NAMS-2 PWS DRAFT for SS Release.pdf

NASA Academic Mission Services - 2 (NAMS-2) Performance Work Statement (PWS)

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NASA Academic Mission Services - 2 (NAMS-2) Performance Work Statement (PWS)

Table of Contents 1 Introduction

2 Scope of Work

3 Academic Methods

4 Core Requirements

4.1 Core Management

4.1.1 Contract Management

4.1.2 Contract Task Order Administration

4.1.3 Contract Reporting

4.1.4 Contract Compliance, Quality Assurance, and Workforce Qualifications

4.1.5 Training

4.1.6 Travel

4.1.7 Resource Scheduling

4.1.8 Resource Acquisition

4.1.9 Health, Safety and Environmental Policies

4.1.10 Risk Management

4.1.11 Government Property Management

4.2 Core Technology Area: Air Traffic Management Research (ATM)

4.2.1 ATM research on Urban Air Mobiliy (UAM) Airspace

4.2.2 ATM research for Autonomous Piloted Aircraft Operations

4.2.3 ATM research for a more collaborative traffic management

4.2.4 ATM research for the development of a digital transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS)

5 Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Requirements

5.1 ATM Research Safety and Mission Assurance

5.2 Advanced Technological Systems (ATS)

5.3 Nanoelectronics and Devices

5.4 Advanced Software for Digital Twin Systems

5.5 Quantum Computing Technology

5.6 Secure Airspace Architectures

5.7 Machine Learning and Data Mining

5.8 AAM National Campaign

6 Phase-In and Phase-Out

6.1 Phase-In

6.2 Phase-Out

7 Appendix

7.1 Acronyms

7.2 Applicable Documents

1 Introduction NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) has a primary focus on research and development (R&D) including fundamental scientific research, concept development, prototype testing, and new technology creation. The research supports ARC’s mission and NASA’s overall goals in aeronautics, science, space technology and human exploration.

ARC performs R&D in support of NASA missions in collaboration with other NASA centers, academia, other federal organizations, not-for-profit organizations, and industry partners. Many of ARC’s projects span multiple technological and scientific disciplines. The success of NASA and ARC missions demands leading edge technical and research expertise from both student and faculty researchers. ARC is a leader within the agency in forming and nurturing innovative partnerships to further these missions.

NASA Academic Mission Services-2 (NAMS-2) will provide ARC with capabilities to fulfill mission requirements from fundamental R&D through field-test deployments and operational missions via academic or university-based project support for science and engineering teams at ARC. NAMS-2 includes a broad scope of research, including the development of new and emerging capabilities and technologies.

2 Scope of Work This Performance Work Statement (PWS) describes the contractual requirements and associated support to enable academic and technical activities at ARC. The services available under this contract can be provided to any NASA ARC customer as approved by the Contracting Officer (CO) if it is in the best interest of the Government. These services may also be provided to other NASA Centers and Government agencies to support project or mission objectives.

The PWS describes the requirement to provide research support to the Aeronautics Directorate and the Exploration Technology Directorate at NASA ARC. The work to be performed by the Contractor includes scientific research associated with air traffic management, advance technology, nanoelectronics, and prototype software. The purpose of the contract is to meet NASA aeronautics and technology mission objectives through collaboration with academic organizations, particularly the improvement of aircraft and airspace safety, as well as the transition of advanced aeronautics technologies into future air vehicles. The success of these activities at ARC depends on the successful completion of the work described in this PWS.

The Contractor shall, except as otherwise specified, furnish all personnel, training, and management to perform the requirements in this PWS.

3 Academic Methods The Contractor shall provide technical inputs, key findings, trends, and approaches from academia and industry. The Contractor shall provide NASA with expertise in key technical disciplines and enable students from diverse and varied academic environments to support NASA R&D and to provide training and exposure of a potential future workforce to NASA R&D in specific technical areas.

The Contractor shall perform R&D efforts through conducting laboratory and field-based experiments, performing data analysis, and reporting results. The specific approaches to develop and enhance NASA technology areas with significant academic and industry contribution are expected to be achieved via the following methods: Academic Studies and Reviews, Future Workforce Training and Expert Instruction. In all of the technical work described in Section 4.2 and Section 5, the Contractor shall provide support in at least one or more of the following methods:

Method 1: Academic Studies and Reviews The Contractor shall provide the expertise to the NASA R&D team from academic and experts in appropriate technical disciplines (e.g., all forms of engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and human-computer interaction) to provide analysis of selected areas of NASA’s R&D objectives. The Contractor shall summarize the latest technical and R&D methods and approaches, and data sources, as appropriate, based on academic expertise and the latest findings from the technical community. The summaries will be documented in the form of presentations, briefings, papers, or face-to-face/virtual conversations. The Contractor shall:

• Provide literature review and analysis of the relevant technical discipline areas and summarize the latest findings from academia and industry; to include past, relevant findings in the technical area and applicability of relevant findings to NASA’s R&D objectives.

