NASA asks industry to review and comment on lightning mapper instrument implementation

WASHINGTON - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center is seeking review and comments on its instrument implementation for its geostationary extended observations (GeoXO) lightning mapper (LMX). The LMX instrument is a single spectral channel instrument used to measure the location and intensity of optical transients produced by lightning. LMX remotely collects data visible from geostationary orbit for severe atmospheric temperature and water vapor profiles used in the generation of a variety of applied products for weather forecasting and atmospheric monitoring. LMX will provide measurement of the location and intensity of optical transients produced by lightning. The LMX operational data that will be used by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other public and private agencies to produce forecasts of severe weather and to issue warnings for public safety.

Potential offerors are encouraged to comment on all aspects of the draft solicitation, including the requirements, schedules, proposal instructions, and evaluation approaches, any perceived safety, occupational health, security (including information technology security), environmental, export control, and/or other programmatic risk issues associated with performance of the work.

It is anticipated that this competitive procurement will result in a Cost-Plus-Award-Fee (CPAF) hardware contract for the development of two LMX flight models and two options, for one additional LMX Flight Models and the other option for one FM spare. The anticipated period of performance for this contract includes support for 10 years of on-orbit operations and 5 years of on-orbit storage, for a total of 15 years for each FM. The anticipated contract award date is late February 2024. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 336414 and the small business size standard is 1250.

The following additional information is provided to assist in understanding this acquisition:

Proposals for this solicitation are required to be submitted through NASA’s Enterprise File Sharing and Sync Box (EFSS Box), a FedRAMP Moderate certified platform. Potential offerors, especially those that have not previously submitted a proposal utilizing NASA’s EFSS Box, are encouraged to review the solicitation instruction entitled “Electronic Proposal Delivery - Proposal Marking and Delivery Through NASA’s EFSS Box” which provides instructions related to the submission of proposal via EFSS Box. Offerors are encouraged to check with their corporate IT staff to determine if there are firewall restrictions that would need to be addressed prior to the submission of proposal files through NASA’s EFSS Box.

Any comments regarding the DRFP should be submitted electronically in writing, to Kelly Lytton, Contracting Officer at [email protected] no later than 16 June 2023. If a respondent believes their comments contain confidential, proprietary, competition sensitive, or business information, those questions/comments shall be marked appropriately. However, questions that are marked as containing confidential, proprietary, competition sensitive or business information will not be provided a government response.