JOFOC xEMU Oxygen Vessels (002)_Redacted.pdf

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)

LYNDON B. JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

For Exploration Portable Life Support System (xPLSS) Oxygen Vessels

1. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.303-1(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 JOFOC prepared by NASA JSC.

The procuring agency is NASA and the contracting activity is JSC.

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 contract with ARDE, Inc.

JSC is currently working on an advanced space suit system called the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU). The xEMU will provide environmental protection, mobility, life-support, and communications for astronauts performing extravehicular activities in space. The Agency’s immediate plans are to use this suit for a demonstration mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and for the initial 2024 mission to the Lunar surface. Internal teams at JSC have been working for over a decade to support these missions by performing testing on components, refining the xEMU design to meet Lunar requirements, and creating the infrastructure to certify the suits for space flight.

JSC has a requirement for the production of flight units and qualification for the Portable Life Support System (PLSS) Primary Oxygen Vessel (POV) and Secondary Oxygen Vessel (SOV) as part of the xEMU project in support of the Gateway, Human Landing Systems (HLS), and ISS Programs. The function of the PLSS Oxygen Vessel is to store gaseous high-pressure oxygen in a monolithic metallic structure with a much higher strength to weight ratio than traditional pressure vessels. The PLSS Oxygen Vessels possess a single mouth opening that mounts directly to the Primary or Secondary Oxygen Regulators within the PLSS, with a floating structural support on the opposite end to tolerate tank length changes associated with pressurization/depressurization.

ARDE, Inc. is the only vendor capable of fabricating the POV and SOV qualification and flight units. No other company possesses the capabilities to fabricate the POV and SOV flight units without significant re-work and creating an unacceptable risk of substandard pressure vessels resulting in unacceptable risk to crew health and safety.

JOFOC for xPLSS Oxygen Vessels 2

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):

The xEMU is being designed and certified to accomplish Low Earth Orbit operations in support of the ISS Program and partial gravity exploration in support of the Gateway Program and Human Landing Systems. In order for the new space suit to support this mission, the system must be able to reliably support missions ranging from a few weeks to 6-years with long periods of quiescence while supporting a large number of 4 to 8-hour Extra-Vehicular Activity excursions.

The new space suit is being designed for simplicity, high reliability, maintainability, and robustness in adverse conditions, borrowing heavily from proven designs and functionality demonstrated on the Shuttle/ISS Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Program. One of the technologies being leveraged was originally developed for the Apollo EMU Program and then used for the Shuttle EMU Program after an unsuccessful implementation of a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV) for the primary oxygen tankage, cryo-formed 301 Corrosion Resistant Steel (CRES).

The COPV approach boasts significant mass savings due to the replacement of the monolithic metal tank with a metal balloon that is supported by a filament and resin system.

This tank design does offer a significant mass savings with tankage wetted volumes that are an order of magnitude or larger than that of the suited application. When scaling this approach down to the tankage sizes needed for the xEMU, the mass savings is 1-pound mass, per tank. However, some of the challenges with implementation of a COPV include the protection of the filament/resin that is carrying the load from abrasion/impact, modeling of the composite structure in a fully verifiable/repeatable manner, load path inspection, susceptibility to stress rupture catastrophic failure, and implementation of a Leak Before Burst (LBB) design.

This requirement will be met through a firm-fixed-price contract utilizing FAR Part 12 – Acquisition of Commercial Items. The contract will include an Economic Price Adjustment for source materials of long lead items that cannot be adequately priced due to a custom millrun. Per FAR 16.203-2, “[a] fixed-price contract with economic price adjustment may be used when (i) there is serious doubt concerning the stability of market or labor conditions that will exist during an extended period of contract performance, and (ii) contingencies that would otherwise be included in the contract price can be identified and covered separately in the contract.” The estimated value is $1.38 million. The anticipated start date is October 1, 2020, with a performance period of 21-months.

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 United States Code (U.S.C.). 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. ARDE, Inc. is the only

JOFOC for xPLSS Oxygen Vessels 3 vendor capable of fabricating the POV and SOV qualification and flight units. The details of these unique qualifications are detailed in section 5 below.

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. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements is described below.

ARDE, Inc. is the only vendor capable of fabricating the POV and SOV qualification and flight units. No other company possesses the complex test equipment, facilities, and procedures unique to the design, fabrication, and testing of the cryo-formed 301 vessels.

