Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA)

NASA GSFC is seeking capability statements from all interested parties, including all socioeconomic categories of Small Businesses and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)/Minority Institutions (MI), and members of the underserved communities as defined by Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity And Support For Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government, for the purposes of determining the appropriate level of competition and/or small business subcontracting goals for the LISA Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) acquisition. The Government reserves the right to consider a Small, 8(a), Women-owned (WOSB), Service Disabled Veteran (SD-VOSB), Economically Disadvantaged Women-owned Small Business (EDWOSB) or HUBZone business set-aside based on responses received. LISA is a European Space Agency (ESA)-led mission consisting of three (3) Spacecraft that are separated by 2.5 million kilometers in an Earth-trailing orbit. The three (3) Spacecraf will relay laser beams back and forth between the different Spacecraft and the signals will be combined to search for gravitational wave signatures coming from distortions of spacetime. Gravitational waves are created during events such as supermassive black hole mergers, collisions between two black holes that are millions, or even billions, of times bigger than our Sun, and from other distant systems including smaller, stellar mass black holes orbiting supermassive black holes. Gravitational waves are a powerful new probe of the Universe that uses gravity instead of light to take measure of dynamic astrophysical phenomena. Part of NASA GSFC’s contributions to the LISA mission with ESA is to supply the ultra-stable telescopes that are essential for the implementation of precision strain measurement, in order to transfer enough laser light between S/C. The telescopes must simultaneously receive and transmit the laser light without contributing path-length noise to the inter-spacecraft distance determination, with an allocation of ~1 pm/√Hz in the mHz band to each telescope. There is one (1) telescope associated with each of the two proof masses on a LISA Spacecraft, giving a total of six (6) flight telescopes in the constellation.

This acquisition is for the design, development, fabrication, alignment, testing, verification, and delivery of the following:

• 1 OTA Engineering Test Unit (ETU)
• 1 OTA Qualification Unit (QM) (should be capable of becoming a Protoflight Unit)
• 6 OTAFlight Units
• 2 OTASpares
• Post-delivery support for the OTA integration and testing at GSFC
• Post-delivery support for the OTA Spacecraft level integration and testing at LISA facilities located in Europe

No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on SAM.gov. Interested firms are responsible for monitoring this website for the release of any solicitation or synopsis.

Interested firms that possess the capability to meet the above requirement as described in the attached DRAFT Statement of Work (SOW) are encouraged to submit a capability statement of no more than 20 pages, using no less than 12-point Times New Roman font, indicating the ability to perform all aspects of the effort. In addition to submitting a capability statement, please answer the following questions for informational purposes:

1. What are the biggest programmatic, technical, and/or logistical challenges for your company in producing the various OTA models and quantities for the LISA program? The notional delivery schedule is shown in the attached DRAFT SOW.

2. What supply chain issues, if any, does your company foresee?

3. Your company is invited to provide informal information and recommendations for fashioning this proposed acquisition. Recommendation areas may include the best type of contract to cover the scope of work and incentivize industry, ways to accelerate the delivery schedule, evaluation factors to ensure the Government is receiving the best value, and any other areas that your company believes is relevant for the Government to achieve its stated objective.  Your company may opine regarding what portion of the work could be set-aside for small businesses if all the required work cannot be provided by a small business.  Details to support any recommendations for partial small business set-asides should be included.   

4. What can NASA GSFC specifically do to promote competition for this requirement?

5. Can the company provide a description of heritage spaceborne or airborne hardware similar to LISA in terms of production volume?

6. What facilities and resources are available to support and meet the production volume, environmental testing (TVAC, shock/vibration, etc.) and performance verification of the LISA OTA?

All responses shall be submitted electronically via email to Contracting Officer Christopher King at christopher.w.king@nasa.gov, and LISA Study Manager Terence Doiron at terence.a.doiron@nasa.gov no later than 12:00PM Eastern on September 20, 2024. NASA GSFC requests any questions or comments be submitted to the same point of contacts listed above no later than 12:00PM Eastern on September 5, 2024.

This synopsis is for information and planning purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will the Government pay for information solicited. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation. Respondents deemed fully qualified will be considered in any resultant solicitation for the requirement.

NASA intends to publicize a listing of respondents in order to facilitate teaming arrangements. Should your firm desire not to be included in this listing, clearly indicate this desire in your response.