SDA HQ085021S0001-01 OISL SBIR A1.pdf

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and

Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Opportunity Announcement

HQ085021S0001-01

Amendment 1

March 1, 2021

Free-Space Optical Communication (FSOC) Technology for Optical Intersatellite Links (OISLs)

Which program will fund this topic?

SBIR

DoD Technology Areas:

Information Systems Technology; Space Platforms

RT&L Technology Focus Areas:

Space Offense & Defense; Fully Networked Command, Control & Communications

What type of proposals will be accepted?

Both Phase I and DP2

I. INTRODUCTION

The Space Development Agency (SDA) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts supporting the advancement of our national defense space capabilities.

This SBO is issued under the SDA Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for SBIR/STTR, HQ085021S0001. All proposals in response to the technical area(s) described herein must be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided under HQ085021S0001, found here:

https://go.usa.gov/x724e.

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export

Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items.

Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 3.5 of the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws.

a. Eligibility

Please refer to Section 3.1, Eligible Applicants, of HQ085021S0001 for full eligibility requirements.

b. Anticipated Structure/Award Information

Please refer to Section 1, Funding Opportunity Description, and Section 2, Award Information, of HQ085021S0001 for additional details on the structure of this opportunity and prospective awards.

If a proposer can provide adequate documentation to substantiate that the scientific and technical merit and feasibility described in the Phase I section of the topic has been met and describes the potential commercial applications, the Direct to Phase II (DP2) authority allows the Department of Defense (DoD) to make an award to a small business concern under Phase II of the SBIR program without regard to whether the small business concern was provided an award under Phase I of an SBIR program. This SBO is accepting both Phase I and DP2 proposal submissions.

For this SBO, SDA will accept Phase I proposals for cost of up to $259,613 for a 12-month period of performance. SDA will accept DP2 proposals for a cost of up to $1,730,751 for a duration not to exceed 36 months.

Proposers awarded a Phase I contract will be eligible to submit a proposal for Phase II and will be contacted by SDA at the appropriate time during their Phase I period of performance. If selected, Phase II will have a cost of up to $1,730,751 for a duration not to exceed 24 months.

c. Proposal Preparation Instructions

Proposers should refer to Section 4, Application and Submission Information, of HQ085021S0001 for detailed proposal preparation instructions. Proposals that do not comply with the requirements detailed in HQ085021S0001 and the research objectives of this SBO are considered non-conforming and therefore will neither be evaluated nor considered for award.

The Technical Volume of Phase I proposals shall not exceed 20 pages. Phase II commercialization strategy shall not exceed 5 pages. This should be the last section of the Technical Volume and will not count against the 20-page limit. Please refer to Appendix A of HQ085021S0001 for detailed instructions on Phase I proposal preparation.

The Technical Volume of DP2 proposals shall include both Feasibility Documentation and the Technical Proposal. Feasibility Documentation shall not exceed 10 pages, and the Technical Proposal shall not exceed 20 pages. Phase II commercialization strategy shall not exceed 5 pages. It should be the last section of the Technical Volume and will not count against either the Feasibility Documentation or Technical Proposal page limit.

Please refer to Appendix B of HQ085021S0001 for detailed instructions on DP2 proposal preparation.

d. Evaluation of Proposals

Please refer to Section 5, Evaluation of Proposals, of HQ085021S0001 for a full description of the proposal evaluation and selection process.

e. Due Date/Time

Full proposal packages (Proposal Cover Sheet, Technical Volume, and Cost Volume inclusive of supporting documentation) must be submitted via the DoD SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP) per the instructions in Section 4, Application and Submission Information, of HQ085021S0001 no later than March 31, 2021 at 12:00PM ET.

f. Company Commercialization Report

Please refer to Appendix A, Section A.3.f and Appendix B, Section B.3.f of HQ085021S0001 for Company Commercialization Report guidance for Phase I and Direct to Phase II proposals, respectively.

II. TOPIC OVERVIEW

a. Objective

Develop a Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) solution that demonstrates a next-generation low size, weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C) optical intersatellite link (OISL) terminal or enabling technology that will provide advancement in one or more of the following interest areas:

1. Reduction of the Size, Weight, Power, and Cost (SWAP-C) per bit

2. Design for manufacturing considerations to support high rate production and assembly, integration, and test processes

3. Demonstration of a path to 100 Gbps for space-to-space FSOC

4. Development of low-cost, mobile or fixed optical ground terminals (OGTs)

5. Demonstration of enhanced space-to-ground and space-to-air FSOC links

6. Development of compact FSOC systems capable of supporting coherent (e.g. QPSK) and non-coherent (e.g. OOK) optical links.

7. Demonstration of one-to-many optical terminal links

8. Demonstration of enhanced position, navigation, and timing technology

Optical Intersatellite Links (OISLs) being demonstrated in SDA’s Tranche 0 comply with the SDA OISL Standard (1). This class of terminals has the following SWAP bounds:

Size: < 0.04 cubic meters

Weight: < 30 kg

Power: < 50 W

The objective cost per unit is < $100,000 once the OISL reaches production quantities.

b. Description

SDA is responsible for orchestrating the development and fielding of the DoD’s future threat-driven National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), a resilient military sensing and data transport capability via a proliferated space architecture primarily in LEO. To achieve this mission, SDA uses novel approaches to accelerate the development and fielding of military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S. technological and military advantage in space for national defense.