• Conduct quantitative studies, such as trade studies, or limited or extensive experimental investigations, literature reviews, or surveys of the technical community, as appropriate, to evaluate relative merits of possible methods and R&D objectives.

Method 2: Future Workforce Training NASA seeks to develop a future workforce that is well-versed in the technical areas that support its missions. Meaningful technical assignments that support NASA programs, which employ students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines will further NASA’s R&D goals and missions, as well as provide practical training opportunities. Successful matching of technical assignments to a diverse student workforce will provide NASA with a high-quality candidate pool for future employment. The Contractor shall recruit students as workforce from academic institutions and will target minority-serving institutions and under-represented populations to create a diversified workforce. The Contractor shall:

• Identify university research talent at all levels – undergraduate, graduate, early career, and faculty – to perform technical tasks supporting NASA’s R&D and thereby advance NASA’s mission.

• Incorporate students and laboratories from a range of academic areas and educational institutions to support research areas of this contract.

• Collaborate with universities to develop a custom NASA curriculum relevant to aeronautics and exploration technology, for future workforce training programs.

Method 3: Expert Instruction Academic experts possess expertise in cutting edge fields that NASA may have not yet adopted in solving mission challenges. The goal of Expert Instruction is to provide the workforce with training and increase expertise in response to major technology trends and promising applications. The Contractor shall:

• Partner with local and national universities to design and implement advanced technological training courses (short course or degree-specific) that integrate NASA capabilities with new technology trends typically outside NASA’s traditional R&D expertise, to allow NASA staff to acquire the necessary skillset for future R&D in integrated airspace operations and field demonstrations. As background, many advances in R&D involve the integration of methods and principles from other areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, that were once considered a separate and unrelated discipline. For example, technical areas such as machine learning, data science, artificial intelligence, edge computing, uncertainty quantification, and neural net technologies, were once unknown and not used in traditional NASA aeronautics R&D, and can now be applied to air traffic management, integrated systems analysis, human-autonomy teaming, and secured airspace.

• Provide instruction from academic institutions as a collaborative means to tutor, mentor, guide, and teach NASA staff on the novel or interdisciplinary R&D and technologies that show promise to grow NASA R&D in aeronautics and exploration technology.

• Provide individual technical mentors for NASA staff, to instruct on cutting-edge methods, theories, approaches, or systems, that are needed to advance NASA R&D in aeronautics and exploration technology.

4 Core Requirements The requirements of this contract include core management and core academic support. The Contractor shall meet the requirements specified in this PWS in conformance with industry standards, equipment manufacturers’ recommendations, and all applicable federal, NASA, state, and local requirements, policies, and procedures (e.g., Ames Quality Management System - AQMS).

4.1 Core Management

The Contract shall comply with all the terms and conditions set forth in this contract and provide overall management and administrative functions to ensure that the proper resources are available and allocated to complete all contractual requirements; that required reports and documentation are prepared; and that the overall environment supports the research requirements for the entire performance period of the contract.

4.1.1 Contract Management

The purpose of Contract Management and Administration is to ensure that the following requirements are effectively managed and implemented to support all activities covered in this PWS. These required services include, but are not limited to: Resource Scheduling, Property Management, Procurement, Health, Safety, Environmental, Mission Assurance, Training, Contract Reporting, and Configuration Management.

The Contractor shall provide all management and administrative functions to ensure that proper resources are available and allocated, that required reports and documentation are prepared, and that the overall environment supports the Testing and Facilities Operations and maintenance requirements. The Contractor shall:

• Manage the contract in a fiscally responsible manner fulfilling all requirements.

• Provide a well-defined, stable organizational structure with clear lines of authority and clearly identified interfaces for the Government.

• Provide staff with required initial and routine medical exams as required by applicable Health and Safety standards.

• Provide staff with the required training in safety, engineering, and information technologies.

• Comply with all applicable NASA policies and procedures.

• Manage the resources allocated by NASA for specific tasks in a manner to ensure objectives are reached in accordance with established milestones.

• Provide a monthly report of the state of all tasks; identifying accomplishments, publications, deliverables, and major milestones reached, as well as problems and concerns over issues that may affect contract performance and recommended solutions.

• Provide property management to ensure accountability for annual inventory surveys and accountability verification forms.

• Provide risk management activities that will be used to ensure that Government has adequate insight into the risks associated with the Contractor’s ability to accomplish required work.

Requirements for services to be performed beyond the normal work schedule will be coordinated between the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), the CO, and the Contractor prior to their performance. This applies to work performed under both Core and IDIQ task orders.

4.1.2 Contract Task Order Administration

The Contractor shall respond to all Contract Task Orders (CTO) (approximately 15-20 annually) as required in NFS 1852.216-80 Task Order Procedure and shall report Task Order financial and technical performance, as required.

