NOAA GEO Ground System Sustainment and Evolution RFI.pdf

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and

Information Service (NESDIS)

Request for Information (RFI)

GEO Ground System

Sustainment & Evolution

December 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)

December 2024 GEO Ground System

Request for Information

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 Project Management Office (PMO) has an immediate need to:

Plan for the evolution of the current GEO Ground System to expand multi-mission support to the

Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) and Space Weather (SWx) missions while sustaining the existing GOES system.

Minimize the overall lifecycle cost of Sustainment, Operations, and Maintenance by identifying opportunities to streamline, simplify, and optimize the ground system using 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 Ground System (GEO GS) are known. The GEO Ground System must achieve operational status with all necessary mission capabilities at least one year before each launch and remain operational for the complete lifespan of each mission.

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

b. The Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite is scheduled for launch in

FY2025. The GEO Ground System will provide support for SFWO through FY2035.

https://sam.gov/

c. The first GeoXO satellite launch is scheduled for FY2032, with GeoXO satellite launches scheduled through FY2043. Each GeoXO series satellite will be operational for at least a decade. This means the GEO GS must evolve to support the GeoXO mission by 2030 and be sustained through FY2055. Refer to the “GEO Ground Enterprise Roadmap” section of

Attachment 1, Background Information, for additional information about GEO satellite launches, including a flyout chart.

2. Because the current ground system is operational and meets the mission need, reuse of the existing

GEO Ground System capabilities represents a low schedule-risk approach to satisfying future mission needs but also potentially incurs long term cost and security risk.

a. The Government will evaluate approaches where a reasonable business case can be documented for accepting additional schedule risk.

3. The GEO Ground Project is in the middle of a series of modernization activities expected to conclude in 2028. Responses should assume that this activity has completed and any further evolution starts after the successful completion of:

a. The migration of Data Operations (DO) & long-term data storage to a commercial cloud implementation.

b. Post-migration on-premises footprint reduction.

4. The Government is currently assuming that primary satellite Command/Control (C2) will remain on-premises (on-prem) while other elements of Mission Management (MM), (including a backup capability) may be migrated to a commercial cloud service.

a. While this is the current assumption, the Government is aware that the technology market is constantly evolving and is open to exploring C2 in the cloud with sufficient supporting evidence.

5. The GEO Ground System will need to simultaneously support satellites actively collectively weather data as well as satellites in a backup on-orbit storage mode. Considering GOES-R, GeoXO, and SWFO-L1, this number could nominally be six spacecraft, but the system should be scalable to accommodate as many as eight spacecraft, if Space Weather Office (SWO) missions are included.

a. 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.

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

6. The GEO Ground System, both on-premises and cloud components, 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.

7. Under nominal conditions, satellite and data operations staff will be located at the NOAA Satellite

Operations Facility (NSOF) in Suitland, MD.

a. Compute, storage and functional capabilities may persist at other Government facilities or in commercial cloud separate from the physical location of operations staff.

b. Under Continuity of Operations (COOP) conditions, NSOF operators will be deployed to the

Consolidated Back Up (CBU) facility in Fairmont, WV, or the Wallops Command and Data

Acquisition Station (WCDAS) in Wallops, VA.

EVOLUTION GOALS

The GEO Ground Project has a defined set of goals, or objectives, to be accomplished by any evolutionary activities. All suggestions and concepts will be evaluated with these goals in mind in order to inform long term evolutionary plans. Table 1 below summarizes the GEO Ground Project’s evolution goals.

Mission

Responsibility

The primary goal of the GEO Ground Project is to ensure that the deployed system continues to meet the mission requirements. The GEO Ground System provides services considered to be National Critical Functions that are essential to protection of life and property

• Evolve functionality as necessary to support new missions

• Ensure or improve system stability and performance

• Be responsive to the changing environment with a high system rate of change

Total Lifecycle

Cost

Continue looking for opportunities to lower the lifecycle cost of the GEO

Ground System balancing initial development cost for new capabilities with impacts to recurring costs

• Enable efficient and cost-effective operations

• Minimize ongoing maintenance costs including labor, and annual hardware and software licensing costs

• Minimize ongoing sustainment costs, including labor for ongoing software changes and the process of managing end-of-life components; enhanced by platforms and processes that allow for simple/efficient transition from one tool/component to a replacement

IT Security/

Risk Management

Ensure that the Ground System is secure and meets all necessary requirements for a system defined as High Impact under NIST SP 800-53, Security and Privacy

Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, including but not limited to

• Processes that support rapid vulnerability remediation and proactive IT security management

• Minimizing the attack surface area

• Continuous security evolution to remain in alignment with Department of

Commerce IT security practices and policies

NESDIS

Citizenship

As the NESDIS organization and enterprise capabilities evolve around the

GEO Ground the project will continue to coordinate and interface with the

NESDIS Enterprise effort

• Integration with the developing NESDIS Common Cloud Framework (NCCF)

• Continuous evaluation of NESDIS enterprise services to determine where capabilities meet the mission need

• Exploring opportunities for unified tooling where it meets the mission need in a cost-effective manner

Table 1 Summary of GEO Ground Project Evolution Goals

REQUESTED INFORMATION

The GEO Ground Project is currently 18 months into the 5-year Geostationary Ground Sustainment

Services (GGSS) contract and is preparing for the follow-on effort to be called GEO Ground Multi-

Mission Sustainment and Evolution (GMSE). The primary area of interest for this RFI is to identify options for operating, maintaining and sustaining the current GEO Ground System supporting the

GOES-R and SWFO-L1 satellites while evolving to support future GeoXO satellites. Responses to this

RFI may be used to shape requirements for this future evolution.

