SAIC_SoW_SSN Draft.docx

Naval Research Laboratory 4555 Overlook Avenue SW Washington DC, 20375-5329 Code 0000

Numerical Weather Prediction Research and Development

Statement of Work

1 August 2026

STATEMENT OF WORK

SECTION 1 - BACKGROUND

The US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the Navy and Marine Corps. NRL’s Marine Meteorology Division (MMD) conducts multidisciplinary scientific research and technological development to achieve environmental information superiority for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Department of War (DoW)

NRL MMD’s core business includes:

· To understand and simulate the behavior of the atmosphere and its constituents on local, regional, and global scales, including its interaction with the ocean, land, cryosphere, and middle atmosphere.

· To invent, develop, implement, and transition new capabilities and systems for objective environmental analysis and prediction.

· To integrate new capabilities into automated systems for assessing risk and analyzing the impact of atmospheric conditions on Navy and DoW operations, and weapons systems and transition systems to operations.

MMD has three research Branches with different focus areas of interest:

1. Environmental Processes and Modeling Branch (Code 7530) specializes in atmospheric modeling and prediction.

2. Environmental Data Branch (Code 7540) concentrates on environmental data assimilation, AI/ML methods, and tactical applications.

3. Environmental Applications Branch (Code 7550) focuses on how physical environments affect Navy and Marine Corps missions.

Section 2 - Scope

The scope of this effort is to provide meteorology research and development services in accordance with Section 3 through an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract.

Section 3 - Requirements

3.1 Environmental Processes and Modeling

3.1.1 Global NWP Model R&D and Transition

The Contractor shall perform NWP R&D to assist NRL in reaching its global NWP project objectives.

3.1.2 NAVGEM and NEPTUNE R&D

3.1.2.1 The Contractor shall perform R&D for the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) and Navy Environmental Prediction SysTem Utilizing the NUMA corE (NEPTUNE) forecast model and the tangent linear (TLM) and adjoint (ADJ) Spiral Development.

3.1.2.2 The Contractor shall provide dynamic core R&D for the forecast, TLM, and ADJ models.

3.1.2.3 The Contractor shall test different alternatives for vertical interpolations in the semi- Lagrangian advection scheme.

3.1.2.4 The Contractor shall optimize semi-implicit time integration.

3.1.2.5 The Contractor shall optimize diffusion and time step numerics.

3.1.2.6 The Contractor shall test NAVGEM and NEPTUNE on DSRC platform in real-time.

3.1.2.7 The Contractor shall perform advanced physics development R&D.

3.1.2.8 The Contractor shall test the impact of using the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTMG) together with a multi-species prognostic treatment for water condensate in NAVGEM and NEPTUNE. This may require adjusting the cumulus cloud water output and examining the sensitivity to details of the diagnostic cloud fraction scheme.

3.1.2.9 The Contractor shall implement high-order boundary layer parameterization scheme.

3.1.2.10 The Contractor shall optimize vertical levels for computational efficiency, as a requirement of DA upgrades, and advanced physics.

3.1.2.11 The Contractor shall implement and test NAVGEM and NEPTUNE physics, and GFS gravity wave drag schemes.

3.1.2.12 The Contractor shall develop a configuration management system with version control and collaborations for NAVGEM and NEPTUNE.

3.1.2.13 The Contractor shall develop the code and scripts for the NAVGEM and NEPTUNE Ensemble Prediction System (EPS). This may require enhancing the EPS performance by increasing the resolution of the system, allowing multiple physics packages, and perturbing physical parameters.

3.1.2.14 The Contractor shall develop diagnostic software to better analyze NAVGEM and NEPTUNE errors in terms of regions and synoptic situations, and through energy budget, vorticity budget and energy spectrum analysis. This may require re-writing existing diagnostic code in a common language for computation and display (CDRL A003).

3.1.2.15 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities to follow-on versions of NEPTUNE or other global models to increase computational efficiency and accuracy.

3.2 Seasonal Prediction R&D

3.2.1 The Contractor shall conduct R&D for NRL seasonal global NWP predictions.

3.2.2 The Contractor shall perform extended integrations for both the Navy global and mesoscale models using different configurations to evaluate and understand the potential for predictability on monthly time scales for the global Seasonal Prediction.