Networked data transport is a key mission enabler. The backbone of SDA’s transport layer is formed by Optical Intersatellite Links (OISLs) which provide high-bandwidth, low-latency data transfer using the license-free optical spectrum. Current OISL devices support data rates of up to a few Gbps. Future data transport may require higher bandwidth (10 Gbps to 100 Gbps) optical crosslinks.

The development of OISLs that leverage commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) industrial telecommunications transceivers could provide a path to a reduced SWAP-C per bit.

Furthermore, the open standards employed by industrial long-haul optical transceivers (e.g. 400ZR, OpenZR+, 400ZR+) could enable multi-vendor interoperability if adapted for use in the next generation of low-SWAP-C OISLs.

In addition to OISLs, compatible optical ground and air terminals are necessary to provide high-speed, low-latency license-free optical up and down links to users across the DoD. Ruggedized, compact, and rapidly-deployable OGTs are of interest to SDA.

Through reduction in the cost of OGTs and optical aircraft terminals, the increased number of ground and air users will drive demand for access to the space-to-ground links.

Demonstration of methods for multi-user service, including spatial multiplexing and optical phased array technology, is of interest to SDA.

c. Phase I

This effort shall define and design a concept for a demonstration system to be developed and tested in Phase II. Detailed analysis of the predicted performance shall be developed.

The proposed concept shall be defined sufficiently to develop key milestones that define the path from the current state of the technology to a high-TRL state. The final milestone shall be the incorporation of the technology into the SDA proliferated LEO network. This final milestone shall be preceded by transition from prototype to turn-key manufacturing.

The Phase I effort shall provide the following:

1. Analysis Results: A report of analysis and trades performed with a narrative description of the results and recommendations for Phase II

2. Phase II Development Plan: This plan shall consist of

a. Integrated Master Schedule (IMS)

b. Technology maturation roadmap for the Phase II objective system

c. System development plan for the Phase II objective system

d. For spacecraft payloads, the plan shall include a space qualification plan and lifecycle analysis

This Phase will demonstrate the feasibility of producing a demonstration of the proposed technology, and will outline demonstration success criteria.

d. Phase II

Phase II shall establish performance parameters through experiment and prototype fabrication leading to a flight or field test for a space or ground system, respectively. For ground terminal technologies, consideration will be given to those technologies capable of integrating with existing on-orbit systems.

Phase II executes a detailed design of a prototype payload, ground, or air terminal including necessary support instrumentation as defined in the Phase II Development Plan.

This includes Government Furnished Information (GFI), in the form of supplementary mission requirements and host spacecraft interface definitions released after Phase II kickoff, that shall inform the Phase II design work.

The proposed system shall be fabricated, integrated, and tested in preparation for flight or field testing as described in the Phase II Development plan.

Detailed design and validation test reports comprise the Phase II EIDP. This, in addition to the prototype shall be delivered at the end of the Phase II period of performance. The prototype shall be demonstrated in accordance with the demo success criteria developed in Phase I.

DP2 proposals received in response to an eligible topic must provide documentation to substantiate that the scientific and technical merit and feasibility described in the Phase I section of the topic has been met (referred to as the Feasibility Documentation).

e. Dual Use Applications (Phase III)

Phase III work would target transition and commercialization of the OISL, ground, or air terminal. Given the emergence of small satellite constellations within the commercial sector, commercial applications of this research may include the integration of the terminal with a commercial or small satellite bus to allow data interoperability with the SDA transport infrastructure. DoD/military applications include deployment onto other systems that leverage the SDA data transport infrastructure.

f. References

(1) SDA OISL Standard (www.sda.mil)

g. Keywords

Networking; Optical Communications; Free-Space Optical Communications; Satellite Communications

III. SUBMISSION of QUESTIONS

From February 12, 2021 to March 9, 2021, this SBO is issued for Pre-Release. During the pre-release period, proposing firms have an opportunity to contact topic authors at osd.pentagon.ousd-r-e.mbx.hq085021s0001@mail.mil to ask technical questions about specific BAA topics. Questions should be limited to specific information related to improving the understanding of a particular topic’s requirement. Proposing firms may not ask for advice or guidance on solution approach and you may not submit additional material to the topic author. If information provided during an exchange with the topic author is deemed necessary for proposal preparation, that information will be made available to all parties through DSIP Topic Q&A module.

Once SDA begins accepting proposals on March 9, 2021, no further direct contact between proposers and topic authors is allowed unless the Topic Author is responding to a question submitted during the Pre-release period. However, proposers may submit written questions through the DSIP Topic Q&A module at https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login. The DSIP Topic Q&A for this BAA opens on March 9, 2021 and closes to new questions on March 24, 2021 at 12:00PM ET. Once the BAA closes to proposal submission, no communication of any kind with the topic author or through Topic Q&A regarding your submitted proposal is allowed.

SDA intends to use electronic mail for all correspondence regarding this SBO. Questions related to the technical aspect of the research objectives and awards specifically related to this SBO should be emailed to osd.pentagon.ousd-r-e.mbx.hq085021s0001@mail.mil. Please reference SBO HQ085021S0001-01 in the subject line. All questions must be in English and must include the name, email address, and the telephone number of a point of contact.

Technical support for the Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP) is available Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET. Requests for technical support must be emailed to DoDSBIRSupport@reisystems.com with a copy to osd.pentagon.ousd-r-e.mbx.hq085021s0001@mail.mil.