NOAA GEO Ground System Evolution RFI (Preliminary).pdf

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)

Request for Information (RFI)

GEO Ground System Evolution

September 2024

U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) Office of Geostationary Earth Orbit Observations (GEO)

GENERAL NOTICE

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS), Office of Geostationary Earth Orbit Observations (GEO) is conducting market research on the technological capabilities from interested vendors, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) to support the evolution of the GEO Ground System. The GEO Ground System today supports the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)–R Series and Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) missions. NOAA’s GEO Ground System Project Management Office (PMO) has an immediate need to:

Plan for the evolution of the current GEO Ground System to expand multi-mission support for the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) and Space Weather (SWx) missions to the multi-mission environment while sustaining the existing GOES system, as well as

Minimize overall lifecycle cost of Sustainment, Operations and Maintenance (O&M) by identifying opportunities to streamline, simplify, and optimize the ground system by taking advantage of emerging technologies while ensuring extensibility, reliability, and continued IT Security policy compliance.

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10 requires the US Government to conduct market research before developing new requirements documents for an acquisition. Results of this market research will inform programmatic planning for the GEO Ground System evolution.

The Government does not intend to award a contract based on this market research or otherwise pay for information received. This request for information (RFI) is issued solely for information, planning purposes, and market research; it does not constitute a request for proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP. This market research does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service. NOAA will not pay for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement, or any follow-up information requests. Not responding to this announcement does not preclude participation in any future RFP. An acquisition process is in progress with a contract award target date of FY2028. All submissions become the property of the Government and will not be returned. If a solicitation is released, it will be a separate post on the System for Award Management (SAM) https://sam.gov.

ASSUMPTIONS & CONSTRAINTS

1. Launch dates for future spacecraft that are supported by the GEO GS are known.

2. The last of four GOES-R series of satellites was launched June 2024. The GEO GS will provide support for GOES-R satellites through FY2036.

a. The Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite is scheduled for launch in FY2025. The GEO GS will provide support for SFWO through FY2030.

b. The first GeoXO satellite launch is scheduled for FY2032 with GeoXO satellite launches scheduled through FY2043.

c. Each GEO satellite is operational for at least a decade. This means the GEO GS must evolve to support GeoXO data acquisition and processing through FY2055.

3. Reuse the existing GEO Ground System (GS) capabilities where reasonable and lifecycle cost is efficient.

4. The starting point of the Ground System evolution includes the successful completion of the ongoing efforts to migrate Data Operations (DO) and data storage to a commercial cloud implementation.

5. Primary Mission Management (MM) Command/Control (CC) will remain on-premises (on-prem). Other elements of MM may be migrated to a commercial cloud service.

6. The GEO GS must support remaining on-orbit GOES-R series satellites (potentially in inclined orbits), the SWFO-L1 satellite, and future GeoXO satellites.

7. The operational GEO constellation will include East, West, and Central satellites, where East and West can be either a GOES-R series or GeoXO satellite, and Central is a GeoXO satellite.

8. The overall GEO constellation includes satellites in on-orbit storage and testing

9. The GEO Ground System has a FIPS-199 FISMA High categorization.

a. For a hybrid GS implementation, all commercial cloud services used to deliver a capability must be at a minimum FedRAMP Moderate approved.

REQUESTED INFORMATION

The primary area of interest for this RFI is options to evolve, sustain, maintain and operate a multi-mission GEO Ground System (GS) that support geostationary and space weather missions.

Architecture

1. What is your approach for scaling the GEO GS from support of GOES-R and SWFO today to support for GOES-R, SWFO, GeoXO, and other SWx missions in an optimized, multi-mission environment?

a. If there are different approaches to evolving the GEO GS, describe the advantages and disadvantages of each approach from the perspective of cost, schedule, and risk.

2. What systems, services, capabilities or equipment may be required from external entities such as flight element vendors, NESDIS enterprise offices, agency partners, to support the recommended evolution path of the GEO Ground System?

3. What developmental approaches are there for pursuing ground system evolution with the desired characteristics reflected in Attachment 1 of the Supporting Materials?

4. The GEO GS will be a hybrid implementation between commercial cloud services and on-prem IT infrastructure. What GS services should remain on-prem? What GS services should be transitioned to the cloud? What is the rationale behind your decision?

5. How would you apply the principles of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to the design of a multi-mission ground system?

6. How would you facilitate the integration of enterprise services provided after initial ground system deployment?

7. TT&C (Telemetry, Tracking, and Command) refers to the downlinked platform data giving details of the satellite’s status, determination of its location through tracking ranging signals, and the uplinked commands given to the platform. Describe the options available for multi-mission command encryption with a focus on AES-256 software encryption solutions as well as single deployed solution to support multiple missions.

