Manufacture and Assembly of Printed Circuit Boards

NASA/LARC has a requirement for the design and assembly of small unpowered unmanned gliders (printed circuit boards) to be dropped unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs). Gliders shall be equipped with a meteorological sensor and capable of downlinking position and meteorological information during flight. The Government requires 100 each of the following: CICADA MK5 SLA Tail PCB Assembly, CICADA MK5 SLA Fuselage PCB Assembly, CICADA MK5 SLA Wing PCB Assembly, and CICADA MK5 SLA Panel which shall include all 9 boards. This assembly shall be in accordance with the IPC-A-610E Class 2 requirements. NASA/LARC intends to purchase the assembly and various electronic components on a Sole Source basis from Phase Electronics, Inc. The CICADA glider was developed and designed by Naval Research Lab (NRL), a government agency, for government use and NRL has identified Phase Electronics as the sole provider and manufacturer of the CICADA gliders. The design is closely tied to the manufacturing processes developed by Phase in support of the NRL-owned design. No other vendor has the manufacturing process currently available to support the NRL design. Other manufacturers would require a change to their manufacturing processes. The basic design of the printed circuit boards would require to be redone to support other manufacturing capabilities. Changing design and models in the middle of this research effort would place an undue burden on the project. Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort in writing to the identified point of contact not later than September 21, 2016 by 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. All responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency. NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html