SALMON-2 AO Amendment 13: Release of a new proposal opportunity in Appendix S: Earth Venture Instrument-4

With this amendment, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Announcement of Opportunity (AO) NNH12ZDA006O, “Second Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice (SALMON-2)” is amended to establish a new program element appendix (PEA) as Appendix S, Earth Venture Instrument-4 (EVI-4).

EVI-4 is part of the Earth Venture (EV) portfolio under the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program (http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-programs/earth-system-science-pathfinder/). The EV portfolio consists of regularly solicited, competitively selected, cost and schedule constrained Earth science investigations, as recommended by the National Research Council’s decadal survey in Earth science titled Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond (The National Academies Press, 2007) and available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11820.

This EVI-4 PEA solicits proposals for developing instruments for participation on a NASA-arranged space flight mission of opportunity or for developing CubeSat(s) to fly on a NASA arranged launch vehicle. These investigations must conduct innovative, integrated, hypothesis, or scientific question-driven approaches to pressing Earth system science issues. The NASA funded Principal Investigator (PI) will retain a central role on the instrument package or CubeSat(s) development, integration and testing, calibration, and science operations.

This solicitation calls for proposals for complete PI-led science investigations requiring spaceflight instrument or CubeSat(s) development. The term “complete” encompasses investigation phases from project initiation, through development and science operations, to scientific analysis of space based data. These space flight missions will be used to conduct innovative, integrated, hypothesis, or scientific question-driven investigations addressing pressing Earth system science issues.

This solicitation calls for investigations addressing any of the science goals in NASA’s Earth Science program. Investigations may target any Earth science question or issue in order to advance the strategic goals and answer any of the science questions for Earth Science from Section 2.1 of this PEA and the 2014 Science Mission Directorate Science Plan (hereafter referred to as the 2014 Science Plan; available at http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/), or address any of the science goals for Earth Science, also from the 2014 Science Plan.

Instrument Investigations must encompass the provision of a flight qualified space flight instrument or instrument package ready for integration to a spacecraft (Phase A-C), the technical support for integration onto a NASA-determined spacecraft (Phase D), the on-orbit operations, and the delivery of science quality data (Phase E), as described in Section 4.1 of the SALMON-2 AO.

CubeSat Investigations must encompass the provision of CubeSat(s) (instrument and flight systems) ready for integration to the launch vehicle (Phases A-D), the technical support for integration onto a NASA-determined launch vehicle (part of Phase D) the on-orbit operations, and the delivery of science quality data (Phase E), as described in Section 4.1 of the SALMON-2 AO.

Participation is open to all categories of organizations or institutions, U.S. or non-U.S., including educational, industrial, and not-for-profit institutions, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs), NASA Centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and other Government agencies.

A virtual Preproposal Web/Teleconference will be held on August 18, 2016, see the EVI-4 Acquisition Homepage at http://essp.larc.nasa.gov/EVI-4/for logistical information. 

Mandatory Notices of Intent to propose are due 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on September 1, 2016.

Proposals are due 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on November 18, 2016.

Comments and questions may be addressed by E-mail to: Thomas Wagner at thomas.wagner@nasa.gov (subject line to read “EVI-4 Solicitation”).

Responses to all inquiries will be answered by E-mail and also posted to the Questions and Answers (Q&As) location of the EVI-4 Acquisition Homepage at http://essp.larc.nasa.gov/EVI-4/. Anonymity of persons/institutions who submit questions will be preserved.