4.1.3 Contract Reporting

The Contractor shall deliver all reports in accordance with Section J.1 (a) X, Data Requirements Description (DRD), of this contract. These reports shall be current, accurate, and complete. The DRDs contain the applicable PWS section and shall be priced and delivered accordingly.

4.1.4 Contract Compliance, Quality Assurance, and Workforce Qualifications The Contractor shall provide procedures and management supervision to ensure compliance with applicable Government policies, regulations, and contractual requirements, including all applicable NASA Policy Directives (NPDs), NASA Procedural Requirements (NPRs), NASA Information Technology Security Handbooks (ITS-HBKs), NASA Technical Standards, Ames Policy Directives (APDs), and Ames Procedural Requirements (APRs), in their entirety. Those applicable documents are listed in the relevant sections that follow.

Successful contract performance requires a commitment to follow and comply with all written NASA Quality Assurance requirements in Section 6.2, Applicable Documents for NASA ARC and the Agency by the Contractor.

All software development for the sections on Core and IDIQ shall be conducted in accordance with NASA NPR 7150.2C for Software Engineering and NASA STD 8739.8 for Software Assurance. The rigor of development depends on the software classification as defined in 7150.2C. Each sub-project may have a different classification overall or among its software components. Generally, the software is assessed as Class D, with a few cases of Class C. The Division provides plans for Software Development and Software Assurance that must be adapted for each sub-project.

In order to meet the above NASA software standards, NASA has implemented processes around the Atlassian suite of software development tools. The Atlassian tools hosted by NASA include:

Confluence, JIRA, Agile, FishEye/Crucible, Stash, and Bamboo. A variety of software languages (e.g., C, C++, Python, Python data science packages, Java, LISP, MATLAB, SQL, Plotly/Dash, FishEye/Crucible, Stash, Bamboo, Shell Scripting, MySQL, JIRA, Confluence and Simulink) on a variety of platforms (e.g., Linux, OS-X, Windows, and VxWorks) are anticipated. Application frameworks include Eclipse, Spring, Atlassian tools, Jenkins, GitHub, and HTMLx.

4.1.5 Training

The Contractor shall provide a management structure to effectively manage a qualified professional and technical workforce engaged in a wide range of research and development (R&D) support services. The Contractor shall have the organizational structure, internal procedures, and administrative support to effectively manage the work performed under this contract. The Contractor shall provide any necessary secretarial and financial services for their employees, as well as all training required to perform work under this contract. The Government will not provide any such support services or training. All contractor personnel shall have required certification and skills to perform the tasks they are assigned to without further training provided by the Government.

4.1.6 Travel

Contractor personnel may be required to travel for short periods of time to attend planning meetings, participate in industry site visits, attend technical conferences, or support requesting organizations.

For any foreign program travel related to this contract, the Contractor shall comply with NPR 9710.1, chapter 7 entitled Foreign Travel, and with NFS 1852.242-71, Travel outside of the United States. The Contractor shall submit all foreign travel requests to the cognizant ARC Foreign Travel Coordinator for review/approval a minimum of four weeks before the planned departure date, so that an electronic country clearance (eCC) can be obtained. The applicable program, project, agreement, or contract should be referenced in the supporting documentation included with the request. Prior to commencing any official program foreign travel, Contractor employees shall also have successfully completed High Threat Security Overseas Training described in section 7.2 of NPR 9710.1. Comply with to NPR 1660.1, NASA Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism, NPR 9710.1, General Travel Requirements, and High Threat Security Overseas Seminar (HTSOS) training requirements.

4.1.7 Resource Scheduling

The Contractor shall maintain an operation and maintenance schedule of resources (e.g., labor, equipment, facilities) that are allocated for activities performed under this contract.

4.1.8 Resource Acquisition

The Contractor shall acquire resources not otherwise provided by the requesting organization (e.g., staff, equipment, supplies, software) as needed to support the successful completion of all requirements under this contract. The Contractor shall procure services, consumables, equipment, tools, and parts, such that they meet stated specifications and are available when required for contract performance, in accordance with:

• Applicable Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and applicable NASA FAR Supplement clauses

• Contract clause requirements (not covered in the FAR or NFS)

• Subcontracting Plan Goals

• NPR 7120.5, NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements

• ARC clause 52.230-90

4.1.9 Health, Safety and Environmental Policies

The Contractor shall comply with the health and safety requirements contained in APR

8715.1 (Ames Health and Safety Procedural Requirements), the system safety and mission assurance requirements in NPR 7120.8 (NASA Research and Technology Program and Project Management Requirements), and the environmental policies and procedures contained in NPD 8500.1 (NASA Environmental Management). The Contractor shall provide a Safety and Health plan as required by DRD No. 10 - No.12 and No.21.

The Contractor shall ensure compliance with applicable safety and environmental regulations for all performance under this contract in accordance with APR 8715.1, Ames Health and Safety Manual, NPR 8715.3, NASA General Safety Program Requirements and APR 8553.1, Ames Environmental Management Systems. The Contractor shall:

• Ensure all personnel receive job specific medical exams as required by current NASA, ARC, OSHA, EPA, and other applicable federal, state, and local regulatory agency standards.

