Space Launch System Core Stage Engines

NASA/MSFC has a requirement for Core Stage Engines for the Space Launch System (SLS). The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and subsequent Presidential direction has directed the Agency to develop, as rapidly as possible, replacement vehicles capable of providing both human and cargo launch capability to low-Earth orbit and to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit. In developing the SLS, the Act directed NASA to utilize, to the extent practicable, existing contracts, investments, workforce, industrial base, and capabilities from the Space Shuttle Program (SSP), Orion, and Ares I projects. This includes SSP-derived components and Ares I components that draw extensively on SSP heritage propulsion systems, including liquid fuel engines, external tank or tank-related capability, and solid rocket motors. To achieve this mandate, NASA has chosen to initiate the development of the SLS with SSP and Ares I derived assets. Specific to the Core Stage Engine, the system will utilize modified RS-25 Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) hardware and Ares I components to provide the required lift capabilities. This effort previously encompassed the restart of RS-25 engine system production to acquire six flight engines, and will now encompass production and program operations and flight support for eighteen new flight engines.
NASA/MSFC intends to negotiate with Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) only for the SLS RS- 25 Core Stage Engine. This decision is made pursuant to FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii&iii}, only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, which implements the authority for 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1). Competition is impractical for the following reasons:
The SLS vehicle architecture has been established and part of that architecture is the RS-25 as the Core Stage Engine. Every liquid propellant rocket engine design has unique interfaces, interface conditions, physical features, and performance characteristics. These factors drive the design of the stage main propulsion system, the sizing of the propellant tanks, the constituents and capabilities of the ancillary systems used to support engine operation such as pneumatic and hydraulic fluid supply, communications, electrical power, and thrust vector control. They also can influence ground systems including handling and test equipment and even engine test stand. The engine performance also drives mission design at the vehicle level in terms of payload manifests, trajectory design, and abort scenario development.
Once an engine system is chosen for a launch vehicle architecture and that vehicle is certified for flight, changing to another engine system with substantive differences in form, fit, function, or performance would necessitate significant stage and vehicle redesign and recertification. The SLS Program is utilizing residual RS-25 assets from the Space Shuttle Program for the first four launches. Redesign efforts applied to the SLS vehicle to accommodate a change to a different Core Stage Engine would represent a substantial and unacceptable schedule delay for the fifth flight and a substantial and unacceptable duplication of cost to the program. Therefore, the RS-25 must remain as the Core Stage Engine for the SLS vehicle.
The RS-25 engine system design carries with it four decades of development and production activity and three decades of flight experience. The RS-25 engine design is the most advanced and complex engine ever built and flown in the United States. The development of a new engine design with the same form, fit, function, and performance of the RS-25 would involve significant and inherent technical risks and safety concerns. The RS-25 is fully matured from a technical perspective. With over one million seconds of accumulated hot-fire test time and the equivalent of over four hundred human spaceflights, the RS-25 design, production processes, and operational procedures have incorporated within them thousands of lessons learned. A new engine would not necessarily derive the same benefit from these lessons learned, the value of which is incalculable, thereby generating many programmatic and technical risks which are not present with RS-25.
Given the technical and safety-related rationale for retaining the mature RS-25 design as the SLS Program Core Stage Engine, and given the unique experience, perspective, and capabilities specifically pertaining to the RS-25 engine that is possessed by Aerojet Rocketdyne; there is only one source for RS-25 Core Stage Engines that does not require the substantial and unrecoverable duplication of cost, create unacceptable schedule delays, and substantially increase the SLS Program technical risk.
The Government does not intend to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12. Acquisition of Commercial Items.
Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort in writing to the identified point of contact no later than 4:30 p.m. local time on August 14, 2018. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government. All responsible sources may submit a response, which will be considered by the agency. NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html..