NASA Draft SALMON-2 AO released for community comment

Release Date: August 24, 2011
Comments Due: September 16, 2011
Identification Number: NNH11ZDA017J
Notice Type: Presolicitation

On August 24, 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is releasing a draft solicitation for community review and comment: the draft Second Stand Alone Mission of Opportunity Notice (SALMON-2) Announcement of Opportunity (AO). Upon the release date, the full text of the draft solicitation will be available at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/.

The draft SALMON-2 AO provides a solicitation and procurement base for opportunities for modest investigations requiring space flight that advance the high priority science, exploration, and technology objectives of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and the Office of the Chief Technologist. This draft SALMON-2 AO represents a restructuring of the 2008 SALMON AO (NNH08ZDA009O; http://go.nasa.gov/SALMON-AO) to incorporate the standard format and processes that have been developed for the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Standard AO ( http://soma.larc.nasa.gov/StandardAO/sao_templates.html).

This draft SALMON-2 AO is the product of a multi-directorate effort by NASA to:

* Simplify and remove burden from the community in generating proposals that respond to the SALMON-2 AO.

* Incorporate into the cross-Directorate SALMON-2 AO the standard processes, standard language, and lessons learned that have been incorporated into all Science Mission Directorate AOs beginning in 2009.

* Maintain NASA’s ability to solicit modest space investigations through the SALMON-2 AO without needing to develop an AO for each proposal opportunity.

* Not make changes that will substantially affect the quality of proposals being received nor limit NASA’s ability to determine the risk associated with such proposals for implementation.
It is NASA’s intent that:

* This AO clearly and unambiguously states the policies that govern the solicitation, evaluation, selection, and implementation of modest space investigations, also referred to as Mission of Opportunity (MO) investigations, solicited by NASA by any of its space-going Directorates including the Science Mission Directorate, the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and the Office of the Chief Technologist.

* This AO standardizes the language and policies, to the maximum extent possible, that all mission directorates use in soliciting modest space investigations.

* To simplify the nature of the response necessary, this AO clearly and unambiguously states and numbers the requirements that all proposals shall meet in order to represent a compliant response to this AO.

* This AO clearly separates requirements that apply to proposals from the program policies and requirements that apply to investigations that have been selected to proceed into formulation. The successful proposer, however, will have a good understanding of the tasks necessary during formulation and beyond.

Requirements governing proposal content will be found, for the most part, in Section 5 and Appendix B of this AO. The rest of the AO contains NASA policies and practices for implementing space flight projects that may aid the proposer in developing a response to this AO. These policies and practices include requirements that will apply to any proposed investigation that is selected by NASA for further definition and implementation.

It is further intended that the “standards” established by this AO be the template for all SALMON-2 solicitations with program specific requirements (including deviations from SALMON-2 standard requirements) called out in a Program Element Appendix (PEA) for a specific solicitation and proposal opportunity.

NASA welcomes comments and suggestions on this DRAFT standardized SALMON-2 AO. Comments are welcome on any topic, but are especially welcome where they identify policies, practices, or specific language that are unclear, ambiguous, nonoptimal, or unnecessary.

Comments should be sent to the following address no later than September 16, 2011, in order to be most useful. Please include the phrase “SALMON-2 AO COMMENT” (without quotes) in the subject line of any comment submitted.

Questions or requests for further information may be addressed to Dr. Paul Hertz, Chief Scientist, Science Mission Directorate, NASA, Washington, DC 20546; Telephone: 202-358-0986; Email: paul.hertz@nasa.gov.