SOURCES SOUGHT
B -- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON TECHNICAL FUNCTIONS SUPPORTING INTEGRATED MISSIONPLANNING TRAINING AND EXECUTION
- Notice Date
- 8/27/2010
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 927110
— Space Research and Technology
- Contracting Office
- NASA/Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas, 77058-3696, Mail Code: BH
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- NNJ10ZHD002L
- Response Due
- 9/15/2010
- Archive Date
- 8/27/2011
- Point of Contact
- J. R. Carpentier, Contracting Officer, Phone 281-244-7254, Fax 281-483-2138, Email john.r.carpentier@nasa.gov
- E-Mail Address
-
J. R. Carpentier
(john.r.carpentier@nasa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This notice is issued by the National Aeronautics & Space Administration/JohnsonSpace Center (NASA/JSC) to post a Request for Information (RFI) via the internet in orderto solicit information regarding potential sources for information and planning purposes,and to provide industry the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of therequirements.This is an RFI only and does not constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise, that NASAwill take procurement action in this matter. Further, neither NASA nor the Governmentwill be responsible for any cost incurred in furnishing this information.This RFI is being used by the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) to gather researchinformation for NASA to assess feasibility of potential software, systems and toolsutilized in Technical Functions Supporting Integrated Mission Planning, Training andExecution, and associated business operations.Included below are high leveldescriptions of the system functionalities of interest.Introduction to Core Capabilities:The MOD at JSC is responsible for human spaceflight mission execution from lift-offthrough landing. This task is inherently complex, and as such, requires detailedplanning, with an associated rich planning tool suite, and the interaction of theplanning process with a rigorous and an extensive training program that prepares theentire team as an integrated team, for eventualities from routine to catastrophic events.The training function is a complex set of lessons and experiences that involve both thecrew of the spacecraft and the ground support team that consists of both flight controlpersonnel who directly interface real time with the crew, and vehicle, as well as asupport team of personnel that are responsible for the logistics, the data products, thesoftware systems, and the ultimate configuration management of the total function suiteof the operations systems. Therefore, the planning is integrated with the training andthe execution of the mission relies on both the training and the planning products duringthe execution phase of the mission.While there are similarities between many other commercial and industrial systems and themission execution of human spaceflight, there are striking differences as well. Thesimilarities might provide for new and alternate technology and product inclusion in thehuman spaceflight arena, sometimes without modification. Other technologies may notrepresent a cost effective or viable alternative, for a number of possible reasons. Thegoal here is to be open to all of these even at the risk of inclusion of some products,technologies and systems for review that ultimately may not be feasible, rather than havetoo narrow of a focus and exclude potentially appropriate products, technologies andsystems.Identification of the possibilities is the objective of this RFI. The RFI topics ofinterest are broken out into categories and subcategories in an attempt to supplyadditional detail to this complex environment but stopping well short in detail level ofthe over prescription of the environment that would cause omissions of systems andproducts.RFI Topics of Interest:The categories given here are broad and to an extent arbitrary in definition. It is theintent that the grouping be helpful to the respondents and not restrictive or implyingany relationship between the elements. No restrictions are placed upon responses to meet any particular vendor hardware orsoftware by brand name or version level. However, if there are limitations in thecandidate systems that are known, these limitations should be clearly identified. Requirements for hardware capability or support software suites, for example, should bespecified in order to allow MOD the opportunity to understand the level of piece partsthat is implied.Further, if there are plans for capability extension or expansion with an identifiedproduct or system, these should also be clearly identified since this RFI desires toidentify candidate products that allow for growth, expansion and accommodation ofevolving programmatic needs. It is important, however, that the distinction betweenplanned, proposed and potential product evolution and expansion is clearly stated, andany time line for these be identified.The capability that is present, planned or potential is assumed to have an ApplicationProgramming Interface (API) that is based upon standards. These standards, even ifinternal, should all be identified. The standards that NASA/JSC/MOD adheres to have beenincreasingly driven to commercial products standards that are embedded in the productsused in the integrated NASA systems, as well as the space launch industry. The effect ofthe lack of standards or even proprietary standards would potentially impede the costeffective use of some products and systems.NASA is requesting identification of capabilities to operate the following areas ofinterest in the technical, business and ancillary