CALL 003 BAA-RVKV-2014-0005 Mini Industry Day

28 November 2017 SOURCES SOUGHT SYNOPSIS (SUSPENSE: 10 January 2018) Submit Statement Of Capabilities (SOCs) via email followed in the mails by two (2) copies using Fed Ex, UPS, or any other Express carrier by 12:00 pm MDT on 10 January 2018. Please note, the US Mail has limited manpower on Kirtland AFB, NM for distributing mail timely. If you submitted a SOC once before, then you will need to re-submit again and confirm your SOC. Subject: AFRL/RVKVB Sources Sought tracking number: FA9453-17-S-0004 - Next-Generation Space Environment Technologies (NSET) Program, Originally Posted on 30 March 2017, this is Amendment # 1. 1. SYNOPSIS: NOTE! This is Amendment # 1 to AFRL/RVKVB Sources Sought tracking number: FA9453-17-S-0004 dated 30 March 2017 for NSET. The Air Force Research Laboratory, Battlespace Environment Division, is issuing this sources sought synopsis as a means of conducting market research to determine the availability of industry and academic sources with the capabilities and capacity to provide research and development with respect to Next-Generation Space Environment Technologies (NSET). The result of this market research will contribute to determining the method of procurement for research activities. The applicable North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) code assigned to this procurement is: 541715 (Changed as of 1 Oct 17). 2. NOTE!! THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION. This request for capability information does not constitute a request for proposals; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred. 3. Notice. This notice is for planning purposes only and does not commit the Government to any contractual agreement. If you have any technical or contracting question(s), please send your written questions via an e-mail to the Contracting Officer and Contract Specialist only. All technical questions will be forwarded to the Program Manager who will respond through the Contracting Officer or Specialist. Note, no feedback or evaluations will be provided to companies regarding their submissions. 4. Potential Offeror(s): AFRL is seeking potential offerors with the capability to provide basic and applied research and development, advanced technology development, advanced component development and prototypes, and operational system development enabling next-generation space environment technologies for the joint warfighter. The Government's objective is to build upon the current state of the art, expand where necessary the current state of the science, and ultimately to advance the Air Force's operational capabilities to predict, specify, mitigate and exploit the space environment. In particular, this effort will perform cross-disciplinary research and development to integrate models, data and tools across the solar, heliosphere, magnetosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere domains to meet Air Force needs, including the investigation, design and evaluation of new measurement, modeling, mitigation and exploitation techniques and tools, and the definition of interfaces for those capabilities to the larger Air Force toolset. The results of this work will be captured in reports and data sets key to advancing the Government's science and technology efforts in this area. 5. This effort does not represent separate, discipline scientific and engineering activities. The Government's existing and planned contracts and in-house research teams have produced and continue to produce substantial discipline knowledge and technologies. The objectives of this effort relate to the interdisciplinary development and integration of those products and products of the greater research community leading to innovative new space environment awareness, mitigation and exploitation capabilities. In such a body of work, the various research activities are expected to be tightly coupled, with requirements from one aspect driving scientific investigation of another, with the combined results feeding into novel technologies. These new capabilities must be cost-effective, and new ideas that build on existing capabilities and investments will likely prove advantageous. 6. The integrated, cross-disciplinary and tightly-coupled nature of these efforts is likely to require teaming between offerors in order to meet the Government's requirement. Although offerors are encouraged to respond individually to elements of this data call, submissions should document planned teaming approaches to meet the full intended scope, as well as past experience executing projects under such an arrangement. If a potential offeror plans to "Team" with a "Prime" contractor, then AFRL is requesting an offeror's permission to share a list of "interested offerors" as part of our solicitation in order to facilitate teaming to meet the government's needs, especially with small business for any potential awards. 7. It is anticipated that many elements of this effort, particularly any team leads, will require access to and processing of classified information to include SECRET and TOP SECRET//SCI. Thus, a DD Form 254 will be required; and successful offerors will need the appropriate security clearances prior to award. 8. Responsive offerors will demonstrate depth of knowledge in and breadth of knowledge across the relevant discipline areas, experience in integrating research across those disciplines, and experience in the development of advanced technology from those integrated results, as evidenced by past projects. Professional software development capability and experience are also required, as is experience with space environment sensor design, data handling, processing and analysis of results from space flight experiments. 