AST Safety Engineering Support - Draft Statement of Work (SOW).pdf

DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/WORK STATEMENT

AST SAFETY ENGINEERING SUPPORT CONTRACT

C.1.1 Background

By law (the provisions of 51 USC Subtitle V, Ch. 509; and regulations issued thereunder), the Department of Transportation, through AST, is responsible for the protection of public health and safety, the safety of property, and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch and reentry activities. AST satisfies these responsibilities by licensing and permitting commercial space launch and reentry vehicle operations, as well as launch and reentry site operations. AST implements legislation that allows the issuance of licenses, experimental permits, and safety approvals, as well as regulates associated safety systems, processes, services, and personnel. AST also supports the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization in management of airspace and its approval of amateur rocket activities.

C.1.2 Scope of Work

AST requires safety engineering support in the evaluation of applications for commercial launch and reentry licenses, commercial launch and reentry site licenses, permitted operations, safety approvals, and amateur rocket activities (under CFR Title 14, part 101). AST also requires support for regulatory development, training, tool development, and research on advanced modeling concepts and computational tools.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of risk is a core element of the AST decision-making process.

Understanding and modeling the possible outcomes associated with launch and reentry operations enables AST to make decisions regarding acceptable operational and mission approaches that affect public safety within the regulatory framework.

This support therefore requires significant knowledge of, and, where requested, expertise in, quantitative and qualitative safety analysis of launch and reentry, to include explosive safety, debris risk, toxic risk, distance focusing overpressure risk, hazard areas determination, maximum probable loss determination, flight safety systems, software safety, and system safety. This support also requires significant knowledge of, and, where requested, expertise in, space launch and reentry vehicle operations, current launch and reentry vehicle systems, launch and reentry range operations, and public safety issues associated with launch and reentry site operations, as implemented in accordance with U.S.

Commercial Space Transportation regulations.

C.2.1 Contract/Program Management

a. The Government will conduct a Kickoff Meeting. The Government plans to conduct this meeting ten (10) business days after contract award with a date, time, and location determined by the Government. The purpose of the meeting is to review the SOW requirements and ensure the Contractor has a clear understanding of the scope of work and deliverables.

b. Prepare a Project Management Status Report (PMSR) to provide a synopsis of the project's activity over the reporting period.

c. Conduct a quarterly Project Management review. This report will include a Performance and Cost Report, as an Attachment, to provide status and projected requirements of funds, man-hours and work completion.

d. Be responsible for management and control of all subcontractors/team members to ensure compliance with all contract requirements.

e. Implement a quality management system that ensures all activities are accomplished in accordance with contract requirements.

C.2.2 Operational Safety Support

a. Support AST in the evaluation and inspection of applicants/operators with respect to compliance with the safety-related regulations in 14 CFR Chapter III. The technical subject areas are as follows:

i. Systems Safety

1. Safety criteria and risk acceptance

2. Safety organization

3. Hazard identification

4. Lifecycle management

5. Configuration management

6. Records management

7. System safety analysis

8. Safety-critical hardware development (ground and flight), including flight termination systems

9. Safety-critical computing systems development, including automated flight safety systems

10. Safety-critical personnel requirements

11. Communication systems

12. Reliability and probability of failure analysis

13. Safety-critical procedures

14. Mishap and emergency response

15. Explosive siting

16. Human factors

17. Spaceflight participant safety

ii. Flight Safety Analysis

1. Trajectory analysis, including guided and unguided vehicles and launch and reentry

2. Flight abort, including rule development and simulation

3. Atmospheric modeling

4. Malfunction flight simulation

5. Explosion modeling

6. Survivability and breakup analysis

7. Debris propagation

8. Blast wave propagation

9. Toxic dispersion analysis

10. Population exposure analysis

11. Hazard area development

12. Consequence analysis from impact of objects, toxic substances, and blast waves on people, structures, and transportation modes

13. Risk metric evaluation

14. High consequence event protection

15. Financial responsibility evaluation

iii. Related Engineering Topics

1. Radio frequency management

2. Lightning hazard mitigation

3. Tracking systems

4. Protection of people and property on orbit

5. Collision avoidance

6. Environmental consequences

iv. Operational support

1. Publication, surveillance, control, and evacuation of planned impacts and hazard areas

2. Pre-flight procedures, including readiness

3. Post-flight data review

4. Post-flight reporting

5. Registration of space objects

6. Mishap investigation

b. The FAA requires support for the following activities in the technical subject areas:

i. Reviewing engineering documents describing means of compliance with licensing requirements, including subject matter expert review

ii. Verifying and validating evidence of compliance with regulations, approved methods, and defined procedures

iii. Performing independent analyses

iv. Developing and providing training for FAA staff and industry

v. Developing job aids to improve operational efficiency and consistency

vi. Supporting regulation, guidance, and standards development

vii. Developing and packaging technical data for use by industry

viii. Administrative support for rulemaking and policy

ix. Support to draft policy statements

x. Technical support to draft Advisory Circulars

C.2.3 Research and Development

a. Perform both basic and applied research and development in support of AST’s statutory missions to protect the public health and safety, the safety of property, and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch and reentry activities, (2) to encourage, facilitate, and promote US commercial space transportation, and (3) to support the continuous improvement of the safety of launch and reentry vehicles designed to carry humans, including spaceport operations. Activities that would be considered “research” in this context include:

i. Analytic and computational model development

ii. Analytic and computational modeling.

iii. Testing, data collection, and analysis, including that to provide technical rationale in support of the development of regulations and regulatory documentation (e.g. guides and advisory circulars).

iv. Development of experiment test plans.

b. Activities that would be considered “development” in this context include:

i. Development of reference data, including geospatial data and historical data on past launch/reentry operations, useful to accomplish AST’s statutory mission, such as data to characterize the probability of failure of launch/reentry operations and the exposure of the public and critical assets to hazards posed by launch or reentry operations.

ii. Non-design specific hardware design and development for vehicles or launch or reentry site infrastructure equipment, or any of their related components or subcomponents.

iii. Testing to obtain non-design specific data on vehicles or launch or reentry site infrastructure equipment, or any of their related components or subcomponents.

iv. Development of data, processes, automation tools, or methodologies to improve the accuracy, precision, or efficiency of the FAA in its licensing determinations of candidate systems.

v. Specific research and development activities may include:

1. Research on advanced modeling concepts and computational tools for use in flight safety and system safety analyses and assessments, such as the modeling of debris generation, debris trajectories, aerothermal demise, aircraft vulnerability, ship vulnerability, critical asset vulnerability, probability of failure, explosion hazards, launch/reentry vehicle trajectories, toxic hazards, overpressure hazards, hazard areas, population and critical asset exposure, and maximum probable loss.

2. Research to support development of regulations and guidance for commercial launches and reentries, launch and reentry site operations, experimental permits, safety approvals, and amateur rocket activities.

Deliverables

Any data item deliverable requirements will be specified in the Task Orders.

(End of Section C)