categories given below:Technical functions supporting Integrated Mission Planning, Training and Execution: Command: This capability provides the ability to select and/or generate commandsfor uplink to space vehicles and their payload elements. The command system must supportmultiple command types; monitor and account for vehicle command responses, history, anddata storage; and be extensible to allow for incorporation of new vehicle commandformats. Command system safeguards and source authentication are included to ensure thesafety of the onboard systems and flight crew.Commanding is considered a criticaloperation of the control center. Communications:This capability encompasses uplink and downlink communicationswith space vehicles and their payload elements as well as distribution of data toexternal interface partners of varying security levels. Downlink communications mustacquire and process spacecraft telemetry data with voice, video, and data (including datafiles) embedded within the telemetry stream. The communications uplink sends command,voice, video, and data files to the space vehicle and/or its payload element. Communications is considered a critical operation of the control center. Facility Management: This capability encompasses the need for scheduling,configuration control, troubleshooting and issue resolution, and configuration/monitoringof facility hardware and software assets. Security & Network Operations Center (SNOC): Tools, services, and equipmentto consolidate enterprise wide security monitoring, management, control, and incidentresponse. Additionally, consolidation of network and communications monitoring,management, and control. Operations in a hybrid security environment of high security and mediumsecurity levels: High and medium system security refers to the non-physical securityaspects of an operational environment.Specifically, the intent is to identify software,tools, and systems to address security policy, processes, features of software, systems,and technologies that could be applied to address constraints on functions, andinformation flow among these systems, as well as constraints on access by externalsystems, and identification and quarantine of adversaries, including programs, and accessto data, services and communications by unauthorized people. Facility Scheduling: Tools and services to assist with automation and managementof facility scheduling and configuration. Including the ability to support schedulingand configuration of resources for executing multiple independent but concurrentactivities with a limited resource (hardware and software licensing) pool. Help Desk, Issue Resolution, and Knowledge Management: Tools and services toassist with and automate/streamline troubleshooting, issue tracking, evaluation, andresolution as well as methods to capture knowledge associated with failure incidents forincorporation back into standard operating procedures. Storage: Data storage systems are required to support all aspects of the MODmission execution, and non- mission execution business functions. These include backupand restore capabilities, as well as: Data Recording and Archival: One specific example includes recording of missiondata, archival of those recordings, and retrieval of recordings for playback toend-users, for both mission and training activities. The recording system must handleboth processed and unprocessed downlink telemetry data, uplink data, and select datagenerated by end-users/applications (e.g., parameter computations based off the downlink,trajectory data, and system modeling data). Playback functions should include theability to preserve time homogeneity for rewind-and-restart of recorded data based uponend-user control. A second example would be the system requirements associated withreconfiguration of assets within the allocations set by activity separation. Activity Planning: Suites of tools, systems, software and technologies thatassist the ground support personnel in the planning and execution of mission activities. In particular, flight control personnel that currently use non-commercial tools andprocesses could benefit from industry standard tools where available as well as emergingtechnologies. In addition, capabilities related to activity planning for businessprocesses are of interest. Activity Separation: The demands of simultaneous missions and often multiplesimultaneous activities of planning, training and mission execution phases, requiresisolated, robust, and continuous support for multiple simultaneous independentoperational activities including any potential mix of training planning and missionexecution sessions. This includes facility operations, maintenance, and supportactivities identified here. Facility Management, Scheduling and Optimization: The additional aspect of thisinitiative is the management of resources within the facilities such that the appropriateactivity separation occurs without compromising the resources available for the buildingof the planning, training, and mission execution products and execution of those tasks.This is achievable possibly through scheduling and activity optimization, and theplanning of product production, concurrent to the mission execution activities. Configuration Management: All operations of software builds, data handling,processing, and data promotion are under strict configuration control.A configurationmanagement system that addresses all the mission planning, training and execution as wellas development, integration, and test of capabilities for use in those mission phases isof interest. System Security: This is a core functionality for safe and efficient operationsof the control center