• Ensure all personnel are trained in procedures, policies, and practices in accordance with current NASA, ARC, OSHA, EPA, and other applicable federal, state, and local regulatory agency standards.

• Ensure all operators of equipment that are required to be licensed or certified have current licenses/certifications.

• Participate in monthly NASA safety inspections and safety awareness training in accordance with Ames Safety Accountability Program (ASAP).

• Demonstrate commitment to continuous improvement in safety and health and communicates that commitment to workers.

• Ensure procedures are put in place to continually identify workplace hazards and evaluate risks.

• Ensure safety and health hazards from routine, non-routine, and emergency situations are identified and assessed.

• Perform an initial assessment of existing hazards, exposures, and control measures and follow on with periodic inspections and reassessments, to identify new hazards.

• Ensure that any incidents are investigated, and corrective action are implemented.

• Ensure managers, and supervisors receive training on safety concepts and their responsibility for protecting workers’ rights and responding to workers’ reports and concerns.

• Ensure all workers are trained to recognize workplace hazards and to understand the control measures that have been implemented.

4.1.10 Risk Management

The Contractor shall ensure that the CO and the COR have awareness and insight into all risks associated with the Contractor's ability to accomplish requirements. The Contractor shall include identification, assessment, prioritization, and mitigation of any risks within their Task Orders in accordance with NPR 8000.4B (Agency Risk Management Procedural Requirements).

4.1.11 Government Property Management

The Contractor will provide equipment and software unless other specified in the GFP list.

The Contractor shall follow NPR 4200.1H (NASA Equipment Management Procedural Requirements), APD 4200.2 (Equipment Management), and NASA FAR Supplement (NFS) clause 1852.241-1 (Installation Accountable Government Property) regarding assignment and movement of Government-owned equipment. The Contractor shall follow NPR 4300.1C (NASA Personal Property Disposal Procedural Requirements) regarding property disposal.

The Contractor shall provide information upon request for the following topics: Property Assignments, Property Location, Unused Equipment, and any required data needed for the NASA Property database (currently at https://equipment.nasa.gov).

The Government shall provide all on-site Contractors with computers and maintenance services for equipment requiring access to the NASA internet protocol (IP) space through the Agency’s enterprise provider or other CIO-approved IT equipment necessary to meet the requirements. Any on-site Contractor-provided equipment connected to the NASA IP space shall comply with NFS 1852.204-76, Security Requirements for Unclassified Information Technology Resources, NASA IT Security Handbook ITS-HBK 2810.02-05 (Security Assessment and Authorization External Systems-pending update), and as required by DRD No.13.

The Government may provide, or the Contractor may acquire property Government Furnished Property (GFP) or Contractor Acquired Property (CAP) that is not currently in the NASA Property database. The Contractor shall manage this property, as well as Installation- Accountable Government Property (IAGP), in accordance with NPR 4200.1H, NASA Equipment Management Procedural Requirements, and APD 4200.2, Equipment Management, Section H (Employees), or applicable requesting organization policy, to ensure accountability. The Contractor shall generate a NASA Form 1018, “NASA Property in the Custody of Contractors” report as stated in DRD No.15. The Contractor shall submit annually a NASA Form NF 1018 (NASA Property in the custody of Contractors) to the SEMO and Industrial Property Officer (IPO).

https://equipment.nasa.gov/

4.2 Core Technology Area: Air Traffic Management Research (ATM) Background: The following paragraphs provide a brief description of the work conducted in the current subprojects within the ATM research areas.

Within ATM research there is much work focused on Urban Air Mobility (UAM) which provides major contributions to the field of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and offers the goal of bringing the aviation community towards mature UAM operations in the NAS. The work on UAM operations research is focused on manned operations, developing a Concept of Operations (ConOps), and supporting the relevant flight tests and airspace infrastructure that demonstrate the potential benefit of AAM. The UAM research area will extend its scope to enabling medium complexity unmanned operations in urban environments flying at low altitudes (<5,000 ft), There will be a delivery of airspace management software tools in support of flight tests and will develop a roadmap describing the R&D required to deliver UAM airspace management for UAM Maturity Level 4 (UML-4) operations, and to complete major areas of research. There will also be research related to the development of airspace and flight operations around vertiports for the landing and takeoff of UAM vehicles. This effort will also develop and deliver the UML-2 Airspace Architecture requirements and guidance for standards development to stakeholders.

There is a body of work within the ATM research area which has the goal to partner with committed service suppliers for airlines in the development of a reference implementation of a digital information platform (DIP), built mostly by industry, with NASA and the FAA providing operational experience and expertise. This platform is the infrastructure that takes data from multiple sources and turns it into easy to use and accessible digital information for airspace services. Partnerships with potential service suppliers seek to test the reference DIP, collaborating with NASA, the FAA, and the airlines from the very beginning. Several evaluations are scheduled throughout the DIP lifecycle to demonstrate quantifiable benefits to the airlines and to new entrants. Technologies related to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) will be leveraged in the development of a reference implementation of this digital platform.

