Microcomputed Tomography instrument

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center (ARC) is hereby soliciting information under this Request for Information (RFI) to determine whether or not there are interested and available vendor sources capable of meeting the identified requirements. This RFI is subject to review or cancellation at any time and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to enter into a contract. The Government will not pay for the information submitted in response to this request and respondents will not be notified of the results. NASA/ARC is seeking capability statements from all interested parties, including Small, Small Disadvantaged (SDB), 8(a), Woman-owned (WOSB), Veteran Owned (VOSB), Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) businesses, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)/Minority Institutions (MI) for the purposes of determining the appropriate level of competition and/or small business subcontracting goals for the Linear Actuation System. The Government reserves the right to consider a Small, 8(a), Woman-owned (WOSB), Service Disabled Veteran (SD-VOSB), or HUBZone business set-aside based on responses hereto. Organizations having the capabilities necessary to meet or exceed the stated requirements are invited to submit appropriate documentation, literature, brochures, and references. Capabilities statement should address the requirements identified in the below statement of work/specifications. Statement of Work: 1. OBJECTIVE: The Bone and Signaling Lab at NASA Ames Research Center, Microcomputed Tomography is a critical tool for our research requirements and enables us to analyze the impact of spaceflight and radiation exposure on the micro-architecture of bone and to assess how such changes will impact the function of bone. Additionally, high-resolution MicroCT enables us to go from analyzing how spaceflight impacts whole bone tissue, to understanding alterations at the cellular level. The MicroCT is of great use to other users within Ames Research Center for applications including synthetic biology, composite materials research, electronics and geology. 2. SPECIFICATIONS: -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall be capable of scanning bone tissue and other specimens -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have a resolution of 350 nm or better -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have an integrated variable X-ray intensity source that is selectable by the user - 100 kV variable X-ray source with < 5 micron spot size with automatically variable spot size - Continuous variable peak energy 20-100kV, 0-250 uA, 10W -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have an integrated X-ray detector - Cooled 16 Mp CCD detector or better with coupling to the scintillator of at least 1:1 fiber-optic plate - No smaller than 24 x 36 mm field of view, - No less than 4904 x 3280 pixels image size - 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 variable binning for fast live imaging - 14-bit digital output for extended dynamic range -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall be capable of scanning samples - Scanning object diameter of at least 75 mm - Scanning length of at least 70 mm -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have the capability for reconstruction arrays with cross section formats of up to 14456x14456 pixels (209 Mp/slice) with isotropic grid -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have a multi-position automatic filter changer -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall be supplied with at least 3 sample mounts of different types and a beam alignment pin -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have an integrated micro-positioning stage with at least 5 mm X and y travel -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have integrated radiation safety capability limiting radiation exposure level to <1 microSv/h at any point of external surface of the instrument -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall have an automatic sample changer with at least 16 positions -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument system shall include a graphics computer workstation system with: o Dual Intel six or more -core Xeon processors o 3Gb NVIDIA Quadro graphics card o 128 GB RAM o 9 TB HDD -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument shall provide GPU accelerated reconstruction software based on the NVIDIA Quadro CUDA standard -The Microcomputed Tomography instrument computer system shall provide the following additional suite of software that is open source and able to be downloaded and used simultaneously on multiple workstations: a) Acquisition software b) Visualization software to view reconstructed data c) Format converter software (e.g. convert to TIFF, BMP, JPEG) with color adjustment palette, inversion, renaming, and combining data sets d) Bone morphological analysis software e) Realistic visualization by surface rendering software f) Realistic volume rendering software, including 3D visualization Interested firms are requested to submit their response to this RFI via email only to Matt Heagy at email matthew.j.heagy@nasa.gov no later than 4:00 p.m. PST, on Thursday 07/21/2016. Submissions shall be compatible with and accessible using Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat software applications. When responding, reference RFI NNA16591101L. This announcement does not constitute a Request for Proposal. Please do not request for a copy of the solicitation, as no solicitation exists at this time. If a firm requirement is developed and a solicitation is issued, the solicitation will be made available on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website (www.fbo.gov). It is the responsibility of offerors and interested parties to monitor the Internet site for the release of the solicitation and amendments, if any and will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the documents. NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/p ub_library/Omb.html . Information about major upcoming ARC procurement actions is available at http://ec.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eis/admin/admin.cgi?center=ARC.