ABO_SOW_Draft_23Jan2024.pdf

"Source Selection Information—See FAR Subparts 2.101 and 3.104-4"

DRAFT STATEMENT OF WORK

Aircraft Based Observations

National Weather Service Office of Observations

Commercial Data Buy Portfolio

I. Purpose

This document is a Statement of Work (SOW) for the acquisition of aircraft-based observations from major commercial airlines by the National Weather Service.

II. Scope and Mission

A. Mission The National Weather Service (NWS) provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy. Meteorological observations, through the process of data assimilation, are a critical ingredient to providing these forecasts and warnings and for generating computer-based forecast guidance (i.e, Numerical Weather Prediction; NWP). Observations are also used for other operational forecasting applications outside the context of NWP and for operational verification, populating historical databases.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) obligates member nations to have a program for the observing, recording, and reporting of weather observations from aircraft operating on international air routes. ICAO Annex 3 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Meteorological Service for International Air Navigation, documents this obligation and defines the types of observations to be made, and the reporting and recording requirements.

B. Scope

The objective is to acquire atmospheric observations from commercial aircraft operated by major commercial airlines, leading to the improved skill of NWP and other operational applications, for the prediction of thunderstorms, flash floods, hail, tornadoes, clouds, and other sensible weather phenomena. The prediction of these phenomena is essential to protecting lives and property. The contract requires data meeting the requirements of the government for wind, temperature, and humidity observations from commercial aircraft.

Temperature and wind observations from commercial aircraft are an important source of real-time information for global and regional weather prediction as well as operational forecasts and warnings from the NWS. They also complement satellite data with high quality and vertically high resolution in situ information, such as rawinsondes (“weather balloons”) and various types of ground-based remote sensing platforms. Indeed, when a commercial aircraft ascends and descends, taking an observation of wind, temperature, and humidity at points in the vertical along the way, it provides data analogous to that of a rawinsonde, providing bedrock observational information of paramount importance to the operational forecasting mission of the NWS.

Observations of temperature and wind from large aircraft are routinely derived from FAA-required, on-board sensors and software. These sensors and software transmit the wind and temperature observations in real time to ground over VHF communications pathway. In the United States this system is called the Meteorological Communications and Addressing System (MDCRS), whereas it is known generally around the rest of the world as the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay (AMDAR). Many, but not all, domestic and international airlines provide MDCRS observations to the NWS via commercial contracts. When on transoceanic and intracontinental routes, aircraft also transmit weather observations via a separate communications paradigm and source known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance by Contract (ADS-C).

Observations of water vapor from some aircraft operated by US airlines are taken with an onboard sensor, the Water Vapor Sensing System II (WVSS-II) developed and installed by industry in partnership with the NWS in the early 2000s. These sensors were installed on 107 Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft and 25 UPS aircraft. These water vapor observations are communicated in real time from these 132 aircraft along with wind and temperature observations.

The scope of this SOW is to continue procurement of wind and temperature observational data from both the MDCRS and ADS-C sources of aircraft-based observations, and humidity from those aircraft equipped with WVSS.

III. Requirements

A. Key Elements

The contractor shall:

i. Provide full and open disclosure of sensor characteristics (e.g, metadata) data processing and sampling techniques

ii. Maintain high data delivery and reliability

iii. Provide aircraft data meeting WMO and NWS data standards referenced in this SOW and Table 1 in Section B of this section.

iv. Continue maintenance on the 132 WVSS-II sensors, including parts and unit replacements as necessary, to facilitate continued delivery of high-quality data with reliability.

B. Reference Documents

The reference documents listed in Table 1 below are referred to throughout this SOW and are incorporated by reference. These documents contain descriptions of and standards for aircraft data sources, meteorological observables, data formats, accuracies, data generating software and other elements of providing meteorological observations from commercial aircraft providing aircraft observation reports.

Table 1. Non-Government Publications

Identifier Title

WMO-No.306 WMO Manual on Codes, International Codes, Volumes 1.1 and 1.2, 2010 Edition

WMO Report 958 The WMO AMDAR Reference Manual

WMO Report 114 Onboard Software Functional Requirements Specification, Table 6, July 2013

ARINC Specification 620 Data Link Ground System Standard and Interface Specification (DGSS/IS) and its supplements

C. General Requirement

The Contractor must meet requirements applicable to aircraft observations in the documents cited in Table 1 and the data requirements in Section E of the SOW as well as the requirements for project management and services.