Contracting to any other company besides ARDE would result in significant rework to fabricate a flight unit for the POV and SOV. In addition, contracting to any other company could result in delivery of substandard pressure vessels for a fracture critical application resulting in significant risks to crew health and safety, with the potential for loss of life. Per the NASA Source Control Drawing for the xEMU (SLN13102078), ARDE is the only approved supplier of this cryo-formed tankage design.

The ARDE monolithic metal life support vessels are manufactured

. The cryo-forming process is a unique process, which

. In thin metal structures, the cryo-formed material exhibits high strength (up to 240 kilopound per square inch (ksi)) with very high plane stress fracture toughness allowing this design approach to satisfy safety factor requirements while still providing weight savings.

ARDE has produced these vessels from a large number of material heats for over 50-years and has established A-basis strength properties as well as fracture mechanics properties for the material that have been reviewed and approved by NASA for manned spaceflight use.

ARDE is the only vendor that can produce cryogenically-hardened CRES vessels with a database that provides A-basis allowables, and a supporting fracture mechanics database. A-basis allowables have the highest level of confidence in the materials strength values. This level is a 95 percent confidence that 99 percent of the material will exceed the given strength value. This ARDE method uses

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The elimination of the stress rupture failure mode and implementation of a leak before burst (crack will propagate through the wall leading to a leak down before the vessel will catastrophically rupture) design is critical to implementation of the tankage within a PLSS located in the immediate proximity of a crewmember while operating in a hazardous environment and subject to falls or impact loading conditions associated with operating a suit. The suit application for this pressure vessel is classified as fracture critical per NASA-STD-5019, meaning that its failure would result in a catastrophic event such as loss of life.

Based upon the above discussion demonstrating the unique qualifications of ARDE to fabricate the POV and SOV qualification and flight units, the impact of not contracting with ARDE could result in delivery of substandard pressure vessels for a fracture critical application resulting in significant risks to crew health and safety with the potential for loss of life.

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 (beta.sam.gov) was published on April 15, 2020, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source contract to ARDE, Inc. 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. In accordance with FAR 15.404 to ensure a fair and reasonable price, the Government will use various price analysis techniques such as comparison of the proposed prices to historical prices paid and analysis of data other than certified cost or pricing data.

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

ARDE holds patents on the 301 CRES Cryo-forming process that was used for the Shuttle EMU Primary Oxygen Bottles (Hamilton Standard Part Number SV784099) and required by

JOFOC for xPLSS Oxygen Vessels 5 xEMU POV and SOV in order to meet the cited strength/mass requirements, A-basis materials requirements, as well as reliability and verifiability requirements.

An internet survey (April 4, 2020) of the leading pressure vessel manufacturers shows that ARDE, Inc. was found to be the only vendor offering cryo-formed CRES 301 tanks with A-basis allowable for materials. In addition, ARDE, Inc. is the only supplier permitted to source the product per the NASA Source Control Drawing for the xEMU (SLN13102078). No other potential manufacturers have been identified that can meet NASA’s requirements. This conclusion is supported in part by the posted synopsis, which yielded zero responses from industry.

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

Due to the critical nature of the oxygen vessels provided by ARDE, Inc., further actions to foster competition will not be provided. Competition would cause undue risk to the xEMU delivery to service ISS, support exploration for Gateway and HLS. Competition is not anticipated to result in any new and superior proposals.

In addition, ARDE, Inc. possesses intellectual property as well as extensive, complex test equipment, facilities, and procedures unique to the design, fabrication, and test of cryo-formed 301 vessels. Duplication of these facilities would not be a prudent use of government resources. It is in the best interest of the Government to maintain its investment in ARDE, Inc. expertise and prevent the loss of the invaluable knowledge base and capabilities which provide an essential and unique service to NASA.

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 (beta.sam.gov) per FAR Subpart 5.2 (See Section 6 above). A Sources Sought Synopsis - xPLSS Oxygen Vessels was posted on beta.sam.gov on April 15, 2020. No responses were received.

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:

Follow-on acquisitions are undetermined at this time. However, the Agency will continue to examine the market in the future for alternative solutions or new sources before executing any subsequent acquisitions for the same requirements.