SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) Program Beyond Landsat 9 Architecture Study
- Notice Date
- 10/25/2018
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541715
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, 20771
- ZIP Code
- 20771
- Solicitation Number
- NASA-SLI-Beyond-L9
- Archive Date
- 1/31/2019
- Point of Contact
- Jeffrey Masek, Phone: 301-614-6629
- E-Mail Address
-
Jeffrey.G.Masek@nasa.gov
(Jeffrey.G.Masek@nasa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Office Address NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Office for Earth Science, Code 210.7, Greenbelt, MD 20771. SLI Architecture Study RFI This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. This is not a request for proposal or quotation, nor is this a solicitation for a contract or grant award. This RFI does not obligate the government in any way. The Government will not reimburse the respondents for any costs associated with the information submitted in response to this request. The Government will treat each submission in confidence. Background For the past 46 years, Landsat satellites and associated U.S. Government ground processing, distribution, and archiving systems have acquired and made available global, moderate-resolution (5-120 meter) multispectral measurements of land and coastal regions, providing humankind's longest record of our planet from space. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of the Interior (DOI) fully recognize that this information is a national asset, providing an important and unique capability that benefits a broad community, including Federal, state, and local governments; global change science, academia, and the private sector. Landsat data provide a consistent, well calibrated, and reliable foundation for research on land use change, forest health, and carbon inventories, and changes to our environment, climate, and natural resources. Additionally, the free and open availability of the Landsat data enables the measurements to be used routinely by decision makers both inside and outside the Government, for a wide range of natural resource issues, including water resource management, wildfire response, agricultural productivity, rangeland management, and understanding impacts of climate variability on ecosystems. More information on Landsat can be found at http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and http://landsat.usgs.gov/. The USGS currently operates two Government-owned spacecraft, Landsat 7 and 8, both developed by NASA for USGS. Each spacecraft is in a Sun synchronous, 705 km orbit, with an equatorial crossing time of 10:00 a.m. + or - 15 minutes, and (nadir) revisit of 16 days. Landsat 7 was launched in April 1999. It has been flying with degraded Enhanced Thermal Mapper Plus performance since May 2003 and is expected to be decommissioned following the launch of Landsat 9, but no later than July 2021. Landsat 8 was launched in February 2013 and has a mission design life of five years for both the spacecraft and the primary instrument, the Operational Land Imager (OLI). The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) has a design life of three years. The Landsat 8 Observatory is carrying sufficient fuel for a mission duration of more than 10 years. NASA and USGS are working together to continue the spaceborne global, systematic coverage of the Earth's land surfaces through joint development of Landsat 9. Landsat 9 is a near copy of Landsat 8, with the exception that both OLI-2 and TIRS-2 instruments meet standards and requirements for Class B. The scheduled launch date is December 2020. Landsat 9 has a design life of 5 years and will contain at least 10 years of consumables. Beginning in 2021, USGS will operate Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 from a Landsat Multi-Satellite Mission Operations Center (LMOC), scalable for additional fleet operations. The Landsat Ground Network (LGN) services S- and X-Band interface needs via five ground stations, including USGS Earth Science Resources Observations and Science (EROS) Center's Landsat Ground Station (LGS) in Sioux Falls, SD; NOAA's Gilmore Creek (GLC) station in Fairbanks, AK; the Norwegian Space Centre's KSAT SGS station in Svalbard, Norway; Geoscience Australia's ASN station in Alice Springs, Australia; and the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) NSN station in Neustrelitz, Germany. The USGS EROS Center provides land remote sensing data to users engaged in managing and understanding the changing Earth. The USGS Landsat data holdings grow by approximately 800 TB per year, and each year over 100 million image products are distributed to users all over the globe (more information can be found at https://eros.usgs.gov). Beyond Landsat 9 Recognizing the importance, demonstrated utility, and future potential value of multidecadal, systematic, continuous, global measurements of our planet's terrestrial environment, the U.S. will continue implementation of a robust spaceborne, land imaging system to ensure that necessary data are collected, processed into useful and efficient information products, and are archived and broadly distributed for use by the wide range of interested communities. The U.S. Government also recognizes that the context of the US Land Imaging is evolving, given the capabilities of international systems (e.g. European Commission's Sentinel-2) and the rapid development of commercial imaging systems. In implementing a US Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) program, the U.S. Government will consider capabilities that are complementary to existing commercial and international observing systems; provide enhanced capabilities while maintaining continuity with the historic and current Landsat record; and may include opportunities for public-private partnerships. The SLI's major objectives include: • Collecting