3.2.3 The Contractor shall evaluate NAVGEM and NEPTUNE at monthly time scales at the highest resolution possible and at resolutions considered operationally feasible. This may require performance of reforecasts with analyzed SST and SST information available in real time.

3.2.4 The Contractor shall examine metrics of specific high interest to the Navy, such as frequency of occurrence of high-speed near-surface winds, and larger-scale phenomenon, such as the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO).

3.2.5 The Contractor shall investigate and evaluate the representation of the MJO in NAVGEM and NEPTUNE. This may require assessing the simulated correspondence between clouds, radiation and precipitation.

3.2.6 The Contractor shall investigate the mechanism controlling MJO's occurrence and amount of convection.

3.2.7 The Contractor shall conduct NAVGEM and NEPTUNE numerical experiments to simulate the MJO phenomena observed in the field experiments.

3.2.8 The Contractor shall perform advanced physics development R&D. The Contractor shall perform model physics improvement R&D for the Earth System Prediction Capability (ESPC). NRL participates in the ESPC project as part of an interagency collaboration between DoW (Navy and Air Force), NOAA, DoE, NASA, and NSF for coordination of research to operations for an earth system analysis and extended-range prediction capability. Two focus areas are the development of coupled global model physics packages and the testing of improved resolution and physics parameterization.

3.2.9 The Contractor shall investigate the Initial Value Problem through joint observational retrievals (air and sea) and new hybrid DA approaches.

3.2.10 The Contractor shall perform R&D in improvements of forecast skill through i) stochastic prediction and post-model processing, ii) multi-model ensembles, and iii) multi-scale seamless prediction.

3.3 Mesoscale NWP Model R&D and Transition

The Contractor shall perform mesoscale NWP R&D to assist NRL in reaching its mesoscale NWP project objectives.

3.3.1 Coupled Model R&D.

3.3.1.1 The Contractor shall perform R&D for 3-way atmosphere-ocean-wave coupling capability.

3.3.1.2 The Contractor shall test and evaluate implementation of Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) model versus Wave Watch III in 3-way coupled system, to include: i) initialization, ii) lateral boundary condition update, and iii) optimization and efficiency.

3.3.1.3 The Contractor shall test and evaluate impact on coupling of lower atmosphere/upper ocean boundary-layer structure for long-term DA tests

3.3.1.4 The Contractor shall document the statistical significance of improvements of the coupled runs against un-coupled runs.

3.3.2 Microphysics Package R&D

3.3.2.1 The Contractor shall perform R&D for the improvement of microphysics packages.

3.3.2.1.1 The Contractor shall test and evaluate improvements to model boundary layer and surface physics, to include: i) new WRF packages, ii) new boundary layer mixing, and iii) new surface fluxes.

3.3.2.1.2 The Contractor shall evaluate, and document Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) and evaluate improvements to cumulus parameterization and microphysics to improve QPF performance.

3.3.3 COAMPS TC R&D

3.3.3.1 The Contractor shall perform R&D for the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) Tropical Cyclone (COAMPS-TC) capability.

3.3.3.2 The Contractor shall merge the current COAMPS-TC branch code with the main COAMPS code and perform benchmark tests.

3.3.3.3 The Contractor shall test new improvements to the DA (including radiance assimilation) and vortex initialization and evaluate the impact on tropical cyclones. These improvements may include synthetic observations, and related initialization methods.

3.3.3.4 The Contractor shall provide upgrades to the PBL for the COAMPS-TC.

3.3.3.5 The Contractor shall provide upgrades to the microphysics.

3.3.3.6 The Contractor shall provide diagnosis and evaluation of systematic errors for the TC seasons.

3.3.3.7 The Contractor shall evaluate the air-ocean coupled COAMPS-TC for retrospective cases. This task may require comparison to the uncoupled version for a homogeneous set of cases.

3.3.3.8 The Contractor shall prepare the new air-ocean coupled COAMPS-TC for transition to FNMOC.

3.3.3.9 The Contractor shall prepare COAMPS-TC to be code-compliant with FNMOC coding standards.

3.3.3.10 The Contractor shall perform real-time COAMPS-TC forecasts with the latest version.

3.3.3.11 The Contractor shall assist in field experiments to collect observations. This task may assist in the improvement of COAMPS-TC in both the physics parameterization area and validation of the predictions.