Another research area has the goal of enabling normalized operations of large remotely-piloted vehicles to increasingly-autonomous-piloted aircraft operations in the NAS. This work involves collaborating with industry and the FAA to develop a research roadmap and Concept of Operations (ConOps), and to identify future needs and technologies to enable the integration of increasingly autonomous operations in the NAS. A difference between these operations and UAM operations is that these vehicles can fly further than UAM vehicles and have pilots outside of the vehicle with operations outside of the urban area. NASA recently completed significant research in the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the NAS Project to reduce technical barriers associated with integrating UAS into the airspace system. Leveraging that research, this research on large remotely piloted vehicles will address significant additional barriers that remain toward enabling the routine access of UAS into the airspace system.

Some of the research in ATM will complete the technology transfer and industry standards development for an Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system that was substantially advanced in the UTM project. As an extension of UTM, these researchers will work with the FAA and with industry to enable a new traffic management system for High-E airspace, defined as High-E Traffic Management (ETM). In preparation for future research needs, the research will identify additional use cases supporting the integration of these novel operations with traditional ATC operations.

Scope Overview: The Contractor shall support NASA R&D in Air Traffic Management (ATM).

Areas of expertise relevant to this work include aeronautical engineering, modeling and simulation, artificial intelligence, operations research, software engineering, system engineering, electrical engineering, machine learning, and discrete and continuous control. The ATM work consists of research and software development.

The Contractor shall support ATM R&D, incorporating the expert guidance and relevant findings of academic and industry best practices and latest research results, and use the Methods/Approaches described above in section 3, to inform their direction and contribute to the achievement of the NASA R&D objectives. The Contractor shall support the objectives and missions of the ARMD project technology area, primarily supporting NASA researchers and engineers performing R&D. The Contractor shall support these ATM research projects, which are focused on enabling the safe and equitable use of airspace that can accommodate today’s commercial air transportation vehicles and small and large unmanned aircraft systems (UAS, or drones), as well as novel vehicles and airspace uses, such as space traffic management, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis, and autonomous cargo vehicles. The research is also focused on further researching, building and demonstrating NASA’s urban air mobility (UAM) concept, enabling software and system architectures modeled after NASA’s UAS traffic management (UTM) paradigm, and enabling the introduction of services responsible for (but not limited to) airspace resource scheduling, separation, conflict detection and resolution, integration of weather and noise predictions, and digital transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS). For the duration of this contract, some technical areas are anticipated to phase out and others will be initiated.

4.2.1 ATM research on Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Airspace

The Contractor Shall support NASA in developing and refining the UAM ConOps, conducting foundational UAM airspace research to define system requirements, and developing the UAM airspace system and running National Campaign (NC) simulations with partners. The specific activities to support concept development, proof-of-concept implementations, simulations, and flight test activities under this work are:

• Provide software development, V&V testing, and data analysis support to expand UAM capabilities for research. Includes analysis support for two to three UAM simulations on the conflict severity evaluation, flight performance models and separation service software and simulation tools

• Explore, through directed research, autonomous applications in air traffic management in an appropriate simulation platform; includes simulation and analysis of performance and uncertainty models

• Accelerate a UAM airspace system and services development by conducting two to three simulations in support of-related activities in the ATM UAM research area. Specifically, provide:

o Support for development of experiment tests, including experiment plans and test execution procedures o Software support for system development, services development, and integration with partners for simulations; includes integration of UAM core, airspace services, and safety density metric software o Support for software release and related documentation o Support simulation analysis and related documentation o Deliver final simulation NPSU, ANSP, DSS software to relevant research areas and projects o Perform data analysis of simulations by developing scripts and algorithms to derive data from UDC and data pipeline or raw data. Deliver final analysis report.

• Support research activities designed to determine requirements for the development of candidate set of airspace services

• Software development of candidate set of airspace services, including conflict management and scheduling services

• Coordinate and engage other relevant organizations at ARC as needed for feedback on the software management plan

• Collaborate with the project management team to define criteria for software that requires a 7150.2C compliance matrix

• Maintain the 7150.2C compliance matrix and expand to other software efforts as needed and complete 7150.2C Compliance Matrix Final Assessment for X4

• Oversee NASA-STD-8739.8A software assurance requirements and conduct preparatory work needed for an internal software assurance Audit No.1 and Audit No.2

4.2.2 ATM research for Autonomous Piloted Aircraft Operations The Contractor shall develop a technical Concept of Operations (ConOps) that incorporates the wide set of business interests and corresponding use cases. The ConOps will have the following characteristics:

o Inform common standards and requirements for industry o Address the main barriers of integrating operations into the National Airspace System

(NAS).

o Include identification of shortfalls, potential solutions, trade studies, and gap analyses for several key barriers and their interactions into the NAS.

o Support a gradual introduction of autonomous operations into the NAS with increasing levels of autonomy over time.

