NASA Solicitation: Explorers Mission Partnership opportunity

Synopsis – May 24, 2010

Explorers Mission Partnership Opportunity Document – Posted on May 24, 2010 New!

General Information

Solicitation Number: 2010-101
Posted Date: May 24, 2010
FedBizOpps Posted Date: May 24, 2010
Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No
Original Response Date: Jun 18, 2010
Current Response Date: Jun 18, 2010
Classification Code: A — Research and Development
NAICS Code: 334511 – Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical, and Nautical System and Instrument Manufacturing
Set-Aside Code:

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 210.S, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Description

This proposal opportunity is for a NASA Announcement of Opportunity for an Explorers Mission in the Summer/Fall of 2010. The draft AO is expected in the spring of 2010. NASA GSFC is seeking a partner to provide a spacecraft with related spacecraft subsystems for a potential proposal. The potential GSFC Explorer mission is designed to meet the science goals of the Explorer Program, as currently understood.

GSFC mission teams will be submitting proposals to the Explorers AO currently scheduled for release in mid to late calendar year 2010. The AO is a two-step process, with the first proposal response being primarily focused on the merit and feasibility of the science objectives of the proposed mission. The initial submissions will then be down-selected, and the resultant subset of proposals will be funded to perform Phase A concept studies. During Phase A, proposals will be expanded and refined to detail the entire end-to-end mission life cycle concept, with greater attention to engineering implementation. While the AO schedule cannot be specified at this time, the following is estimated based on earlier AO’s and related missions:

AO release July-October 2010 Proposals due January 2011 (target) Phase A selection July/Aug 2011 Phase A concept study report Summer 2012 (target) Mission selection Late 2012 (target)

Launch 2016 for first mission Late 2018 for additional mission (if selected)

This partnership opportunity is being issued to select a teaming partner to help prepare the GSFC Explorer candidate mission concept for the initial proposal submittal; to assist in the Phase A concept study if the mission is down-selected; and to provide a flight qualified spacecraft system should the mission be selected for flight. The major flight system GSFC is interested in finding partners for is a low cost low earth orbiting spacecraft. If the potential partner also has a mission operations capability that might present a cost-effective option to the project, the potential partner may include the mission operations effort in his or her proposal. Instruments are not part of this POD.

Potential respondents are asked to contact the GSFC Explorer team by 5 PM EDT on June 18, 2010 with a Notice Of Interest (intentionally not called a notice of intent). This Notice of Interest does not create an obligation to respond to the POD, but allows the GSFC Explorer team to disseminate additional details on the mission parameters and to provide answers to questions from potential partners. Notice of Interest respondents will receive a document containing additional details on the proposed mission, which can be used to facilitate a focused response to the partnership opportunity. These details are proprietary and competition sensitive and are not to be shared outside the teams necessary to prepare a full response.

There will be no exchange of funds between the teaming partners for the portion of this partnership opportunity dealing with the preparation of the initial submission to the Explorer AO. Limited funding will be available for Phase A and full funding will be available for subsequent phases should the mission be competitively selected for those additional phases.

Point of Contact

Name: Dawn M. Fountain
Title: Contracting Officer
Phone: 301-286-3318
Fax: 301-286-1773
Email: Dawn.M.Fountain@nasa.gov