REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS FOR FLORIDA AND HAWAII MEOLUTS

DISCLAIMER: This is not a solicitation. This is not a request for quote (RFQ), invitation for bid (IFB), request for proposal (RFP), request for application (RFA), or an announcement of a solicitation; nor does it assume the Government will award a contract or proceed with any of the above solicitation types in the near future. The responses requested herein are for information purposes only and do not constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise, that a procurement action will be initiated, issued or awarded. No entitlement to payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by the Government will arise as a result of the submission of information in response to this Notice, and no reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to it or to any related follow-up requests. All information considered proprietary must be marked accordingly by the submitter. The Government will not be held liable for, or suffer any consequential damages for, any improperly identified proprietary information. Properly identified proprietary information submitted in response to this Notice will be safeguarded in accordance with Government regulations. The sole purpose of this announcement is to gather information from the marketplace regarding the capability of small businesses to provide the services and products summarized herein. None of the responses received will be considered an offer, nor can they be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responses to this Notice will not be returned. No telephone inquiries will be accepted and no requests for solicitation packages will be granted, since no solicitation has been prepared at this time. SYNOPSIS: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) is conducting market research with the concurrent goal of obtaining capability statements from small business concerns that are interested in maintaining, operating and upgrading two (2) ground stations that will track, demodulate, and locate distress signals emitted by 406 to 406.1 MHz Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs) Ship Security Alert System (SSAS) beacons, Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) and Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs), and relayed through bent pipe repeaters on board Global Positioning Satellites and other Mid Earth Orbiting satellites. The ground stations are located at the U.S. Coast Guard Communication Station (USCG COMMSTA) Miami facility located in Miami, Florida and the USCG COMMSTA Honolulu facility located in Wahiawa, Hawaii. All data will be relayed to the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) United States Mission Control Center (USMCC) located within NOAA's National Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF) in Suitland, Maryland. Responses are being sought only from small business concerns at this time. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code associated with this Notice is 334220, Radio and Television Broadcasting and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing, which has a Small Business Administration (SBA) size standard of 750 employees. NOAA will use the information it collects as current market data that could contribute to the planning of possible future procurements, and for the purpose of evaluating the potential of small business concerns to provide the described goods and services. All submitted materials will be designated "For Government Use Only" and NOAA reserves the right to contact respondents for clarification and discussion of the submitted responses. BACKGROUND: The U.S. SARSAT program is currently managed by NOAA and operated in partnership with the U.S. Air Force (USAF), USCG, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The SARSAT program has operated within the framework of the International Cospas-Sarsat program since 1982, and has been credited with saving over 36,000 lives through the use of satellites to detect and relay distress signals to ground stations called Local User Terminals (LUTs). These LUTs track Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) and Geosynchronous Earth Orbiting (GEO) satellites equipped with instrumentation that detects distress signals and then relays those distress signals to the USMCC for location processing and rescue coordination purposes. With the advent of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) such as the United States' GPS, the Russian Federation's Glonass and the European Union's Galileo operating in a Mid Earth Orbit (MEO), the International Cospas-Sarsat program has members who have implemented and successfully tested ground systems that are capable of interoperating with these MEO satellites. These new MEO Search and Rescue (MEOSAR) ground systems are called MEOLUTs and operate in conjunction with the existing network of LEO and GEO ground systems. Until global coverage for distress detection and processing can be accomplished by a worldwide system of MEOLUTs, these two U.S.-based MEOLUTs will continue to be maintained and operated in parallel with the existing LEOLUTs and GEOLUTs. The two U.S.-based MEOLUTs currently provide a distress alert coverage area that encompasses all of the U.S. Areas of SAR Responsibility, as outlined by the National Search and Rescue (National SAR) plan. INFORMATION REQUESTED: Accordingly, NOAA is exploring the availability and capability of small business concerns to provide maintenance and operations support along with possible engineering support that would be needed to incorporate the U.S.-based MEOLUTs into the International MEOSAR System concept of operations, should such a requirement arise. Interested companies should describe their capabilities in relation to the activities listed below: System Description The NOAA MEOLUTs must: - Detect, characterize, and locate 406 to 406.1 MHz emergency beacons and transmit associated data to USMCC; - Be capable of receiving S-Band and L-Band downlinks from GNSS satellites that are equipped with a 406 to 406.1 MHz SAR repeater; - Measure both the frequency of arrival and time of arrival of detected beacon signals and use the results to accurately locate the beacon; - Calculate an unambiguous location for the beacon if the message is received from at least three GNSS satellites for a given burst; - Be capable of improving the location accuracy of the distress beacon over the first burst detection by combining subsequent bursts received by at least three satellites. Beacons The functions of the NOAA MEOLUTs include: - Receiving and processing signals transmitted by 406 to 406.1 MHz emergency distress beacons - Locating interfering signals that can prevent successful reception of 406 to 406.1 MHz emergency distress beacons and sending the locations of the interfering signals to the USMCC. Ground Segment This aspect of a small business concern's capabilities involves the analysis and maintenance of the two U.S.-based MEOLUTs and the infrastructure required to support their antennas' power and communication lines (i.e. from the NOAA MEOLUT processors, located in their respective USCG COMMSTA buildings, to the local antenna field). Operational Requirements The MEOLUTs must be fully operational, meaning a minimum of four (of the six) antennas at each site being operational at least 99 percent of the time, as calculated twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week over a year with less than two (2) percent total downtime calculated over that year; SUBMITTAL REQUIREMENTS: Deadline for Submission of Responses: November 12, 2014 by 5:15 p.m. Pacific Time Submit Responses via e-mail to: Keith Fowler, Contract Specialist (keith.fowler@noaa.gov)