Q and As.pdf

UNCLASSIFIED

Questions & Answers

1. The SOW calls for at least 750 new gravity stations inside Mongolia (base year), surveying at a 5 km spacing along approximately 1000 km of the Mongolian-Chinese border. It also says that the contractor shall survey to a distance of 25 km form the Chinese border into Mongolia. Does this mean that at every 5 km three or four new stations must be surveyed starting near the Chinese border and extending 25 km into Mongolia, for example at the border, at 12 km, and at 25 km (or perhaps border, 8 km, 16 km, and 25 km)? I am trying to understand how surveying every 5 km for 1000 km will require at least 750 stations.

Answer: The numbers in the SOW are presented as a limitation based on previous work we have done in the past. This is the number we feel we would need to appropriately cover this area, and the spacing is what we believe we need in order to allow a good spread of the points within the area. The survey will have to be set up in conjunction with any governing bodies that dictate stand-off distance from the border, etc.

2. What does FG stand for in section 4.1 Project History Folder of the SOW?

Answer: FG stands for Fondation Geoint in this case.

3. Will all data for the Earth Gravity Model be stored on the same system.

Answer: The data collected from will be stored with the rest of NGA's gravity data in an internal to NGA system.

4. Is that an NGA system or will it be operated by a partner within the government or with the eventual contract winner. SOW 3.2 Delivery Methods and 5.0 Data Ownership. Even with unclassified data it needs to be noted where the data will be stored at any one time. One option is to do parallel systems with removeable and replaceable drives. If the government plans to retain those drives after the data transfer the budget will be higher.

Answer: The data will be stored on an NGA system after delivery. Commonly, gravity survey data is delivered via DVD.

5. Have you built specific compute requirements yet? Will this system be based around GPU’s or traditional compute? SOW 3.0 Contract deliverables. Without specific compute requirements how is the offeror to propose a budget of what hardware needed. The requirements will also inform the decision on whether to budget for a GPU based system of a traditional compute based system. In 3.1 you reference Metadata, will that be on the same drives, or are you looking for a separate tier. The implication of metadata implies that there are too many small files that will need routing, something like a DVD for data transfer may not be a possibility.

Answer: Traditionally data captured by a survey team will fit onto a DVD. There are no compute requirements associated with this SOW so that is left to contract to determine how best to deliver the data in meeting with the deliverables listed in the SOW.

6. Do you have specific security requests, will encryption be required, or do you need Fips rated drives.

Answer: There are no specific security requests, all data collected is to be unclassified.

7. At the bottom of section 3.1 there is a sentence that contains the phrase "GPS solutions of the first-order GPS network extension." However, nowhere else in the SOW is there any discussion of extending a first-order network nor is there any mention of required accuracy of the latitude and longitude obtained by GPS surveys. Since a requirement to extend a first-order GPS network can be a significant project itself, I am curious if the SOW is really meant to address the extension of a first-order GPS network. It doesn't seem to me that that is the intent of the SOW, but I wanted to check with you. I assume that determination of latitude and longitude at the sub-decimeter level of accuracy by connection to either surrounding IGS stations or by precise point positioning would be adequate. Could you please confirm?

Answer: Correct, that was not the intent of the SOW to have some extend the first order network. The

GPS data is in there mostly so they are using GPS to get the Lat/Lon, even though that seems like a no brainer in this day in age.