Space Weather Next L1 Series Coronagraph

Pre-Solicitation Notice for Space Weather Next L1 Series Coronagraph

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) plan to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Space Weather Next Program. This new procurement is for the Space Weather Next L1 Series Coronagraph instrument.

The Coronagraph is an instrument that will provide NOAA with the continuity and resilience of solar wind data and coronal mass ejection (CME) imagery, which is the National Weather Service’s highest priority for space weather observations. The contract scope includes the tasks and deliverables necessary to design, analyze, develop, fabricate, integrate, test, verify, evaluate, support launch, supply and maintain the instrument Ground Support Equipment (GSE), and support Mission Operations at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF).

This procurement will be conducted as a full and open competition. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code and Size Standard are 336414 and 1,300 employees, respectively.

It is anticipated that this competitive procurement will result in a Cost-Plus­Fixed-Fee (CPFF) hardware contract with technical milestone incentives, which includes three instruments.

The anticipated period of performance for the contract is from contract award through fifteen (15) months (TBR) after launch of the second mission. This includes post-delivery support for Observatory level integration, launch, post launch evaluation, calibration, data validation, operational handover to NOAA of the instruments, and on-orbit anomaly investigations.  The first flight unit shall be delivered by March 2027, the second by June 2029 and the third unit is a spare flight unit for the first two missions.

The overall period of performance of the contract shall be from the date of contract award through January 2034 for a total of 9 years. The anticipated contract award date is September 2024.

The Government does not intend to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12

This synopsis shall serve as the pre-solicitation notice for the Final RFP.

NASA will not be releasing a full Draft RFP for this requirement but have provided with this notice, a preview of the technical requirements for comments and questions, which will serve as the DRFP for this procurement. Comments to the draft technical requirement documents should be received by NASA by December 8, 2023.   The anticipated release of the Final RFP is January 22, 2024. The model contract terms and conditions, and evaluation criteria will be provided with the Final RFP with ample time for vendor responses. When the Final RFP is issued, all responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency.

The Government anticipates issuing a modification to this synopsis when the RFP becomes available.

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.

If a solicitation is released, then it and any additional documents will be available on www.Sam.gov.

Prospective offerors shall notify this office of their intent to submit an offer. It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor this website for the release of the solicitation and amendments (if any). Potential offerors will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments (if any).

All contractual and technical questions/comments must be submitted electronically via email to Jonathan.w.diggs@nasa.gov no later than December 8, 2023.