Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS) Project for Microvalves

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has a requirement for Microvalves to support NASA’s Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS). NASA/GSFC is a contributing partner with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) on the Dragonfly Mission to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. JHU/APL is the managing organization for the mission. NASA/GSFC is building and delivering the DraMS instrument to JHU/APL. The DraMS flight instrument uses a specific NASA patented, miniaturized, double-latching, solenoid valves (Microvalves) invented by NASA/GSFC throughout the instrument. The DraMS Project requires these specific patented Microvalves for the instrument. These Microvalves are required to operate within the extreme planetary environments of our Solar System and operate within our mass spectrometer instruments. As such, these Microvalves must provide tight seals with very low leak rates for long durations, they must be robust against the launch and space environment, they must be low mass and low power, they must conform to the constrained instrument design and existing interfaces, and they must not introduce contamination risk that would compromise the high sensitivity molecular measurements performed by DraMS. The scope of work for this procurement includes manufacturing, testing, and delivering flight qualified Microvalves to be used within the DraMS Gas Processing System (GPS) and Gas Chromatograph (GC). NASA/GSFC intends to issue a sole source Contract to acquire the items from Mindrum Precision Inc. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1, “Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.” The Government intends to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12. Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort electronically via email to the Contract Specialist, Jeffrey Lopez at [email protected] not later than 5:00 P.M. (eastern standard time) on October 12, 2021. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct this acquisition on a competitive basis. A determination 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 http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html