and archiving moderate-resolution solar reflective and thermal infrared image data, affording substantially cloud-free coverage of the global landmass for a continuous period of no less than 15 years beginning in 2026; • Ensuring that new data acquired, once integrated into the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive (NSLRSDA), are sufficiently consistent with data from earlier Landsat missions in terms of calibration, coverage characteristics, spectral and spatial characteristics, output data quality and data availability, to enable the detection and quantitative characterization of changes on the global land surface over multidecadal periods; • Free and Open access to a continuous data stream of moderate resolution data of the quality and frequency of acquisition consistent with the 46 plus years of Landsat observations, supporting development and dissemination of a wide range of data products on a nondiscriminatory basis and at no cost to the users. In U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2019, the joint NASA/USGS SLI Program established a second SLI Architecture Study Team (AST 2019) to execute a study for the design and implementation approach of a spaceborne system to provide systematic, global, continuous Landsat-quality reflective and thermal infrared measurements for at least 15 years or more starting in 2026. An earlier AST, AST 2014, was initiated in 2013 to carry-out a similar study, which resulted in the development of the Landsat 9 mission to be launched in December 2020. As before, NASA and USGS will cooperate in the planning and other preparations for continuing the acquisition and distribution of moderate-resolution spectral data, as required, in the post-Landsat 9 era. Request for Information NASA and USGS are seeking information on system concepts and innovative approaches for its second Sustainable Land Imaging Architecture Study, AST 2019. This study encompasses space architectures that achieve Landsat-compatible systematic, continuous, global measurements of the Earth's land surface. Commercial and international provision of Earth observation data, as well as other opportunities for public, private partnerships will be explored. Additionally, this study encompasses ground systems architectures and capabilities to achieve flight operations, Radio Frequency (RF) communications, and science data processing, storage, analysis, and distribution. Cloud-based compute, storage, and distribution offerings, along with other opportunities for public, private partnerships will be explored. NASA and USGS are looking for information that will help guide future evolution of the Landsat system. Specifically, three types of responses are sought: (1) Initial concepts for space system architectures, including evolutionary instrument or system architecture capabilities that enhance temporal frequency, spectral coverage and resolution, and/or spatial resolution while constraining system costs; (2) Ideas for international partnerships, public-private partnerships, and/or commercial image provision to satisfy some or all Landsat requirements; (3) Innovative approaches to the Landsat ground system, including mission flight operations, evolution of Landsat storage, data processing and production, and use of cloud computing and on-demand generation of science data products. Reference Parameters Compatibility with previous Landsat missions, as well as consistency with the characteristics of the data stream currently produced by Landsat 8, as practical, are overarching goals for the outcome of this Sustainable Land Imaging Architecture Study. A set of mission reference parameters, based on current Landsat 8 requirements modified to include 60-m resolution thermal infrared channels, were supplied as part the recent NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) SLI-Technology call for proposals(https://esto.nasa.gov/files/SLIT2015/RMAKeyParameters.pdf). Performance characteristics are specified in terms of geographic coverage, temporal frequency, spectral bands, spatial resolution, radiometric performance, accuracy, and dynamic range, response uniformity and temporal stability, bright target response, polarization sensitivity, and image geometry and geodetic location accuracy. User needs studies also indicate the necessity for Landsat evolution. Specifically, user needs are better met by increasing temporal frequency to provide at least weekly cloud-free imagery, improving spatial resolution to 10-20m for the reflective bands (60m for the TIR bands), along with additional spectral bands in the red-edge and other regions. Additionally, some users have also identified need for hyperspectral data spanning the reflective part of the spectrum, and additional thermal infrared bands. It is recognized that not all of these enhancements may be compatible or feasible given a realistic budget profile. Information Requested Interested parties should submit a response with a written statement of interest or capability and discussion of the following enumerated points: 1. Organization Information: Your organization's name and address, point of contact, email address, and phone number. 2. Abstract: Provide a brief summary of the conceptual system and/or partnership approach. 3. Space System Concept: Describe the system concept and functions, how it addresses the objectives and requirements in this RFI, and its maturity (Technology Readiness Level) both at present and projected with maturation plan at the time of implementation (if for a future capability). Consider spectral coverage, spatial resolution or Ground Sample Distance (GSD), temporal coverage, and concepts for data management such as "smart sensor", data compression, communications (RF or optical) to ground, and relevant flight heritage. 