SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- CHARACTERIZATION AND REASONING FOR IMPROVED SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS (SSA)
- Notice Date
- 9/10/2012
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, New York, 13441-4514
- ZIP Code
- 13441-4514
- Solicitation Number
- BAA-RIK-12-12
- Point of Contact
- Lynn G. White, Phone: (315) 330-4996
- E-Mail Address
-
Lynn.White@rl.af.mil
(Lynn.White@rl.af.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- NAICS CODE: 541712 FEDERAL AGENCY NAME: Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514 TITLE: Characterization and Reasoning for Improved Space Situational Awareness (SSA) ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Initial announcement FUNDING OPPORTUNITY NUMBER: BAA-RIK-12-12 CFDA Number: 12.800 I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION: The Information Directorate, Information Intelligence Systems and Analysis Division, Analytical Systems Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL/RIED), Rome Research Site, is soliciting white papers through this Space Fusion, Assessment and Characterization for Thread Prediction (Space FACT) program announcement. Space FACT is focused on the ability to anticipate and recognize evolving space threats in time to take action for space protection and mission assurance. The objective is to deliver automated capabilities for situational awareness, threat anticipation and timely recognition of evolving space events. This is being accomplished through the monitoring of command and control events, movement and characterization of space objects, and reasoning over all such events to hypothesize future actions. The focus of this BAA is to research, develop, demonstrate, integrate and test innovative technologies in support of space foundational indication and warning, tracking, characterization, and predictive assessment of potential space hostile and natural threats. In addition, develop techniques that provide avenues to leverage expertise and applications from the air, orbital and cyber intelligence assessment perspectives and merge them to attain an integrated air, space and cyber situation awareness (SA) perspective. Background: There are many technical challenges and alternatives in developing capabilities for space situation awareness. Some of these challenges include: (1) The detection of a complex sequence of multi-INT events associated with varying threats. Volumes of data, rare attacks, context/prior knowledge all contribute to important information that needs to be processed, analyzed and reasoned over to determine current and future situation. (2) The ability to handle dynamic spatial and temporal changes to ontologies is critical, being information relevancy decays, reasoning of event relationships has dependency on time. (3) Incomplete satellite location, tracking, classification and ID. Sparse sensing and prediction over long durations results in difficult association problem. (4) Current space object tracking methods, with kinematic data only, fail when object density is high, prediction interval is very long, or objects maneuver. Objectives: Advance reasoning and learning technology are sought to enhance the ability to update and maintain situation awareness over a dynamic environment. Some non-inclusive technologies of interest include: 1. Text extraction and semantic web capabilities married with advanced pattern learning and reasoning, anomaly detection and characterization of events, situations and assets, and correlation of current activities with past activities. The so called soft and hard data fusion problem, utilizing data that is both geospatially and temporally accurate with data that is more link, group, and event based. 2. Automated/semi-automated space asset preservation to include threat prediction, both natural and man-made, probability and assessment of threat type and threat impact assessment. 3. Novel techniques are needed in multi-source data (radar, optical and other) exploitation, analysis and fusion for timely, accurate and complete characterization of space objects. High fidelity tools are needed for satellite modeling, classification and vulnerability assessment. Novel mathematical approaches are sought for fusing, assessing and characterizing data from new sensor and information sources. 4. Information sources for prediction of threats include Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Image Intelligence (IMINT), Moving Intelligence (MOVINT), Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), weather (space and terrestrial), non resolvable imagery and the orbital catalog. II. AWARD INFORMATION: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $7.9M. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows: FY 13 - $3.4M; FY 14 - $3M; FY 15 - $1.5M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 36 months with dollar amounts normally ranging between $150K - $750K per year. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value. Awards of efforts as a result of this announcement will be in the form of contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements depending upon the nature of the work proposed. III. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION: 1. ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: All potential applicants are eligible. Foreign or foreign-owned offerors are advised that their participation is subject to foreign disclosure review procedures. Foreign or foreign-owned offerors should immediately contact the contracting office focal point, Lynn G. White, Contracting Officer, telephone (315) 330-4996 or e-mail Lynn.White@rl.af.mil for information if they contemplate responding. The e-mail must reference the title and BAA-RIK-12-12. 2. COST SHARING OR MATCHING: Cost sharing is not a requirement, but may be considered in making awards. IV. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION: 1. APPLICATION PACKAGE: THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION. WE ARE SOLICITING WHITE PAPERS ONLY. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL AT THIS TIME. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal, see Section VI of this announcement for further details. For additional information, a copy of the AFRL/Rome Research Sites "Broad Agency Announcement (BAA): A Guide for Industry," April 2007, may be accessed at: http://www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/AFRLRRS/Reference% 2DNumber%2DBAAGUIDE/listing.html 2. CONTENT AND FORM OF SUBMISSION: Offerors are required to submit 3 copies of a 3 to 5 page white paper summarizing their proposed approach/solution. The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest to the Government. The white paper will be formatted as follows: Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Estimated Cost, Name/Address of Company, Technical and Contracting Points of Contact (phone, fax and email)(this section is NOT included in the page count); Section B: Task Objective; and Section C: Technical Summary and Proposed Deliverables. Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. If the offeror wishes to restrict its white papers/proposals, they must be marked with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a) and (b). All white papers/proposals shall be double spaced with a font no smaller than 12 pitch. In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) number, their Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number, a fax number, an e-mail address, and reference BAA-RIK-12-12 with their submission. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to the technical POC, as discussed in paragraph six of this section. 