A--ACCESS 5 JOINT SPONSORED RESEARCH

Access 5 Announcement Special Notice. This notice is for information and planning purposes as well as to promote competition. NASA is intending to lead a multi-agency project with the goal to enable routine, safe, and reliable operations of high altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles in the national airspace system above 18,000 feet. The project objectives include developing and demonstrating technologies, and developing standards, regulations, and procedures to support such operations. Initial efforts will focus on flight above 40,000 feet, so NASA is currently seeking interested industry parties who meet the following criteria. Industry members must; Be a US owned company that is headquartered in the US and has its primary research and development or manufacturing facilities located in the US, and Have designed, built, and demonstrated an unmanned aerial vehicle that has operated above 40,000 feet with sufficient cruise range to transition multiple FAA sectors on a single flight. NOTE: Since the FAA has current policy with respect to the operation of free flight balloons, Access 5 will not address issues associated with their operation. As such companies can not qualify solely on the basis of free flight balloon experience Participation criteria are expected to change as follow-on phases of the project are funded and progress permit. Project funding begins in government fiscal year 2004. Funding to support this project has currently been identified through fiscal year 2008. Initial funding is intended to begin the activity while additional funds are sought to complete the envisioned project goal. NASA expects to conduct the project via a joint sponsored research agreement (JSRA) rather than a traditional procurement. Therefore the provisions of the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FARs) do not apply to this announcement. The JSRA will allow industry greater participation in the project planning and implementation process. In addition the JSRA allows the negotiation of intellectual property rights. As a result industry members will; 1) be required to, in aggregate across all industry members, contribute to the total program costs through in-kind or other cost deferral means, and 2) not be allowed to charge profit and fee for work preformed on the project. An interested industry party may apply for membership at any time. Selection of industry members is subject to verification of their compliance with the membership criteria. Interested industry members should contact American Technologies Alliances (AmTech) stating their interest in participation and providing evidence of their qualifications against the stated criteria. AmTech is operating under a cooperative agreement from NASA Dryden to administer JSRA's on NASA's behalf. The initial cut off for the receipt of interest and verification of requirements will be August 15th in order to allow industry the maximum input into the project planning process. Applications by qualifying industry parties will, however, be accepted at any time. This notice is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information solicited.