In support of the ConOps development, the Contractor shall:

• Define three to four in-depth research activities to alleviate key technical and procedural barriers to the integration of these operations into the NAS.

• Conduct two to three trade studies for alternative ConOps solutions based on data analysis and fast time simulation.

• Document results from trade studies and present at a technical meeting.

• Conduct a fast-time simulation study to investigate functional allocation methodology and airspace impacts of conducting remotely supervised operations with different ratios of operators to vehicles and separation delegation schemes. Evaluate functional allocation for the different ratios of operators

• Conduct a fast-time simulation study to investigate functional allocation and airspace impacts of merging and spacing remotely supervised operations in the arrival stream, with different ratios of operators to vehicles.

• Deliverables references: DRD No.2 thru 4, No.8, No.9, No.15, No.16, No.19, No.20, No.24 thru No.33, No.37 thru No.39

4.2.3 ATM research for a more collaborative traffic management The Contractor shall provide software team management to develop software using Agile software development principles. The Contractor Shall:

• Develop and manage the software requirements for the UTM software to meet the needs of researchers and project goals.

• Delegate responsibilities among the software team to build capabilities based on the UTM architecture, such as Flight Information Management System (FIMS), Discovery and Synchronization Service (DSS), UAS Service Supplier (USS), and APIs used for data exchange among them and the operators.

• Report software development progress and risks to the project lead and create a risk mitigation plan.

• Conduct research for different Air Traffic Management (ATM) architecture and concept alternatives that can support UTM-inspired principles.

• Develop UTM requirements that are applicable to Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM). These UTM requirements should have characteristics that can be readily used by ETM without any modifications

• Develop ETM (Upper Class E Airspace Traffic Management) requirements to address operators needs and constraints, including operational intent exchanges and operational intent conflict identification and notification. Initial requirements include all operations in the pre-departure stage (i.e., aircraft not airborne).

• Expand the ETM requirements to address situations where most operations are in pre-departure stage and a few are airborne

• Develop software requirements for an ETM operator client interface so that an operator can submit operational intent to the ETM system and receive notification from the ETM system, such as operational intent conflict

• Develop a set of services for ETM cooperative operations where ETM operators exchange information for safe and efficient use of the airspace, before aircraft are airborne.

• Expand the set of services for ETM cooperative operations to include airborne aircraft.

• Create an initial set of software requirements for an ETM service supplier interface to manage and monitor ETM services, such as operational intent conflict identification and notification process

• Develop an initial negotiation procedure to deconflict operational intent

• Provide research engineering support for developing and maturing concepts, such as

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) and ETM.

• Evaluate operational intent sizing method by defining the method use cases and identifying limitations.

• Define and implement a performance-based separation concept to account for diverse aircraft performance.

• Conduct one to two simulations to evaluate performance-based separation concept, which involves determining time and distance requirements for separation for a variety of aircraft types.

• Analyze results from simulation to mature the performance-based separation concept.

Deliverables references: DRD No.2 thru 4, No.8, No.9, No.15, No.16, No.19, No.20, No.24 thru No.33, No.37 thru No.39.

4.2.4 ATM research for the development of a digital transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS)

The Contractor shall provide software management and systems engineering support for the development of a digital transformation of the NAS. The Contractor shall:

• Collaborate with project management and software team to ensure adherence to Software Development plan.

• Implement software classification process and ensure that project software meets NASA’s software standard requirements, NPR 7150 and 8739

• Determine software requirements for Services, Data and Security

• Produce software and architecture design that meet software requirements

• Develop test strategy, unit tests, regression tests and test scenarios.

• Design data collection strategy and deployment strategy based on demo requirements.

• Develop plan for build, release, and deployment for software for collaboration demos

• Utilize agile software development principles to adapt to user requirements and improve the software based on user feedback.

• Develop Software Interface Control Document for Software.

• Manage and track software development tasks

• Lead development of architecture, services interfaces, data models, and data base schema

• Lead development of test scripts, deployment scripts and automated tests

• Perform testing, integration, and deployment tasks for collaboration demos

• Continue software planning and design for follow on demonstrations based on previous demo learnings and user input

• Summarize data collected from demonstrations using software.