and must accommodate the ability to protect and control variouslevels of secure data (ITAR, proprietary, medical, etc.) across multiple security zones(i.e., secure interchange of data between high security and moderate securityenvironments) consistent with activity separation. IT security must be provided for anycomponent identified in this RFI. Specific emphasis on commercial practice standards andarchitecture suitable for high risk environments is of interest. Data Computation, Display & Plotting: The telemetry from the spacecraft isformatted, plotted graphically, and displayed on the flight controller computer monitorsby this system. Efficient and improved life cycle training cost systems for thisfunction are of interest that would remove / consolidate the many tools currentlyutilized today into a significantly smaller number of applications. Elaborate on systemcapacity/performance, and any limitations of capability relating to the number ofsimultaneous telemetry parameters that can be processed and displayed. Mission Planning and Re-planning: A planning system capable of integrating inputsfrom platforms of differing and variable security levels, generated from multiplesources, some of which are international. This system would have an intelligentscheduling engine, a robust and flexible planning database / repository system. Inaddition individually, a real-time configurable plan viewer remotely accessible throughstandards based interface. Extensibility is of interest since the planning system couldrequire multiple upgrades per year and be able to be easily deployed into multiple systemenvironments.Potential features of interest are: Ability to render a timeline view of planned activities and resource availability. Ability to initiate, modify and track status of plan changes and, once approved, toseamlessly incorporate them into the activity timeline. Ability to build / select planned activities in a template library where mostactivity attributes are. Ability to assign activities to different categories of operators. Ability to drag / drop activities into a timeline via a library. Allowing users to modify attributes of tool; user additions; indication of approvalstatus. Within a timeline, users move and copy activities. Move / copy activities at a different time and place activities on another operatorposition. Tool tracks the user making the change and indicates approval status. Procedure Development and Management: Tools and services to provide an electronicprocedures development, management, and execution capability. Includes the ability foroperators to draft/redline procedures on the fly for later incorporation into theprocedure baseline, support for configuration management of procedures (i.e., draft,validation/verification, approved for operational use), and incorporation/linkage ofprocedures to the command system for directly commanding the vehicle or its payload fromthe procedure itself. Spacecraft System Modeling and / or Integration: System level capability for theintegration with mathematical model sets that is utilized in the training function. These models generate the vehicle performance and associated telemetry that is fed to themission execution systems during the training sessions, reflecting the behavior ofspacecraft systems. Capabilities for Resource Management, Scheduling and Optimizationtasks during spacecraft training, and operations are of interest. Trajectory Analysis, Monitoring, Evaluation, Planning, and Optimization: Softwaresystems that can support real time operations as well as planning operations fortrajectory modeling, prediction and control, trajectory determination, trajectorysimulation and graphical plotting and visualization are of interest. Business Support Functions: Training suitability for end user training: Flight controllers and groundsupport personnel are trained by real-time models of the vehicles NASA has responsibilityfor (ISS, Shuttle, etc.). The vehicle is represented in a mathematical model withfailure modes, called malfunctions. The model parameters are appropriately built intotelemetry streams. The telemetry is sent to the MCC as simulated data for the flightcontrollers and ground support personnel to view in the mission displays. In integratedtraining, the crew controls the models, giving a complete crew, vehicle, telemetry,control center, and flight controller environment: Simulation capabilities: Systems that can model and support real-timegeneration of simulated data and associated telemetry in a cost effective andconfiguration managed environment are of interest. Training Scheduling, Management and Record Keeping: The records of the trainingcertification for flight controllers, spacecraft crew, ground support personnel and forthe other support roles are interconnected via the planning and flight products and theexperience of the total team. These records, and the associated use for team building,cross training, certification, recertification and even career growth is not onlyimportant, but highly integrated, even if stored in several data bases. Tools thatconnect facets as different as testing to training level / certification that canincrease the ability of the total team to data mine information are of interest. Inventory and Logistics Management: Capabilities relating to the function ofInventory and Logistics Management for both flight vehicles and ground facilities are ofinterest. Knowledge Management: Tools, software or systems that add to the range ofstrategies and practices used in MOD to identify, create, represent, distribute, andenable adoption of insights and experiences is of interest. The focus is onorganizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage,innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and continuous improvement of theorganization. Storage and Retrieval of relevant data, including search: To continuously improvethe functioning of the planning, training and mission execution teams, it is critical toefficiently search for documents, information within documents, and for metadata aboutdocuments, as well as searching relational databases. Where it is possible the use ofautomated information retrieval systems is desirable as a means to reduce what has beencalled 'information overload'. Additional Operational Concepts: Commercial Standards with extensibility for system / software addition andintegration: As a risk to the extensibility and flexibility required for evolving theplanning, training and execution functions in response to changing mission needs,standards based approaches to the functionality identified are of interest. Informationregarding the trade space between the somewhat larger efforts associated with standardsbased activities and weak or non-standards based approaches over system life cycle are ofinterest. Utilization of commercial standards: The areas of Service OrientedArchitectures (SOA) and Enterprise Service Bus architectural concepts are of interest. Flexibility to adapt to evolving / changing mission needs:The ability ofthe software, systems and standards to continue to evolve and to have inherent capabilityto satisfy new requirements or be grown to do so as a standard product line are ofinterest. The interest is in simplified interfaces and streamlined functionality whichshould work to control cost growth in the longer term. Remote Access / Operations: Traditionally, the MOD operation of human spaceflightwas almost exclusively performed in a single location, with boundaries defined byphysical buildings. As the telecommunications industry has evolved, the necessity andthe cost effectiveness of such centralization is being re-evaluated. Access to thetelemetry and data processing capability of the planning, training and mission executionamenities from locations at JSC could be expanded to encompass team members across theglobe as well as in space. The security aspects and associated issues have beenidentified. Technologies, systems and software that expand the flexibility, increase thesecurity, robustness, reliability and performance of the remote networks is of interest. Advanced software maintenance concepts, including data promotion: The ability tointegrate industry leading or promising software concepts into the planning, training andmission execution segments of the MOD human spaceflight domain is of interest,particularly in the areas of performance reliability and maintenance. Advanced tool concepts (neural nets, mobile agents,etc.): As standards basedtools, models and software systems continue to emerge these are techniques that becomemore robust in applications that decrease the workload of ground personnel by automationor at least semi-automation of the tasks that can be delegated to software systems andtools.These artifacts are of interest whether compatible with current standards, orlack thereof.RFI responses must include:Section 1: oName of the primary point of contact for the response oBusiness title oCompany affiliation oEmail address oPhone numbers oIdentification of other key individuals who collaborated on the RFI responseSection 2: A brief summary description, not to exceed ten pages, of the candidatesoftware, system or product as it relates to the core capabilities listed above.Section 3 Appendix with detailed RFI response, containing specific information notcovered in Section 2 Summary.Please note that RFI responses including the Appendix must not exceed 50 pages in lengthper topic or category.Single-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font is requested. Suggested file formats include: (preferred) Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe PDF (.pdf). Although all comments received will be carefully reviewed and considered for inclusion inany possible future action, the initiators of this request make no commitment to includeany particular recommendations. Respondents will not be notified of the results of thereview. No solicitation exists; therefore, please do not request a copy of the solicitation.Response Submission Deadline:Responses to this RFI must be submitted no later than 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, onSeptember 15, 2010. RFI submissions will be accepted as e-mail attachments only. Allresponses must be sent to john.r.carpentier@nasa.gov, with Integrated Mission Planning,Training and Execution in the subject line. An e-mail confirmation of receipt from NASA will be sent within a one-week period to thedesignated point of contact.Point of Contact for Inquiries and Submissions:Inquiries/questions regarding this RFI may be directed to NASA Johnson Space Center,Attn: J.R Carpentier, Mail Stop BH, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX, 77058, fax281-483-4066, telephone 281-244-7254, or electronic mail at john.r.carpentier@nasa.govwith Technical Functions Supporting Integrated Mission Planning, Training and Executionin the subject line. Inquiries and questions must be received by September 12, 2010. NASA responses to inquiries and questions received by this deadline will be available bySeptember 14, 2010.DISCLAIMER:NASA will not publicly disclose proprietary information obtained as a result of this RFI. To the full extent that it is protected by law and regulations, information identifiedby a respondent as Proprietary or Confidential will be kept confidential.
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