The purpose of this modification is to identify Marilyn Whaley as the single point of contact for all administrative correspondence or questions and the recipient of all responses to BAA solicitation number NPOESSIGS. Point of Contact information is as follows: Marilyn Whaley, Contracting Officer, phone (301) 713 3478 and E-mail:
[email protected] //////////////END OF MODIFICATION////////// Modified announcement follows: OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION: The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) is a satellite system used to monitor global environmental conditions, and collect and disseminate data related to: weather, atmosphere, oceans, land and the near-space environment. The NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO) organizationally resides within the Department of Commerce, NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). The Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), created the IPO to develop, acquire, manage, and operate the NPOESS satellites. Details on NPOESS can be found at http://npoess.noaa.gov. The NPOESS requirements were developed by the user community and are captured in the NPOESS Integrated Operational Requirements Document (IORD). To achieve its mission, the IPO has undertaken a far-reaching program of sensor development, and satellite transition and evolution to provide complete coverage of environmental conditions for civil, military, and scientific purposes. NPOESS data will be processed into Environmental Data Records (EDRs) for use by a number of operational communities. The IPO’s operational effectiveness depends on its ability to keep pace with rapidly developing technologies. To accomplish this, the IPO funds research and development initiatives through its Internal Government Studies (IGS) program. The IGS program consists of teams of scientists and engineers from Government laboratories and centers, Federally-Funded Research and Development Centers, universities, and industry. These teams are tasked to identify and test technologies and techniques that are able to meet NPOESS requirements and objectives. The objective of this BAA is to identify and engage research organizations in industry and universities that can make significant technical contributions to NPOESS in the following areas: • Un-accommodated Environmental Data Records (EDRs) are remote sensing data products envisioned in the IORD that will not be produced by the NPOESS system (satellite and sensors) currently under development. Reasons for these deficiencies are lack of scientific understanding of the physical processes and measurements to be made, technological immaturity of the potential sensors, or the high cost of sensors using current technology. The IGS program sponsors continuing research directed toward the affordable satisfaction of these IORD requirements • Environmental Data Record performance attainment: The performance of the NPOESS sensors providing EDRs typically fall between the minimum threshold and desired objective levels of performance described in the IORD. The IGS program sponsors continuing research into methods, techniques and science needed to advance EDR performance toward objective levels • Data Exploitation and New Product Development: NPOESS represents a significant advance in the United States’ operational environmental remote sensing capability. While the system was designed to meet specific application requirements, it is expected that entirely new, novel, and potentially unanticipated useful applications will be discovered. The IGS program sponsors development of applications to enhance exploitation of existing data products and the development of new data products. • Pre-Launch instrument assessment: The instruments that will be carried on NPOESS and NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft in many cases have advanced the state of the art in remote sensing technology. It is critical that the performance of these instruments is completely and reliably characterized prior to launch. The IGS program endeavors to stimulate vigorous scientific process to insure that this goal is achieved. • Post-Launch Calibration and Validation: The data products generated by the NPOESS program will serve a very wide range of users, from long term climatological studies to operational civil and military forecasting. The IGS program intends to fund research, development, analysis, and assessment activities to ensure that NPOESS data have been validated with rigor by a broad scientific community. • Truth data development and sustainment: Successful calibration and validation of NPOESS and NPP data products require various independent truth data sets of phenomena estimated from the raw satellite data. The IGS program intends to fund activities necessary to ensure that sufficient data are available. These will include assessment of the quality of existing data sources, research and development of methods, and techniques for data that are uniquely required by the program, and data collection campaigns. • Development of Innovative Technologies that may help to enable the NPOESS mission: These technologies may be used in support of the above areas or to achieve efficiencies in NPOESS ground and space segment systems such as data handling, communications, sensor pointing, precision orbit/attitude determination, power management, etc. PROGRAM SCOPE: The scope of this program is intentionally broad to address the wide spectrum of issues facing the next generation of polar-orbiting environmental remote sensing satellites. All research is intended to have the common objective of addressing the technology issues described above. Strategically, this research will support the establishment of the NPOESS family of environmental remote sensing satellite resources as a valid source for climate and operational environmental monitoring and forecasting in the future. EVALUATION CRITERIA: Proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria in descending order of importance: (1) Capabilities and experience of the offeror, specifically with technology directly related to NPOESS, (2) Contributions/ Relevance to the NPOESS Mission, (3) Plans and Capabilities to Accomplish Technology Transfer from a research environment to the NPOESS program , and (4) Total Cost and Cost Reasonableness. All awards made in response to this BAA will be subject to availability of Government funds. Contract award(s) will be made on the basis of the evaluation criteria listed above to the offeror(s) whose proposals are considered most advantageous to the NPOESS IPO. GENERAL INFORMATION: IPO budgets approximately $8M per year for IGS contracts. IPO intends to award multiple IDIQ task order contracts ranging in value from $100K to $5M with one base year and up to four (4) option years (total of 5 years). Offerors should prepare proposals that anticipate an initial task order with a period of performance not longer than 12 months valued under $1M. This BAA will remain open for a period of one year. The selection process may begin as early as August 15, 2005. Offerors must submit an original proposal and five (5) copies with a minimum of five (5) pages not to exceed ten (10) pages in length consisting of both technical and cost proposals to the administrative address for this BAA. It is the policy of IPO to treat all proposals as competitive information and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. Non-Government personnel may be used for evaluation support. Any such non-Government personnel are required to sign non-disclosure statements prior to participating in the evaluation. By submission of a proposal in response to this announcement, the offeror gives its written permission that its proposal information may be disclosed to those selected non-Government personnel for the evaluation of its proposal. Only Government evaluators will make selections under this BAA. This announcement constitutes the Broad Area Announcement as contemplated by FAR 35.016. A formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement will not be issued. Requests for same will be disregarded. The Government reserves the right to select for award any, all, part, or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. Awards are subject to the provisions of the FAR Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any other IPO contracts through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports, and identify the prime contract number. Affirmation shall be furnished at the time of proposal submission. All facts relevant to the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in the FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. The disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. This BAA is an expression of interest only and does not commit the Government to pay any pre-proposal or proposal preparation costs. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit proposals, which will be evaluated. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Institutions (MI) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals. However, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of research related to environmental remote sensing developments. ADMINISTRATIVE CORRESPONDENCE: All administrative correspondence or questions on this BAA should be directed to the following e-mail address:
[email protected]. Submit Responses to: NESDIS Acquisition Division, SSMC3 Room 10100, Attn: Marilyn Whaley, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910