3.3.3.12 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities to follow-on versions of COAMPS, COAMPS-TC, coupled models, or other mesoscale models to increase computational efficiency and accuracy.

3.4 Global NWP Model Maintenance

The Contractor shall perform global NWP maintenance to assist NRL in reaching its global NWP project objectives. See Section 3.1 for list of items for which maintenance may be required.

3.5 Mesoscale NWP Model Maintenance

The Contractor shall perform mesoscale NWP maintenance to assist NRL in reaching its mesoscale NWP project objectives. See Section 3.3 2 for list of items for which maintenance may be required.

3.6 Meteorological Research Support

The Contractor shall perform Meteorological Research Support to assist NRL in reaching its project objectives across Sections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.

3.7 Global and Regional DA and Analysis R&D and Transition.

The Contractor shall develop numerical analysis and prediction techniques for both current and future DoW regional NWP systems.

3.7.1 Cycling DA R&D

3.7.1.1 The Contractor shall conduct research on physical parameterizations, advanced numerical techniques, land-surface modeling, and ensemble prediction systems (EPS).

3.7.1.2 The Contractor shall conduct global and regional retrospective real-time tests for NAVGEM, NEPTUNE, or other global models and DA systems on DSRC hardware; and local and cloud-based HPC platforms.

3.7.1.3 The Contractor shall develop code and scripts to enable and optimize the coupling and running of the ESPC or other global coupled system DA and ensemble forecast systems in deterministic or probabilistic modes.

3.7.1.4 The Contractor shall develop and improve the code and scripts for COAMPS or other regional model EPS.

3.7.1.5 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to plan, lead, and execute field experiments to collect atmospheric and oceanic observations.

3.7.1.6 The Contractor shall execute AI/ML-accelerated forecast models in conjunction with a cycling DA system to compare with traditional NWP models.

3.7.1.7 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities to R&D on physical parameterizations, advanced numerical techniques, land-surface modeling, and EPS to increase computational efficiency and accuracy.

3.7.2 DA Methods R&D

3.7.2.1 The Contractor shall develop diagnostic observation QC software based on adjoint or statistical methods and tools to screen out bad observations and continually determine the error properties of the observations and NRL-developed forecast models.

3.7.2.2 The Contractor shall develop non-traditional DA tools compatible with the NRL Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System (NAVDAS) – Advanced Representer (NAVDAS-AR), or other advanced DA systems.

3.7.2.3 The Contractor shall develop system software to analyze and assimilate atmospheric data from selected satellites into NWP models (CDRL A003). The Contractor shall develop tools to detect attempts to manipulate atmospheric data (CDRL A003).

3.7.2.4 The Contractor shall develop tools to assimilate temperature, wind, and humidity information gathered in denied areas into global and mesoscale NWP models. Other potential data sources include but are not limited to 1) high altitude airships; 2) water vapor lidar; 3) zero-pressure balloons; 4) a stratospheric constellation of super-pressure balloons; and 5) unmanned airborne systems (drones).

3.7.2.5 The Contractor shall develop a new DA system using a collection of flexible-state estimation techniques using ensemble forecasts to estimate flow-dependent background error covariance or other probabilistic aspects of the background forecast, such as the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF).

3.7.2.6 The Contractor shall develop a DA scheme to assimilate both atmospheric and oceanic observations, including satellite observations of wave height.

3.7.2.7 The Contractor shall develop satellite DA capabilities for observations from various satellite sensors; including, but not limited to, radiances from visible, infra-red (IR) and microwave (MW) radiometers, radio occultation profiles and reflectivity from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS-RO and GNSS-R), ozone and aerosol measurements, atmospheric motion vector (AMV) and ocean surface winds, and cloud properties.

3.7.2.8 The Contractor shall develop a radar DA capability that assimilates data from shipboard and land-based Navy and DoW tactical radars into NWP models.

3.7.2.9 The Contractor shall develop coupled DA methods for an atmosphere-ocean-ice-wave-land coupled system.

3.7.2.10 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to design and develop data processing, quality control, observation operator and diagnostic components of current and planned DA system.

3.7.2.11 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to research, test, and validate AI/ML-based methods of DA for comparison with traditional DA methods.

