Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) 1 Year Contract Extension

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has a requirement for the extension of Contract NNG04EB99C with the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) for a continuation of the Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission. SwRI is currently performing the instrument operations management, which includes instrument operations planning, scheduling, and engineering parameter review and trending, as well as the science operations, which includes planning all instrument modes, calibrations, regions of interest, and data dissemination to the funded co-investigators and general scientific community through the Science Data Center at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

NASA/GSFC intends to issue a sole-source Request for Proposal (RFP) for an extension to SwRI’s current contract, NNG04EB99C, to acquire these services under the statutory authority of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1)--Only One Responsible Source. The estimated period of performance of this cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) contract extension will be for one (1) year from October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. SwRI along with the support of its subcontractors is the only organization currently qualified to fulfil the subject requirement.

SwRI was competitively selected in May 2005, under the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for MMS (AO-02-OSS-03), for science payload development, flight operations, and mission scientific analysis. The AO provided for the mission formulation, development, flight, and closeout phases. The MMS Science payload is a state-of-the-art field and particles science payload comprised of many individual sensors on each of the four identical MMS spacecraft. It advances the prior art by a factor of up to 100 through use of multiple linked sensors to view the entire sky without waiting for the spacecraft to spin. The entire mission science payload was conceived, planned, and managed by SwRI. SwRI and its subcontractors have performed the MMS flight science operations and data analysis/archive functions since mission operations began in September 2015. They developed the original science operations concept, designed and built the science payload consisting of more than 125 instrument detectors/components distributed across the four-spacecraft constellation, and developed the associated payload operations software, support tools, operational procedures, and data processing workflows. Over more than a decade of successful mission operations, the team has accumulated extensive mission-specific knowledge required to safely operate the instrument suite, calibrate and interpret complex science measurements, and maximize scientific return. While the Government owns or has appropriate rights to many mission assets, successfully transitioning these highly specialized science operations to another organization would require substantial knowledge transfer, operational validation, personnel training, and certification. Such a transition would introduce significant schedule and mission risk and would likely reduce the continuity, quality, and efficiency of science operations during the transition period.

While some of the detectors are similar to those flown on previous missions, others are substantially advanced from those flown previously, and at least two detectors (Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) and Active Spacecraft Potential Control (ASPOC)) have never been built by anyone other than the current subcontractors. The SwRI Principal Investigator (PI), Deputy PI, and Co-Investigators (Co-I) are leading experts in the field of magnetospheric and space plasma physics. Only SwRI and its Lead Co-I subcontractors possess the scientific expertise and detailed knowledge of the MMS instrumentation and science operations to carry out the determination of regions of interest and detailed operations in a manner that the scientific operations can be merged with the flight operations to maintain the scientific return of the mission. Several instruments have been built by the subcontractor institutions and there are no other sources with the knowledge to operate them safely.

NASA estimates it would require approximately six months to develop the local operating procedures (LOP) to transfer the ITF engineering capabilities to other sources and a minimum of six months for training replacement engineers. There are a limited number of satellite operation facilities in the US with equipment and secure networks to directly interface with the GSFC Mission Operations Center and none with identical or directly compatible instrument commanding and data processing/archive software as the MMS SOC. While there are many underlying similarities, space flight monitoring and commanding systems are unique and proprietary to each operations center.

This effort requires detailed understanding of the numerous instruments and all related software. No other organization was involved with these activities on an in-depth level, and no other organization currently has the knowledge and experience to fulfill the requirement with the level of return required for this mission.

The Government does not intend to acquire a commercial product or commercial service using FAR Part 12.

Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort electronically via email to Claudia Canales at claudia.canales-1@nasa.gov and Ana Luta at ana.c.luta@nasa.govno later than 4:30 p.m. EST on July 30, 2026. Oral Communication is not acceptable in response to this notice. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct this acquisition on a competitive basis. A decision by the Government not to compete this acquisition on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government.

NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at:

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/procurement/regs/Procurement-Ombuds-Comp-Advocate-Listing.pdf