9. Information regarding your organization's capabilities and experience must be in writing and should include information relevant and specific to the technical areas below. It should address each of the following qualifications: (1) Experience: An outline of previous similar projects, specific experience in performing the items listed below; (2) Personnel: Name, professional qualification and specific experience of scientists and/or technical personnel who may be assigned as project director and other key positions; and (3) Any other specific and relevant information about this particular area of procurement that would improve the government's knowledge of interested organization's' capabilities. 10. Interested organizations must demonstrate and document, in any capability statements submitted, extensive experience with and the ability to perform the below tasks. Organizations should clearly demonstrate the capability to administer and coordinate interrelated tasks in an effective and timely manner, as well as the ability to operate effectively across Government and contractor teams. Documentation may include, but not be limited to, contracts both Government and commercial, identification of the organization for whom the work was performed (include government points of contact both technical and contractual), references, (i.e. names, titles, telephone numbers), and any other information serving to document the organization's capability, e.g., awards, commendations, etc. 11. The successful offeror will be required to: Conduct basic and applied research, advanced technology development, advanced component development and prototypes, and operational system development, as part of an integrated research effort focused on advancing the Air Force's capabilities to predict, specify, mitigate and exploit the space environment. Achieving this objective will require coordinated, simultaneous activity in several interrelated areas, such as the research, development and evaluation of advanced techniques for the sensing, collection, transport, processing, and storage of terrestrial and space system geophysical data needed to support novel capabilities, including the planning, scheduling and evaluation of collection schemes. Such efforts should advance the Government's existing techniques, as well as enable new capabilities, and must specifically include the exploitation of the complex AFRL Demonstrations and Science Experiments, Very Low Frequency and Particle Mapper, ESPA-Augmented GEO Laboratory Experiment, and other upcoming space missions addressing elements of the space environment, including operational systems such as COSMIC-2. These missions are designed to exercise and mature sensors capable of measuring the energetic charged particle environment, with particular emphasis on calibration, miniaturization and extension to multiple phenomenologies beyond the space environment. They will operate in concert with ground sensors intended to enable the next-generation of space environment specification and forecast, including magnetometer or variometer systems, passive ionospheric sensors, enhanced sounders, RF beacons or transponders, and ground receivers. 12. Using such data sets, the effort should conduct research, development, design and evaluation of integrated space environment modeling techniques that exploit multiple measurement platforms, phenomena and environmental domains to provide integrated, statistical predictions and specifications needed to support next-generation capabilities for next-generation system operation and design. The efforts should advance the Government's prediction and specification ability for the environment, interact where appropriate to enhance non-environmental specifications and prediction capabilities, as well as provide new capabilities. Specific target applications for development and/or insertion of new capability include AFRL's AE9/AP9/SPM radiation belt climatology, the Nascap-2k spacecraft charging assessment tool, a Standard Space Environment Workbench, assimilative outer zone electron and solar proton cutoff models, multi-data type scintillation model, total electron content, global and regional total electron content and bottom-side ionospheric specification, ionospheric irregularity structure models, wave structure models, solar UV/EUV and RF specification models, flare prediction models, predictive solar magnetic field and solar wind models, the Air Force Coverage Analysis Program, WBMOD, and wave-particle interaction simulations. 13. The combined sensing and modeling products will be refined, extended and validated through laboratory experiments with ionospheric, thermospheric, magnetospheric and heliospheric applicability, to include basic and applied research project tailoring and execution; the design, test, prototyping and demonstration of novel space environment monitoring and observing systems; the design, test, prototyping and demonstration of novel space environment mitigation and exploitation technologies; fundamental and applied space environment chemistry experiments, including in the field; and the study of space plasma dynamics, material aging and characterization, component qualification, and spacecraft charging. 