SSHINE_RFI_Inquiries_26_Jan_2024.xlsx
XLSX spreadsheet 15 KB Posted
- Attached to
- Space Systems and Hardware Integration for Novel Experiments (SSHINE) Federal contract opportunity
- Solicitation number
- RFI-RVKI-2024-RVEP
About this file
This document contains questions and answers regarding a request for information for the Space Systems and Hardware Integration for Novel Experiments opportunity. The Air Force Research Laboratory is seeking information on approaches to provide research, engineering, and technical management for space technology development, analysis, integration, experimentation, demonstrations, and evaluation. No solicitation currently exists and this request does not constitute a procurement obligation. The opportunity involves functional areas of mission and system development, prototyping, assembly, integration and testing, and flight operations for experiments of various scales over a five-year period. Responses to the request for information are due 30 days after solicitation release, with an estimated award between 2025 and 2027.
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Other files for this federal contract opportunity
| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| 20240111_Final RFI v2.pdf |
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Questions
| Question | Government Response |
| Is SSHINE the expected AFRL/RV follow-on acquisition for the Research and Development Integrated Space Experiments (RISE) contract? While the requirements look very similar, there was no mention of RISE in the RFI or SAM.gov posting. | SSHINE addresses exisiting government requirements. At this time, the Government will not be releasing details about the predecessor contract(s) or vendor(s). AFRL/RVK encourages continual monitoring of SAM.gov for any announcements, solicitations, and/or otherwise of all opportunities provided. |
| In order to best respond, could you verify if the RFI is for a new or existing requirement? If the requirement is an anticipated follow-on contract could you provide the name of the existing contract? Our internal analysis aligns this effort to the existing Research and Development Integrated Space Experiments (RISE). However, we do not want to make any assumptions with our supporting response. | SSHINE addresses exisiting government requirements. At this time, the Government will not be releasing details about the predecessor contract(s) or vendor(s). AFRL/RVK encourages continual monitoring of SAM.gov for any announcements, solicitations, and/or otherwise of all opportunities provided. |
| MCSG has been tracking the current RISE contract and was planning to potentially prime that effort on the recompete. Is SSHINE the recompete of RISE? If not, then will there be a RISE II? | SSHINE addresses exisiting government requirements. At this time, the Government will not be releasing details about the predecessor contract(s) or vendor(s). AFRL/RVK encourages continual monitoring of SAM.gov for any announcements, solicitations, and/or otherwise of all opportunities provided. |
| With out any workload factors or Performance Work Statement (PWS), how does the government expect contractors to provide a reasonably realistic ROM. Q: Will the government provide a PWS and historical cost to bidders to assist in building a generalized ROM? | Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO) will be an attachment to the solicitation. No draft Statement of Work (SOW) will be provided with this RFI. |
| The government references a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) in the first paragraph of Section 4 and in item 7 of Section 4. For the RFI response, does the government want a ROM value or does the government want a description of our process to produce a ROM? If the government wants an actual ROM value, please provide detailed requirements (metrics, period of performance, ODCs, etc.). | Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO) will be an attachment to the solicitation. No draft Statement of Work (SOW) will be provided with this RFI. |
The Government’s intent in requesting a ROM with this RFI is to receive industry input on compatibility of the intended scope of work and the anticipated contract ceiling. To aid in answering this request, we have generated a matrix showing our anticipated work volume over the five-year term in terms of discrete flight experiments under each functional area. We have also further broken these into a large scale and small scale category. Large scale refers to a spacecraft or payload the size and/or complexity of an ESPAStar based mission, and follows a nominal life cycle of two years in Mission and Space System Development, two years in Flight Experiment Prototyping, Assembly, Integration, and Testing, and one year in Flight Experiment Operations. Small scale refers to a spacecraft or payload the size and/or complexity of a CubeSat based mission, and follows a nominal life cycle of half a year in Mission and Space System Development, one year in Flight Experiment Prototyping, Assembly, Integration, and Testing, and half a year in Flight Experiment Operations. Ground System Development is omitted from the matrix, as this functional area will not break into discrete flight experiments, and is aimed at continual development of ground systems and infrastructure to support all RVE missions. Additionally, the large and small scale descriptors do not apply to any Ground System Development activities.
| Is SSHINE a replacement for RISE? | SSHINE addresses exisiting government requirements. At this time, the Government will not be releasing details about the predecessor contract(s) or vendor(s). AFRL/RVK encourages continual monitoring of SAM.gov for any announcements, solicitations, and/or otherwise of all opportunities provided. |
| Is SSHINE a new start or re-compete? | SSHINE addresses exisiting government requirements. At this time, the Government will not be releasing details about the predecessor contract(s) or vendor(s). AFRL/RVK encourages continual monitoring of SAM.gov for any announcements, solicitations, and/or otherwise of all opportunities provided. |
| Will an Industry Day be schedule? When? Will 1-on-1s be allowed? | An industry day is anticipated and desired before release of the solicitation. The Government will exercise discretion in holding one-on-ones. |
| Will section L&M be posted with the next RFI release and/or prior/during the industry day? (if one is considered) | Section L&M will be an attachment to the solicitation. |
| Is a 30-day proposal anticipated? | Per FAR Subpart 5.2, the notice of the SSHINE solicitation will be published for 15 days prior to the release of the solicitation. The solicitation will have a 30-day proposal response time. |
| What is the estimated DRFT data? Final RFP date? Estimated award date? | Award of SSHINE is estimated to be between 2025 - 2027. AFRL/RVK encourages continual monitoring of SAM.gov for any announcements, solicitations, and/or otherwise of all opportunities provided. |
| In the RFI, the Gov’t is asking for: “A rough order magnitude (ROM) cost estimate, including the actual number of FTEs used as a basis for the estimate, anticipated to meet this requirement should be included if possible”, however to do so Industry needs a Government estimate of the number of flight experiments, satellites, types, anticipated per year? |
a. What is the current flight experiment tempo today?
