NASA Solicitation: Transformational High Speed Industry Day Announcement
Synopsis – Feb 28, 2013
General Information
Solicitation Number: NNL13ZB1004L
Posted Date: Feb 28, 2013
FedBizOpps Posted Date: Feb 28, 2013
Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No
Original Response Date: Mar 15, 2013
Current Response Date: Mar 15, 2013
Classification Code: A — Research and Development
NAICS Code: 541712
Set-Aside Code:
Contracting Office Address
NASA/Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 12, Industry Assistance Office, Hampton, VA 23681-0001
Description
An industry day will be held on Thursday and Friday, March 21-22, 2013, from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM EDT, at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), 100 Exploration Way, Hampton, VA. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the potential for collaboration with NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) on research that will be performed this year relating to advanced vehicle concepts and technologies that can enable a new on-demand aviation market. This research opportunity relates to unfunded research collaboration through potential non-reimbursable Space Act Agreements. There is no intent for this industry day or follow-on discussions to lead to funded research. In order to register to attend this meeting, interested companies should submit a 1-2 page response letter by March 15th to Octavia L. Hicks at octavia.l.hicks@nasa.gov. The response letter should describe company prior efforts that relate to on-demand mobility, as well as research interests relating to this topic that could lead to collaboration with NASA, and desired discussion topics for this meeting to help prepare the meeting content. In the event a company cannot attend this meeting, the letter will provide an indication of interest for follow-on discussion with NASA to explore potential collaboration.
As background for this industry day meeting, the emergent on-demand aviation market is envisioned with capabilities that are well beyond existing General Aviation aircraft. These new business models permit a new transportation choice that can achieve increased operational flexibility and accessibility, high utilization, low environmental impact, an easy user experience, and all at affordable cost. Such services could dramatically improve regional transportation accessibility, by providing high speed, distributed mobility between expansive U.S. rural and urban areas to dramatically improve economic productivity. Electric propulsion and autonomy are technology frontiers that offer tremendous potential to achieve desirable vehicle characteristics for on-demand aircraft and high speed mobility, while fundamentally altering the nature of operating costs. Significantly lower operating costs could be achieved through extremely low fuel/energy, maintenance, and piloting costs, accompanied by high dispatch reliability and high resulting load factors for these small vehicles. These two technology disciplines are near an inflection point in terms of being able to surpass current entrenched solutions, while also providing additional characteristics such as ultra-low emissions and community noise.
Over the past decade, several on-demand aviation operators have attempted to establish early adopter markets, but have experienced limited success due to current vehicle and airspace technology limitations, and a lack of governmental support for this emergent market. There is the potential for a vibrant future in on-demand aviation markets that dramatically improves regional productivity, if the many required system elements across vehicle technologies, autonomous systems, and airspace control, are integrated into intelligent system-of-system network solutions. Inherent in these complex integrated systems is the need for collaboration across advanced technology research and development, standardization and regulations through innovative public/private partnerships. The purpose of this research will be to develop an understanding for the potential of on-demand aircraft and other concepts to provide transformational high-speed personal mobility. This research encompasses both the system-of-systems analysis of a new aviation market, as well as detailed systems analysis of vehicle concepts. System-of-system modeling would include demand, airspace, and business case analysis, as well as development of required system attributes through a Concept of Operations. Vehicle concept and technology modeling, encompassing a broad spectrum of transformative enablers such as electric propulsion, autonomy, and airspace technologies will also be investigated to promote feasible on-demand advanced concepts, vehicle autonomy strategies, and non-interfering high-volume airspace operations. Efforts will include the development of analysis tools specific to the needs of understanding the life cycle and modeling of these vehicles and systems, prediction of advanced technology capabilities, analysis of barriers, development of comparative baseline models as well as advanced vehicle concepts, and performing design trade studies, sensitivity analyses, optimization, gap analysis, and technology integration strategies.
Information presented at the industry day tour will be unclassified. At the conclusion of the NASA presentations that will introduce prior research results, industry representatives will have the opportunity for one-on-one discussions to determine if there are mutual areas of research interest to pursue. If such discussions are desired, they should be requested as part of the company response letter so discussion meetings can be scheduled in advance of the industry day site visit. The one-on-one discussions provide industry the opportunity to ask follow-up questions to the presentations, and present company specific topics of interest.
The industry day site visit is an informal event and therefore, any questions and answers provided during the industry day site visit WILL NOT be posted to FedBizOps. Please contact octavia.l.hicks@nasa.gov no later than Friday, March 15, 2013 to register for the industry day and to schedule one-on-one discussions, if desired. One-on-one discussions will be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis. Please provide a list of planned attendees and their research topic expertise as part of the letter. If identified and marked by the company as proprietary, company response letters will be considered proprietary and will not be distributed or made publically available.
No solicitation exists, or is planned for the future relating to this research; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. No funded research opportunities are expected to be forthcoming from this event, with any collaborative research being performed through in-kind contributions from each party. If you have questions or comments about the industry day site visit, please contact Octavia Hicks at octavia.l.hicks@nasa.gov.
Point of Contact
Name: Octavia L Hicks
Title: Contract Specialist
Phone: 757-864-8510
Fax: 757-864-9097
Email: octavia.l.hicks@nasa.gov
Name: Susan E. McClain
Title: Contracting Officer
Phone: 757-864-8687
Fax: 757-864-8863
Email: Susan.E.Mcclain@nasa.gov