The Contractor shall Provide software development and data analysis support for the development of a digital transformation of the NAS. The Contractor Shall:

• Develop Machine Learning (ML) reference implementations including taxi out and taxi in models

• Develop one or two real-time ML service self-scoring displays using Plotly/Dash

• Implement open-source ML service reference implementations on github via NASA open-source release process

• Document ML service reference implementations on github

• Develop and refine Machine Learning (ML) models for Collaborative Demo No.1

• Analyze ML models in production environments

• Compare ML models to the STBO model used at Dallas Fort Worth and Charlotte

Airport

• Investigate automated procedures to detect when a ML production model should be retrained

• Develop Machine Learning (ML) reference implementations including flight event predictions models

• Develop technical capabilities to create DIP platform and its APIs for web-based services with AWS

• Support Sustainable Aviation services and Partners Services demos, including partner engagement, stakeholder feedback, training, field support, demo readiness, and tech transfer

• Perform operational benefits analysis of ML-based services

• Develop analysis tools and scripts for Measures of Performance (MOPs) and other research and operational metrics

• Design and develop enhancements to ATD-2 inherited services to support Trajectory

Option Set (TOS)

• Design and train one or two machine-learning based techniques for TOS-related microservices; apply advanced techniques to aviation data to enhance and train data models

• Develop enhancements and bug fixes to TOS Scheduler for NTX and more complex airspace

• Deliverables references: DRD No.2 thru 4, No.8, No.9, No.15, No.16, No.19, No.20, No.24 thru No.33, No.37 thru No.39

4.2.5 ATM Deliverables

ATM UAM Airspace (PWS 5.2.1)

Contractor Deliverable Due Date Source code and Document: Complete critical simulation 03/30/2023 Document: PSU Network Evals with Industry 09/29/2023 Document: Airspace UML-2 Demonstration with Industry at FAA's WJHTC 09/30/2024 Document: Complete critical Simulation 02/03/2025

ATM Autonomous Piloted Aircraft Operations (PWS 5.2.2)

Contractor Deliverable Due Date Document: Complete Integrated Simulation(s) (to validate Epoch 1 ConOps)

09/11/2023

Document: Complete Trade Studies for Epoch 2Second ConOps 09/15/2023 Document: Generate First Demonstration Report 12/18/2023 Document: Complete Gap Analysis for Epoch 2Second ConOps 01/30/2024 Document: Complete objectives and research requirements for Flight Demonstration #2

09/16/2024

Document: Joint concept for digital negotiations of UAS Vehicle operations in the NAS

09/30/2024

Document: Complete Epoch 2 ConOps 02/23/2025 Document: Complete Part-Task Simulation(s) to address high-priority barriers

03/17/2025

Document: Complete Integrated Simulation(s) 03/17/2025

ATM Collaborative Traffic Management (PWS 5.2.3)

Document: Assess ETM-ATC Interactions in Multiple airspace Domains 07/31/2023 Document: ETM Operational Maturity Level 2 ConOps update 07/31/2024 Document: Complete ETM Collaborative Simulation 04/30/2025 Document: Develop Simulation Environment and Demonstrate Targeted ETM-ATC Interactions

07/31/2025

ATM Digital Information Platform (PWS 5.2.4)

Document: Complete Collaborative Demo & Analysis Report #2 11/17/2023 Document: Complete Collaborative Demo & Analysis Report #3 12/20/2024

The Contractor shall support research, development, integration, testing, demonstration, and deployment through activities spanning initial concept development (technology readiness level (TRL) - 1) and evaluation through limited simulations and testing through in-situ field tests at operational ATM facilities (TRL-7) or in operational field environments, often in collaboration with Government and industry partners. Specific R&D areas are determined by the work assigned to the Aeronautics Directorate by the funding NASA program. The Contractor shall participate in field testing/demonstrations (as specified in the above deliverable tables), as defined by the R&D plans defined by NASA project offices. The work environment may include field sites in remote locations, or other NASA or non-NASA Government facilities.

Operational field environments are reviewed through the Airworthiness and Flight Safety Review Board (AFSRB), which is described in the Ames Health and Safety Manual (APR 8715.1). Human-in-the-loop experiments are reviewed by the Ames Human Research Institutional Review Board (HRIRB), which is described in the Human Research Planning and Approval Guidelines document (APR 7170.1).

5 Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Requirements This section details the general requirements for the IDIQ portion of the contract. Detailed requirements within the broader scope of work defined in this Section of the PWS may be executed under Task Orders. Requirements related to the detailed Core Technical requirements in Section 4.2 of this PWS may also be executed through a Task Order under the IDIQ portion of the contract. IDIQ task orders will be issued as firm fixed price or contract plus fixed fee. The Contracting Officer will determine the appropriate contract type for the requirements of each task order. Task orders will be executed in accordance with ordering procedures NFS 1852.216- 80.

5.1 ATM Research Safety and Mission Assurance

The Contractor may be required to provide technical leadership and expertise to support Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) work for ATM research. The key tasks are:

• Create the Software Development Management Plan for each research effort and sub-project.

• Create the NPR 7150.2C Software Assurance Compliance Matrix for each ATM sub-project.

• Maintain, and update as necessary, the ATM Software Development Management Plan.

• Ensure project compliance with relevant NASA requirements such as NPR 7150.2C

• Support ATM subprojects subject to Ames audits such as the Quality Audit, Assessment, and Review (QAAR)

• Support ATM projects requiring internal audits such as the Functional Configuration

Audit (FCA) and/or Physical Configuration Audit (PCA)

• Collaborate with Project Software Manager to define and establish technical processes for the ATM projects This includes managing the process for Software Assurance, Software Classification(s), and safety critical assessments.

