SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) Services Contract
- Notice Date
- 9/6/2016
- Notice Type
- Justification and Approval (J&A)
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- NASA/George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Office of Procurement, Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama, 35812, United States
- ZIP Code
- 35812
- Solicitation Number
- NNM16602035R
- Archive Date
- 4/30/2017
- Point of Contact
- Miranda Lewis, Phone: 2565440961, Melinda E Swenson, Phone: 2565440381
- E-Mail Address
-
miranda.lewis@nasa.gov, melinda.e.swenson@nasa.gov
(miranda.lewis@nasa.gov, melinda.e.swenson@nasa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Award Number
- NNM16602035R
- Award Date
- 3/31/2017
- Description
- NASA/MSFC has a requirement for the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) services contract. NASA/MSFC intends to purchase these services from COLSA Corporation. This effort will serve as a 24 month bridge contract in order to stabilize requirements. A competition will be held once requirements have stabilized. Competition is impractical at this time for the following reasons: a. Several major goals are being pursued in tandem that introduce substantial uncertainty at this critical time for the MSFC Payload Operations Office. Based on the level of uncertainty currently experienced and the quickly changing ISS Program environment, HOSC requirements and reference documents are in such a state of flux that anything provided as reference material at this time would be insufficient to possible competitors in a procurement Source Board activity. The current environment makes it difficult to provide stable background and historical documentation for possible RFP development at a time when major design and process improvements are in work. The current level of uncertainty will manifest itself as vague requirements and greatly contribute to confusion in the contracting community in an effort to respond to an RFP for these services. As a result, the Government expects a substantial increase in the cost of this procurement, and ultimately the cost of delivering the contracted services, if this requirement is competed prior to resolution of several issues. b.In keeping with the desire to support profitable commercial business cases for space research and to encourage customers to fully utilize ISS, the ISS Program recently introduced a customer-service focused initiative known as RISE - or Revolutionize ISS for Science and Exploration. This initiative seeks to enable easier access and working arrangements between the Principle Investigators for the payloads and the host of personnel responsible for integrating and providing the status of the payloads they are supporting. The RISE initiative has been put in place to dramatically and innovatively improve payload services and processes. Several teams are currently being established to address the various issues identified as impediments to a positive and constructive payload operations customer experience. Integration of HOSC tools and processes with other ISS tools and processes is evolving at a rapid pace to achieve new efficiencies in an effort to support this initiative. As expected in this early RISE environment, process improvements and innovative capabilities have not yet been debated and finalized. Therefore, the uncertainty of what the final set of HOSC requirements will be as a result of this activity limit the Government's ability to provide a set of requirements that places prospective bidders on equal footing with the incumbent for proposal development purposes. c.Another significant concern at this time is the effect of the Government's plan to establish a Commercial Crew capability. ISS has established goals related to commercialization of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) and full utilization of the ISS. As a result, ISS plans to establish a Commercial Crew capability NET November 2017 (more likely moving to Spring 2018). This project will include potential requirements that the Commercial vendors may or may not choose to implement which increases uncertainty on technical interfaces and reconfiguration processes. It will be late FY2017 at the earliest before requirements are known, evaluated, formalized and eventually communicated to the contracting community in a manner that encourages competition. d.The effort to fund and reduce the backlog of system upgrades has also introduced Program uncertainties and concerns. Prior to submission of PPBE17, the HOSC/Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) budget was decreased to primarily sustain the current architecture and services while opportunistically making improvements. A 2-year backlog of updates and improvements had accrued due to a lack of resources, and the uncertainty concerning the actual end date for the ISS Program. As part of PPBE17 the Mission Operations Lab proposed a budget that would burn down the backlog to bring the POIC tools and architecture in line with current industry best practice, enable proactive engineering strategic planning, pursue automation and error-reducing tools for the POIC flight team, and provide improvements in response to payload customer feedback. FY16 and FY17 represent the largest challenge to the HOSC contract relative to meeting the extensive commitments made in PPBE17. Late in FY2017 the HOSC should see a return to a more stable and methodic system upgrade process, allowing the development of contractual requirements that better define upgrade priorities, help to eliminate or minimize unknowns, and encourage competition. e.The effort to fund and reduce the backlog of system upgrades has also introduced Program uncertainties and concerns. Prior to submission of PPBE17, the HOSC/Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) budget was decreased to primarily sustain the current architecture and services while opportunistically making improvements. A 2-year backlog of updates and improvements had accrued due to a lack of resources, and the uncertainty concerning the actual end date for the ISS Program. As part of PPBE17 the Mission Operations Lab proposed a budget that would burn down the backlog to bring the POIC tools and architecture in line with current industry best practice, enable proactive engineering strategic planning, pursue automation and error-reducing tools for the POIC flight team, and provide improvements in response to payload customer feedback. FY16 and FY17 