ENX SOW DRAFT.pdf

Statement of Work

Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Next (ENX)

June 25, 2024

Table of Contents

Section 1 Introduction

1.1 Background

1.2 Scope

1.3 Applicable and Reference Documents

1.4 Place of Performance

Section 2.0 Requirements

Section 1 – Introduction

This contract provides for development and sustaining engineering of software and hardware systems that provide science data management for the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project. A major activity under this contract will be for evolution, development engineering and operations of several on-premises and commercial cloud-based systems and services that may include:

• Earthdata Cloud and NASA-Compliant General Application Platform (NGAP)

• Cloud Ingest and Archive Services

• Common Metadata Repository (CMR)

• Metadata Management Services

• Earthdata Search

• Earthdata Login

• ESDIS Global Metrics System

• Sentinel Gateway

• EOSDIS Core System (ECS)

• Data Transformation and Visualization Services

• Science Data Processing Services and other elements that provide the common capabilities and infrastructure of ESDIS.

See the Earthdata website for additional information about the Earth Science Data Systems Program, the ESDIS Project and its components: http://earthdata.nasa.gov.

1.1 Background

The purpose of NASA's Science Missions Directorate (SMD) Earth Science Division (ESD) is to develop a scientific understanding of Earth's system and its response to natural or human-induced changes, and to improve prediction of climate, weather, and natural hazards.

A major component of the Earth Science Division is a coordinated series of satellite, airborne, and International Space Station missions for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. This coordinated approach enables an improved understanding of the Earth as an integrated system. Over the coming decades, NASA and the Agency's research partners will continue to pioneer the use of both spaceborne and aircraft measurements to characterize, understand, and predict variability and trends in Earth's system for both research and applications. The research encompasses:

• the global atmosphere

• the global oceans including sea ice

• land surfaces including snow and ice

• ecosystems

• interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, land and ecosystems, including humans

NASA’s goal is to understand the changing climate, its interaction with life, and how human activities affect the environment. Through partnerships with national and international agencies, NASA enables the application of this understanding for the well-being of society.

NASA's Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program falls within the purview of the agency's Earth Science Division (ESD), under the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters. The ESDS Program oversees the life cycle of NASA’s Earth science data—from acquisition through processing and distribution. The primary goal of ESDS is to maximize the scientific return from NASA's missions and experiments for research and applied scientists, decision makers, and society at large.

NASA promotes the full and open sharing of all data with the research and applications communities, private industry, academia, and the general public. Other US agencies and international space agencies have since adopted similar open-access policies and practices.

Since the adoption of the Earth Science Data Policy in 1991, NASA’s Earth Science Division has developed policy implementation, practices, and nomenclature that mission science teams use to comply with policy tenets. In 2022, NASA released the Science Mission Policy for the Science Mission Directorate, SPD-41a, to provide guidance on the open sharing of publications, data, and software created in the pursuit of scientific knowledge building upon the core principles of openness, equity, and security for SMD-funded research.

The Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project, Code 423 at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), is a major core capability within the ESDS Program. Program. The ESDIS Project is responsible for the ingest, processing, archiving and distribution of data from a large number of Earth observing satellites, instruments on various platforms, observations, and other data sets. ESDIS data is stored on premises at Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) distributed across the United States and in commercial cloud archives. Various tools and services are developed and operated by the ESDIS project to search, discover, transform, analyze, and visualize the data in order to serve millions of users around the world covering many Earth science disciplines. The ESDIS Project is striving to enable cross discipline science to speed up the cycle for creating new scientific research. Additionally, given the ever-increasing size of the data holdings, the ESDIS Project is enabling the ability to bring analysis to the data in the cloud to avoid the complexities of downloading and processing very large data sets.

The ESDIS Project has made initial steps to develop and operate key infrastructure components in the commercial cloud including the DAAC functions of data ingest, archive, and distribution.

Under ENX, NASA is seeking to complete the transition to a predominately cloud-based enterprise that successfully balances cost efficiency and responsiveness to mission requirements and can be leveraged as a platform for external partners and application developers. The transition of common operational components and IT infrastructure to the commercial cloud will allow the DAACs to focus more on their core competencies of data stewardship and enabling science for larger, more diverse user communities, and less on IT maintenance and operations.

