Helio MIDEX POD - Concept 1.pdf

Partnership Opportunity Document (POD)

For

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Medium Explorer Concept

Spacecraft and On-Orbit Support

November 2024

1 Introduction and Scope Current planning calls for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) to release an Heliophysics Medium Explorer (MIDEX) Announcement of Opportunity (AO) in the 4th quarter of FY2025 to solicit proposals to accomplish the 2013 Decadal Survey science objectives.

The partnership opportunity is being issued to select teaming partners to serve as the satellite (spacecraft) integrator for this MIDEX mission, which includes providing a spacecraft bus consistent with a Class C mission per NPR 8705.4 Risk Classification for NASA Payloads, instrument to spacecraft integration and environmental testing support (at the vendors facility), integration support for the observatory to launch vehicle, and support for mission operations. Also, as an option, the selected partner to provide a mission operations center.

NOTE: Upon selection, GSFC may discuss, and further tailor the roles proposed by respondents in the best interests of the proposal.

The proposed mission is currently in pre-Phase A. If the proposal is down selected, the next step in the proposal process is a mission concept study culminating in a Concept Study Report (CSR), followed by a Site Visit.

The following schedule should be used as a basis for responses to this opportunity:

Helio MIDEX Draft AO Released April 2025 (target) Helio MIDEX AO Released July 2025 (target) Pre-proposal conference ~3 weeks after final AO release Step-1 proposal due 90 days after AO release Selection for competitive Phase A studies

April 2026 (target)

Concept Study Reports (CSRs) due 9 months after selection Step-2 down select July 2027 (target) AO required Launch Readiness Date January 2032 (TBR)

Total cost and cost fidelity are important issues for the proposal. The cost cap for this AO is $300M (FY25$), excluding launch vehicle, and not including mission specific adjustments to the cap. Proposed cost shall include the instruments, spacecraft, instrument to spacecraft integration support, environmental testing, launch site operations, and operations for a minimum of 2 years. Reserves will be held at the Project level and not with the partner. A Phase A mission concept study will receive from NASA SMD. For recent comparably sized missions, Phase A funding has been $3M or $5M real year dollars (RY$). See Section 4, Competitive Phase A Support for more information about the mission concept study and associated funding.

There will be no exchange of funds between the teaming partners for the portion of this partnership opportunity dealing with the preparation of the initial submission (Pre-

Phase A, Step 1 proposal). Teaming partners are expected to support mission concept development and proposal development using internal funding. This will include considerable interaction between partners throughout this Pre-Phase-A effort. If down selected for Phase A, partial funding will be available to the teaming partners for Phase A, but company internal funding may still be required to provide support for generation of a Concept Study Report and the Site Visit. Full funding will be available for Phase B onward should the candidate mission concept be competitively selected for those additional phases.

2 Requirements NASA’s GSFC is interested in formally establishing a partner to provide the following services for the mission: hosting of instrument(s) on orbiting spacecraft, instrument-to-spacecraft integration support, integration and testing of the completed observatories, spacecraft-to-launch vehicle integration support, and optional spacecraft/mission operations. The science instruments will be provided by NASA’s GSFC for accommodation.

Integration and Test: Integration and test of science instruments to the spacecraft bus will be done at the spacecraft vendor. The instruments will be delivered to the s/c bus vendor for integration with the bus and final environmental testing. Final satellite testing is currently planned to be performed at the spacecraft vendor unless vendor chooses/proposes to use GSFC facilities.

Optional: The spacecraft proposer may also propose to provide the mission operations control capability and/or the ground stations.

More detailed information will be provided to those responding with a Notice of Interest (NOI). A Notice of Interest (it is intentionally not called a notice of intent) does not obligate an organization to provide a POD response.

3 Pre-Selection Support It is expected that the selected POD respondent will provide support using their own resources to help develop the required proposal elements in response to the Heliophysics MIDEX 2025 AO in the following area:

Spacecraft Bus and associated support This will involve meeting with the PI, project manager, project system engineers, and other proposal team members to establish the mission architecture, to help define both end-to-end mission and elemental performance requirements, to provide well-defined interfaces for the instruments, launch vehicle and ground system elements, and to identify any necessary technology developments, study topics, and/or other risk areas that may affect mission success. More specific activities and outcomes of the proposal support are listed as the following:

• The selected respondent shall actively participate in concept development to determine a credible design-to-cost solution that meets AO constraints.

• The selected respondent shall produce a spacecraft design report that includes requirements, block diagram, components, performance, technical budgets (mass, power, data, propellant, pointing, communications, etc.), fault tolerance, verification approach, technology demonstration, risks, analyses of typical mission subsystems, cost estimate, and ground system/operation related requirements (e.g., ground system contact time, data latency, space-ground system interface) in support of the concept design and the mission master equipment list development.

• The selected respondent shall produce a launch vehicle accommodations report to document the details (e.g., performance, fairing envelope, payload adaptor fitting, tipoff/roll rate, center of gravity height, quasi static load/fundamental frequency environments, time between liftoff and separation).

• The selected respondent shall identify heritage of spacecraft bus systems in support of the proposal development.

• if response includes the MOC option, the responder shall produce a ground system desifn that shows ground stations, ground system block diagram with mission operations center functions and interfaces, operations, staffing, and cost estimate.