D. Project Management and Services

The contractor shall manage the collection of and dissemination of the aircraft observation data to the government meeting the performance requirements for data quality, availability and spatial and temporal reporting resolution in this SOW and WMO No 306 Manual on Codes Volume 1.1 Section FM 42-XI ext AMDAR and WMO Report 958, the WMO AMDAR Reference Manual.

The Contractor must provide a management plan within 30 days after award describing all labor, equipment, and materials (if not government furnished) resources to implement, manage, control, operate, and maintain the required services as outlined in this SOW. The contractor management plan must describe how the contractor will accomplish the following:

i. coordination, execution, and management of Contractor, any Sub-contractor(s) and airline efforts in support of the program;

ii. Reporting of the following topics

Project status

Sensor status, including installation, maintenance and problems

Data volumes collected, including number of ascent and descent soundings and en route data

Changes in number of participating aircraft, airlines, and domains covered

The NWS must have clear, timely, and effective access to levels of management within the Contractor’s organization that have authority to ensure that sufficient resources are available for the program execution and the proper level of attention is given to the resolution of any problems that may arise. The Contractor is responsible for management and control of all subcontractors/team members to ensure compliance with all requirements of the contract.

Quarterly meetings and annual reports:

The contractor must meet with the NWS on a quarterly basis and provide a written report on an annual basis that includes the following entries:

* Sensor Production Report – If sensors are being produced by the contractor. Status of sensor certification and sensor production, deliveries, and installations, and newly activated sensors on aircraft.

* Metadata Report. The contractor shall provide updates of sensor metadata, if sensors are produced, including sensor serial number, installation date, hardware model, firmware version, and data processing algorithms. Additionally, the contractor shall provide NOAA with the aircraft avionics hardware and software type and version, aircraft type and series, and siting/location for each contractor installed sensor relative to the aircraft fuselage.

* Data Collection Report. The contractor shall provide the number of individual observations provided per day for each sensor for temperature, winds, and pressure shall also be reported if available. The data collection report shall include the number of ascents and descents per day per applicable aircraft and the total number of soundings. All relevant geolocation data shall accompany the observational data.

* Maintenance Issues Report. A data availability report shall be reported monthly indicating each aircraft equipped with contractor provided sensors daily reporting availability.

* Ground Processing Report. The contractor shall provide performance metrics documenting ground processing and circuit availability.

* Annual written reports will be provided to the government consolidating information discussed in the quarterly meetings.

iii. Engineering and technical support

The Contractor must provide engineering and technical support services to ensure proper design, development, implementation, and operation of aircraft observation data services.

The Contractor must receive and process messages from participating airlines. The exact contents of the messages will vary by airline and airframe type provided: a) the message formats from the aircraft are identical to those already used by another participating airline; b) formats comply with defined World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and industry standard ARINC 620; c) messages must contain the elements required by this SOW and WMO Reports 306 and 958

iv. Service verification

The Contractor must operate the aircraft observation network such that it provides the required communications and data link services described herein twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. If any critical system, including but not limited to, contractor operations center, processing IT infrastructure, or communications circuits, are operating below standards, the contractor shall notify the NWS Telecommunications Gateway within 15 minutes of the onset of the problem by phone (human to human) and electronic notification via email.

The Contractor must serve as the liaison between the Government and the participating airlines for the purpose of reviewing the performance of aircraft observations, identifying problem areas, and correcting any problem areas under the Contractor’s control in a timely and expeditious manner

E. Data Requirements

i. Data type

The primary requirements are for meteorological observations of temperature, wind, and humidity along with pressure and location (latitude, longitude, geometrical height above the Earth’s surface and time). Following location, the order of decreasing importance is as above (temperature, wind, and pressure).

ii. Data quality

The Government requires high quality, low latency atmospheric measurements from in situ sensors on commercial aircraft. This data will support NOAA, FAA, and public missions. The data quality must meet all quality requirements in this SOW and WMO Report 958, the WMO AMDAR Reference Manual.

iii. Data availability

In the event of a communications outage, data shall be stored and re-transmitted at the earliest opportunity once communications have been re-established. A report shall be generated for any data outage exceeding 2 hours, giving the number of observations re-transmitted. Monthly data availability of 98% is required by the government.

iv. Data interfaces:

