Exhibit 12 - RTO 1.pdf

Representative Task Order Number One:

Announcement of Opportunity (AO) – Earth Science Investigation and Instrumentation

Period of Performance:

15 April 2021 – 30 September 2022

Background and Summary of the Requirements:

The Earth Science Program Office (ESPO) located at NASA Headquarters is sponsoring an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) to solicit investigations related to next-generation on-orbit Earth science systems.

The AO's Project Manager (PM), a senior ESPO official, will be responsible for the solicitation's content, selection of reviewers, and oversight of the process, but requires support for the following activities, as summarized below and as defined more explicitly in the NRESS SOW:

1. Solicitation planning, development, posting, and announcement; Notice-of-Intent (NOI) receipt;

proposal receipt; science evaluation panel event planning; pre- and post-evaluation communication and administration with proposers; proposal workflow tracking and reporting; and reporting statistics and other specific information about the proposal pool.

2. Organizing, scheduling, and staging proposal reviews through multiple reviews that include external reviews, face-to-face panel meetings that may include virtual or teleconference participation, as well as support of categorization, steering committee, and selection meetings; administering and facilitating these activities, including providing secure document access and review input (via NSPIRES), collaboration tools, documentation and transcription services, and arranging proposal review panel venue and travel; facilitating and solving problems during the proposal review panel events and subsequent committee meetings at NASA HQ; and for delivering data analytics before and after these activities, especially compiling and reporting panel summaries-a document written by the panel about the proposal summarizing their deliberations, panelists' individual proposal scores and panel overall scores after activities end.

3. Task close-out, including working with the PM to send final selection decisions to proposers and to support post-selection de-briefs; providing summary information and statistics about selection decisions; and archiving proposal artifacts.

Additional Requirements:

The AO shall be advertised via the contractor-operated peer-review support information technology system (NSPIRES or subsequently adopted information technology system), and the timing of the posting and announcement by the contractors shall be coordinated with posting of documents on the SOMA web page as well as announcement via any other required government portal (such as FBO).

The contractor shall post the draft AO to NSPIRES for community comment. The contractor shall review the draft text and provide comments to NASA author. The contractor shall post final AO and, if needed, FAQs, links, and any other documents and updates on NSPIRES and set response structures so that NOIs and proposals may be submitted to AO via NSPIRES. The contractor shall coordinate and support a preproposal telecon, if needed. The contractor shall receive CD-ROMs and (securely) distribute CD- ROMs and/or binders with hard copy proposals if required. The contractor shall document and maintain the evaluation criteria, prepare science evaluation forms and instructions for science peer-reviewers and panelists, sending out reminders regarding proposal evaluation standards, deadlines, and performance expectations, as needed.

The contractor shall support the recruitment of science panelists. (The TMC and science sub-panels are defined below.) The contractor shall arrange for and provide audio-video and information technology support, e.g., networking, view-only proposal access, laptop, or mobile device support during science review panel events.

The NRESS contractor shall operate a Help Desk to assist proposers and reviewers with solicitation, proposal submission, and/or electronic system navigation questions. The contractor shall support the development and delivery of timely response to Congressional inquiries and any other valid external reporting or data collection inquiries.

Assumptions:

The offeror’s approach shall be consistent with the following directly-related SOW elements: 1.1-1.8, all of 2.0, 3.1-3.21, and all of 4.0.

The Source Selection Official for the AO will be the Associate Administrator (AA) for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The contractors will conduct the science reviews of the AO proposals. The Science Office for Mission Assessments (SOMA) at NASA Langley will evaluate proposals for Technical, Management, and Cost (TMC). A Categorization committee of six to eight NASA Civil Servants appointed by the Deputy Associate Administrator for Research, will categorize the proposals based on the scores and words in the Science and TMC reviews and draft brief statements regarding each proposal for the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee will review the results of the evaluations and categorizations, assess the completeness, self-consistency, and adequacy of supporting materials, and assure that processes used were consistent with SMD policy. The Earth Science Division Director and the Project Manager will make recommendations to the AA.

One of NASA's foreign partners has made an instrument available that possesses technical characteristics likely to be useful to proposers. The specific foreign partner is not relevant, but assume an ESA (European Space Agency) country, not a designated country (e.g. - North Korea). The foreign partner will not be involved in the review.

The AO solicits proposals limited to 125 pages for proposal body and an unlimited number of pages for the cost section of each proposal. To be compliant a proposal must be preceded by an NOI. Each proposal will include a proposal cover page and an abstract, both of which will be submitted via electronic peer-review support information technology systems (such as NSPIRES) operated by the contractor. Proposers may permissibly edit proposal documents until the proposal submission deadline.

Each proposer must also deliver CD-ROMs containing the proposal body and abstract, companion technical documents, and all other supporting documentation to the contractor's office by no later than the submission deadline.

The TMC reviewers will conduct initial reviews individually and then in person reviews will occur over three separate three-day meetings, near Greenbelt, MD. The TMC panel will contain six members: two GSFC employees, one of whom will chair the TMC, and four nongovernment employees. The TMC will complete their evaluation in advance of the science review panels and SOMA will securely transmit electronic versions of their evaluations of proposals to the NASA PM. If the TMC has questions or comments to the science review panels, those will be conveyed securely to the NRESS contractor who will provide them to the appropriate science review panel(s).

