SOURCES SOUGHT
66 -- RELIEF VALVES
- Notice Date
- 7/26/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 332911
— Industrial Valve Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- NASA/John F. Kennedy Space Center, Procurement, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899
- ZIP Code
- 32899
- Solicitation Number
- NNK12ZMS008L
- Response Due
- 8/10/2012
- Archive Date
- 7/26/2013
- Point of Contact
- A. Zuber Christopher, Contract Specialist, Phone 321-867-2115, Fax 321-867-1166, Email Christopher.Zuber@nasa.gov
- E-Mail Address
-
A. Zuber Christopher
(Christopher.Zuber@nasa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- NASA/KSC is hereby soliciting information about potential sources for light-weight passive pressure relief valves for operation in in a thermal vacuum chamber. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Kennedy Space Center is seeking capability statements from all interested parties, including Small, Small Disadvantaged (SDB), 8(a), Woman-owned (WOSB), Veteran Owned (VOSB), Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SD-VOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) businesses, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)/Minority Institutions (MI) for the purposes of determining the appropriate level of competition and/or small business subcontracting goals for Relief Valves. The Government reserves the right to consider a Small, 8(a), Woman-owned (WOSB), Service Disabled Veteran (SD-VOSB), or HUBZone business set-aside based on responses hereto. 1. Background and Plan NASA/KSC is currently studying the feasibility, practicality, and cost of developing light-weight passive pressure relief valves to be utilized within the Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) project's Lunar Advanced Volatile Analysis (LAVA) Subsystem to make decisions regarding procurement strategies for the development of instrumentation. RESOLVE is a lunar resource prospecting payload that is in development for a launch opportunity to the Moon. 2. Technical Requirements: The pressure relief valves sought in this announcement will be used to relieve pressure in the LAVA fluid system composed of 1/8in tubing, a fluid manifold (Aluminum flat surface), a tank (Aluminum round surface), a gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer (GC-MS) instrument, and three small high-pressure gas cylinders. The pressure relief valve will be used to relieve excess pressure above 100 psi in the Oxygen and Volatile Analysis Node (OVEN) Subsystem adjacent to LAVA. The relief valve shall be capable of flow rates greater than 2 liters per minute when venting. This relief valve will be required to be manifold-mounted (i.e., flexible mounting options) upstream of the OVEN reactor. NASA anticipates the acquisition of four (4) units. The relief valve shall be re-sealable/re-closable for repeated use and relieve pressure to within 100 psi +/- 5% accuracy. The vendor must specify the accuracy the relief valve can achieve. The pressure relief valves shall operate in the range of 0 to 105 psia and operate within specification in a temperature environment of -20C to 175C in an external ambient pressure as low as 10^(-10) Torr. Please provide the minimum mass that can be produced. All pressure relief valves will be required to operate and maintain integrity after exposure to temperatures ranging from -30 to 200 degrees Celsius (the relief valves will not be required to operate under these conditions, but must survive and operate after being exposed to these temperature conditions). The relief valve steady-state leak rate across the valve seat for all relief valves shall not exceed 10^-6 sccm of Helium when the relief valve experiences its maximum pressure. The case steady-state leak rate shall not exceed 10^-6 sccm when the system is pressurized to 20 psia of Helium. The leak rate after re-seal/re-closure shall not exceed 10^-6 sccm of Helium using an approved Helium leak detection unit. The vendor must specify the actual leak rates. The desired mean-time between failures is estimated to be 5,000 hours with a minimum lifetime of 10,000 hours or 200 cycles, whichever is greater. The gases in the fluid system will consist of either pure hydrogen or a mixture of various gases consisting predominantly of hydrogen, water vapor, and low concentrations of carbon monoxide, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, and hydrogen sulfide. The relief valves shall be limited to 100 or less hours of exposure to pure hydrogen. The fluid system is being designed to make quantitative measurements of water; therefore, material selection for the pressure relief valve components in contact with the fluid must not absorb water, nor be a source of other volatiles (off-gassing). Also, short-duration exposure (30min) to small amounts (<1%) of hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid are expected. All soft goods inside the relief valve exposed to gaseous flow shall be inert and compatible with the gases listed above. The vendor shall indicate any flight heritage or if any flight qualification testing has been performed. 3. Additional Information a. Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products are desired with associated cost per item to establish a reasonable target cost for developing and qualifying these components that meets the requirements defined. Please advise if the requirement is considered to be a commercial or commercial-type product. A commercial item is defined in FAR 2.101. If modified COTS items can be designed to meet these requirements, please include the following: i. Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate for Developmental units with non- recurring engineering (NRE). ii. Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate of subsequent production units. iii. Estimated delivery/lead time for first two (2) units. iv. Estimated delivery/lead time for one (1) production units. NASA is requesting responses to the following questions: Relief Valve Capabilities: 1. Would your organization be interested in developing relief valves for NASA missions? 2. What experience with relief valves do you have? (a) Airborne or space flight applications (b) Reliability requirements and performance of current products; (c) Current relief valve use/applications; brief description of relief valve requirements including operational life (d) Years of relief valve manufacturing and production experience (e) What related heritage programs have you previously worked on, and at what scope (Prime Supplier, subcontractor, etc)? 3. From your perspective, what will be the major technical risks in developing relief valves that meet the specifications provided? Questions and comments are welcomed. All questions regarding and correspondence associated with this RFI should be conducted by email. The NAICS code for this requirement is 332911 with a size standard of 500 Employees. The government does intend to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is the potential offerors responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. Interested offerors/vendors having the required specialized capabilities to meet the above requirement should submit a capability statement of five (5) pages or less indicating the ability to perform all aspects of the effort described herein. Respondents are required to address the following technical specifications for their respective relief valve designs. Responses must have classified and proprietary information properly marked. For planning purposes, we are requesting that the responses to this RFI include the following information at a minimum: Brief description of company capabilities, applicable facilities, and experience designing relief valves. Description of previous flight heritage and relief valve concept using the stated specifications as the basis Notional schedule for development, testing and qualification through delivery based on your approach, technology maturity and understanding of the risks. Assume four (4) units to be delivered. Two (2) qualified units by May 2013 and two (2) flight units in 2014. Description of key technical, schedule, and cost drivers and options to mitigate risks and/or reduce schedule. To facilitate a prompt review by the NASA team, a one (1) page summary shall be included with your capability statement(s), identifying the following information: 1. Company name and address. 2. Contractor size/type classification (Large, Small, Small Disadvantaged 8(a), Woman-Owned, Veteran-Owned, Service Disabled Veteran and HUBZone). 3. Company size (number of employees). 4. Average annual revenue for the past three (3) years. 5. Affiliate information (as applicable) including, parent company, joint venture partners, prime contractor (if potential sub) or subcontractors (if potential prime), point of contact name, position, address and phone number. 6. Company specific capabilities that are relevant to the requirements listed above. It is not sufficient to provide only general brochures or generic information. Copies of your capability statement(s) may be made available to prospective offerors in the future. Therefore, it should not contain company-sensitive information, This synopsis is for information and planning purposes and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will the Government pay for information solicited. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation. Respondents deemed fully qualified will be considered in any resultant solicitation for the requirement. All responses shall be submitted electronically to Chris Zuber at Christopher.Zuber@nasa.gov no later than August 10, 2012. Please reference NNK12ZMS008L in any response. Any referenced notes may be viewed at the following URLs linked below.
- Web Link
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