represent the largest challenge to the HOSC contract relative to meeting the extensive commitments made in PPBE17. Late in FY2017 the HOSC should see a return to a more stable and methodic system upgrade process, allowing the development of contractual requirements that better define upgrade priorities, help to eliminate or minimize unknowns, and encourage competition. f.In addition to these issues, in late FY2015 the ISS Program Office took steps to establish a Payload Operations Cost Account Management (CAM) Office at MSFC. This change is intended to further engage MSFC skills and expertise in the improvement of ISS operations, and to ensure full engagement of the POIC effort at a program level. The transition of roles and responsibilities between the JSC ISS Research Integration Office/OZ (who previously managed the POIC effort) to the MSFC ISS Payload Ops CAM/FP03 includes changes to management structure, reporting, communications, civil servant staffing, configuration management and ISS boards and panels. This transition is in the early stages of implementation, and currently represents a major resource burden on employees working to establish the office and implement all the associated Program responsibilities to become a fully functioning CAM Office similar to the other CAM Offices in the ISS Program Office. At this point in time the CAM office Configuration Management and other processes have not yet stabilized or been documented. Based on the status of this effort, office responsibilities have not been fully realized and any attempt by a contractor in a competitive bidding situation to try to define communication paths, CAM required board reviews, reporting requirements, or other management interfaces would be difficult at best. This limited insight will lead to numerous RFP questions and concerns that could delay the source board activity schedule, or cause confusion and consternation in the contracting community and restrict competition. g. It should also be noted how the nature of the fluctuating ISS end date impacts the timing of this competitive acquisition. ISS End-of-Life (EOL) has also been officially extended until 2024 with a condition that plans and designs should not exclude extension to 2028, which introduces additional uncertainty concerning future payload operations requirements. Based on the current projected ISS end date of 2024, the current payload operations support provided by the HOSC is required for an additional seven years past the current HOSC contract term. If a 5-year contract is entered into when the current contract ends (March 2017) NASA will be required to award a follow-on effort for a two-year period to coincide with the ISS Program end date. This source board activity will be a significant effort including substantial procurement costs. Delaying the source board effort for two years will not only allow requirements to stabilize, it will also facilitate the convergence of the HOSC contract term and current ISS Program end date - preventing the need for two separate source board activities in a seven-year period. An additional source board effort during this Program ramp down period would require the outlay of substantial acquisition costs, which is not considered to be in the Government's best interest. h. The combination of these activities has introduced significant and rapid change, instability and uncertainty into the Program. The further uncertainty and resource challenges introduced by a pending contract change at a time when stable staffing is needed to achieve ISS goals represents a significant risk of attrition that could be crippling in meeting PPBE17 commitments and supporting the various ISS Program improvement initiatives. Major upgrades are planned to be executed in FY16 and FY17 as part of the backlog burndown. The timely completion of these upgrades is dependent on retaining the bulk of the software engineering knowledge base for the existing HOSC software. HOSC software is complex and has high availability requirements, and the risk of losing highly-specialized personnel threatens the ability to successfully deploy these upgrades on schedule while maintaining service availability to support ISS real time operations. i. Entering a competitive situation with requirements in a state of flux will significantly impact the Government's ability to provide a fully defined Statement of Work and stable background and historical documentation for possible RFP development by prospective contractors. It will greatly benefit the incumbent contractor in that their insight and knowledge of Program objectives and initiatives will better position them to provide a more realistic proposal for HOSC services. This situation and environment will falsely handicap competition, making a competitive proposal process a difficult task. The cumulative effect of the uncertainties described above drive performance risks by introducing vague and currently unsubstantiated requirements. Documenting immature RFP requirements will cause bidder confusion, drive numerous questions from the contracting community, require extensive RFP follow-up or amendment, and negatively impact the timeline and schedule for the acquisition of follow-on HOSC services. Contract changes required post award in this environment are also expected to be substantial and lead to significant cost growth. For these reasons, and as prescribed in FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii); in the case of follow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government not expected to be recovered through competition. The Government does not intend to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12. Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort in writing to the identified point of contact not later than 4:30 p.m. CST on 09/21/2016. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the government. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. All responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency. NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/publibrary/Omb.html.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/3d527f631bf27892c018b7b008f07e53)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Marshall Space Flight Center, MSFC, Alabama, 35812, United States
- Zip Code: 35812
- Zip Code: 35812
- Record
- SN04257737-W 20160908/160907173619-3d527f631bf27892c018b7b008f07e53 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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