b. Are these flight experiments stand alone or does the Government estimate a number of spacecrafts with multiple flight experiments and how many flight experiments per spacecraft?
c. What size of spacecraft? (small sats, nano sats, micro sats, pico sats, hosted payloads, etc…)
d. Section 2.2 Technology Implementation (of the Section 2.0 – SOW) indicates…both statements below seem to indicate Industry will be required to design and manufacture the spacecraft along with the flight experiments (is this correct)?
i. 2.2.1 Spacecraft and high-altitude balloon flight hardware design and fabrication
ii. 2.2.2 Spacecraft and high-altitude balloon flight software/firmware design and development Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO) will be an attachment to the solicitation. No draft Statement of Work (SOW) will be provided with this RFI.
The Government’s intent in requesting a ROM with this RFI is to receive industry input on compatibility of the intended scope of work and the anticipated contract ceiling. To aid in answering this request, we have generated a matrix showing our anticipated work volume over the five-year term in terms of discrete flight experiments under each functional area. We have also further broken these into a large scale and small scale category. Large scale refers to a spacecraft or payload the size and/or complexity of an ESPAStar based mission, and follows a nominal life cycle of two years in Mission and Space System Development, two years in Flight Experiment Prototyping, Assembly, Integration, and Testing, and one year in Flight Experiment Operations. Small scale refers to a spacecraft or payload the size and/or complexity of a CubeSat based mission, and follows a nominal life cycle of half a year in Mission and Space System Development, one year in Flight Experiment Prototyping, Assembly, Integration, and Testing, and half a year in Flight Experiment Operations. Ground System Development is omitted from the matrix, as this functional area will not break into discrete flight experiments, and is aimed at continual development of ground systems and infrastructure to support all RVE missions. Additionally, the large and small scale descriptors do not apply to any Ground System Development activities.
| Please confirm that all flight experiment/ and spacecraft/s development will be conducted in Government furnished facilities? Are there other GFE/GFP to be provided? | Flight experiment and spacecraft development will take place in Government Furnished Facilities. A comprehensive GFE/GFP listing will be an attachment to the solicitation. |
| The instructions indicate that the Capability Statements shall not exceed six (6) pages, not including cover and administrative pages. If we wish to include a List of Acronyms in our response, can we assume that List can be considered part of the administrative pages and excluded from the 6 page allocation? | An Acronym Page is acceptable as Administrative Page and will not count towards six (6) page limit. |
| Section 3 of the RFI instructions indicates that the Statement of Work will be based on the four functional areas identified in Section 2 (Scope) of the RFI. We feel that the Scope section does not provide sufficiently specific requirements to develop a rough order of magnitude (ROM) cost estimate, including the actual number of FTEs uses as the basis of the estimate, as requested in Section 4. Will AFRL provide additional details on the SSHINE requirements to enable offerors to prepare the ROM? | Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO) will be an attachment to the solicitation. No draft Statement of Work (SOW) will be provided with this RFI. |
The Government’s intent in requesting a ROM with this RFI is to receive industry input on compatibility of the intended scope of work and the anticipated contract ceiling. To aid in answering this request, we have generated a matrix showing our anticipated work volume over the five-year term in terms of discrete flight experiments under each functional area. We have also further broken these into a large scale and small scale category. Large scale refers to a spacecraft or payload the size and/or complexity of an ESPAStar based mission, and follows a nominal life cycle of two years in Mission and Space System Development, two years in Flight Experiment Prototyping, Assembly, Integration, and Testing, and one year in Flight Experiment Operations. Small scale refers to a spacecraft or payload the size and/or complexity of a CubeSat based mission, and follows a nominal life cycle of half a year in Mission and Space System Development, one year in Flight Experiment Prototyping, Assembly, Integration, and Testing, and half a year in Flight Experiment Operations. Ground System Development is omitted from the matrix, as this functional area will not break into discrete flight experiments, and is aimed at continual development of ground systems and infrastructure to support all RVE missions. Additionally, the large and small scale descriptors do not apply to any Ground System Development activities.
Flight Experiment Volume
| Flight Experiment Volume | |||||
| Functional Area | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
| Mission/System Dev (Large Scale) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Mission/System Dev (Small Scale) | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Prototyping/AI+T (Large Scale) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Prototyping/AI+T (Small Scale) | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Flight Operations (Large Scale) | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Flight Operations (Small Scale) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
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