NASA Community Announcement Regarding Earth Venture Instrument 6 (EVI-6) Release Status

Notice ID Number on beta.SAM.gov: NNH21ZDA017L

This community announcement is an advance notice of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) plan to release a Program Element Appendix (PEA) to solicit Earth Venture Instrument investigations implemented through the Earth Venture Instrument (EVI) element of the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program. This will be the sixth solicitation in the EVI series and will be soliciting Class D PI-led investigations as defined in Section 5.3.4 of the Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice SALMON-3 Announcement of Opportunity (AO).

The PEA will call for proposals for complete PI-led science investigations based on one or more (a) space-based instruments or (b) CubeSats and which conduct innovative, integrated scientific question-driven investigations addressing pressing Earth system science issues. 

The Cost Cap on the PI-Managed Mission Cost (PIMMC) for an EVI-6 investigation is $37M in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 dollars with a possibility of an additional request of up to $5.3M for a Science Enhancement Option (SEO) as defined in Section 5.2.5 of the SALMON-3 AO. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may participate in this solicitation in the form of an Operational Enhancement Opportunity (OEO) for the NASA selected instrument, if the selected instrument’s observables are consistent with the operational goals of NOAA. NASA also may explore the ability of flying the selected EVI-6 instrument on the Joint Polar Satellite System – 4 (JPSS-4).  NASA expects to select one or more Class D Instrument and/or Class D CubeSat Investigations based on funding availability at the time of selection. NASA is committed to principles of open science for EVI-6 including, the full, free, and open sharing of data, algorithms, software, and documentation from project initiation.

Each selected Class D instrument or CubeSat investigation under this EVI-6 PEA is required to deliver an instrument(s) that can be integrated onto a NASA-determined platform and/or a CubeSat(s) that can be integrated to a NASA-determined launch vehicle within four years of project initiation. While proposers may offer their opinions about possible spacecraft and launch vehicles, they are not obliged to do so and, in all cases, NASA will make the final determination.

NASA has not approved the issuance of the PEA and this community announcement does not obligate NASA to issue the PEA and solicit proposals. Any costs incurred by prospective investigators in preparing submissions in response to this announcement or the planned PEA are incurred completely at the submitter’s own risk.

Questions or comments about this EVI-6 Community Announcement may be addressed to: Dr. Hank Margolis, NASA EVI-6 Program Scientist, hank.a.margolis@nasa.gov. The received questions and answers will be posted on the EVI-6 Acquisition Homepage (https://essp.larc.nasa.gov/EVI-6 ): anonymity of the authors of all questions will be preserved.