The contractor communication interfaces to NWS shall utilize software interfaces that enable efficient transmission of data from the aircraft sensors, coding of messages within aircraft software and dissemination of observations from the aircraft to the contractors ground processing facility The Contractor shall ensure data are transmitted to the NWS Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) in BUFR format as described in WMO No 306 V1.2 section B and at intervals agreed to with the government. The contractor shall enable a remote monitoring capability for the NWS to monitor data collection status to include:

* Support the ability to monitor data delivery and availability status in real time including delivery of data collectives (BUFR files) sent to the NWS

* Support the ability to monitor circuit status between the contractor and the NWS

v. Data Technical Specifications

Technical specifications for observed and other reported quantities are given for meteorological observations in the AMDAR Onboard Software Functional Requirements Specification, Table 6, published by the World Meteorological Organization, Report No. 114, July 2013. These specifications are summarized below.

a. Observation Accuracy

i. Temperature – 0.5 Kelvin

ii. Wind Direction and Speed– 5 degrees and 1.5 m/sec

iii. Moisture – 5% (relative humidity)

iv. Pressure – 3.0-4.0 hPa

v. Location

1. Height -1% near Earth’s surface and 0.5% below 200 hPa

2. Meridional (North-South) position – 0.7 km

3. Longitudinal (East-West) position – 0.7 km

4. Time – 1 second

b. Measurement units

Observations must be reported in Standard Units as described in WMO Report 306 and WMO Report 958 the AMDAR Reference Guide

c. Data Format

Observations must be transmitted in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) International Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data (BUFR) as described in WMO Report 306 Volume 1.2 section B.

d. Delivery, latency and data security

The requirement for data latency varies by regional domain. The delivery of data to NOAA, including data latency, will range between 2 and 5 minutes (MDCRS domestic horizontal domain), 30 minutes to 60 minutes (international horizontal domains). For some short duration regional flights (less than 1 ½ hours), the data latency can be dependent on arrival on the ground and transmission of data from the arrival location. The data shall be delivered to the NWS in separate file collectives.

The maximum acceptable data latency for regional carriers in CONUS, Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico is 15 minutes. The maximum acceptable data latency for international domains is 3 hours for international flights that are operating in areas outside of air-ground downlink communications.

The contractor shall use a file structure consistent with currently existing aircraft data contracts and accepted data security standards for aircraft data, considering requirements from participating airlines and the Government.

* Aircraft observation collectives shall be delivered to the NWS MADIS system every 5 minutes containing all new observations received since the previous message collective was delivered to the NWS TOC.

e. Horizontal Domain

The entire globe. See Section IV for further requirements pertaining to data sources and communications pathways.

f. Vertical Domain

The troposphere, including the jet level, typically 0- 12.5 km (40,000 ft).

g. En-Route Data

Observations along the flight track, at approximately the same flight level meet WMO requirements and are secondary in importance to ascent and descent sounding data. Observations spacing shall be between 1-60 minutes frequency but most desirably at the WMO default of 7 minutes, corresponding to approximately 100 km spacing.

h. Sounding data

High vertical resolution is important in the lower level of the atmosphere to detect indictors of severe weather. Vertically stacked data collected during aircraft ascent and descent can provide atmospheric profiles or atmospheric soundings and are the primary requirement, especially those with vertical density meeting WMO standards.

If possible, vertical sounding resolution on ascent shall be every 5-10 hPa (3-20 sec) for the lowest 100 hPa and every 25-50 (20-60 sec) above.

i. Data Restrictions

The government requires the data to be made available without restrictions that permit compliance with WMO Resolution 40. For entities that are not members of WMO (e.g., private sector data users), the data shall be made only after 48 hours from the valid time of the observations. However, for those soundings that contain all three of wind, temperature, and humidity (the aircraft is equipped with WVSS), the data should be free and open.

j. Maintenance of sensors installed on aircraft through this contract

The contractor shall be responsible for the operation and maintenance of any sensors installed on aircraft prior to this contract or during the life of this contract to support the provision of data and related requirements throughout this contract. In the event of a sensor malfunction, the contractor shall coordinate with the airline or other appropriate party to resolve the malfunction or ensure the sensor is replaced or repaired.

k. Communication Interfaces

The contractor shall utilize software interfaces that enable efficient transmission of aircraft observations, coding of data and dissemination of observations through to the NWS. Data exchange between the Contractor and the NWS MADIS system shall adhere to NOAA communications protocols and standards. The contractor shall support the ability of the NWS to monitor circuit status between NOAA and the contractor. The contractor shall deliver the data in collectives (BUFR format) sent to NOAA through MADIS, which resides within the NWS operational Integrated Dissemination (IDP) framework. During the life of the contract, the contractor shall work with the government to adjust as necessary any changes in delivery of data to MADIS and to accommodate any changes to the NWS’s broader framework for MADIS as the notional system for ingest of non-governmental sources of observational data.

F. Other Requirements

i. The contractor shall establish and coordinate partnerships with airlines, sensor manufacturers, avionics providers, and any other key aviation industry partners as applicable to provide observational data meeting all requirements listed above as necessary to provide deliverables as outlined in Section IV below.

IV. Deliverables

a. Aircraft observations, with accuracies meeting requirements of atmospheric temperature, wind, humidity, pressure, and location shall be delivered to the National Weather Service to meet latency requirements as specified in this SOW and documents described in Table 1.

b. Soundings and en-route observations of wind speed and direction, temperature, and, where available, humidity, shall be collected globally and provided, with geographic and volume requirements further specified in Table 2 below.

c. Observations, described in Section III of this SOW shall be from the following sources and providers through subcontracting relationships with airlines and other aviation industry partners as applicable.

i. MDCRS wind and temperature observations, including vertical soundings and en-route data, from major airlines based in the United States with routes mostly within the Continental United States (CONUS), but with routes and data reporting between the CONUS and anywhere else on the globe.

ii. MDCRS observations, including vertical soundings and en route data, from airlines based both within and outside the United States with routes and reporting mostly from airspace outside the CONUS, over all regions of the globe.

iii. ADS-C wind and temperature en-route observations from airlines operating along transoceanic and intracontinental routes, along with pressure/altitude and geolocation/temporal data.

iv. Humidity soundings (along with MDCRS wind and temperature, and pressure/geolocation data) and en-route observations primarily over the CONUS, but extending to any other locations serviced by the 132 WVSS-equipped aircraft operated by UPS and Southwest Airlines.

d. Observations shall be formatted in compliance with WMO standards and this SOW.

e. Routine maintenance of the WVSS-II sensors on the 132 equipped aircraft for delivery of meteorological observations, with accuracies meeting requirements of atmospheric water vapor, temperature, wind, pressure and location to the National Weather Service to meet latency requirements as specified in this SOW and documents described in Table 1.

f. There shall be data management capabilities and communication interfaces in place to ensure efficient and effective encoding and delivery of the aircraft meteorological observations from the aircraft to a ground monitoring/processing center and then onwards to distribution to the government using the required protocols and formats as stated in this SOW. The contractor shall have a mechanism in place for notifying the government in real-time of any outages in the communication systems as described in Section III of this SOW.

g. The government will be provided information as described in Section III on aircraft sensor quality assurance in coordination with air carriers and the government monitoring activities.

h. The Contractor shall deliver written reports on: any sensor production; instrument metadata; data collection; maintenance issues; ground processing; and overall system performance.

i. The Contractor shall provide an annual performance report based on the aforementioned quarterly meetings. Future opportunities for expansion of the data collection should be part quarterly meetings and annual report.

V. Data Volume

This section contains a table with the estimated maximum amounts of data that the Contractor shall deliver to the Government. Please note that these are estimates only, as data volumes will fluctuate from day-to-day and month-to month due to changes in airline routing, weather, and business and servicing models, among other factors. The cost to the government for each data unit (a sounding) shall be a firm fixed price that does not fluctuate with temporal changes in data volume. The contractor shall provide all soundings and en route data available on an ongoing basis from participating airlines up to the annual maximum over the period of performance.

Table 2. Data volume

Observation Type Estimated Annual Data

Year 1

Year 2 Year 3

Units Delivered

MDCRS (US-based and non-US based Airlines) with at least 1.7M of the soundings over the CONUS and OCONUS USA states and territories

Ascent and descent soundings per year and en route data

Up to 3,000,000 soundings per year plus en route data

Up to 3,000,000 soundings per year plus en route data

Up to 3,000,000 soundings per year plus en route data

WVSS (UPS and Southwest Airlines)

All ascent and descent soundings available from all 132 WVSS-enabled aircraft operated by UPS and Southwest airlines

Min 700 soundings per day plus en route data

Min 700 soundings per day plus en route data

Min 700 soundings per day plus en route data

*ADS-C All data available where weather elements are enabled in ADS-C reports as enabled by the Flight Information Regions and Air Navigation Service Providers