Questions_Answers Addendum 2.pdf

Questions / Answers BAA Addendum 2

* The Addendum that came out 1/7/25 speaks to offerors to describe their capabilities. Yet, the substrate BAA upon which the Addendum hangs is about projects. Capabilities and projects are vastly different things. What does DTRA want respondents to provide? Do you want us to provide a description and discussion of our capabilities, or do you want us to submit specific project proposals? The Addendum and the substrate BAA do not readily comport.

--Capabilities should be described with the end goal of a specific project proposal

* Item 4.2 speaks about a classified topic. Can the topic not be spoken about or summarized in an unclassified manner? My organization can do classified work, and all our folks would be US citizens. If there is a need to seek a classified forum to understand the need, that could be arranged.

--Classified information will not be provided at this time.

* Is this call limited to the addendum topic – Monitoring, Verification, and Arms Control – or will it cover all topics listed in the original BAA - HDTRA1-22-S-0003?

--Limited to addendum topics

* More specifically, will this call be open to proposals on both the nuclear side and the agent defeat side or just the nuclear of WMDs?

--No additional information will be added to the topic at this time.

* Does a DOE Q Clearance, meet the clearance requirement in the BAA?

--SCI is required per the topic description

* How are collaborations viewed here? Is it a plus to collaborate with other Universities or companies?

--No additional information will be added

* Does a single proposer need to address all technical areas, 4.1.1 – 4.1.4?

--No.

* For detection via remote sensing, are commercial satellite systems of interest?

--No additional information will be added

* Are you interested in near-real-time assessment based solely on satellite products or from multiple sources?

--No additional information will be added

* Technical area of interest 4.1.4 states “Developed computational models will be calibrated and verified using historical field-collected elevation profiles and 2-D surface data”. Will the historical data be provided by DTRA

--Data may be provided by DTRA. Offerors should state previous experience with such data.

* Can you clarify what DTRA is looking for vis-à-vis “capabilities”? The BAA addendum upon which the substrate sits is about proposing RDTE projects for consideration. But the addendum states that, “ Performers who demonstrate capabilities in the following will be considered.” Are you asking proposers to provide qualification statement that demonstrate capabilities or are you asking for proposers to submit projects for consideration? Or is the intent that offerors proceed via a two-step process—the first to demonstrate capability in general and then a second to offer a conforming project? It is confusing because it is seemingly axiomatic that an offeror would not offer a project if it did not have the capability to execute it.

---Capabilities should be described with the end goal of a specific project proposal

* Can you explain what these words mean: “Requirements development and analysis for future arms control.”

--No additional information will be added at this time

* Please confirm that the “and” herein is meant to a connector within a list and NOT a requirement to satisfy both sides of the conjunction: Leveraging of relevant data collection from existing crowd-sourced methods and distributed sensor systems”

--and may be read as “and/or” here

* The statement here is exclusive to one family for detection that relates to InSAR. Are other methods (ones that don’t involve InSAR) acceptable? Also, if a technology were capable of explosive yield determination but did not involve burial determination, would this be in scope?:

“Application of InSAR to explosive yield and depth of burial determinations. This topic will develop fast-running codes to rapidly calculate explosive characteristics”

--This topic is specific to the application of InSAR

* My company has the capability to do classified work. Is there an unclassified discussion of what 4.2 pertains to? How can I find out what is within this section’s intent?

--No additional information will be added

* Please confirm that sections 4.3 and 4.4 are matters for the offerors to include within their submissions, independent of the section header’s title, which is TECHNICAL AREAS OF

INTEREST.”

--Responses to 4.3 and 4.4 should be included in an offeror’s submission.

* The recent announcement noted that there would be a Q&A posted on Jan 21st on Sam.gov, but I wasn’t able to find it in the same announcement website. Has that been posted or can it be provided via e-mail? Answers delayed to this posting.

* Throughout the BAA, there are various Technical Areas of Interest (e.g., 2022, 2023, current). Are all of those areas of interest to DTRA for the current submission due 4 FEB 2025 or only the ones listed in the current addendum MVAS-BAA Topic 2024-12-11 of 4.1.1-4.1.4?

--This addendum is limited to the specific topics as listed in the addendum

* Based on the BAA, it is my understanding that each/any project requires at least one TS/SCI cleared personnel. Is that correct?

--Yes