3.7.2.12 The Contractor shall test new DA and vortex initialization improvements in global and mesoscale models and evaluate their impact on Tropical Cyclones (TC).

3.7.2.13 The Contractor shall test new DA methods and other community infrastructure made available via the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA)’s Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) system.

3.7.2.14 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities to increase the computational efficiency and accuracy of existing or future DA systems.

3.7.3 Calibration & Validation (Cal/Val)

3.7.3.1 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD in performing pre-launch system engineering and post-launch Cal/Val on MW data received from DoW MW sensors, including the Special Sensor Microwave Imager and Sounders (SSM/I and SSMIS), the Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer (COWVR) and other MW satellite sensors. This includes satellite raw data records (RDR), antenna temperature records (TDR), sensor data records (SDR), and derived environmental and sounding data records (engineering data records (EDR), lower atmospheric sounding (LAS), and upper air sounding (UAS)) calibration, validation, forward model development, and algorithm improvement.

3.7.3.2 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to monitor and maintain DoW MW sensors including the SSM/I, SSMIS, COWVR, Weather System Follow-on-Microwave (WSF-M), and other satellite data, developing QC procedures. Conduct continuous long-term near real-time system monitoring of TDRs, SDRs and EDRs to ensure data remains within required accuracy parameters and does not negatively impact NWP model accuracy.

3.7.3.3 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD in assessing the value of DoW MW sensors to specific DoW missions.

3.7.4 Transition to Operations

The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to transition global and mesoscale NWP models and global and mesoscale coupled models and DA systems (including, but not limited to, atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, land surface, and wave components) to operations at Navy METOC production centers. Perform configuration management, workflow management, development of manuals and documentation, development of training material, and technical support for operations tests and evaluations.

3.7.5 HPC Software Application R&D.

3.7.5.1 The Contractor shall develop flexible best practices for real-time data transfer of METOC observations and post processing of data staging strategies to maximize HPC-compute cycles. The Contractor shall provide technical support to maintain and troubleshoot HPC capability using commercial cloud architectures

3.7.5.2 The Contractor shall develop Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) web services to ingest and distribute METOC data to DoW and NIC organizations, to transfer classified data archives between data source providers, and to monitor and repair data feeds and software systems as needed (CDRL A003).

3.7.5.3 The Contractor shall develop flexible computing and network architectures to implement and test global and other DA systems at remote DSRC and HPC centers.

3.7.6 Reanalysis and Dataset Generation

3.7.6.1 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to develop, maintain, and catalogue global and regional model reanalysis capabilities.

3.7.6.2 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to develop and maintain a COAMPS On-Demand System (COAMPS-OS) Reanalysis capability to run 10-, 15-, 20-, and 30-year reanalyses using the best available boundary conditions, assimilation techniques, and run processes on NIPRNET and SIPRNET.

3.7.7 Project Management

The Contractor shall report financial and labor status monthly (CDRL A001) and technical progress (CDRL A002) and shall coordinate work into the overall NRL MMD RTD&E roadmap.

3.8 Data Science R&D and Transition

3.8.1 Diagnostics, Verification, and Post-Processing

3.8.1.1 The Contractor shall develop code and scripts for NAVGEM, NEPTUNE, or other global deterministic and/or probabilistic forecast systems to perform post-processing to improve model predictive skill.

3.8.1.2 The Contractor shall develop improved diagnostic software to analyze NAVGEM, NEPTUNE, or other global model’s errors in terms of regional and synoptic situations, and through energy budget, vorticity budget and wave spectrum analysis (CDRL A003).

3.8.1.3 The Contractor shall develop code and scripts for the validation and verification (V&V) of the Navy ESPC or other global coupled system deterministic and ensemble systems.

3.8.1.4 The Contractor shall develop V&V metrics to evaluate the quality of COAMPS or other mesoscale NWP model forecasts.

3.8.1.5 The Contractor shall develop methods to assess the impact of COAMPS or other mesoscale NWP model forecasts on DoW missions.

3.8.1.6 The Contractor shall evaluate and document COAMPS or other mesoscale model Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPF) and evaluate improvements to cumulus parameterization and microphysics to improve QPF performance.