As part of this transition under ENX, NASA is seeking to complete the decommissioning of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Core System (ECS) and the implementation and operation of more Enterprise-level tools, services, and applications. Given the long history of ESDIS as a loosely coupled system of systems, a key challenge is reducing duplication, and development and maintenance costs while at the same time increasing the science benefit for users. During the transition, the current system will need to continue current operations and support new missions and requirements. These efforts are expected to provide Earth science data users with advanced capabilities well beyond current capabilities. The utilization of commercial cloud is also expected to streamline maintenance and operations.

https://smd-cms.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smd-information-policy-spd-41a.pdf

Given the increased visibility and focus on cyber security and increased pace of exploits, ESDIS is redoubling its efforts to maintain a proactive security posture across all data systems in its portfolio. A critical challenge in this area is balancing security and validity of the data sets with the needs of users under the open-source science initiative.

The ESDIS Project, manages an array of information technology (IT) infrastructure.

1.2 Scope

In the performance of this contract, the ENX contractor is required to coordinate and integrate task related activities with the ESDIS Project, the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), other Earth science data centers, the science investigator teams, the user community, other contractors, and other SMD organizations. The contractor’s overall goal shall be to continuously improve the operations, the scalability, quality, reliability, availability, functionality, operability, and performance of hardware and software systems within ESDIS while reducing operational costs, maintenance costs, retiring old services or applications and implementing/transitioning to new capabilities or systems.

The contractor may be tasked to:

• Provide new systems and/or major upgrades to existing systems

• Leverage commercial cloud for replacing and/or augmenting current systems

• Conduct engineering studies directed by the Government

• Provide maintenance and sustainment of software components (including COTS/FOSS) and hardware components consistent with the operational availability needs of the DAACs and science users

• Deliver engineering solutions to lower the overall cost of maintenance and operations, including cloud costs

• Provide user support

• Perform operations for enterprise system components, tools, or services.

In support of NASA’s open-source science initiative, all new development shall adhere to open-source best practices and SPD-41a. Additionally, to be able to respond quickly to evolving requirements, development shall be orchestrated via a scaled agile development methodology that will include teams from both the ENX contractor and other ESDIS development teams.

1.3 Applicable and Reference Documents

1.3.1 Applicable Documents

The following are applicable documents for this contract statement of work.

• NPR 2210.1E, Release of NASA Software

• NPR 2810.1F Security of Information Technology

• NPR 7150.2D NASA Software Engineering Requirements

• NASA-STD-8739.8, Software Assurance Standard

• NASA SPD-41a, Scientific Information Policy for the Science Mission Directorate

• Section 508 Standards – see https://www.section508.gov/; particularly Subpart B – Technical Standards 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications (https://www.access-board.gov/ict/#subpart_b)

1.3.2 General Reference Documents

Reference documents are those documents included for information purposes. The contractor is bound by these documents to the extent specified in documents listed in Section 1.3.1.

• NPR 4200.1G, NASA Equipment Management Procedural Requirements

• NPR 7120.5E, NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements

1.4 Place of Performance

The contractor is responsible for selecting the location(s) to perform the activities required by this statement of work. Generally, the contractor shall be able to support task related meetings at the GSFC within 2 hours of notification. Some activities will be performed at the actual site location of the systems. The contractor shall meet in person at GSFC on a regularly scheduled basis and conduct planning sessions at nearby offsite locations.

Section 2.0 Requirements

Within the scope of this contract, the contractor shall provide all the necessary capabilities including, but not limited to, trained personnel, tools, materials, documentation, procurement, software and hardware environments, and facilities (except as contractually provided by the government as Government Furnished Property) to perform the following elements in the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS):

WBS 1 - Program Management

The ENX contractor shall plan, develop, integrate, and execute the program management activities necessary to successfully execute the requirements of this contract. The contractor shall provide the necessary skills and staffing levels to ensure successful performance on this contract.

These activities shall include, but are not limited to, program planning, detailed technical planning; conduct of technical and program reviews; financial and technical progress reporting;

financial management; purchasing and procurement of required products, services and resources;

https://www.section508.gov/ subcontract management; configuration management; safety management; security and property management; quality management; risk management; and performance assurance.

