical Union. VEDA work continues to expand with NASA’s Earth science data portfolio with the recent addition of the growing GHG as an initiative under the Earth Science Data System (ESDS) program of the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Task 2 VEDA's scope was expanded for Option Period 1 of the Dev Seed contract 80MSFC22CA004 via modification; however, this increase was not incorporated into the other option periods.

The current total potential contract value for the base period through Option Period 4 if all options are exercised is $27,805,688. The estimated value of this action is $5,420,543.

Therefore, the revised potential contract value will be $33,226,231.

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.

3204(a)(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. 3204(a)(1), is only one responsible source and no other supplies and services will satisfy agency requirements, is described below:

a. Cloud Native Design and Development Expertise: Dev Seed is highly specialized in cloud automation of Earth Science data and has worked with a wide range of Earth data providers—from Silicon Valley space startups to NASA—and has built data pipelines entirely on cloud infrastructure. Dev Seed has built scalable, secure, and sustainable data pipelines on the latest cloud technology.

Since cloud infrastructure is a rapidly changing field, Dev Seed has established partnerships with Earth Data teams at Amazon Web Services and Google that give them insight into upcoming offerings. This allows Dev Seed to better deliver state-of-the-art system designs by staying at the forefront of this rapidly changing field and ahead of most competitors by maintaining state-of-the-art currency in this field.

b. Expertise in Developing Applications using Earth Science Data for Real World Impact: This requires specialized knowledge of how to make data available in a useful format to operators and decision-makers, and Dev Seed’s expertise is directly pertinent for this task. The output from the Deep Learning algorithms will be provided to different decision-makers in very specific formats.

This supports NASA’s ESDS Program goal to encourage the use of Earth observation data by a broader user community. An estimated 6-months would be needed for a new vendor to become competently familiar with the current algorithms, posing a risk to completion of non-severable requirements.

c. Open Machine Learning Expertise for Imagery: Dev Seed has built and improved open-source (nonproprietary) tools for Machine Learning (a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building) across Earth Science data.

This includes tools that make it easier to scale Machine Learning on the cloud and to distribute the results on the web. This expertise is critical to IMPACT’s role in supporting NASA’s ESDS Program for new strategies required to meet the data needs of the research community in this modern age. Dev Seed’s experience with the NASA open- source catalog and knowledge of the VEDA components which they have developed provides assurance that only Dev Seed can ensure immediate continuity of tasks without impact to schedule. Use of any other contractor would require development of appropriate tools resulting in a gap in services.

d. Expertise with NASA’s Earth Science Data: Dev Seed is a core partner in

AWS “Earth on AWS” partnership, and as such they maintain the technical infrastructure behind NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data on AWS Public Data Set. This expertise is particularly applicable in achieving IMPACT’s Open Science goals as all Earth Science data is migrated to the cloud, with AWS being a key component for NASA’s cloud usage.

e. Expertise with NASA’s IMPACT Projects: Dev Seed’s collaborative experience with numerous IMPACT projects including the multi-mission algorithm and Analysis Platform, Algorithm Publication Tool, Harmonized Landsat/Sentinel-2 SNWG and SNWG Processing, NASA’s VEDA project, Analysis and Review of Common Metadata Repository, Airborne Data Management Group, NASA-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fire Weather Collaboration, NASA Science Mission Directorate Data Catalog, Small Satellite Data Acquisition, Nitro, Phenom, and the ESDS Machine Learning Strategy projects will ensure continued synergy within these ongoing projects. A new contractor introduced midstream to the research and development cycles would pose short-term concern for quality of deliverables and adversely affect momentum to maintain tight schedules in support of IMPACT’s customers including NASA Headquarters–typical effect on project schedules would be expected to vary between 3-6 months should another contractor be chosen, and no others have been identified with this experience and capability. A 3-6 month schedule delay is not acceptable to NASA because many products are required for evolutionary core capabilities of the 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System to provide reliable, robust services to Earth data science users. Dev Seed is uniquely positioned as Incumbent to ensure continuity and no schedule slip of this effort until the next contract award can be made.

f. Knowledge of IMPACT’s System Architecture: Dev Seed has performed system architecture analysis for IMPACT including facilitating reuse efficiencies between IMPACT’s various projects, monitoring strategic goals for open science and open software, and reviewing project scope to preclude unnecessary repetition of effort. A new contractor would be expected to take 3 months to become knowledgeable of IMPACT’s system architecture–this would be most detrimental with the fast pace in which IMPACT continues to receive new assignments from NASA Headquarters and impinge on IMPACT’s ability to rapidly respond with solutions of an established high degree of quality.

g. Unique and specialized expertise: Through collaborative research and development participation with IMPACT projects, Dev Seed has demonstrated unique and specialized expertise for integration of NASA’s specialized Earth science data: services and tools into custom research application and applications workflows; infusing trends across the informatics, data science and information technology fields; developing new, effective solutions for science data management and dissemination; rapid prototyping, development, and testing of advanced concepts in scientific data and information systems tackling search, access and use challenges; developing systematic approaches to data management and data stewardship supporting distributed archive centers; providing system architecture analysis for IMPACT; and providing data curation for collaborations within NASA, with other national and international government organizations, industry, and academic partners. Each of these capabilities are paramount for IMPACT’s cutting- edge success, and no other vendor has been identified possessing more than a small fraction of this specialized expertise. Should another vendor be found with promise of attaining this unique and specialized expertise, it is estimated that a new team may take 8 months to become proficient and productive–an 8-month schedule impact is not acceptable to NASA since IMPACT would fail to complete required assignments.

h. Unique VEDA Tool Development: Dev Seed maintains and provides open-source software to create a dashboard (delta-ui) for exploring Earth Observation data dynamically (TiTiler). This dashboard provides NASA a way to configure new userstories with minimal effort (delta-config). These tools are built on top of a data search and discovery Application Programming Interface (pgSTAC, deltabackend) and cloud- optimized data is added to the database and data store backends via pipelines developed by IMPACT and Dev Seed (veda-data-pipelines). All this work is possible because of the existing open-source expertise of Dev Seed (TiTiler, SpatioTemporal Asset Catalogs (STAC)) and Dev Seed experience in AWS cloud tools. These unique tools were specifically developed by Dev Seed for the VEDA project. Furthermore, expansion use of these tools is not severable for the expansion of Task 2 from the original contract requirement for Task 2. Dev Seed is uniquely positioned to ensure continuity and no schedule slip of this effort until the next contract award can be made.

i. Current Contract Performance: Dev Seed was the prime on the predecessor contract which included the Task 2 scope and achieved a high-performance rating for quality delivery and performance. Dev Seed is uniquely positioned as the existing contractor to ensure continuity and no schedule slip of this effort until the follow-on competitive acquisition can be awarded. Bringing a new contractor on board would overlap with the non-severable components thereby increasing costs and pose disruption of NASA’s VEDA delivery schedule which is achieving daily visibility with the public regarding Earth Science data regarding climate change. The schedule cannot be impacted with regards to present National schedule needs to deliver next step visualization for expanding earth science data sets. The continued engagement with Dev Seed ensures continuity without disruption.

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 (Sam.gov) was published on November 16, 2023 and closed on December 1, 2023, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source modification to Dev Seed. 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 proposal analysis will ensure that the final agreed-to price for the contract action is fair and reasonable. The negotiation and establishment of a fair and reasonable price will be conducted in accordance with FAR Part 15.

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

No other market research outside of that identified in section 10 below was performed because this procurement action expands the Task 2 VEDA scope as currently contained within the existing contract and incorporates GHG as part of the VEDA task; and this procurement action incorporates scope only until the already ongoing competitive acquisition can be awarded.

However, an RFI was processed associated with the ongoing competitive acquisition which has identified potential offerors which can perform scope in the future.

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 (Sam.gov) per FAR Subpart 5.2 (See Section 6 above). The Synopsis was published from November 16, 2023 through December 1, 2023. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source extension to Dev Seed. Three interested companies responded and requested consideration. They were not considered for the following reasons:

• The nature of the products offered did not match the requirement. The effort is much more than procuring IT tools and equipment.

• The respondents requested future consideration for an anticipated competitive acquisition.

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:

There are no other actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome barriers to competition. A competitive follow-on acquisition is currently in process and is anticipated to be awarded in the March 2025 timeframe.

11:28:17 -06'00'

NOVEL TECHNOLOGIES TO SUPPORT SCIENCE DATA SYSTEM, CONTRACT

80MSFC22CA004

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

SIGNATURE PAGE

I certify that the facts presented in this justification are accurate and complete.

David W. Hood Technical Representative Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT)

I hereby certify that the above justification is complete and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Digitally signed by Mary Cooper Date: 2023.12.05 11:46:59 -06'00'

Kathryn Cooper Contracting Officer Chief, Science and Technology Support Branch

CONCURRENCE:

Jennifer

Digitally signed by Jennifer Mccaghren

Mccaghren Date: 2023.12.15 11:40:26 -06'00'

Jennifer B. McCaghren Division Director/PS50 Science, Technology, Space Systems Division

John E. Cannaday, III Director, Office of Procurement

APPROVED:

Joe. L. Leopard Associate Director, Technical

Mary Cooper