NASA receives 33 proposals in response to this solicitation, the same as the number of NOIs received previously. However, one of the NOIs was not followed by a proposal, and one of the submitted proposals was not preceded by an NOI. Also, the PM observes that four proposals have requested access to the instrument owned by NASA's foreign partner. It is essential to obtain the foreign partner's assessment of whether the instrument can perform the measurements proposed with the performance required as well as their perspective about any modifications and associated costs that may be required to accommodate proposed projects. The foreign partner commits to execute external reviews of each of the four proposals that require access to its instrument.

The science review chair and the PM divide the proposals into four discipline-specific science sub-panels and provide names of subject matter experts to be invited to serve on the review panel. the members of each sub-panel will evaluate the proposals assigned to it for intrinsic scientific merit (Form A) and the science implementation merit (Form B). No less than a month in advance of in-person meeting of the SC the panelists must be assigned (and given access to the) proposals. Each sub-panel will confer virtually twice in advance of the in-person panel meeting. These virtual meetings will require not just secure audio for conversation, but also a secure videoconferencing tool for file sharing and so users may display slides and notes to one another.

The SC panel chair and the NASA PM working with the panelists come up with a list of ~90 external reviewers. The foreign partner also provides names of four individuals from ESA who will provide external reviews of the four proposals that reliant upon the instrument provided by the foreign partner.

The NASA PM provides to the contractor with the names of all of these external reviewers and the proposals to which they should be assigned. NASA needs the external reviewers to provide comments securely in advance of the in-person panel meeting so that the panelists may augment their expertise with that of additional experts. After a panelist has submitted comments on a given proposal, they will need access to the external reviews of that proposal. The SC's four science sub-panels will convene concurrently, at a facility in the Washington, DC metro area, over four days. The NASA PM says that she cannot find space for the science review at NASA HQ so the contractor must provide the venue. There will be eight reviewers on each sub-panel. Each reviewer will be primary on one proposal and secondary on two or three other proposals. Each sub-panel will consist of a mixture of civil servants and non-civil servants.

Honoraria for non-government participants on the science panels, will be $400 per day. External reviewers will not receive honoraria unless requested by the NASA PM. The NASA PM is a government employee and not eligible for honorarium.

Similarly, travel, lodging, meals and incidental expenses for non-governmental science panelists, as prescribed in the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR), are to be reimbursed by the NRESS contractor as prescribed by the FTR.

At the in-person science panels, the contractor shall provide computers, projection equipment, electronic versions of proposals and associated external evaluations, blank evaluation forms and spreadsheets for filling out by the panelists. Contractors will provide hard copy proposals for panelists on request. Once the panelists have generated the science evaluations to the satisfaction of the NASA PM, the contractor shall ensure that electronic versions of the evaluations and spreadsheets are preserved for future reference. Following the completion of the science panels, there will be three key events at NASA HQ supported by the contractor and staffed by NASA Civil Servants: (1) a two-day proposal categorization committee meeting (2) a one-day steering committee meeting, and (3) A selection meeting at which the Earth Science Division Director will make selection recommendations to the AA supported by the Project Manager and the contracts lead for this task. The NRESS contractor will provide binders with hard copy of proposals and evaluations to the categorization committee. The NASA PM will provide to the contractor the categorizations and brief explanations for each categorization given to her by the categorization committee. The NRESS contractor will provide binders with hard copy of proposals, evaluations and categorization statements to the steering committee. The NASA PM will provide to the contractor the findings of the steering committee. The NRESS contractor will provide hard copy of the categorization statements, the findings of the steering committee and, if requested, select evaluations and/or proposals for the recommendation meeting with the AA. A NASA Headquarters contractor will provide information technology and audio-video services for all of these meetings at

NASA HQ.

Key Dates:

Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for Earth Science Investigation and Instrumentation

April 15, 2021 Task Start April 16, 2021 Draft text delivered to NRESS April 20, 2021 Draft text posted on NSPIRES for community comment May 18, 2021 Comments due Week of June 8, 2021 Final version of AO posted June 26, 2021 Pre-proposal conference July 16, 2021 Mandatory NOIs due Week of September 7, 2021 Proposals due Week of September 14, 2021 Proposal logs to NASA by mid October, 2021 TMC reviewer assignments finalized by SOMA mid-late October, 2021 TMC reviewers given access to assigned proposals November, 2021 Science reviewer assignments finalized by NASA November, 2021 Proposals made available in NSPIRES science reviewers December 2021 TMC Review January 2021 Science review panels TBD Categorization Subcommittee TBD Steering Committee TBD Selection Meeting; Selection Letters to NASA TBD Post selections on NSPIRES TBD Support debriefs (tentative) September 30, 2022 Work Order Ends

Key Deliverables:

1. Bi-weekly report of task status.

2. Bi-monthly project review meeting with PM.

3. Proposal database with key evaluation and decision statistics

4. Proposal evaluation forms and instructions for reviewers and panelists.

5. Plan for review, including both venue and panel mechanisms for in person and virtual participants.

6. Tracking documents for proposal assignments and review status

7. Summary statistics of evaluation and selection.

8. Decision support documents, presentations, and minutes for HQ selection and steering meetings.

9. Decision letters

10. Congressional Notification report.

11. Announcement of selections

12. Procurement packages for use by NASA procurement office.

13. Expenditure report