NASA, George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Procurement Office, Marshall Space Flight Center, AL 35812

A -- SPACE STATION MANNED MODULE SHIELDING PENETRATION DAMAGE TESTS SOL 8-P-5-ED-89270 POC Contact Sandra L. Presnell, GP22-G, 205-544-0318/ Contract Specialist, or Joyce Mallory, GP22-F/Contracting Officer NASA/MSFC plans to issue a Request for Offer (RFO) for Space Station Manned Module Shielding Penetration Damage Tests. The proposed contract is planned for other than full and open competition with Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78228-0510. The proposed contract action is for supplies or services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other services will satisfy agency requirements. This effort includes the procurement of 20 inhibited shaped charges and all testcosts associated with determining the hole and crack size resulting in Space Station shield test specimens following penetration (specimens to be provided by NASA/MSFC). These test include (but are not limited to) collection of flash x-ray images of the particle produced by the inhibited shaped charge launcher prior to impact and after penetration of the shield specimens, photographs of the test setup prior to and following tests, generation of a final test report, and shipment of test specimens to MSFC following the completion of the tests. The inhibited shaped charge accelerator must deliver an aluminum particle weighing 1.3 grams at velocities, approaching 11.1 km/sec to a target in a vacuum and deliver a single particle of compact size with sufficient mass and velocity that will penetrate the shielding of a full-sized spacecraft shielding target. This procurement is being conducted under the NASA/MSFC MidRange Pilot Test Program approved by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy on April 16, 1993 -- Requests for copies of the RFO must be submitted in writing -- Transmission by facsimile to 205-544-9081 or by Internet e-mail to Sandra.presnell@msfc.nasa.gov is acceptable -- Interested firms have 15 days from the publication date of this synopsis to submit their qualifications/capabilities in the critical areas mentioned above, along with a request for a copy of the solicitation -- Such qualifications/capabilities will be used solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis -- Responses received after the 15 days or without the required information will be considered nonresponsive to the synopsis and will not be considered -- A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract, on a full and open competitive basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government -- RFO will be released on or about 15 days after publication in the Commerce Business Daily (CBD) -- Firm date for receipt of offers will be stated in the RFO -- The solicitation and any documents related to this procurement will be available over the Internet -- These documents will be in ASCII format and reside on a World-Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using client browsers, such as, MOSAIC -- The WWW address, or URL, of the MSFC Procurement home page is: ''http://procure.msfc.nasa.gov''. (0228)

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