SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Space Weather Data Acquisition and Transmission Services
- Notice Date
- 4/22/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mountain Administrative Support Center, 325 Broadway - MC3, Boulder, CO, 80305-3328
- ZIP Code
- 80305-3328
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-NWWX9000500007
- Response Due
- 6/6/2005
- Archive Date
- 10/1/2005
- Point of Contact
- Jan Clark, Contract Specialist, Phone (303) 497-6320, Fax (303) 497-3163, - Jan Clark, Contract Specialist, Phone (303) 497-6320, Fax (303) 497-3163,
- E-Mail Address
-
jan.clark@noaa.gov, jan.clark@noaa.gov
- Description
- In the absence of other qualified sources, it is the intent of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Space Environment Center (SEC) to continue to acquire space data acquisition and transmission services from the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire, England. As part of a joint NOAA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and United States Air Force (USAF) program, NOAA paid for modifications of NASA’s ACE scientific spacecraft to have a continuous RTSW data broadcast capability. On August 21, 1997 ACE was launched into a unique orbit, about one million miles from Earth, called L1, where there is a balance of forces between the Sun and the Earth. From this vantage point, ACE would continuously monitor the Solar Wind by directly measuring the plasma, magnetic field, and low energy particles, and would broadcast the data in real time toward Earth. For a brief three and one-half hour period each day NASA would download its stored science data and simultaneously the current RTSW data is sent to NOAA. The data received from the special RTSW broadcast is intended for operational use by NOAA’s SEC and is made available to cooperating International Space Environment Services (ISES) Centers throughout the world. The data are used for generating real time forecasts and warnings of impending solar storms that will produce large geomagnetic disturbances at Earth. In order to receive the RTSW data continuously at SEC at least three dedicated ground stations distributed equally around the Earth are required. (As seen from the ground, ACE appears to circle the Sun, thus you can only track it at a given station during daylight hours.) The Communication Research Laboratory (CRL) located in Tokyo, Japan, has installed an 11 meter dish ground station which is dedicated to tracking ACE. However, the European sector was not well covered and had an unacceptable large tracking gap. In the Summer of 1997, after making inquires to the United Kingdom (UK) and European space communities, SEC found that a ground station located at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK was not being used. RAL has provided its 12 meter dish ground station available for ACE RTSW data acquisition. This tracking network has grown with the addition of the NOAA tracking station (Wallops Command and Data Acquisition, Wallops Island, VA, and backup tracking by Indian Scientific Research Organization in India. These additional stations have been built around the existing two dedicated stations, RAL and CRL. The present international ground tracking network can now meet the operational requirement of at least 96% coverage per day with no gap longer than 15 minutes. The Contractor shall be located in Western Europe or in the United Kingdom and shall provide data from the NASA Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft in the Real Time Solar Wind (RTSW) format to the NOAA/SEC in Boulder, CO, via the Internet. The Contractor shall operate its existing 12m satellite ground station to receive the S band 996sps RTSW Telemetry signal from the NASA ACE spacecraft located one million miles from the Earth whenever the spacecraft is visible from the site, is transmitting data in RTSW format, and the data is not scheduled to be acquired at any other ground station. The Contractor shall monitor the operation of the facility continuously during times of scheduled operation and be able to respond to unexpected signal loss or communication problems within 15 minutes of occurrence. During those scheduled times, the Contractor shall provide NOAA/SEC with a guaranteed telephone point of contact with a Contractor staff member for the SEC to report problems observed from the SEC. On weekends and national holidays the Contractor shall operate the ground station on a best effort basis by providing a guaranteed telephone point-of-contact for NOAA/SEC to reach a member of the Contractor staff when problems are observed from the SEC. The Contractor will attempt to correct the problem on a best-effort basis. The Contractor shall provide the ACE RTSW operational ground station network by email with projected schedules for the operation of the ground facility at least 48 hours in advance. The Contractor shall notify the ground station network as far in advance as possible when scheduled maintenance down-time cannot be carried outside of scheduled operational time. The Contractor shall notify the SEC as soon as it is known whenever unscheduled down-time due to equipment failure or any other problem occurs to permit possible rescheduling of other stations. The Contractor shall maintain the ground station S Band receiver performance with a target G/T of greater than 26dB/K and provide the NOAA/SEC telemetry decoder and communications system with a 1 V pk-pk PM demodulator output from the ACE RTSW telemetry signal. The Contractor shall maintain the antenna pointing loss of less than 1dB. The Contractor shall provide physical space and conditioned electrical power for the installation of NOAA provided telemetry decoding and communication equipment implemented in software on a general purpose computer. The Contractor shall provide a standard UTP computer network connection for the NOAA/SEC equipment. This shall be a TCP/IP network and shall be capable of providing continuous TCP and UDP connectivity to the NOAA/SEC network via the public Internet at speeds of greater than or equal to 1 Mbps. This contract is proposed for a base period and three one-year option periods. This is not a formal notice of a solicitation. See Numbered Notes 22 and 26. NOTE: THIS NOTICE WAS NOT POSTED TO WWW.FEDBIZOPPS.GOV ON THE DATE INDICATED IN THE NOTICE ITSELF (22-APR-2005); HOWEVER, IT DID APPEAR IN THE FEDBIZOPPS FTP FEED ON THIS DATE. PLEASE CONTACT fbo.support@gsa.gov REGARDING THIS ISSUE.
- Web Link
-
Link to FedBizOpps document.
(http://www.eps.gov/spg/DOC/NOAA/MASC/Reference-Number-NWWX9000500007/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Chilton,Didcot, 0X11-OQX Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
- Country: UK
- Country: UK
- Record
- SN00794404-F 20050424/050422213303 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |