ECP Sensor Request for Information

The Space and Missile Systems Center, Advanced Systems and Development Directorate (SMC/AD), Los Angeles Air Force Base, CA, Program Office is releasing this request for information notice to inform interested parties of the U.S. Government's (USG) interest in establishing commercial sources to produce Energetic Charged Particle (ECP) sensors. The overarching goal is to provide definitive attribution of environmentally caused anomalies. In March 2015, the Secretary of the Air Force (SecAF) signed a memo directing each United States Air Force (USAF) satellite program office to plan for and integrate an ECP sensor on all new satellite acquisitions in the pre-Milestone B (pre-MSB) acquisition phase. SMC/AD with Air Force Research Laboratories (AFRL) and The Aerospace Corporation has thus far prototyped two different ECP sensors. Aerospace: ECP-Lite (see Appendix 1 - ECP-Lite Overview) AFRL: CEASE3 (see Appendix2 - CEASE3 Overview) We intend to transition the manufacturing of these government designed sensors to industry. The US Air Force needs an industry source to produce sensors for a wide range of DOD satellites, etc. The goal is to use industry expertise to add interface capability and optimize their size, weight, power, and cost. Program Description: SMC/AD's ECP team will select contractor(s) to produce prototype sensors and to review and modify the government baseline design under a prototyping contract. Other objectives of the prototyping contracts will be to to optimize the manufacturing process and reduce the production timeline. Following the rapid completion of the prototyping contracts, follow-on production contract(s) are intended for award in FY20. Under this effort we will be working with industry to optimize energetic charged particle sensor capability. SMC/AD plans to release these Request for Prototype Proposals (RPPs) through the Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC) as an Other Transaction (OT) contract vehicle in Q4 FY18. Only members of SpEC will be able to respond to the request. For information on becoming a member of SpEC, please visit the website: https://www.space-enterprise-consortium.org/ Overview of work to be released through SpEC: SMC/AD will provide baseline government designs, CDR packages, parts lists, test plans and procedures, and technical communication/support as part of the request for proposal package. The selected contractor(s) will use this information to produce three ECP-Lite units and/or three CEASE3 units with an Engineering Design Unit (EDU) for both. The EDU will be used for satellite integration purposes. Flight Sensors 3 ECP-Lite flight units 3 CEASE3 flight units 1 ECP-Lite EDU 1 CEASE3 EDU The flight sensors will undergo standard flight hardware acceptance level testing - qualifying the interface design changes and the vendor's manufacturing ability/process. The vendor will deliver the flight units to DOD satellite integrators and will be required to support normal integration activites. There may be a need to tailor the designs due to initial flight data and lessons learned prior to awarding a follow-on production contract. Industry expertise, combined with government oversight, will qualify any changes. The contractor will also be responsible for delivering algorithms to convert ECP raw data to physical units, e.g. flux or differential flux, that represent the measured environment in terms that can be used as inputs to physical ECP models or be used to determine hazard assessment based on the measured ECP spectrum. For the initial units, baseline algorithms will be provided by the government along with the reference designs, so that only changes resulting from unit-unique variations or deviations from the reference design would be required. Response Request Interested parties shall submit an unclassified Statement of Capabilities (SOC) describing their experience and capability to provide a solution for the needs described above. The USG requests the following information: 1. Provide examples of other space flight units your company has successfully built. Additionally, any related experience and expertise your company has with space environment sensors. 2. Highlight any documents or information you would need the government to include in the RPP release. 3. Briefly describe the manufacturing process that you would use to manufacture the prototypes. 4. Identify test facilities and travel requirements that you would utilize to complete the required qual and space flight worthiness testing. 5. Identify any subcontracting and/or partnerships you would utilize to prototype/integrate the sensors. 6. Identify if your company would be interested in prototyping ECP-Lite, CEASE3, or both. 7. Provide an analysis on our sensor development path including any thoughts on how we could improve our strategy. 8. If the government undertakes a follow-on production contract, include a short description of your capability to support an increased manufacturing demand if production needs increase in FY21+ 9. Identify if your company is a small business or qualifies as a non-traditional contractor as defined in 10 U.S.C. 2371b. 10. Are you a member Space Enterprise Consortium? If not, would you join to bid for this prototype project? Information is provided at the link: https://www.space-enterprise-consortium.org/ Submission Instructions: 1. Respondents shall provide feedback via Microsoft Word or PDF. Try to limit the response to a maximum of 10 pages in total length. All responses must conform to 8.5x11 inch pages and font no smaller than 11 point, Times New Roman. 2. Responses should be emailed to all Points of Contact listed below. At a minimum, provide the following: name of company, name of corporate point of contact (POC), name of technical POC, telephone number, location, e-mail addresses of each POC, CAGE Code, and other pertinent information. 3. Respondents shall provide an unclassified response to this request for review. If your response contains classified information please contact the POC for further instruction. Proprietary information should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned. The USG is soliciting responses to this Request for Information from interested parties capable of performing the aforementioned scope of work. DISCLAIMERS AND NOTES The NAICS for this effort is 541715 Research and Development in the Physical Engineering and Life Sciences (2017). The Small Business Size Standard is 1250 employees. The Air Force has entered into support contracts with The Aerospace Corporation, Tecolote Research Inc., Millennium Engineering and Integration Company, AT&T Government Solutions Inc., and The LinQuest Corporation. These companies directly support the Air Force program office by performing acquisition support, technical reviews, systems engineering and integration analyses, cost estimation, and other assessment services. Respondents are hereby notified that all responses will be provided to our support contractors for their services to the U.S. Air Force. This notice solicits information for planning purposes only, shall not be construed as an invitation to bid, request for quotation, request for proposal, or a commitment by the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government does not intend to award a contract or any other type of agreement on the basis of this announcement. All information is to be submitted at no cost or obligation to the Government. The U.S. Government is not obligated to notify respondents of the results of this announcement. The U.S. Government reserves the right to reject, in whole, or in part, any private sector input as a result of this announcement. If a formal solicitation is generated at a later date, a separate solicitation notice will be published. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response.