4. Ground System Concept: Describe the system concept and functions and how they address the objectives in this RFI. Provide architectural information and diagrams representing the intended role for any described capability or partnership (i.e., flight operations through distribution, and/or specific architecture aspects such as high throughput computing, burst processing, data storage, data processing, distribution, and analytics). a. Capabilities: Provide a brief description of your big data capabilities, including high throughput and performance computing, storage, data analytics, and/or information visualization. b. Limitations: Describe any data transfer, computing, storage, or hosting limitations that should be considered. 5. Development Approach: Outline the approach and timeline for developing and testing the system concept, and provide an estimate of its current Technology Readiness Level (TRL) (Reference: https://esto.nasa.gov/files/trl_definitions.pdf). 6. Performance Capability: As noted above, reference parameters for RFI responses are provided at: https://esto.nasa.gov/files/SLIT2015/RMAKeyParameters.pdf. In this regard, RFI responses should compare the capabilities and characteristics of future land imaging system concepts to these reference parameters. For example, responses should identify areas where the system concept will provide capabilities closely comparable to the reference parameters, those areas where the system concept will offer enhancements or improvements relative to the reference parameters, and those areas where the system concept departs from the reference parameters. a. In addition to the reference parameters noted above, respondents are encouraged to address how the system concept could meet high priority enhanced user needs including: i. 10-meter resolution bands in the visible and near-infrared bands ii. Sub-weekly cloud-free coverage iii. Additional narrow (10-20nm) spectral bands such as water vapor (950 nm), surface water quality (410, 620nm), red-edge/chlorophyll (705nm, 740nm), and an additional TIR band (8.4-8.7 m) for temperature-emissivity separation. 7. Data Quality: Describe the methods used or planned for providing calibrated data (i.e., how is data quality addressed and maintained?) and validating that the data meet specifications. 8. Technology Evolution or Infusion: Describe the aspects of the system concept that will evolve over the lifetime of the program and how that technology will be infused in the described mission architecture. 9. International and/or Public, Private Partnerships: Describe any acquisition or partnering methodology that you recommend for any aspect of the RFI requirement set, including Government data-buy constructs for commercially acquired data, including use restrictions, and/or commercial ventures. Describe the target user community and how you envision a sufficient revenue stream to reliably provide concept services, as applicable. 10. System Cost Estimate: Provide an estimate of the cost to build, implement, and operate the system concept with accompanying assumptions and rationale (for reference purposes only). Responses are limited to no more than 7 pages and submitted via email by November 30, 2018 at 5 PM Eastern Time to the Point of Contact listed below. The subject line of the submission should be "RFI for Sustainable Land Imaging Architecture Study 2019" and attachments should be in PDF format. The information is requested for planning purposes only, subject to FAR Clause 52.215-3, entitled "Solicitation for Information for Planning Purposes." Only material suitable for internal Government distribution shall be submitted. Any restricted information should be marked accordingly. The U.S. Government will protect all restricted information received from respondents, and distribution of any material will be based on a strict need-to-know basis. However, note that the submissions may be subject to review by experts outside of the civil service, including NASA and USGS contractors, each of whom is bound to protect restricted data from unauthorized use or disclosure per their respective contracts. No classified material should be provided. Submittals identified as containing such material shall be destroyed and not considered further. Any export-controlled information shall be clearly marked. NASA shall not be restricted in, nor incur liability for, disclosure, use, and reproduction of any information provided which is or becomes publicly available other than by breach of the parameters above; or which is known to NASA at the time of disclosure; or which becomes known to NASA from an independent source without breach of any agreement to the contrary; or which has no restricted markings. This RFI is open to all types of organizations, including U.S. business, industry, universities, nonprofit organizations, federal centers, federally funded research and development centers, other U. S. Government agencies, and international organizations. It is emphasized that this RFI is for planning and information purposes only and is NOT to be construed as a commitment by the Government to enter into a contractual agreement, nor will the Government pay for information solicited. If the U.S. Government decides to proceed with a new procurement or announcement, NASA will synopsize its intent on FedBizOpps. 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 interested party's responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. All questions about the RFI shall be directed by email to the Point of Contact listed below. Responses may be sent via electronic mail to: Jeffrey.G.Masek@nasa.gov
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/NASA/GSFC/OPDC20220/NASA-SLI-Beyond-L9/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: TBD, TBD, United States
- Record
- SN05134551-W 20181027/181025230647-0c471e6179c1f17ba99f2b48b0394ef4 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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