• Update, review, and monitor adherence to the ATM-X Project Software Assurance Plan

• Ensure compliance with NASA Software Assurance and Software Safety Standard

8739.8

• Coordinate software assurance plans with Code AF Software Assurance manager and

Code QS and ensure its alignment to NASA software assurance standards.

• Assist ATM sub-Projects with Software Assurance Planning and Implementation.

• Conduct Software Assurance Audits for the ATM project and Sub-Project Software

Manager(s) and report on its results.

• Track and report Software Assurance Metrics.

5.2 Advanced Technological Systems (ATS)

The Contractor may be required to support the objectives of Advanced Technological Systems to support an airspace that is aligned with service providers through an area called Data & Reasoning Fabric. This activity is in alignment with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Vision 2035 and NASA Vision 2045. Currently, this work is supported by the Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP) and the Transformative Aeronautical Concepts Program (TACP).

The goal of the DRF activity is to address the challenges of future air mobility by enabling a self-sustaining marketplace where data and reasoning providers can “advertise” their services and data and reasoning consumers can discover, vet, purchase, interconnect, and use these data/reasoning services to achieve their air mobility missions. DRF will provide a unique, agnostic, decentralized solution to manage and connect heterogeneous sets of data services, operations, applications, and devices - giving enterprises the freedom to manage operations & communications, deploy applications, and expand operations as air mobility evolves. This will be accomplished by providing a secure software infrastructure and the tools, protocols, governance, and policies to implement, administer, manage, and operate data sharing and reasoning services across all air mobility needs.

The DRF Activity will demonstrate a data and insight driven system of systems that caters to a wide range of stakeholders with varying business objectives and operational focuses.

Furthermore, with ubiquitous future air mobility operations with system-wide automated optimization in its sight, the DRF activity aims to identify and implement interoperable data service models that enable the availability of reliable and actionable data as well as knowledge on-demand, on-site.

The Contractor may be required to provide support to develop a data service architecture necessary for the Data and Reasoning Fabric (DRF) work for the Transformative Aeronautical Concept Program (TACP). This DRF work has the goal of enabling the data exchange and management of the volumes of data that will be required for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations.

The key tasks are:

o Verify integration between data and reasoning services with simulated vehicles accessing the data and reasoning services o Integrate external data service and external reasoning service o Analyze data-related system integration challenges and propose appropriate solutions o Maintain conceptual, logical, and physical data models along with corresponding metadata

5.3 Nanoelectronics and Devices

The Contractor may be required to support the objectives and missions of the Nanoelectronics and Devices projects. The core focus of this project is in the development of flexible hybrid electronics for in-space manufacturing of electronics.

The Contractor may be required to deliver the design, modelling, fabrication and testing of several printed flexible hybrid electronic devices suitable for manufacturing on ISS or Gateway. The following devices may be expected of the Contractor: 1) A continuous-monitoring, skin-wearable stress sensor to measure the hormone cortisol excreted in sweat from crew members; and 2) A printed super capacitor to provide power to sensors. The Contractor is responsible for ensuring proper integration with supporting flexible hybrid electronic hardware from collaborating NASA Centers. Further integration of the technologies above will extend beyond the deliverable of each technology.

5.4 Advanced Software for Digital Twin Systems

The purpose of the requirements under this requirement is to meet future aviation demands and opportunities of airspace operations. The focus of this research centers on digital twin operations, machine learning (ML), predictive analytics, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve NextGen capabilities.

The Contractor may be required to perform the following requirements:

• Provide technical expertise and support the development of concepts, including feedback to use cases and concept documents.

• Develop initial algorithms and models to capture essential ATM functions digitally, such as Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) or Letters of Agreement (LOAs) for the Digital Twin system, utilizing ML/AI or natural language processing (NLP) methods where applicable.

• Provide software development, testing and models for prototype digital software application.

• Provide technical training as needed by on tools and software for research participants.

• Design the prototype based on feedback from NASA researchers, project liaison and subject matter experts.

5.5 Quantum Computing Technology

NASA ARC explores the potential of quantum computing for computational challenges arising in future agency missions. Ames partners with domain experts across NASA, performs evaluations of emerging quantum hardware through partnerships with quantum hardware developers, and investigates quantum mechanisms that may be used to provide a quantum advantage. A key goal is to advance the understanding of quantum computing’s potential to impact challenging computational problems for NASA missions in aeronautics, space, and the earth sciences. This approach will ensure communication in the denser and more autonomous air space of the future and help optimize planning and scheduling for space missions. Ames intends to devise quantum and quantum-classical hybrid algorithms for challenging combinatorial optimization problems in NASA applications.

The Contractor may be required to:

• Design performance and quantum metrics suitable for benchmarking SAAM (Scheduling Applications with Advance Mixers) quantum circuits

• Develop theoretical/numerical models of leakage…