14. The integrated sensing and modeling techniques should be driven and exercised by next generation space environment impact prediction, visualization and attribution technologies that combine, as appropriate, solar, solar wind, magnetosphere and ionosphere observational data, integrated environmental models, and engineering data to provide enhanced awareness, predictive capabilities, and mitigation and exploitation courses of action. This research, development, design, and evaluation effort should enhance the Government's existing space system awareness and planning capabilities, as well as enable new capabilities. These new technologies must in turn consider compatibility and interoperability with the larger Air Force toolset for planning, situational awareness and command and control. Specific types of impacts include upsets, degradation or interference to space vehicles or their payloads and radio frequency systems, including but not limited to communication and surveillance applications. Gains over the current state-of-practice at this end of the utility chain are the ultimate goal of this work. 15. Efforts undertaken within the above scope may take the form of basic research, applied research, or advanced technology development, depending on the maturity of the underlying science and technology. These efforts may also include prototyping in concert with other DoD entities, or research and development intended to improve capability, sustainability or maintainability of fielded systems. Accordingly, elements of this effort may be supported by a mixture of 3600 funding (6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.7) as appropriate for each activity pursuant to the FAR, DFARS, Regulations, Fiscal Law, and the Availability Of Funds prior to any potential award. 16. The Government recognizes that cutting edge research and development of the nature envisioned brings significant uncertainty about required levels of effort and feasibility. The Government further desires to encourage novel approaches and ideas that may carry significant risk but also offer significant reward, as is appropriate to a Broad Agency Announcement effort. Offerors are hereby notified that the Government intends to exercise the maximum allowable flexibility during the course of this effort to accommodate unforeseen difficulties, dead-ends or new leads that may impact cost or schedule in the performance of the negotiated tasks. Thus, given the inherent uncertainties in research and development and, in particular, the type of integrated effort described here, the Government fully expects that various approaches and efforts will advance at different rates, or fail to advance in the manner originally envisioned. It is further recognized that by the nature of any Research and Development effort, work attempted to include this requirement, could change and or advance through new discoveries or by the use of differing methodologies to arrive at an acceptable and usable solution. Additionally, be advised that through the advancement and new directions of the work encountered, additional or deleted work, time and funding may be utilized to continue and mature the research and development of this requirement to a level where it is acceptable and functional to the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Government. It is anticipated that substantial Government-contractor communication and flexibility will be needed to fully achieve the goals of this effort, and that specific objectives or tasks may require alteration, extension or elimination as the state of the art advances. 17. Submission Instructions: Any proprietary information should be marked accordingly. Interested organizations that believe they possess the capability and capacity necessary to successfully undertake the tasks described above are invited to submit their Statement Of Capabilities (SOCs) via email followed in the mails by two (2) copies using Fed Ex, UPS, or any other Express carrier by 12:00 pm MDT on 10 January 2018. Please note, the US Mail has limited manpower on Kirtland AFB, NM for distributing mail timely. If you submitted a SOC once before, then you will need to re-submit again and confirm your SOC. If your organization has the potential capacity to perform these contract services, please provide the following information: 1) Organization name, address, email address, Web site address, telephone number, NAICS codes, and size and type of ownership for the organization as well as any claimed socio-economic status (e.g. 8(a) certified program participant, small disadvantaged, veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran owned, HUB Zone or women-owned); and 2) Tailored capability statements addressing the particulars of this effort, with appropriate documentation supporting claims of organizational and staff capability. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements. 18. Statement Of Capabilities (SOC): Submit Statement of Capabilities to the personnel outlined below. All work performed under the contract will be limited to U.S. citizens only. The Government requests that offerors who responded to the related Sources Sought FA9453-17-S-0004 in March 2017 evaluate the scope described above and either submit a new response or provide a letter stating that the original response remains valid and complete for this data call. Submit Statement of Capabilities to the personnel outlined below. All work performed under the contract will be limited to U.S. citizens only. Det 8 AFRL/RVKVB Attn: Contracting Officer Mr. Francis M. Eggert 3550 Aberdeen Ave Bldg 570, Ste 1160 Kirtland AFB, NM 87117 (505) 846-7603 phone Francis.eggert@us.af.mil Det 8 AFRL/RVKVB Attn: Contract Specialist Ms. Shannon Falconi 3550 Aberdeen Ave Bldg 570, Ste 1160 Kirtland AFB, NM 87117 (505) 853-3237 phone Shannon.falconi@us.af.mil AFRL/RVBXR Attn: Program Manager, Dr. Michael Starks Kirtland AFB, NM 87117 19. The Original Sources Sought was posted on 30 March 2017 for Reference purposes only: 30 March 2017 SOURCES SOUGHT SYNOPSIS AFRL/RVKVB Sources Sought tracking number: FA9453-17-S-0004 Next-Generation Space Environment Technologies (NSET)