A--PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR THE SPACE TECHNOLOGY-9 SPACE TELESCOPE SPACECRAFT BUS

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is seeking a partner for the Space Technology-9 (ST9) Large Space Telescope (LST) mission to increase the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of a mechanical cryogenic cooler (CC) and actively cooled sunshade (SS) to the point where they can be used with adequately low risk on future cryogenic space telescopes. The partner to be selected by this POD will, at no cost to NASA, help to further define the ST9 LST SC bus during the ST9 Concept Definition Study Phase. If ST9 LST is selected for implementation, it is then planned to award a non-competitive contract to the partner to first refine the SC bus design, and then develop and operate the SC bus for the ST9 LST flight mission. The following summarizes some currently defined tasks for the SC bus partner/provider effort over the various ST9 LST phases. -Work with the ST9 LST team during the study phase without funding to o Refine the proposed design of the ST9 LST SC bus o Better define the interface between the SC bus design and the payload o Refine the mission operations concept o Perform trade studies. Example: To what extent should the payload instrumentation electronics be integrated into the SC bus electronics o Support the assessment and control of mission risk o Refine cost and schedule estimates for the SC, I&T, and operations. o Support the writing of the Study Report, which serves as the proposal to go to formulation refinement and implementation phases. Note that the Study Report is to address two different possible launch vehicles as defined in Section 2. The response to the POD is due by 5 PM Eastern Time on 1/24/06. The response shall include an electronic PDF version, as well as a Microsoft-Word-compatible version, of the proposal, and shall be sent electronically by this time to Keith Walyus (email: contact@example.gov, tel: +1 (555) 000-0000), the ST9 LST Capture Manager, who is also the point of contact (POC) for sending questions and notification of intent to respond. All questions regarding this document should be directed to Keith Walyus. All proposals will be treated as proprietary information and controlled as such. The Partnership Opportunity Document (POD) does not represent a guarantee of selection for hardware development. GSFC does not currently have a requirement for this subsystem or funds to support its development. When responding to this notice, please reference this document. This solicitation/synopsis is not to be construed as a commitment by the government, nor will the government pay for the information solicited. An ombudsman has been appointed. See Internet Note "B". The documents for this partnership opportunity will be in Microsoft Office Suite (Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, or PowerPoint 4.0) format and will reside on a World Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using a WWW browser application. The WWW address, or URL, of the NASA/GSFC Business Opportunities home page is http://genesis.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasanote.html . It is the offerors responsibility to monitor this cite for the release of the Partnership Opportunity Document and amendments (if any). Potential offerors will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the Partnership Opportunity Document and amendments, if any. Any referenced notes can be viewed at the following URL: http://genesis.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasanote.html .