Operations, Maintenance, & Sustainment

8. How would you implement an efficient architecture that supports:

a. Development and test activities without impacting operations while enabling regular updates to operations

b. Facilitation of multi-mission access while ensuring mission independence (e.g.

missions can operate without interruption caused by other mission anomalies or launch/pre-launch activities)

9. With the GEO GS transitioning to a service delivery model, how will the workforce supporting the GS evolve? What skillsets will be critical to supporting a multi-mission

GEO GS?

10. How would you minimize the Operations and Maintenance burden of this multi-mission system?

11. How would you design a system to minimize the lifecycle cost of replacing obsolete components within the GEO GS over a 20+ year operational lifetime?

Security

1. Describe your approach of incorporating a Zero Trust Architecture into the overall design of a multi-mission satellite ground system.

12. Describe your approach for implementing a vulnerability management system in the GS to address rapidly evolving cyber threats, keep GS IT infrastructure protected, and minimize the number of open vulnerabilities in the system.

Schedule Management

13. Describe your approach to minimize ground system resource contentions when supporting the missions defined by the spacecraft and launch schedules.

14. How would you integrate new missions and eliminate retiring missions from the ground system while continuously enabling operational missions to deliver their required functionality, performance, and availability?

RESPONSE FORMAT

Your company is requested to submit its response electronically by providing:

1. Company name, mailing address, overnight delivery address (if different from mailing address), cage code, SAM unique entity identification, point of contact, email address, and telephone number.

2. Business size and unique qualifiers (e.g., large, small, joint venture, 8(a), minority-owned, woman-owned, economically disadvantaged woman-owned, HUBZone, veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, Ability One).

3. Participation in a General Services Administration schedule and/or a government-wide acquisition contract. If so, provide the task order number(s), special item number(s) awarded, and/or schedule.

Responses to any or all information requested in this RFI is acceptable. Responses must be submitted in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. RFI responses are limited to 20 pages on standard US letter size 8-1/2 by 11-inch paper using either Times New Roman or Arial font, 12 point.

Existing commercial documentation and product literature can also be submitted separately and is not subject to a page limitation. Cover pages and contact information do not count against the page limit. Any supporting technical drawings/data should be as an appendix and does not count against the page limit. However, incorporated figures, charts, and images do count against the page limit. This is a wide-ranging RFI. Be sure to include pertinent information, such as any current federal agencies using the technology, results of independent third-party testing, and/or anything else your company believes may support the Government’s understanding of this technology.

RESPONSE SUBMISSION, DEADLINE, AND POINTS OF CONTACT

*** THIS IS A PRELIMINARY RFI for INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES

ONLY. DO NOT SUBMIT ANY RESPONSES YET. ***

Responses shall be submitted via email to the NOAA Contracting Officer (CO) Jerry Robertson (gerald.robertson@noaa.gov) and NOAA Contract Specialist (CS) Tamalia Adams (tamalia.adams@noaa.gov) no later than TBD at 12:00 PM ET. The subject line of the submission email shall be formatted as follows:

“[Company Name] RFI Submission for NOAA NESDIS GEO GROUND SYSTEM

EVOLUTION”

Contact with Government personnel, other than points of contacts listed herein, by potential offerors or their employees regarding this RFI is strictly prohibited. Please do not submit any sensitive or classified information. All information received in response to this notice that is marked Proprietary will be safeguarded in accordance with the applicable Government regulations. Any material received will be considered to be public domain unless clearly marked (on each page) as proprietary. The Government must not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for proprietary information not properly identified. Responses to this notice will not be returned. In submitting a response, the responder is solely responsible and accountable for all the expenses associated with the response. Not responding to this RFI will not preclude an entity from submitting a proposal to any potential subsequent NOAA solicitation.

VENDOR SITE VISITS

The Government has an interest in seeing working multi-mission ground systems. Potential offerors may extend an invitation to the Government to have them visit their facility and receive a technical demonstration of their multi-mission ground system. As stated earlier, this is strictly for information, planning purposes, and market research; it does not constitute an RFP or a promise to issue an RFP. The invitation to the offeror’s facility should include a draft site visit agenda, visitor security requirements, security office contact information, and any other details relevant to conducting a site visit.

APPENDICES, ATTACHMENTS, AND REFERENCES

Attachment 1: NOAA GEO Ground System Background Information

References

Information about the NESDIS can be found under https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/

Information about the current GEO Mission can be found under https://www.goes-r.gov/

Information about the current GeoXO Mission can be found under https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/geoxo/geoxo-spacecraft-instruments

Information about the Space Weather Follow-On Program can be found under https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/space-weather-follow-program