Request_for_Information_-_Software_Based_Radio.pdf

Landsat Next – Software Radio RFI

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to conduct market research to learn more about available narrowband and wideband Software Defined Radio (SDR) products that may be suitable for use with the Landsat Next (LNext) constellation of satellites. There is no solicitation at this time. This RFI does not constitute a request for quotes, proposals, or bids; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the Government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred. Responses to this announcement are for planning purposes only. The results of the market research will contribute to the development of the requirement and guide acquisition decision-making.

The primary North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code to be used for this requirement is 334220, Radio and Television Broadcasting and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing.

Only material suitable for internal Government distribution shall be submitted. Any restricted, export-controlled, or proprietary information must be marked accordingly. The Government will protect all such information and the distribution of any such material will be based on a strict need-to-know basis.

However, submissions may be subject to review by experts outside of the civil service including NASA and USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center Technical Support Services Contract (TSSC) staff, each of whom is bound to protect restricted data from unauthorized use or disclosure per their respective contracts.

Classified material must not be submitted. Submittals identified as containing such material will be destroyed and given no further consideration.

USGS will not be restricted in, nor incur liability for, disclosure, use, and reproduction of any information provided which is or becomes publicly available other than by breach of the parameters above; or which is known to the USGS at the time of disclosure; or which becomes known to the USGS from an independent source without breach of any agreement to the contrary; or which has no restricted markings.

This RFI is open to all types of organizations, including U.S. businesses, industry, universities, nonprofit organizations, federal centers, federally funded research and development centers, other U.S. Government agencies, and international organizations.

THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTES, PROPOSALS, OR BIDS. No award will result from this RFI. This announcement is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information solicited. No entitlement to payment by the Government of direct or indirect costs or charges will arise as a result of participation in this request. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on the System for Award Management (SAM) at www.sam.gov. It is the interested party's responsibility to monitor the site for the release of any future announcements.

Responses to this RFI are strictly voluntary and will not in any way affect a firm’s ability to submit a quote or offer, nor will it have any influence on the evaluation of any firm’s response to a future solicitation, should one be issued.

Mission Background

The goal of LNext is to continue the acquisition, archival, and distribution of multi-spectral imagery affording global, synoptic, and repetitive coverage of the Earth's land surfaces at a scale where natural and human-induced changes can be detected, differentiated, characterized, and monitored over time. This goal is in keeping with the Landsat programmatic goals stated in both the Commercial Space Act of 1998

(Public Law 105-303) and the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 (Public Law 102-555). This policy requires that the Landsat Program provide data into the future that is sufficiently consistent with previous Landsat data to allow the detection and quantitative characterization of changes in or on the land surface of the globe. The LNext mission is anticipated to begin early orbit checkout and commissioning activities late in the calendar year 2030. Accordingly, USGS expects the completion of critical design and initiation of ground integration and test activities to begin in the 2026-27 timeframe.

LNext continues the long-running partnership of NASA and USGS, with NASA providing the space and launch segments and USGS providing the ground segment. The Landsat series of satellites have continuously acquired multispectral images of the global land surface since the launch of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS, later renamed Landsat 1) in 1972. The Landsat data archive constitutes the longest continuous moderate-resolution record of the global land surface as viewed from space.

Mission Objectives

LNext has these major mission objectives:

• Collect and archive moderate-resolution multispectral image data and thermal image data, affording seasonal coverage of the global landmass for a continuous period of not less than five-years.

• Ensure that LNext data are sufficiently consistent with data from the earlier Landsat missions in terms of relative acquisition geometry, calibration, coverage characteristics, spectral characteristics, output product quality, and data availability to permit studies of land cover and land use change over multi-decadal periods.

• Ensure LNext is responsive to critical emerging user needs and applications as characterized by periodic assessment, currently the User Needs for the Sustainable Land Imaging Program July 2018, Release 2.0, and identified by the operational requirements for collection, processing, archiving, and distribution of land surface data to the U.S. Government and other users.

• Distribute LNext data products to the general public on a nondiscriminatory basis.

Space Segment

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) will provide the Space Segment via competitive procurements for the science instruments and the spacecraft bus. The Space Segment will consist of a constellation of three observatories flying in coordinated sun-synchronous orbits at 653km altitude, each with nominally identical spacecraft and instrument suites. The observatories will be equally spaced in the orbit, providing in aggregate a six-day ground repeat period at the equator. The instrument suites will each provide 26 spectral bands with a maximum ground sampling distance of 10m-60m dependent on the spectral band, covering a swath on the ground of approximately 164km on a ground track defined by a worldwide reference system known as WRS-3.

Ground Segment

Today, the Landsat Ground Segment currently supports mission operations for Landsats 8 and 9. LNext will take advantage of previous mission heritage and will upgrade and expand the current systems to accommodate LNext. The LNext Ground Segment will consist of the Ground System (GS) and its external interfaces, including NASA institutional services. The GS includes the Mission Operations Center (MOC), the Ground Network (GN), and the Data Processing and Archive System (DPAS).