3. SUBMISSION DATES AND TIMES: White papers may be submitted at any time during the life of this BAA. However, it is recommended that white papers be received by the following dates to maximize the possibility of award: FY13 should be submitted by 30 Nov 2012, FY14 by 29 Nov 2013, FY15 by 28 Nov 2014. White papers will be accepted until 2pm Eastern Time on 30 Sep 2015, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective year after the dates cited. FORMAL PROPOSALS ARE NOT BEING REQUESTED AT THIS TIME. This BAA will close at 2pm Eastern time on 30 Sep 2015. 4. FUNDING RESTRICTIONS: The cost of preparing white papers/proposals in response to this announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract, but may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost specified in FAR 31.205-18. Incurring pre-award costs for ASSISTANCE INSTRUMENTS ONLY, are regulated by the DoD Grant and Agreements Regulations (DODGARS). 5. All Proposers should review the NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL SECURITY PROGRAM OPERATING MANUAL, (NISPOM), dated February 28, 2006 as it provides baseline standards for the protection of classified information and prescribes the requirements concerning Contractor Developed Information under paragraph 4-105. Defense Security Service (DSS) Site for the NISPOM is: h ttp://www.dss.mil/ 6. OTHER SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: DO NOT send white papers to the Contracting Officer. All responses to this announcement must be addressed to ATTN: Ms Carolyn Sheaff, AFRL/RIED, 525 Brooks Road, Rome, NY 13441 Electronic submission to Carolyn.Sheaff@rl.af.mil will also be accepted. V. APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION: 1. CRITERIA: The following criteria, which are listed in descending order of importance, will be used to determine whether white papers and proposals submitted are consistent with the intent of this BAA and of interest to the Government: (1) Overall Scientific and Technical Merit of proposed technology development or enhancement to current state of the art, (2) Related Experience - The extent to which the offeror demonstrates relevant technology and domain knowledge, (3) Openness/Maturity of Solution - The extent to which existing capabilities and standards are leveraged and the relative maturity of the proposed technology in terms of reliability and robustness, and (4) Reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and fees (if any). No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting white papers/proposals. Individual white paper/proposal evaluations will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria without regard to other white papers and proposals submitted under this BAA. White papers and proposals submitted will be evaluated as they are received. 2. REVIEW AND SELECTION PROCESS: Only Government employees will evaluate the white papers/proposals for selection. The Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate has contracted for various business and staff support services, some of which require contractors to obtain administrative access to proprietary information submitted by other contractors. Administrative access is defined as "handling or having physical control over information for the sole purpose of accomplishing the administrative functions specified in the administrative support contract, which do not require the review, reading, and comprehension of the content of the information on the part of non-technical professionals assigned to accomplish the specified administrative tasks." These contractors have signed general non-disclosure agreements and organizational conflict of interest statements. The required administrative access will be granted to non-technical professionals. Examples of the administrative tasks performed include: a. Assembling and organizing information for R&D case files; b. Accessing library files for use by government personnel; and c. Handling and administration of proposals, contracts, contract funding and queries. Any objection to administrative access must be in writing to the Contracting Officer and shall include a detailed statement of the basis for the objection. VI. AWARD ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION: 1. AWARD NOTICES: Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. Notification by email or letter will be sent by the technical POC. Such invitation does not assure that the submitting organization will be awarded a contract. Those white papers not selected to submit a proposal will be notified in the same manner. Prospective offerors are advised that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. All offerors submitting white papers will be contacted by the technical POC, referenced in Section VII of this announcement. Offerors can email the technical POC for status of their white paper/proposal no earlier than 45 days after submission. 2. ADMINISTRATIVE AND NATIONAL POLICY REQUIREMENTS: Depending on the work to be performed, the offeror may require a TS/SCI facility clearance and safeguarding capability; therefore, personnel identified for assignment to a classified effort must be cleared for access to TS/SCI SI/TK information at the time of award. In addition, the offeror may be required to have, or have access to, a certified and Government-approved facility to support work under this BAA. This acquisition may involve data that is subject to export control laws and regulations. Only contractors who are registered and certified with the Defense Logistics Information Service (DLIS) at http://www.dlis.dla.mil/jcp/ and have a legitimate business purpose may participate in this solicitation. For questions, contact DLIS on-line at http://www.dlis.dla.mil/jcp or at the DLA Logistics Information Service, 74 Washington Avenue North, Battle Creek, Michigan 49037-3084, and telephone number 1-800-352-3572. You must submit a copy of your approved DD Form 2345, Militarily Critical Technical Data Agreement, with your Proposal. 3. REPORTING: Once a proposal has been selected for award, offerors will be given complete instructions on the submission process for the reports. VII. AGENCY CONTACTS: Questions of a technical nature shall be directed to the cognizant technical point of contact, as specified below: Ms Carolyn Sheaff 315-330-7147 Carolyn.Sheaff@rl.af.mil Questions of a contractual/business nature shall be directed to the cognizant contracting officer, as specified below: Lynn White Telephone (315) 330-4996 Email: Lynn.White@rl.af.mil The email must reference the solicitation (BAA) number and title of the acquisition. In accordance with AFFARS 5301.91, an Ombudsman has been appointed to hear and facilitate the resolution of concerns from offerors, potential offerors, and others for this acquisition announcement. Before consulting with an ombudsman, interested parties must first address their concerns, issues, disagreements, and/or recommendations to the contracting officer for resolution. AFFARS Clause 5352.201-9101 Ombudsman (Apr 2010) will be incorporated into all contracts awarded under this BAA. The AFRL Ombudsman is as follows: Ms. Barbara Gehrs AFRL/PK 1864 4th Street Building 15, Room 225 Wright-Patterson AFB OH 45433-7130 FAX: (937) 656-7321; Comm: (937) 904-4407 All responsible organizations may submit a white paper which shall be considered.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/AFRLRRS/BAA-RIK-12-12/listing.html)
- Record
- SN02876356-W 20120912/120911001817-56b31476f2beb16aa8ce3ce8f2d2f163 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |