JOFOC _Signed_Redacted.pdf

Rev.:4/2023

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

(JOFOC)

For Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) Science Investigator-led Processing System (SIPS) in support of the Earth Science Data and Information System

(ESDIS).

1. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.303-2(b)(1) – Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Justification for other than full and open competition.”

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).

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

2. FAR 6.303-2(b)(2) – The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This justification provides the rationale for contracting by other than full and open competition to award a sole-source, cost reimbursement contract with the National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmosphere Research (NCAR/UCAR) in Boulder, CO.

NASA’s GSFC proposes to award a Cost-No-Fee (cost reimbursable) follow-on contract for the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) Science Investigator-led Processing System (SIPS) in support of the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project. The contract continues the collection of science data products generated from the MOPITT instruments on the NASA Terra spacecraft consistent with the recommendations of the Earth Science Senior Review 2023.

In 2023, NASA organized a Senior Review subcommittee of its Earth Science Advisory Committee to evaluate the continued operations of on-orbit Earth Observing Systems (EOS) missions. The Senior Review Committee evaluated the MOPITT instrument and system and identified it as providing unique and scientifically valuable measurements that are not available from other missions. The loss of data products generated by MOPITT would have a significant negative impact on the agencies and other public organizations that rely on its data. The instrument is working well and is expected to produce quality data throughout the extended mission which runs through Fiscal Year (FY) 2027.

3. FAR 6.303-2(b)(3) – A description of the supplies or services required, to meet the Agency’s needs (including the estimated value):

NASA has established under its Earth Science program the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) which is a comprehensive data processing system and management of data from Earth science research satellites and field measurement programs.

The MOPITT SIPS is one element of EOSDIS. The purpose of this procurement is to ensure the continued generation of the standard data products from the MOPITT instrument, one of five instruments currently in operations on the Terra spacecraft. Terra, launched in December 1999, is one of several spacecraft that are part of NASA’s Earth Science Division’s Earth Observing System (EOS) Program. The MOPITT SIPS must produce standard products in accordance with the EOS Project Science Office and the MOPITT Science Team’s approved algorithms. These algorithms are currently generated under the Principal Investigator (PI) and Team Leader (TL) support for MOPITT. The products generated offer valuable utility to other civilian agencies, the intelligence community, and the private/public sector. The work includes the development and maintenance of algorithmic software, quality assessment and validation of data products, and the development and maintenance of respective documentation and preservation of product information. With the 2023 Senior Review extending the Terra mission through FY2027, the MOPITT SIPS will perform final reprocessing of standard data products to ensure a consistent time-series of products at the end of the mission.

Under the follow-on contract, the MOPITT SIPS will be responsible for the processing of the MOPITT standard products for observations and measurements of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere. The SIPS will be responsible for producing and supporting the PI and TL in the quality assessment of the standard products using scientific algorithm software from the Science Team. The MOPITT SIPS will deliver all data products and documentation to the EOSDIS Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC), Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC), located at NASA Langley.

The anticipated award date for the new contract is October 1, 2024. The period of performance for this follow-on contract is for 5-years (1-year base period plus 4 one-year options. The estimated value for the 5-years is

The period of performance and Government in-house cost estimate breakdown is as follows:

Option Period of Performance Cost Type Contract

Base October 1, 2024 – September 30, 2025 1 October 1, 2025 – September 30, 2026 2 October 1, 2026 – September 30, 2027 3 October 1, 2027 – September 30, 2028 4 October 1, 2028 – September 30, 2029

Total:

4. FAR 6.303-2(b)(4) – An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

More specifically, FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii), provides that services may be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of follow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source will result in (A) Substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition; or (B) Unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements.

This procurement would impact both substantial duplication of costs and unacceptable delays as further demonstrated in the following sections.

5. FAR 6.303-2(b)(5) – A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited:

The rationale supporting the use of 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1) is that only one responsible source will satisfy the needs of the agency is described below.

The EOS Terra spacecraft was launched in December 1999, with an original expected operations lifetime of six years. The MOPITT instrument on the Terra spacecraft is still operating 18 years past its expected life. As the instrument ages, the likelihood of instrument failure becomes increasingly likely. And, over the years, the NCAR/UCAR’s MOPITT Science team has devised many solutions to continue providing quality data from the aging instrument. The NCAR/UCAR SIPS has been able to respond quickly and appropriately to any situation faced by the instrument and the Terra spacecraft, which continue to generate quality products. If the Science Team at NCAR/UCAR had to interface with a different contractor other than the staff at NCAR/UCAR, there is an increased risk of failure in meeting the mission requirements due to lack of familiarity with the instrument’s functions, historical performance, and peculiarities. Additionally, intimate knowledge of instrument and expertise required for monthly and yearly instrument hot calibrations is difficult to transfer.

For the past 24 years, the NCAR/UCAR MOPITT SIPS has been a part of the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Program, where it has been involved in the management of earth science data. A significant level of skill is required to encode the science algorithms in software data processing systems in order to demonstrate that the developed algorithms are tested and working properly in order to support routine processing. Additionally, the SIPS staff oversees the integration of the software and monitor product generation to ensure all products are validated before releasing to the user community.

From the 2023 Senior Review, the committee has determined that Terra will be extended through Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 where Phase F activities will immediately follow the end of the mission. The data received from the instrument needs an additional 2 years beyond the end of the mission to be reprocessed to ensure a consistent time-series of products at the end of the mission. Transition of the requirement to a new entity will impact continuity of operational activities and dataflow to the science community and potentially delay efforts to successfully decommission and support Phase F end of mission activities slated to begin in FY2027.

The capability required to be maintained is for scientific and engineering work in the development, utilization, and calibration of essential algorithms to generate the MOPITT standard products and make them available to the user community. The application of these algorithms requires an expertise in tropospheric chemistry and instrument technology specific to the MOPITT instrument and, as such, is accomplished by PhD scientists and engineers at NCAR/UCAR. The NCAR/UCAR scientists and engineers have developed peer-reviewed algorithms for the standard product generation from MOPITT. The products they produce are geolocated calibrated radiances, carbon monoxide and methane column amounts, and carbon monoxide profiles. Users of these products depend on the expertise provided by the NCAR/UCAR team to be assured that the data is valid and useful. The skill sets required to perform the algorithm development, utilization, product generation and calibration functions include chemists and software engineers who are involved in tropospheric studies, which NCAR/UCAR personnel are specialized in the fields of tropospheric chemistry and remote sensing. These skills are required in order to implement the various scientific theories used to develop, assess, and use the algorithms. These unique capabilities are essential to NASA in that they are necessary to fulfill NASA’s needs in the area of tropospheric chemistry research.

Without them, NASA and scientific researchers will be deprived of important scientific data.

Without NCAR’s unique skills, GSFC would be unable to meet requirements of the EOSDIS in the area of providing products to support tropospheric chemistry research. NASA would be unable to continue to generate and disseminate data products from the MOPITT instrument to help the scientific research community study the changes in the chemistry of the troposphere and use such information in Earth system models.

Over the prior and current contract, NCAR/UCAR has demonstrated its capabilities to accomplish the work necessary to successfully achieve NASA’s science programs and delivery of the algorithms, documentation, standard data products, and other information. The Principal Investigator (PI) and the SIPS team have over 25 years of experience with the operation of the MOPITT instrument and no other team in the U.S. currently possesses the unique knowledge and expertise that NCAR/UCAR has acquired during this period. Over the years, fewer scientists are engaged in the explicit fundamentals of the MOPITT instrument, since newer and more advanced instruments are becoming available on-board Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP), Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and other international satellites. The availability of alternative staff dwindles with each year that the instrument ages.

During the period of performance of this follow-on contract (October 1, 2024 - Sept 30, 2029), the NCAR/UCAR team’s unique expertise will be critical to meet the necessary adjustments to the spacecraft orbit and inclination as the Terra altitude is reduced to extend its lifecycle through FY2027. In the event of an instrument failure before the mission ends, the contractor will integrate the final mission reprocessing algorithm into the SIPS and perform the final reprocessing through the full mission data collection. This can take up to two years. The contractor will also be providing the final preservation documentation for MOPITT science products. NCAR/UCAR is the only responsible source which understands the performance of the instrument well enough to manage the many changes that will be required in the next five years.

The SIPS and the PI/TL must continually work together for the successful generation and dissemination of the MOPITT instrument’s products. The PI depends on the SIPS’s knowledge and expertise in science data processing while the SIPS depends on the PI for expertise in implementation, test, and validation of science algorithms. The unique knowledge and expertise of NCAR/UCAR, under the direction of the PI, has been accumulating since the mid- 1990s, beginning a few years before the launch of the MOPITT instrument. The unique knowledge and skills required to generate high quality standard science products reside with the instrument PI. It is essential for the PI to be involved in ensuring the product quality, in supplying the updates to the product generation software, overseeing integration of that software in the third-party environment, and monitoring the product generation.

Duplicative costs would result in an effort to compete the requirement, which are not expected to be recovered in a competition. Duplicative costs are demonstrated by the most likely two alternative scenarios. 1) Current hardware and software are transferred from NCAR/UCAR or

2) Completely redeveloped by a new contractor/source. It is estimated that for the first alternative, the government will need to spend an additional $500,000 over the 5-year period, with the assumption that the transfer of capability can be accomplished within 3-months. The second alternative will require the complete development of the infrastructure, the intricate software and systems for managing,scheduling, and executing standard and near real-time data product generation in the forward and reprocessing streams, the software to execute complex PI algorithms, the specialized tools to support the PI in data product quality assessment,evaluation, and validation as well as the build, installation, and configuration of the hardware needed to execute these software, tools, and applications. This new infrastructure and software system is estimated to exceed $1,015,000 over the 5-year period.

This estimate is derived by looking at the individual factors as described below and assigning costs to develop and implement the complex systems where multiple external entities (e.g.

science teams, PIs, other SIPS and DAACS, system components in ESDIS, and International Partners) and orgnaizations that must interact and collaborate with the MOPITT SIPS and the PI to address instrument anomlaies and mission science data processing requirements to ensure a high-quality product is produced. This in-depth knowledge of the instrument (and how it’s operated historically), the science data, and the science processing and validation requirements would be required between the PI and the new contractor/source for processing MOPITT data.

Throughout the life of the instrument, there will be a need for changes to algorithms, recertification of software, and reprocessing of data that have to be performed to maintain long-term consistency of the time-series. Performing the processing at another contractor separate from the PI’s (NCAR/UCAR) will incur duplicative costs to in order to:

Transfer of the PI’s computational capabilities to another contractor or redevelopment of

SIPS-like capabilities by another contractor Transfer of the PI’s algorithmic software periodically to another contractor Integration and testing of algorithmic software at another contractor each time such a transfer occurs Routine transfer of products from another contractor to the PI for scientific quality assessment Assessment by the PI of the need for reprocessing at various times during the life of the mission and discussion of reprocessing strategy with another contractor Transfer of reprocessed data from another contractor to the PI for quality assessment

The estimate was developed using the historical labor and skills along with a 3% inflation and then including additional costs of transitioning to a new system along with increased costs for interactions between the PI and the alternate. The alternative shows a large cost growth required to start with a new contractor over the original government cost estimate of utilizing the incumbent, NCAR. These additional costs are not expected to be recovered in a competition.

Additionally, performance by any source other than NCAR/UCAR would result in an unacceptable delays in meeting the requirements of the statement of work due to the steep learning curve that would be faced by a new source. As explained above, the current contractor has 25+ years of experience with both the MOPITT instrument and the Terra platform and has unique, critical capabilities and diagnostic proficiency in identifying anomalies and issues in instrument and mission performance. In addition, the Terra platform is aging, and many maneuvers are planned in the upcoming years to try to keep all instruments operational as long as the platform is safe in orbit until the mission ends. Only NCAR/UCAR has the preparation and experience to timely address a possible failure/anomogy during the next couple of years, and possesses the unique knowledge and experience to handle on orbit adjustments in order to continue routine processing of MOPITT data. If anomalies occur on orbit, the contractor must be prepared to provide immediate answers and responses to the PI in order to enable quick decision-making. Due to any other source’s need to acquire the expertise and knowledge already posssed by NCAR/UCAR, unacceptable delays in decision-making or the availability of data is likely to occur which would jeopardize the success of the MOPITT mission.

Based on the above rationale, only NCAR/UCAR has the unique capabilities to perform the SOW requirements for research in tropospheric chemistry and generation of MOPITT standard data products for the benefit of other scientific users. Any other source would result in unacceptable delays in fulfilling the Agency’s requirements. In addition, if any other source were selected to fulfill these requirements, substantial duplication of costs would be incurred which are not expected to be recovered in a competition.

6. FAR 6.303-2(b)(6) – A 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 Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under 5.202 applies:

A notice to the Government Point of Entry (GPE) website (Sam.gov) was published on February 16, 2024 in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source contract to NCAR/UCAR. The results of this synopsis are summarized in Section 10 below.

7. FAR 6.303-2(b)(7) – A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The Contracting Officer’s signature on this document indicates that the Contracting Officer has determined that the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable. The Contractor shall be required to submit a proposal to be evaluated and negotiated by the

Government. Prior to execution of the contractual instrument, a proposal analysis will be performed. The proposal analysis will ensure that the final agreed-to price for the contract action is fair and reasonable.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (NCAR/UCAR) shall be required to submit a proposal to be evaluated and negotiated by the Government. The proposed costs will be evaluated by the Contracting Officer’s Representative and the Contracting Officer to determine that the skill mix, direct labor rates, direct labor hours, skill mix, other direct costs, indirect costs, and fee(s) are fair and reasonable.

This may also include support from external organizations, as needed.

8. FAR 6.303-2(b)(8) – Description of the market research conducted, and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted:

Based on a review of available market research sources, there is a narrow and highly specialized set of science experts who have the capability to understand the relevant MOPITT algorithms in enough detail to continue to produce the MOPITT standard products.

Based on the market research, the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) is knowledgeable of all sources that have these capabilities. The findings of this research show conclusively that there are no alternate sources which could take on full control and responsibility without incurring a significant gap in meeting the mission requirements and risk of unacceptable and unsuccessful performance. The COR has in-depth knowledge of possible sources that is based on industry and university contacts through multiple meetings with companies and organizations performing satellite data work for other purposes and through a series of meetings at public conferences where topics cover this kind of work. Examples of specific meetings over the last five years include NASA-sponsored Terra, Aqua, Aura mission meetings, publicly sponsored American Geophysical Union meetings, and a 3-day MODIS- VIIRS Science Team meeting in 2023 that involved more than 100 NASA contractors from more than 30 universities, non-profit, and industry organizations presenting and reviewing Earth science algorithm development work. The MOPITT data processed by the SIPS is stored and distributed to the wider user community through the EOSDIS Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) located at Langley Research Center. The COR works closely with the DAAC Engineer who oversees the task and works at the DAAC. Through the interactions with the DAAC and understanding the distribution of the MOPITT data, we are able to determine specifics about the usage of the data and the role that the SIPS plays in creating user-friendly data and documentation. This high degree of interaction with regard to MOPITT data is not universal across the science domain, meaning that the proposed source has had exceptional experience in developing and maintaining MOPITT data.

9. FAR 6.303-2(b)(9) – Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

None.

10. FAR 6.303-2(b)(10) – A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed an interest in writing in the acquisition:

A notice of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source action was synopsized on the GPE website (Sam.gov) per FAR Subpart 5.2 (See Section 6 above). 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 entity expressed interest in this proposed action.

11. FAR 6.303-2(b)(11) – A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

Over the past several years, NASA Headquarters has released several AOs for developing data systems, analysis software, and related activities. These opportunities have funded many complementary activities that will support future data center functions. In addition, NASA has taken additional efforts to engage the community in standard science data product generation and science data quality. These include:

Holding conferences to discuss the roles and responsibilities of science algorithms and product generation.

Establishing a library of documentation produced using Government funds to make the knowledge (reports, drawings, etc.) available to all potential competitors; and

Requiring the current principal investigators and scientists to openly discuss what they are doing, what they have learned, and what they have that is available to others in open forums like the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society meetings.

No actions are anticipated by the Agency to remove or overcome the barriers to competition for any subsequent acquisitions of similar services because the 2023 Senior Review has determined that Phase F activities will immediately follow the end of mission in FY2027.

Once final reprocessing (two years after the end of mission) is completed, it is unlikely that subsequent acquisitions will occur.

06/25/2024 Evelyn Ho

CRAIG

KEISH

Digitally signed by

CRAIG KEISH

Date: 2024.06.25 09:51:17 -04'00'

MEASUREMENT OF POLLUTION IN THE TROPOSPHERE (MOPITT)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

SIGNATURE PAGE

I certify that the facts presented in this justification are accurate and complete.

Technical Representative

I hereby certify that the above justification is complete and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Craig Keish Contracting Officer

APPROVED:

Nipa Shah Competition Advocate

Eric Newman Digitally signed by Eric Newman Date: 2024.07.11 15:10:09 -04'00'