SP -- TRANSFER OF SMEX-LITE SYSTEM DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY SMEX-Lite Technology Transfer Request for Information (RFI) The Goddard Space Flight Center seeks to determine the extent of interest within the commercial sector for the establishment of a partnership for the transfer of the SMEX-Lite system design and technology. The SMEX-Lite Program was initiated to provide a capability for small scale, inexpensive spacecraft. The SMEX-Lite spacecraft concept is innovative for its end-to-end consideration of all elements that contribute to mission costs. The SMEX-Lite team developed a spacecraft that not only reduces design and test engineering, development team size, flight hardware costs, and the cost of flight operations, but also maintains mission reliability and improves performance over previous SMEX missions. A protoflight version of the core SMEX-Lite spacecraft is currently in I&T at the GSFC. It will complete environmental qualification by the end of this year. More detailed information can be found at http://sunland.gsfc.nasa.gov/smex/smexlite/index.html. The intent of this initiative is to infuse this innovative and cost effective small spacecraft architecture and implementation approach into the private sector, providing a source(s) from which both the government and the commercial sectors could obtain this technology for use in future space missions. The SMEX program has produced spacecraft with extraordinary performance while fully embracing the essence of "smaller, faster, cheaper". Since its inception in 1988, the SMEX program has worked to provide frequent flight opportunities for highly focused and relatively inexpensive space science missions in the disciplines of astrophysics (radio, submillimeter, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, and relativity) and space physics (ionospheric, magnetospheric and heliospheric physics, solar physics, cosmic ray physics, and thermospheric and mesospheric physics). It is expected that it will be applied to similar missions in the future and that its sphere of application could be extended to include various Earth Science missions. The GSFC intends to provide the technical assistance of the SMEX-Lite civil service design and development team to assist in the transfer of the technology and processes to the selected partner(s). The GSFC would consider the transfer of existing SMEX-Lite hardware and software in order to facilitate rapid utilization of this architecture within the scope of this activity. Potential partners should make a recommendation on the most efficient and effective approach for rapidly transferring a working knowledge of this architecture to the partner; how best to quickly get this architecture into use; how to provide insight into how this technology will initially be used; what the first flight opportunity would be; and how to validate that the commercial firm has successfully accomplished the objective of this technology transfer to make it widely available. GSFC seeks to minimize any costs associated with the transfer effort of this technology. To that end, insight is requested on how best to approach issues such as indemnification and intellectual property. Potential partners should also provide an estimate for both the cost to the government for this activity as well as the magnitude of investment on the part of the partner. Responses are due July 20, 1998. All responses should be addressed to: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Attn: Wayne Hudson, Code 750 Greenbelt, MD 20771 WEB: Click here for the latest information about this notice, http://nais.nasa.gov/EPS/GSFC/date.html#SMEX-Lite. E-MAIL: Wayne R. Hudson, wayne.r.hudson.1@gsfc.nasa.gov.

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