WBS 2 - System Engineering

The ENX contractor shall perform system engineering on Earth science data system hardware and software systems in accordance with authorized tasks. System Engineering activities shall include, but not be limited to requirements development, new feature, analyses; interface document development; concepts of operation; trade studies; whitepapers related to recommending enhancements to the ESDIS system and/or its components for cost saving and/or cost avoidance; capacity growth; performance, reliability, maintainability and/or operational improvements; technology refresh; design improvements; process improvement; usability studies; end to end validation; evolution roadmap development; product management and other similar type upgrades.

WBS 3 –Development

The ENX contractor shall perform design, prototyping, development, test and implementation activities for new systems and major enhancements to existing systems. New development efforts are those that result in a new or substantially modified systems. Development activities may span multiple cycles of development and require a high degree of planning and collaboration. New development activities shall include, but not be limited to, hardware and/or software requirements analysis, test plan development, test activity planning and coordination, design, interface definition and/or compliance with standards cited within this contract, security compliance, test and integration, training, quality assurance and documentation development.

New development is complete when the system transitions into operations.

The contractor shall also plan, document, implement, and maintain the hardware and software development processes to be used throughout the life of the ENX contract, including detailed patch and release documentation.

WBS 4 – Sustainment and Maintenance

The ENX contractor shall perform hardware and software engineering sustainment and maintenance of Earth science data systems in accordance with authorized tasks. Engineering maintenance shall consist of a large spectrum of activities including, but not limited to, replacing, removing and/or upgrading custom software, FOSS/COTS software, COTS hardware and system media; performing vendor recommended preventative maintenance; updating to latest secure versions of software; configuration management; computer resource analysis and utilization planning; training of personnel as necessary; installation; documentation updates and testing.

Sustainment includes ongoing changes made to an operational system and associated documentation in response to the evolving needs and feedback of the user or customer. It may also include updates to the system that address errors, performance, efficiency, maintainability and general design deficiencies in order to keep the system running at its peak capability.

The contractor shall also plan, document, implement, and maintain the hardware and software maintenance and sustainment processes to be used throughout the life of the ENX contract, including detailed patch and release documentation.

WBS 5 – IT Security

The ENX contractor shall perform security engineering activities that safeguard the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Earth science data systems. This includes a wide variety of activities including, but not limited to, detecting, analyzing, and responding to cybersecurity incidents, monitoring of systems for vulnerabilities, addressing vulnerabilities within NASA required timelines, conducting risk assessments, responding to Agency penetration testing and independent third-party security assessment findings, implementing required security mandates and responding to data calls related to security mandates, maintaining security documentation and supporting ATO assessments. The contractor will plan, design, implement and document all aspects of security engineering.

WBS 6 - User Services

The ENX contractor shall provide support to the Earth science user community in accordance with authorized tasks. Support shall include, but not be limited to, training in the use of the ESDIS or other Earth science systems, including instruction on data access, tools, and transformation services. It also includes training and community engagement to better understand user needs, identify user pain points, and the identification of potential system modifications to improve user experience.

WBS 7 - Operations

The ENX contractor shall provide operations support in accordance with authorized tasks. It includes two key elements, operational support of system components and operational support for ESDIS data.

Operational support of system components encompasses activities for both on-premises and cloud-based systems, including but not limited to, system operations, system administration, training of operations and related skilled personnel on the systems maintenance and operation, use of operational and diagnostic tools and procedures, and development of procedures to accommodate upgrades or enhancements. Key focus areas include monitoring system performance against ESDIS’ goals and identification of areas for increased operational efficiency. Operations support includes diagnosis of operational problems, identification of system impacts, root causes and potential mitigations.

Operational support for ESDIS data encompasses activities including data and metadata management for the centralized ESDIS archive. This includes activities such as science data processing, the ingestion of science data into the archive, archive management, integrity checking of data, ensuring backup and recovery of the archive, ensuring accessibility of data, adding transformation and visualization services to archive data, optimization of storage costs, and metadata adjustments. This work may be done in conjunction with the ESDIS DAACs.

WBS 8 - Testing

Above and beyond the product level testing provided in WBS 3 and 4, the ENX contractor shall provide enterprise level functional, usability and performance testing across the integrated suite of ESDIS tools to ensure that individual development and maintenance activities result in a cohesive and performant enterprise solution for end users. This may include a combination of automated testing, manual testing and end user engagements to assess usability.