It is not required that respondents address all questions for all GEO Ground System mission capabilities.

Respondents should feel free to address only questions related to their individual areas of expertise and address as many, or as few, questions as desired.

Architecture

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

a. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of your recommended approach, or combination of approaches, from the perspective of cost, schedule, and risk.

i. The Government has identified at least three potential evolution strategies that could be applied to each element/subsystem/service/component within the Ground System

1. Resize by adding capacity

2. Expand by adding new elements or environments

3. Innovate by creating something new

ii. The Government recognizes that the best approach will likely be a combination of approaches applied to individually to each element/subsystem/service/ component but is also aware that there may be other approaches that industry could suggest

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 tool set would facilitate the design and development of a multi-mission Ground System while ensuring existing capabilities are retained?

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

5. 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?

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

7. How would you facilitate the integration of enterprise services provided after initial ground system deployment? Are there integration approaches that ease incorporation of new or different services while minimizing perturbation to the system?

8. 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.

a. Describe the hardware and software 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 including NSA-approved Type 1 algorithms.

b. Both the GOES-R and SWFO-L1 missions have developed their telemetry viewing pages, command procedure scripts, and operational procedures within the OS/COMET®

Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) tool. Describe any advantages, in the context of the goals identified in table 1, of changing to a new COTS tool. Further describe the tools or processes available to minimize the cost of transitioning such as conversion tools and the validation process for operational products. The Government is interested in the overall value assessment of any potential migration.

c. Describe any input that could provide a compelling case regarding deployment of C2 inside a commercial cloud service such as:

i. Utilization of cloud based C2 on similar programs requiring very high availability

ii. Characterization and management of any mission risks from operating C2 in the cloud

iii. Configurations supporting encrypted commanding via a cloud-based C2

iv. Implications to overall life cycle cost and IT security risk posture

Operations, Maintenance, & Sustainment

9. How would you implement an efficient architecture that supports

a. Development, test, and deployment activities that enable regular updates to operational capabilities without impacting ongoing operations?

b. Facilitation of multi-mission access while ensuring mission independence (i.e., missions can operate without interruption caused by other mission anomalies or launch/pre-launch activities)?

10. If the Government were to transition from a development model (where a vendor develops a capability which the Government operates as a Government-owned IT System) into a service delivery model (where vendors provide services, such as managing satellites or delivering data products) how would the workforce supporting the GS evolve? What skillsets will be critical to supporting a multi-mission GEO GS?

11. How would you minimize the Operations and Maintenance burden (e.g., labor cost and required skillsets) of this multi-mission system?

12. How would you design a system to minimize the lifecycle cost of replacing obsolete components and software within the GEO GS over a 20+ year operational lifetime without accruing significant technical debt?

13. Are there recommended integration patterns or technical capabilities that support increasing levels of automation from fully manual to lights-out automation?

Security

14. Describe your approach of incorporating a Zero Trust Architecture into the overall design of a multi-mission satellite ground system and whether a Zero Trust Architecture would be valuable to the Government.

15. Describe your approach for implementing a vulnerability management system in the GEO

Ground System to address rapidly evolving cyber threats, keep the IT infrastructure protected, and minimize the number of open vulnerabilities in the system.

Schedule Management

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

17. 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

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 Friday, January 10, 2025, 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 SUSTAINMENT

& 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.

TECHNICAL DEMONSTRATIONS

A technical demonstration from a vendor may provide a deeper understanding of how the vendor has answered one or more of the questions in this document. The Government is open to a vendor scheduling a technical demonstration of their solution, or solutions, through the use of a major video teleconferencing (VTC) platform such as Microsoft Teams or Google Meet in support of their response to this RFI. Technical demonstrations by the vendor are limited to a duration of 2 hours.

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 or other technical capabilities. 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.

mailto:gerald.robertson@noaa.gov?subject=[COMPANY]%20RFI%20Submission%20for%20NOAA%20NESDIS%20GEO%20GROUND%20SYSTEM%20EVOLUTION mailto:tamalia.adams@noaa.gov?subject=[COMPANY]%20RFI%20Submission%20for%20NOAA%20NESDIS%20GEO%20GROUND%20SYSTEM%20EVOLUTION

APPENDICES, ATTACHMENTS, AND REFERENCES

Attachment 1: GEO Ground System Background

Attachment 2: GEO Ground System Wall Chart (Rev AH_2024-09-25)

Attachment 3: GEO Cloud Wall Chart V0.03

Attachment 4: GEO Memo, Planned Updates to the Geostationary Ground Sustainment Services

(GGSS) Functional and Performance Specification (F&PS)

Attachment 5: GGSS F&PS

Attachment 6: GeoXO System Requirements Review (SRR) Ground Overview Briefing

Attachment 7: GeoXO SRR Requirements Briefing

Attachment 8: GeoXO Mission Requirements Document (MRD) V2.1

Attachment 9: Ground Segment Design Description (GSDD) Rev P

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 https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/ https://www.goes-r.gov/ https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/geoxo/geoxo-spacecraft-instruments https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/geoxo/geoxo-spacecraft-instruments https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/space-weather-follow-program