3.8.1.7 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities in the Diagnostics, Verification, and Post-Processing processes to increase computational efficiency and accuracy.

3.9 Tactical Operational User Support Products Production and Distribution

3.9.1 NWP Products

3.9.1.1 The Contractor shall develop code and scripts to produce tactically relevant decision support products for Navy and Marine Corps to use from global and mesoscale deterministic and coupled systems.

3.9.1.2 The Contractor shall employ METOC parameters critical to Navy, DoW and NIC missions and develop algorithms to translate COAMPS-OS prognostic fields into strategic, operational, and tactically relevant parameters.

3.9.1.3 The Contractor shall develop, test, improve, and verify algorithms to calculate sensible weather and derive environmental parameters from model output such as those related to EM, EO, and radar QC and processing that are relevant to DoW operating forces and the NIC to provide real- time actionable weather information directly to the warfighters.

3.9.1.4 The Contractor shall develop classified and unclassified COAMPS-OS enhancement capabilities for forward deployed operators. The Contractor shall implement COAMPS-OS model algorithms and format output from the algorithms to be ingested into DoW tactical decision aids (TDA).

3.9.1.5 The Contractor shall develop, test, and maintain enhanced versions of COAMPS-OS or other NWP modeling system interfaces incorporating improvements in data processing, modeling, ensemble forecasting and post-processing, DA, scripting, visualization, user interfaces, client-server processing, data distribution, security, web, and geospatial services.

3.9.1.6 The Contractor shall evaluate the skill and efficiency of NRL MMD-developed decision tools (such as ship routing) and provide reports and feedback to drive application improvement.

3.9.1.7 The Contractor shall provide project management for ship routing research projects.

3.10 Observation Products

3.10.1 The Contractor shall develop satellite data fusion applications products to support NRL Satellite Tactical Application project objectives. The Contractor shall conduct research related to GeoIPS or other systems that could include data manipulation and fusion, digital image analysis, algorithm development, system design, and fusion of satellite data with other types of environmental data.

3.10.2 The Contractor shall develop relevant support products using data from various satellite platforms and their sensors to provide timely, operationally relevant “value added” products to the Navy, DoW, and NIC.

3.10.3 The Contractor shall adapt large-scale unclassified meteorological satellite imagery into situational awareness tools to improve the collection and analysis of classified imagery to support Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) collection missions.

3.10.4 The Contractor shall develop a suite of near real-time operational and tactical-scale imagery products on SIPRNET that overlay specific meteorological hazards on operational and intelligence products.

3.10.5 The Contractor shall develop tools and techniques to ingest data from new satellite sensors.

3.10.6 The Contractor shall use new and innovative “value added” products fusing multiple datasets such as satellite, surface observations, ship and land-based radar data and NWP model output data; and provide training in their use.

3.10.7 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities to increase the data accuracy of existing or future observational products.

3.11 Tactical Products

The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to develop new tactical support products, such as new severe weather guidance, new climatological analyses, and utilities for understanding NWP products, in line with the overall NRL MMD RTD&E roadmap.

3.12 Global and Mesoscale DA and Analysis Maintenance.

The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to maintain global and mesoscale DA systems and associated scripts and workflows that have been transitioned to operations at Navy METOC production centers and any other site, including optimization, debugging, monitoring, calculation and analysis of skill metrics, efficiency improvements, and updates of manuals and training material See Section 3.7 for list of items for which maintenance may be required.

3.13 Data Science Products, Distribution, and Maintenance

3.13.1 Impact Assessment.

The Contractor shall catalogue METOC datasets and make them available to operational forces to support decision making guidance.

3.13.2 The Contractor shall support the development of tools and techniques for evaluating the impact of METOC datasets on decisions and DoW missions.

3.14 Design, Transition, and Maintenance of Utilities for Exploiting NWP Data.

3.14.1 The Contractor shall develop tools to improve model forecast skill through:

1) stochastic prediction and post-model processing,

2) Multi-model ensembles, and

3) multi-scale seamless prediction.

3.14.2 The Contractor shall develop, transition, and maintain utilities and methods to improve user understanding of classified NWP products, NWP model output, and their applications to evolving and legacy forecast issues.

3.14.3 The Contractor shall develop, transition, and maintain utilities that convert the raw NWP output into formats required by end users such as input into TDAs or human readable tables of observational and forecast data.

