HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE (HST) MISSION OPERATIONS SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND SOFTWARE II (MOSES II)

NASA/GSFC has a requirement for continued mission operations and systems engineering for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) flight and ground systems. Systems engineering for the HST mission includes operation and maintenance of an extensive and complex set of equipment and test facilities, ground and information systems maintenance, network and security administration, flight systems engineering, systems integration and test, system management, and flight software maintenance. The required period of performance is July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2026.

NASA/GSFC intends to extend Contract NNG11FC20C with Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC) under the statutory authority of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1 (Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). The full breadth and depth of LMC's HST-unique critical knowledge and expertise makes LMC, acting by and through Lockheed Martin Space (LMS), the only contractor capable of sustaining a safe and efficient HST mission operation and responding effectively to changing engineering requirements and priorities.

Only LMC possesses the detailed, unique, and critical HST-specific knowledge needed to assure the most efficient HST operation possible. HST operations, processes, and procedures are highly complex in comparison with more recent satellites designed for more autonomous and automated operations. The level of expertise needed to operate HST goes far beyond providing the day-to-day actions of a flight operations team to monitor telemetry, playback science data, and complete command uplinks to HST computers. The LMC team has developed an irreproducible wealth of critical experience through more than 30 years of operations to develop an intimate knowledge of Observatory performance characteristics that enables the rapid recognition of non-nominal performance and its resolution prior to escalation to a mission impacting condition. The extensive critical experience the team has with unique, high-fidelity models of the spacecraft and science instruments that the team have personally developed enables them to quickly and effectively explore, refine and implement new control modes to exploit science opportunities or to mitigate spacecraft aging and degradation. The LMC team includes ground and flight software developers who are intimately familiar with the thousands of lines of code in the flight computers and the six million lines of code in the ground system that the team has written, integrated, revised, upgraded and maintained for many years. All of this knowledge and experience contributes to the high productivity and creativity that have sustained HST for more than 30 years. This, in turn, contributes to the unparalleled success of the HST mission and provides a platform from which future work can successfully be conducted. This is what makes continuity so vital to low-risk progress. The experience and understanding gained from past, technologically challenging HST-specific work are critical to a high quality science operation, and even more critical to meeting the HST Program goals and challenges that lie ahead to achieve maximum observatory life and science operations.

The Government does not intend to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12.
Market research was previously conducted for this requirement through release of an RFI posted on May 5, 2020, soliciting information about potential sources. The information obtained from the RFI aided in the determination to extend the existing contract. However interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort in writing to the identified point of contact not later than October 7, 2020. 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.