NOIS3-013 JEFO.pdf

Rev.:3/2025

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

Johnson Space Center

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity

Description of the action being approved: This justification documents the basis for issuing Task Order NOIS3-013 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency MagQuest Phase 4C under the NASA Open Innovation Services 3 (NOIS3) contract using an exception to the Fair Opportunity process.

Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs: This action is a firm fixed price with total funding of $6.5 million. Period of performance from date of award to September 28, 2026

The Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) was created in November of 2011 at the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to help NASA and other Federal Agencies advance their use of open innovation and crowdsourcing models. CoECI guides NASA and other Agency teams on all aspects of implementing crowd-based initiatives from problem definition, to incentive design, to post-submission evaluation of solutions. CoECI also provides access to its contracts through assisted acquisition Interagency Agreements.

NASA intends to issue NOIS3-013 on a sole-source basis to Luminary Labs LLC. The objective of NOIS3-013 is to execute the MagQuest Geomagnetic Challenge Technology Demonstration to obtain a data collection capability that can provide sufficient data quality of the Earth’s magnetic field to produce the World Magnetic Model. The World Magnetic Model is used for a wide variety of magnetic related applications as a fundamental capability embedded in many thousands of systems providing critical operational capabilities across a multitude of missions, including national security and public safety.

NOIS3-013 supports the critical post-launch activities for satellites that bring the MagQuest mission to fruition, including on-orbit calibration, data collection and delivery, and data evaluation. Supporting these post-launch activities is crucial to ensuring that the nation and the world has access to alternative sources of data that will allow the World Magnetic Model to continue to be updated. The estimated value of NOIS3-013 is $6.5 million.

Identification of Exception to Fair Opportunity:

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C), The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

Supporting Rationale: Luminary Labs LLC has an extensive track record performing complex, high-value, high-risk prize competitions, such as NOIS2- 105 MagQuest Phase 4B, which supports the launch of the data-collection satellites in early 2026. NOIS3- 013 MagQuest Phase 4C is a continuation of the work completed by Luminary Labs on the

Rev.:3/2025

NOIS2-105 MagQuest Phase 4B. Because the launch is mere months away, introducing a new contractor at this critical juncture would cause unrecoverable schedule delays, require substantial duplication of costs to replicate tangible and intangible assets, and introduce significant performance risk that would jeopardize the government's substantial prior investment and program momentum. Support of both pre- and post- launch activities performed by Luminary Labs LLC is in the interest of economy and efficiency to avoid unnecessary schedule delays and duplication of costs that would be associated with another contractor performing this scope of work.

Determination that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable: The Government will ensure that it obtains fair and reasonable pricing from the contractor on Task Order NOIS3-013. The Government will compare the proposed prices to historical prices paid, whether by the Government or other than the Government, for the same or similar items or services.

A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made: N/A-This is a follow-on task order requirement from the NOIS2 contract.