3.14.4 The Contractor shall develop documentation for end users to ensure the correct interpretation and application of NWP data.

3.14.5 The Contractor shall develop software and algorithms and provide operationally relevant derived products to assess and predict the environmental effects on electro-optical (EO) and electromagnetic (EM) propagation (CDRL A003).

3.14.6 The Contractor shall apply emerging Quantum Computing and Quantum Sensing capabilities to increase the computational efficiency and accuracy of existing or future Data Science products.

3.15 Design, Transition, and Maintenance of Data Visualization Tools.

3.15.1 The Contractor shall develop advanced environmental visualization tools to enable forecasters to employ high-resolution METOC data to create tailored products to support mission planning and execution in accordance with the Commander Naval METOC Command (COMNAVMETOCCOM) Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation & Analysis, Dissemination (TCPED) concept.

3.15.2 The Contractor shall develop tactically relevant METOC TCPED Exploitation and Analysis visualization products to support ISR, surface warfare, air warfare, Strike Warfare (STW), Naval Special Warfare (NSW), Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW), and Expeditionary Warfare (EXW) and other warfare operations.

3.15.3 The Contractor shall assist NRL MMD to implement and maintain the utilities used to view and understand tailored NWP products and TDAs at selected Navy METOC facilities and production centers.

3.15.4 The Contractor shall develop, test, and deploy visualization tools and libraries for displaying output from NRL global and regional forecast modeling systems.

3.16 Tactical Operational User Support Products Production, Distribution, and Maintenance.

3.16.1 The Contractor shall produce, distribute and maintain Tactical and Operational User Support Products to increase the understanding by DoW operating forces of the effects of severe weather on operations, and to identify measures to mitigate operational risk.

3.16.2 The Contractor shall make all User Support Product information available and suitable for hosting on Navy, DoW, and NIC unclassified and/or secure networks.

3.17 Prediction System Research and Development

3.17.1 Under NRL’s technical direction, the Contractor shall perform basic and applied research in fields including but not limited to coupled atmospheric-oceanic sciences, ionospheric physics, optimization, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

3.17.2 The Contractor shall conduct basic research in areas such as Aerosol prediction, tropical cyclone characterization, instrument calibration, aerosol transport, planetary boundary layer physics, and research into middle-atmospheric phenomena and space weather impacts on Navy and DoD systems.

3.17.3 The Contractor shall support the development and implementation of authoritative physics-based models (e.g., NAAPS physics within COAMPS® and/or NEPTUNE), which provide the ground truth for the hybrid modeling enterprise, and shall evaluate model performance by collecting and analyzing observations.

3.18 Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Development

3.18.1 The Contractor shall research, develop, and apply AI/ML techniques to enhance environmental prediction. This includes leveraging existing assets like GeoIPS for data fusion and preparation, NAAPS reanalysis data for training, and running inference on COAMPS-OS and tactical-scale NEPTUNE model outputs to create rapid, tactical-edge predictive capabilities.

3.18.2 The Contractor shall support the transition of developed software to operational customers, including configuration management, documentation, training, and support for operational tests (CDRL A003).

3.19 Tactical-Scale Environmental Forecasting and Warfighter Research and Development

3.19.1 Under NRL’s technical direction, the Contractor shall develop functions and routines for the Navy's core tactical prediction and data fusion systems, including COAMPS-OS, GeoIPS, and the emerging NEPTUNE model framework, with a focus on enabling on-demand meteorological products that provide critical inputs for kill-chain awareness.

3.19.2 Validation and Verification: The Contractor shall conduct research to better predict atmosphere-ocean-ionosphere interactions, run coupled models in various scenarios to verify results against observations, and transition robust model routines for operational use.

3.19.3 Tactical Scale Operations: The Contractor shall develop methods for ingesting new data types (e.g., radar, UAS), create decision-centric visualizations that depict actionable warfighter impacts, and apply model outputs to TDAs that predict environmental influence, contributing directly to Electro-Magnetic Spectrum Dominance.

3.19.4 Observation Products & Data Fusion: The Contractor shall develop satellite data fusion applications within GeoIPS, the Navy's agile integration framework, creating value-added products that fuse satellite, radar, and NWP model data to provide timely intelligence and improve ISR collection missions.

