Purchase of engineering services for Aeolus WFCC Lens development Project,Phase I

The contract seeks engineering services for Phase I of the Aeolus Wide Field Context Camera (WFCC) lens development project, issued under solicitation number 80NSSC26939779Q by the NASA Shared Services Center at Stennis Space Center, Mississippi. The procurement is a small business set-aside with a firm fixed price structure and awards based on the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) method, meaning technical acceptability is a pass/fail criterion and the lowest-priced compliant offer wins. The work involves evaluating three lens design options—a clean sheet design, modification of a flight-qualified lens, and adaptation of a commercial-off-the-shelf component—with a strict 120-hour effort limit and no travel permitted. Required deliverables include weekly status updates, written evaluations of each design option, Zemax simulations, and rough-order-of-magnitude estimates for cost, schedule, size, and mass. All proposals must be submitted electronically via email to Kacey Hickman by July 29, 2026, at 4:00 p.m. CT, with Tiffany Neal included as a required recipient on all submissions. The contract mandates compliance with export controls under ITAR and EAR, requiring contractors to obtain necessary licenses for foreign access to technical data and to flow down these obligations to subcontractors. Duty-free entry for qualifying foreign-supplied components is permitted under specific conditions, requiring proper documentation, labeling, and notification to the contracting office. Packaging and marking must include “UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT,” the contracting agency name, contract number, carrier identification, gross weight, estimated value, and notation of duty-free eligibility, though no specific MIL-STD packaging or bar-coding standards are imposed. Contractors must be registered in SAM.gov with active Unique Entity ID and qualify as a small business per SBA size standards, while also certifying they are not an inverted domestic corporation and do not engage in prohibited discrimination in employment practices. F.O.B. Destination terms apply, transferring title and risk upon delivery at the specified location. While the estimated contract value is not specified, payment, invoicing, and accounting data remain undefined. The contracting officer and cognizant administration office will determine acceptance of deliverables based on technical compliance and adherence to all contractual, regulatory, and documentation requirements.