Notice of Sole Source Justification: Velo3D Sapphire Additive Manufacturing System 1-Year Lease

NASA/MSFC awarded a sole source contract to Velo3D Inc., for a one-year lease of a Velo3D Sapphire Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) System. The Velo3D Sapphire system is currently being used, or evaluated for potential use, by engine suppliers to manufacture flight components for both the Human Landing System (HLS) and SLS vehicles. NASA will play a critical role in reviewing and approving supplier data in support of safety of flight rationale for these vehicles. MSFC must have hands-on experience with the Velo3D Sapphire machine to fulfill its responsibility to provide certification guidance and contribute to NASA’s understanding of the supplier rationale supporting flight safety. An AM machine other than the Velo3D Saphhire system cannot contribute to the risk reduction purpose of this lease, regardless of the capabilities of other AM machine vendors. The NASA Engineering Safety Center (NESC) is the project manager for this action. The NESC has identified AM on propulsion hardware as a particularly high area of risk requiring independent evaluation. During the lease term, NASAMSFC’s Advanced Manufacturing Branch (EM-42) will be conducting extensive testing and study of the Velo3D Sapphire machine to inform review and approval of system certification and safety rationale for space flight components manufactured on this particular AM system.

Awarded contract 80MSFC23CA012 to unknown vendor for unknown amount on 2023-03-31.