3.20 Decision-Centric Intelligence & TDA Development

3.20.1 Under NRL’s technical direction, the Contractor shall develop and support applications that "Weaponize METOC Effects" by creating decision-centric intelligence that provides real-time kill-chain awareness for the warfighter.

3.20.1.1 The Contractor shall develop and support METOC integration within Tier 2 and Tier 3 applications, including EM, EO, acoustic, and Directed Energy systems, to support the warfighter decision-making process.

3.20.1.2 The Contractor shall provide data collection, analysis, and programming for applications that fuse METOC data with intelligence information and develop routing applications for wind, waves, and currents.

3.20.1.3 The Contractor shall develop and test AI/ML and optimization applications that leverage GeoIPS, NAAPS, and COAMPS-OS outputs to generate tactically relevant intelligence at the tactical edge, especially in degraded or denied communication environments.

3.21 Research Coordination and IT Tasks

3.21.1 Research Coordination: The Contractor shall coordinate all meteorological and oceanographic development software components within their tasks, prepare necessary documentation, and contribute to a shared knowledge base (CDRL A003). The Contractor shall prepare and submit a Monthly Financial and Labor Report in accordance with CDRL A001. The Contractor shall prepare and submit a Progress Report in accordance with CDRL A002. The Contractor shall prepare and submit a Final Report summarizing work performed, results, software and data delivered, and recommendations, in accordance with CDRL A004.

3.21.2 Research IT Tasks: The Contractor shall provide IT assistance in a highly complex, hybrid on-premises and cloud-based network environment. This includes troubleshooting, hardware/software installation, policy compliance monitoring, and providing technical analysis and recommendations for complex software and hardware. The Contractor shall provide expertise in programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, FORTRAN, C++), modern web frameworks (e.g., Flask, React), containerization technologies (e.g., Docker), and modern software development and DevSecOps tools (e.g., Jira, GitLab, CI/CD pipeline tools) (CDRL A003).

3.21.3 Procurements to Support R&D: The Contractor may be required to purchase equipment and supplies to support research activities, with all procurements being 'necessary and reasonable' and pre-approved by the NRL MMD program manager, subject to an annual cap.

Section 4 – Period of Performance This IDIQ will contain a five-year ordering period. Task Orders will be subsequently issued during the 5-year ordering period.

Section 5 - Deliverables

Section 6 – Data Rights

6.1 The Contractor shall deliver all technical data, computer software, computer software documentation, source code, object code, scripts, models, algorithms, tools, reports, and other products first produced, developed, generated, or modified under this contract with unlimited rights to the Government, unless a restriction is specifically identified and asserted in accordance with DFARS 252.227-7997 I and approved in writing by the Contracting Officer prior to use.

6.2 Software and related documentation first developed or modified under this contract shall be developed exclusively at Government expense. The Government shall have unlimited rights in such noncommercial computer software and computer software documentation as defined in 252.227-7989 ALT I. Technical data first produced or modified under this contract shall be delivered with unlimited rights as defined in 252.227-7989 ALT I.

Section 7 – Government Furnished Property

Government furnished property will not be issued under any Task Orders of this IDIQ.

Section 8 - Security

8.1 Facility Security requirements are in accordance with DD Form 254.

8.2 Personnel Security Requirements. Attachment 2 Personnel Qualifications identifies the security clearance levels per labor category.

8.2.1 Contractor personnel assigned to this contract who require Top Secret/SCI access must have a favorably adjudicated DoD Tier 5 investigation; a final Top Secret/SCI security clearance, with eligibility of SCI prior to submission.

8.2.2 Contractor personnel assigned to this contract who require Top Secret access must have a favorably adjudicated DoD Tier 5 investigation; a final Top Secret security clearance prior to submission. Contractor personnel, who require access to secret information, must have a favorably completed Tier 3 investigation and a final secret clearance prior to submission.

8.2.3 Contract Facility Security Officers (FSOs), and/or NRL Contracting Officer Representatives (COR), are required to report any derogatory information regarding a Contractor holding an interim Secret clearance immediately to Code 1230, either on, or off-site. FSOs and NRL CORs shall also notify Code 1230 when a Contractor’s interim or final clearance has been declined or revoked.

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