External interfaces include NASA's Near Space Network (NSN), NASA ACCESS Space Relay (i.e., Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS)), NASA’s GSFC Conjunction Assessment and Risk Analysis (CARA), NASA’s GSFC Flight Dynamics Facility, and government/commercial ground stations, among others.

The LNext MOC will provide the primary means to control and monitor the LNext constellation. The LNext Flight Operations Team (FOT) at the MOC will perform mission planning and scheduling, command and control, health and status monitoring, orbit and attitude maintenance, performance analysis, onboard memory management, and flight and ground software maintenance. The FOT will utilize MOC functionality to detect, investigate, and resolve spacecraft anomalies and monitor the instrument image collections from the onboard constellation, and generate special image collections. The MOC will ingest, process, and archive ancillary and telemetry data via the GN. The GN will include geographically dispersed ground station resources for mission execution and will include a wideband or cloud-based data routing capability to transfer both mission data to DPAS, and Telemetry and Command (T&C) data to the

MOC.

The GN is anticipated to include U.S. Government-owned, international, and commercial ground stations, and to provide communication capability for each observatory of the constellation for commanding and housekeeping data via S-Band two-way links. The GN will also receive mission data from each observatory via high-rate Ka-band downlinks.

The DPAS is located at EROS near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. For LNext, the DPAS will ingest, process, and archive mission data from the GN. The DPAS will also provide a long-term archive capability for raw data and allow the user community to query, download, and directly interact in the cloud with LNext science products via a public-facing web portal for receiving data products.

Landsat Next Space to Ground Supporting Information

Desired Capabilities:

S-Band

Frequency Modulation Data Rate

Command Uplink 2025 – 2108 MHz BPSK 1 Kbps – 128 Kbps

Telemetry Downlink 2220 – 2290 MHz OQPSK 2 Mbps – 4 Mbps

Ka-Band

Frequency Modulation Data Rate

Mission Data Downlink 25.5 – 27 GHz OQPSK, 8-PSK > 2.6 Gbps

Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Encapsulation (Standard Encapsulation Packet Protocol CCSDS 133.1-B-3)

Request for Information

USGS is seeking information on existing software-based radios for narrowband and wideband data and baseband processing for LNext. Interested parties should submit a response with a written statement of interest or capability and a discussion of the following enumerated points:

1. Describe the architecture of your software radio product(s)

a. Do you implement the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) protocol/standard? If so, describe implementation.

b. What, if any, partitioning exists between demodulation/bit sync functions and CCSDS/baseband processing?

2. What are the specifications and capabilities of your product(s)?

a. List modulation and data/symbol rates supported (also constraints, i.e., lower data rates for high-order coding, etc.).

b. Forward Error-Correction (FEC) coding supported (i.e., LDPC, DVB-S2, SCCC, etc.)

and Bit Error Rate (BER) performance.

c. What adaptive filtering is implemented?

d. CCSDS processing functions provided, and standards implemented.

e. Describe post-CCSDS handling for data files or data streams (routing, renaming, stream out LAN port, etc.).

3. Do you provide a basic Radio Frequency (RF) recorder function (VITA-49 format/compliant)?

a. If so, can this be done in parallel with demodulation and CCSDS processing?

b. What is the RF Intermediate Frequency (IF) bandwidth recorded/captured?

4. What RF digitizers do you support?

a. Does your product use or accept VITA-49 format input files or data streams?

b. Is there any specific or proprietary data formatting (i.e., embedded timing information, headers, etc.)?

5. What are requirements for host system (CPU performance/type, memory, etc.)?

6. Provide cost estimate/pricing and options/configuration information.

a. Interested in pricing for both a full-up demod/CCSDS processing product and just a baseband/CCSDS processor that works with a raw CADU data file or data stream input.

7. Does your software/hardware support ranging? If so, describe implementation.

8. What is your licensing and extended warranty/maintenance approach?

a. How are updates pushed to the customer?

b. Does a single code baseline exist for all customers, or is the software forked for different users?

c. What is the approach for adding features or bug fixes?

9. Is there anything else that should know about your product(s).

a. Can include a product brochure, data sheet, manual, etc. if it’s helpful.

Instructions for Respondents

Responses to this announcement must be submitted to the point of contact listed below. Submission methods other than email will not be accepted. The subject line of the submission should be "RFI DOIGFBO240056, Software Radio/Demodulator.” All responses should be limited to 25 pages and included as an attachment using Microsoft Office and/or Adobe Acrobat compatible file formats.

Point of Contact:

Ty DeHart tdehart@usgs.gov

Please submit responses no later than 11:59pm Eastern on June 5, 2024.

If your organization is interested in a potential opportunity to provide additional information in a follow-on one-on-one meeting (either in person or virtually), please indicate your interest by contacting the point of contact no later than the response date and time stated herein. The Government makes no promise of a follow-on meeting, nor does the expressed interest of any organization guarantee invitation should such meetings take place. One-on-one meetings will be scheduled at the sole discretion of the Government.