SOLICITATION NOTICE
66 -- METER-CLASS AUTONOMOUS TELESCOPE FOR ORBITAL DEBRIS RESEARCH
- Notice Date
- 9/5/2008
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 333314
— Optical Instrument and Lens Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- NASA/Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas, 77058-3696, Mail Code: BH
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- NNJ08263211R
- Response Due
- 9/19/2008
- Archive Date
- 9/5/2009
- Point of Contact
- Katherine L Eakle, Contract Specialist, Phone 281-244-6708, Fax 281-244-5331, - Ann E. Bronson, Contracting Officer, Phone 281-483-9889, Fax 281-244-5331, />
- E-Mail Address
-
katherine.l.eakle@nasa.gov, ann.e.bronson@nasa.gov<br
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- NASA/JSC plans to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the following Commercialitem/services:The Orbital Debris Program Office (ODPO) at the National AeronauticalSpace Administration Johnson Space Center (NASA/JSC), in Houston, TX, in collaborationwith the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Detachment 15 on Maui, Hawaii, wish toprocure a Meter-Class Autonomous Telescope (MCAT) to be installed on the island of Legan,in the Kwajalein Atoll, with an expected installation date of July 2010. The telescope must meet specific performance criteria to qualify as an operationallyeffective tool for NASAs and AFRLs mission to characterize the orbital debrisenvironment. This procurement will include the optical tube assembly; mounting; telescope controlsystem; component and system tests; factory integration; factory acceptance test; siteintegration; and site acceptance test. Characterization of the earth orbital object population is essential to the fulfillmentof NASAs mandate to promote civilian uses of the space environment. The characterizationinvolves generating a distribution function that primarily describes the number ofobjects of a given size, material type, physical shape, and orbital regime. Via a networkof radar and optical sensors, the orbital population is continually surveyed and acatalog of larger objects (&gt;10 cm diameter) is maintained by the Department ofDefense. The completeness of this correlated target" (CT) catalog [uncatalogedconstituents are labeled uncorrelated targets or (UCTs)] is limited both by thesensitivity of the assets employed and their geographic distribution. Most assets are athigher latitudes (&gt;30 N), which yields a paucity of low-inclination Low-Earth Orbit(LEO) target observations. Limited sensitivity means geosynchronous (GEO) observationsare also restricted to brighter targets.MCAT will employ a NASA supplied Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera to be used as theprimary detector. This backside illuminated, 4Kx4K, 15um pixel, 4-port camera is capableof both rapid framing for LEO acquisitions and low noise time exposures for GEO work.MCAT will be equipped with a Telescope Control System (TCS) incorporating both basicfunctionality and an open interface which allows for end user development of moresophisticated command and control. The base TCS will enable traditional pointing andtracking of both astronomical objects and CTs via supplied position and rate parameters.It will also operate MCAT autonomously by accommodating task lists containing targetsand/or search strategies for a nights observations. Ultimately, UCT stare and chasecapability will be developed by NASA to further enhance MCAT productivity.The following are minimum performance requirements needed to meet NASA's goals (1) todetect 10 cm targets at GEO in 5 second exposures, (2) to track LEO targets at analtitude of 200km, and (3) to create a survey fence with an adequate field of view andenough dwell time in the field for assessment and re-acquisition further along the track.The Field-of-View (FOV) needs to have a minimum width of 0.65 (0.92 diagonal). Utilizing the NASA supplied CCD detector, the telescope shall reach 21.5th V-bandmagnitude in 5 seconds with a 20.5th mag/arcsec2 V-band sky brightness at a SNR of 2magnitudes above background. This corresponds to a 10-cm detection diameter at GEO(36,000 km) for a specular sphere with a 0.10 albedo. A minimum 1.25m clear aperture isthus required.The telescope also has a requirement for an Equatorial Mount with: high speed trackingto 2.2 deg/sec @ &lt;0.05% rate accuracy, sidereal tracking @ &lt;0.2 arcsec Root MeanSquare (RMS) jitter, &gt;4.0 deg/sec slewing, &gt;10 deg/sec2 acceleration, directencoded (modeled) pointing repeatable and stable to &lt;3 arcsec RMS, and a maximumallowable elevation obscuration of 10.5 @ 180 azimuth (allows 200 km, 0 inclinationLEOs to be observed due South) and &lt;25 @ 0 (North) azimuth. All hardware components of the MCAT must perform in an environment with these attributes: nominal temperature 70F to 90F, extremes of 60F to 100F, nominal operation up to 17knot wind, 70-90% relative humidity, sea-level; occasional salt mist, observatoryenclosure maximum 20 diameter.The anticipated release date of RFP is on or about September 22, 2008, with ananticipated proposal due date on or about October 6, 2008.All responsible sources may submit a proposal which shall be considered by the agency.An ombudsman has been appointed. See NASA Specific Note "B".The solicitation and any documents related to this procurement will be available over theInternet. These documents will reside on a World-Wide Web (WWW) server, which may beaccessed using a WWW browser application. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/JSCBusiness Opportunities page ishttp://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=73 Prospective offerors shall notify this office of their intent to submit an offer. It isthe offeror's responsibility to monitor the Internet site for the release of thesolicitation and amendments (if any). Potential offerors will be responsible fordownloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments (if any). Any referencednotes may be viewed at the following URLs linked below.All technical questions must be submitted in writing (e-mail or FAX) to Edwin Barker(JSC-KX) not later than September 18, 2008. Telephone questions will not be accepted.
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