HST_MOSES_II_Extension_JOFOC.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

(In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.3 – Other than Full and Open Competition)

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE MISSION OPERATIONS SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND SOFTWARE II

1. This document is a justification for other than full and open competition prepared by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight

Center (GSFC) or Goddard Space Flight Center:

The procuring Agency is National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the contracting activity is NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This justification provides the rationale for using other than full and open competition to extend Contract NNG11FC20C with Lockheed Martin Space System Company (LMSSC) for five years to perform continued mission operations and systems engineering for

Hubble Space Telescope (HST) flight and ground systems. The period of performance is through June 30, 2021. Systems engineering for the HST mission includes operation and maintenance of an extensive and complex set of equipment and test facilities, ground and information systems maintenance, network and security administration, flight systems engineering, systems integration and test, system management, and flight software maintenance.

HST is a unique national treasure, an internationally acclaimed mission, and one of

NASA’s most valuable and productive assets. If properly maintained and operated, HST should continue to produce extraordinary science and inspire the public for years to come.

Responsibility for mission operations, ground and flight software, and systems engineering must be assigned with the greatest care in order to ensure Observatory health and safety and to continue HST scientific productivity.

NASA and the scientific community have enjoyed the tremendous benefits of the telescope’s new and restored science instruments following an investment of approximately $900M for Servicing Mission-4 (SM4). LMSSC’s world-class team of engineers and managers is an integral part of the HST success story. Much of HST’s success is directly attributable to the LMSSC team’s leadership, technical creativity, and in-depth understanding of the HST Observatory and ground systems. Continued success will require continuation of the keen focus on safety, efficiency and cost-saving innovation that has been the hallmark of the mission for over 25 years. The automation operations system, completed in 2011, has resulted in more than $5 million per year savings, and the ground system modernization effort, scheduled to be complete by

September 2015, is expected to produce about $2 million per year additional savings.

Even small operations and engineering inefficiencies will erode the productivity and value of the last years of the HST science mission.

NASA’s budget for HST is expected to be a flat, non-inflation adjusted budget during this five-year period, which will require staff reductions in the operations workforce. As HST ages and begins to degrade, HST operations and engineering personnel must be thoroughly knowledgeable in all aspects of HST operations and unique systems characteristics and constraints. This knowledge will be essential in sustaining the HST science mission by responding effectively to system anomalies and to successfully adapt existing processes and procedures to compensate for eventual system shortcomings.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including their estimated value:

The scope of this contract includes conducting all elements of HST operations other than science operations, and performing systems engineering tasks required to properly maintain HST flight and ground systems. Mission operations responsibilities include safe and efficient control and utilization of the HST Observatory, maintenance and operation of HST-unique facilities and equipment, as well as creation, maintenance, and utilization of HST operations processes and procedures. Critical systems engineering responsibilities consist of optimizing mission system capabilities to maximize HST operations effectiveness and science productivity. This is accomplished by analyzing and resolving

HST mission system anomalies, by developing, integrating, testing, and maintaining HST flight software, ground systems hardware and software, and network infrastructure, and by operating and maintaining numerous HST-unique test facilities and systems. Essential management requirements include providing a technical staff that possesses in-depth knowledge of HST’s varied, complex, and unique flight and ground systems, ensuring successful accomplishment of the diverse tasks necessary to effectively conduct HST mission operations and systems engineering, as well as managing and reporting contract element cost and schedule performance.

Continuing with LMSSC’s unique HST knowledge and experience will provide vital products and services required to perform; (1) spacecraft subsystem engineering across all disciplines, sustaining systems engineering in all areas of HST operations, including anomaly resolution; (2) flight software for all HST on-board computers including requirements analysis, design, implementation, verification and validation and documentation; (3) HST Ground Systems maintenance; (4) Systems Integration and Test to provide acceptance testing of flight software releases, ground systems releases, and

Project Reference Database (PRD) deliveries, and spacecraft configuration changes; and

(5) mission flight operations and control.

LMSSC alone possesses the unique and critical depth of HST observatory and HST ground system technical knowledge and expertise to concurrently and safely operate HST and effectively adapt to changing mission requirements and priorities to ensure complete and effective utilization of this national science asset. The HST ground system utilizes a unique, LMSSC-developed software suite rather than a mission-specific adaptation of widely available software (as is often the case with more-recently developed missions).

The architecture of HST’s flight software is mission-unique and of 1970’s heritage. A multi-year LMSSC effort was required to complete the porting of the spacecraft computer’s original software into C-code in 1999, and the LMSSC team alone has since maintained and expanded this code. Absent the intimate knowledge of the HST spacecraft and ground systems possessed by LMSSC’s critical and experienced personnel, NASA cannot continue to safely and reliably operate and maintain these HST-unique mission systems.

Under this contract, the LMSSC team will need to respond effectively to changing on-board conditions and provide creative solutions that enable continued viable HST operation and science productivity. Process, procedure, and flight software updates will be needed to alter the way HST is operated to mitigate component aging and the slow degradation of subsystems, as well as to provide new capabilities and modes of operation to work around future failures that might otherwise end the science mission. These changes will be essential to preserve the future health and safety of HST, the longevity of onboard subsystems, and the high science productivity. Implementation times and implementation risks will be dramatically reduced by utilizing the existing skills and critical expertise of the LMSSC team. The LMSSC team is uniquely positioned to build on past experience to devise best-case responses for future system anomalies. The success of future upgrades will rely heavily upon the system knowledge, technical expertise and creativity of the current highly knowledgeable LMSSC staff. Absent a sole-source award, implementations will be more costly and take longer to design and develop, thereby increasing risk to HST health, safety, and science.

The total value of the above-listed products and services, to be provided during the period of performance is estimated at [Text Deleted].

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C.

2304(c) (1), 6.302-1 - only one responsible source.

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited:

LMSSC became the prime contractor for HST operations and systems engineering soon after the Observatory launch in 1990. LMSSC has been responsible for all non-shuttle aspects of HST servicing preparation, including development and delivery of spacecraft hardware, hardware integration and test, HST flight operations, ground and flight systems engineering, and ground system and flight software development for the telescope. The full breadth and depth of LMSSC’s HST-unique knowledge and expertise makes LMSSC the only contractor capable of sustaining a safe and efficient HST mission operation and responding effectively to changing engineering requirements and priorities. Recreating the knowledge and experience base currently available under the existing contract could only be accomplished through a considerable and unnecessary duplication of costs already incurred by NASA.

The unique familiarity of the LMSSC team with HST space and ground assets is an essential key to successfully achieving critical program goals. The LMSSC team has been

HST’s mission contractor for more than 25 years. Some of the team’s members were involved in the original development of HST, and a significant fraction of the team has more than 15 years of experience with HST. The LMSSC team developed the HST ground and spacecraft operation systems as they exist today, and the LMSSC team is the only team with experience operating them. LMSSC has acquired unique experience and extensive knowledge resolving anomalies, developing workarounds, and modifying the procedures, techniques, and approaches used to operate the aging HST. The team’s unparalleled expertise makes LMSSC uniquely qualified to assess and understand HST subsystem anomalies, recommend actions and expeditiously resume the mission’s science operations. The HST mission architecture is complex, and its operations procedures, ground systems, and flight software are intricate. The subsystem and operations learning curves are steep and climbing them is resource-intensive and time-consuming. The

“national asset” nature of the HST mission establishes a very high standard for the safe and correct conduct of operations and for the maintenance of maximum science productivity.

Regardless of available time, another contractor would not be able to approximate

LMSSC’s HST flight and ground systems expertise in maintaining the HST mission operation with a similar level of safety and efficiency. One example of this is in the area of HST test facility operation and maintenance. The HST project currently utilizes an extensive array of aging, complex, and unique test equipment, simulators, and modeling capabilities that an HST contractor must understand and be able to operate and maintain.

A new contractor would need to expend substantial additional time and effort acquiring a minimally sufficient understanding of HST systems and infrastructure. To achieve

NASA’s goals during the period covered by this contract, an experienced contractor with current HST-specific expertise in controls, operations, systems engineering, flight software, and related skills is essential.

Only LMSSC possesses the detailed, unique, HST-specific knowledge needed to assure the most efficient HST operation possible. HST operations, processes, and procedures is highly complex in comparison with newer, more sophisticated, and highly automated satellites. The level of expertise needed to operate HST goes far beyond providing the day-to-day actions of a flight operations team necessary to monitor telemetry, playback science data, and complete command uplinks to HST computers. The immense importance of the LMSSC team owes to the irreproducible wealth of experience possessed by the systems engineers who monitor the performance of the instruments and subsystems and can quickly recognize a non-nominal condition or engineering data that is trending abnormally. This expertise extends to the intimate knowledge these engineers have of

Observatory performance characteristics, which assists their exploration of new control modes and subsystem management techniques. This further extends to the extensive experience the team has with unique, high-fidelity models of spacecraft and mode performance that they have developed which enable them to tune parameters and refine control algorithms quickly and effectively. The LMSSC team includes ground and flight software developers who are intimately and critically familiar with the thousands of lines of code in the flight computers and the six million lines of code in the ground system that the team has written, integrated, revised, upgraded and maintained for many years. All of this knowledge and critical experience contributes to the high productivity and creativity that have sustained HST for more than 25 years. This, in turn, contributes to the unparalleled success of the HST mission and provides a platform from which future work can successfully be conducted. This is what makes continuity so vital to low-risk progress. The experience and understanding gained from past, technologically challenging HST-specific work are critical to a high quality science operation, and even more critical to meeting the HST program goals and challenges that lie ahead to achieve maximum observatory life and science operations.

