JOFOC BlackSky posting_PMredacted11-19-21_Redacted.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)

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

The procuring agency is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the contracting activity is NASA Headquarters (HQ), Washington, DC.

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 award a sole-source commercial Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Earth science data acquisitions to BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc. (BlackSky). NASA will examine and analyze this data to help determine the utility of commercial, satellite constellation-based products for advancing NASA's science and applications development goals. The outcomes will be used to inform NASA's policies and approaches for engaging more substantively with private sector small-satellite constellation operators for future data purchases.

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

NASA intends to initiate the onramp phase of the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program. NASA intends to continually onramp new commercial small-satellite constellation vendors to acquire and validate small satellite constellation data products, determine their value to the research community, and identify data policies for government use of the commercially acquired data products. It is NASA's objective to determine if private sector Earth observation products derived from small-satellite constellations can provide a cost-effective means to augment and/or complement the suite of Earth observations acquired by NASA and other US government agencies and those by International partners and agencies made available to NASA and its stakeholders.

NASA will focus on unique imagery that might augment NASA-accessible data. NASA will also procure associated metadata (documentation, access routines, and basic characterization information) to fully assess the data’s value.

The Government intends to use FAR Part 13.5 Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial items and 13.303 Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) for acquiring this data.

The resultant contract type will be a commercial Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with a period of performance of up to 5 years anticipated to begin March 2021. The Government estimates that the value of calls through the BPA will be $7M or less per call.

Through extensive market research, described later in this document, two companies have been identified that can meet NASA’s objectives. BlackSky and met the criteria of having existing small satellite constellations (3 or more fully commissioned satellites in non-geostationary orbit with consistent, large-scale -complete longitudinal- coverage) that produce Earth observing data sets. Emphasis was placed on data acquired by 2