• The selected respondent shall identify heritage ground systems in support of the proposal development. (if response includes the MOC option)

For the item and option, these mission design efforts will culminate in a Technical Management Review (TMR) in approximately mid-April 2025 and will also include cost estimation for all partner-provided mission elements and for all mission phases (Phase A-E).

Following the TMR, the partner is expected to aid the proposal team in the development /production of the required proposal content as well as supporting parts of the proposal production.

4 Competitive Phase A Support (if applicable) If the mission is selected for a Phase A study, the proposal team will receive partial funding from NASA SMD to conduct a Phase A study and submit a detailed Concept Study Report as per the milestones shown in Section 1. The successful respondent to this POD will be allocated a portion of this funding.

The respondent would be responsible for identifying the spacecraft subsystem requirements, providing all aspects of the spacecraft (either directly, or through purchasing or teaming arrangements) architecture and if proposed, providing a detailed description of mission operations needed for mission success. The respondent would be required to develop an implementation schedule of the spacecraft bus that provides the best value to the Government consistent with the nominal schedule.

If the proposal is selected for development and launch, the selected partner will be the mission integrator responsible for the design, development, integration and testing of the spacecraft consistent with a Class C mission per NPR8705.4 Risk Classification for NASA Payloads.

5 POD Response Guidance Potential respondents are asked to contact the GSFC Point of Contact as soon as possible after release of this document with a Notice of Interest. This contact does not create an obligation to respond to the POD but allows GSFC to disseminate more details on the payload interfaces and concept of operations and to provide answers to questions from potential partners. All Notice of Interest respondents will receive a Data Package with further details that will facilitate a focused response. These details are competition sensitive and not to be shared outside the teams necessary to prepare a full response. All questions and answers will be sent to those who responded to the Notice of Interest, while the source of the questions shall be held confidential. Questions and answers that contain information unique to a respondent’s proprietary approach will not be shared if they are identified as such. Questions can be sent to the contact listed below via email. For purposes of this partnership opportunity, the primary contact is:

POC: Barbie Medina, Barbie.Medina@nasa.gov

Responses to this POD shall:

1. Be in a presentation format (viewgraphs) that shall not exceed 30 pages. The font size for the text shall be no smaller than 12 point. File format should be PDF. The presentation should include, at a minimum:

a. Demonstrate understanding and flight experience in the design, fabrication, integration and testing of spacecraft systems.

b. Identify any pertinent missions for which the respondent has provided support for proposal writing in the areas of hardware design, fabrication, integration and testing, and mission operations (if this option is proposed).

c. Provide a technical summary/description of the proposed spacecraft concept including relevant heritage.

d. Identify available design and modeling capabilities required to support development of the spacecraft.

e. Identify assumed mission and system requirements for the spacecraft and a response to addressing those requirements.

f. Highlight particularly critical or challenging areas for the design of the spacecraft.

g. Identify fabrication and testing facilities that will be required to support development and test of the spacecraft; and important analysis/trade studies that might be needed.

h. If proposing, -rovide scope of the mission operations.

i. Provide Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate and schedule for: a) Mission implementation (spacecraft build) and b) System Level Integration & Test and c) mission operations, if that option is taken.

j. Indicate what level of resources would be allocated to the proposal phase of support. Discuss skills that will be provided and ideas on what level of conceptual design would be provided.

2. Address all requirements noted in sections 2 through 5 of this document and all requirements in the Data Package.

Responses will be treated as proprietary information and controlled as such.

Final presentation packages must be received by 1600 EST, January 6, 2025.

Presentations are to be delivered electronically to Barbie Medina at the above listed email address.

Following receipt of responses, NASA/GSFC will set up teleconferences with each respondent for oral presentation and questions and answers. The timeline of these teleconferences is expected to be the 1-2 weeks after the response deadline date.

Partnership selection(s) is expected to be made 1-2 weeks week after final presentations. NASA GSFC reserves the option to NOT select any teaming partners for any/all mission covered under this POD offering based on materials received.

All respondents to this POD will be offered a debrief after final selection.

6 Evaluation Factors and Criteria Selection criteria will be consistent with the desire to encourage cost effective partnerships between the Government and Industry. The information requested in Sections 2-5 will allow the evaluators to determine how well the respondents’ systems match and enable the mission.

The evaluation team will use the following factors in selection and award:

1. Technical Approach (40%): Respondents will be evaluated on their ability to meet the technical requirements given in this document and Data Package. This includes demonstrated understanding of the requirements and proposed approach to meet those requirements.

2. Relevant Experience and Past Performance (35%): Special emphasis will be given to demonstrated experience with similar missions.

3. Cost/Schedule (25%): Respondents will be evaluated on their overall cost, Rover specific cost, resources allocated during the proposal phase, and on the reasonableness of cost and schedule estimates.

7 Acronyms

• AO – Announcement of Opportunity

• CSR – Concept Study Report

• EST – Eastern Standard Time

• FY – Fiscal Year

• GSFC - Goddard Space Flight Center

• MIDEX - Medium Explorer

• MOC – Mission Operations Center

• NDA – Non Disclosure Agreement

• NLT - No Later Than

• NOI - Notice of Interest

• NPR - NASA Procedural Requirement

• PDF – Portable Document Format

• PI - Principal Investigator

• POC – Point of Contact

• POD - Partnership Opportunity Document

• ROM - Rough Order of Magnitude

• RY – Real Year

• SMD – Science Mission Directorate

• SC - Spacecraft

• TBR - To Be Resolved

• TMR – Technical & Management Review