The body of knowledge accumulated by the LMSSC team during more than 25 years of on-orbit operation clearly demonstrates that LMSSC is the only known source with the critical experience necessary to assure an HST operation of peak effectiveness. An example of the resourcefulness and skill of the LMSSC team is the successful implementation of the HST Attitude Observer Anomaly (AOA) flight software mitigation that will extend the useful life of the gyroscopes that provide the precision pointing control for which HST is known. Following the installation of a suite of six new gyroscopes during SM4, first gyro three, and then gyro four, showed signs of the AOA signature that introduces a “false” bias and impacts the ability of the Observatory to reacquire targets from one orbit to another. The performance of gyro three degraded to the point that close to 20 percent of the mission targets were being missed in early 2011.

Gyro three was removed from the control loop. The LMSSC team devised the strategy to design, implement, test, and install the flight software in late 2012 that will enable the future use of that gyro and others that demonstrate the AOA signature expected to occur as the units age. This type of innovation keeps HST at its peak of scientific production.

This development effort required simulations using high fidelity models written by the

LMSSC team and major flight software designed to work with not only the nominal three gyro science mode, but also the One Gyro Science (OGS) mode that was specially developed during the Servicing Mission era to help ensure continued operations between

Servicing Missions, and is essential to the longevity of the mission now that Servicing is complete. Each new development requires extensive testing of each operational mode available to ensure spacecraft safety. This work and future work could not have been done without the team’s expert knowledge of HST system characteristics as observed on-orbit. The high fidelity models that are essential to development and testing efforts have been modified and enhanced over the years by the LMSSC Team. The team has unique experience running these models and is the only team capable of generating hundreds of candidate test cases in a short timeframe.

This sort of demonstrated knowledge and experience, which permeates the LMSSC team, is critical and indispensable to HST mission operations, ground system enhancements, sustaining engineering, flight systems engineering and software development. To maintain these systems and develop new capabilities, both talent and extensive knowledge of HST system designs, capabilities, and limitations is required.

LMSSC is the only organization with the critical knowledge and expertise to operate the spacecraft at maximum science efficiency. Doing so requires the in-depth knowledge of control modes, software code, failure modes, and specific spacecraft constraints and restrictions unique to HST. Only LMSSC possesses the HST-unique skill set necessary to maintain the high productivity and low risk postures of the HST mission. The selection of a new contractor team for these development tasks and flight operations would significantly and critically increase the risk of mission failure.

The assumption of operations by a successor contractor could be heavily impacted by loss of vital information from the outgoing contractor. It is clear that even the best documentation cannot capture the entire body of knowledge accumulated by HST engineers over more than 25 years of work experience. It is also evident that this vast engineering knowledge cannot all be conveyed to a new contractor during a transition period. This situation could readily allow undocumented shortcomings or unique features of equipment and procedures to escape the attention of the new team, and thus greatly increase the program risk for development and science operations.

Since many of the current engineers are long-term employees with their current company, the anticipated incumbent capture by a new winning contractor would be much lower than is typical. To manage the associated risk, the services of non-captured employees would likely need to be retained for a period of at least 12 months to achieve an adequate transfer of knowledge, clarification of details, and task specific training. [Text Deleted]

6. Description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.202:

A notice NASA Acquisition Internet Service (NAIS) and Federal Business Opportunities

(FedBizOpps) was published on June 29, 2015, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2.

This posting informed potential sources of NASA GSFC’s intent to award this sole-source modification to LMSSC and provided potential sources with the opportunity to be considered based on their qualifications and capabilities. The submission of statements of interest was due by July 14, 2015. The results of this synopsis are contained in Section 10 below.

7. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the

Government will be fair and reasonable:

A cost analysis will be performed as described in FAR 15.4. LMSSC will be required to submit a proposal that will be evaluated and negotiated by the Government. The contracting officer will utilize all sources, such as the Defense Contract Audit Agency

(DCAA) and Government technical and financial representatives, in determining a fair and reasonable cost. Historical data established under the existing LMSSC contract will be used for cost comparisons, as applicable.

8. Description of the market research conducted, and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted:

Senior members of the project’s technical staff were used to identify and consider other potential sources for this procurement. Several aerospace companies and a few universities perform satellite operations. Knowledge of a spacecraft and its operation are not directly transferable into the comparable expertise relevant to the HST spacecraft and operation. The scope of HST engineering requirements is to operate and maintain the entire Observatory and ground-based support infrastructure. This demands much greater depth of understanding of HST-unique system characteristics and operating procedures, as well as flight and ground system code. The requirements for HST include not only the daily flight operations and engineering analysis, but also investigating onboard system anomalies and then designing and implementing effective corrections via procedures and flight software changes. HST also requires ground system infrastructure and IT expertise to maintain its own communication network. The HST expertise LMSSC has acquired over many years, including a unique knowledge of spacecraft characteristics and performance, familiarity with the tools and models used to assess engineering data trends and study responses to operational, changes can never be fully conveyed to another contractor. The contracting officer’s representative (COR) is thoroughly familiar with the capabilities available in the market. There are various entities that may, in time, learn to conduct the mission operations functions of the HST mission, but none of them could be expected to accomplish these tasks without a significant and costly phase-in period that would still likely result in loss of expertise. The risk to the health and safety of the HST

Observatory, and its productivity, is too high for this to be considered. Based on the

COR’s knowledge and experience, no other currently existing entity can sufficiently meet the entire range of the technical requirements of this procurement to achieve the HST project’s operation and engineering goals in order to maximize the productive scientific life of HST within a challenging budget environment.

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

HST has been designated a National asset by the Congress of the United States. No unmanned space mission in history has been as much in the public’s conscience worldwide, and no mission has returned as much new knowledge of the universe, or played as important a role in public education. The importance of HST’s scientific return in the upcoming years cannot, therefore, be underestimated as the project and the Agency seek to operate it concurrently with the James Webb Space Telescope. Future operations will remain as challenging and dependent on the expertise of its operators and systems engineers as they have always been. The need to reduce costs while protecting performance in the face of future anomalies requires the continued availability of the experts that have made the past operation so successful. The HST mission operations and systems engineering objectives are challenging from a technology and cost perspective.

Failures or delays in acquiring the products and services required in this contract due to inabilities of a new contractor and the loss of the incumbent’s unique HST expertise will increase the likelihood of non-optimal operations decisions and jeopardize mission success. Only LMSSC has the critical skills and the knowledgeable staff required to successfully realize the project’s objectives and to ensure a safe, full, and productive HST scientific lifetime.

The time required to understand the complexities of HST are not typical in comparison with other satellites. HST engineers must understand the original design intent, have knowledge of hardware and software changes made over the past 25 years, and know how the system is operationally used. The Electrical Power System (EPS) is an example where

LMSSC has added numerous charge modes and hardware boxes. Each of these is custom designed for HST. For HST, all of the original science instruments have been replaced, yet many of the commands and telemetry points retain the names based on the original instruments. LMSSC understands the history of each science instrument position and the associated restrictions that are based on the characteristics of the predecessor hardware. The LMSSC team has typically had at least one engineer for each subsystem with over 15 years of HST experience who could provide the history if needed in that area. Since many of the current engineers are long-term employees with their current company, the likelihood for them to switch to a new winning contractor is low. The anticipated retention rate for a new contractor is significantly lower than might otherwise be expected, and the risk of losing expertise is greater than that normally associated with a change in prime contractor. Introduction of an inexperienced management team and uncertainty in re-capture of critical staff pose a significant risk to continued successful

HST operations and achieving mission objectives.

10. Sources, if any, submitted written interest, in the acquisition:

In Section 6, in accordance with the requirements of FAR Subpart 5.2, a notice of NASA

GSFC’s intent to award this sole-source action was synopsized on the NAIS and

FedBizOpps websites. The synopsis notified all interested sources that this requirement will be issued on a sole-source basis and provided them an opportunity to submit their interest and capabilities to the contracting officer within 15 days of the synopsis publication.

No challenges to the synopsis were received. One email was received in which the sender was looking for subcontracting opportunities.

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

LMSSC is the only known source with the critical capability, expertise, and familiarity with HST to support its continued safe and efficient operation and high level of scientific productivity. This capability is especially unique to LMSSC. For this reason, it is not currently in the best interest of the Government to compete the above-described work among other sources.

HST is as productive as it has ever been in its more than 25 year mission life, and science proposal pressure remains very high. If critical mission subsystem aging and degradation effects can be addressed, such that HST continues to be a viable Observatory capable of achieving valuable science beyond the 2021 timeframe, then a follow-on contract would become necessary. It is anticipated that such a follow-on contract to complete the operation of the mission, if necessary, would be short in duration and may also be procured on a sole source basis for the same reasons as stated in this justification. The acquisition strategy for any potential Agency requirement for operations beyond

2021would take into consideration the mission needs at that time, including factors such as the health of HST and the potential productivity of onboard scientific assets.