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NASA/GSFC has a requirement for the Roman Space Telescope (Roman) Science Operations Center (SOC) at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
NASA/GSFC intends to issue a sole source contract to acquire the Science Operations Center from the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c) (1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, “Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.”
AURA will provide science operations system engineering, system development, operations, science research support, and scientific community engagement and public outreach support for the Roman Project. AURA, operating the STScI for NASA, will be part of a mission team that GSFC leads and includes many participants, including the IPAC at Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), international partners, and other support contractors.
The rationale supporting the use of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c) (1) is justified because AURA is the only organization qualified to perform the subject requirements based on:
The Roman observatory is being developed on a challenging schedule. The Mission Operations Review, the Operations Readiness Review, and the Post Launch Assessment Review will take place during the planned period of performance of this contract. Only an experienced contractor with extensive, state-of-the-art expertise in astronomy, science operations (including planning, scheduling, data processing, analysis, and archiving), optics, detectors, systems engineering, and outreach will meet the required elements of the contract statement of work needed to meet the mission requirements within the defined mission timeline. AURA is the only known source that has the expertise to successfully achieve the international reach and challenging objectives of the Roman program.
AURA currently operates the science operations center for the HST and is preparing for the launch and operations of the JWST mission. The Roman SOC design and eventual science program execution are based on many similar aspects of these missions. Roman will execute extensive sky surveys, and individually targeted observations. Many critical planning, scheduling, and data-handling activities will be similar to those performed on HST and JWST. AURA’s direct experience and unique position to apply economy-of-scale synergies with HST and JWST is to the advantage of the Government. The utilization of these mission-proven concepts, methodologies, software, and science-driven systems engineering approach are essential to the successful execution of the Roman science mission. The reuse of tools and organizational expertise ensures maximum cost efficiency, and application of lessons learned. This is the only available path that obtains the necessary technical resources required during the Roman mission development and test, launch, commissioning, and early operations phases, and provides a proven path for science productivity to NASA and the astronomical community. This cannot be provided by any known alternative source.
AURA’s experience covers all of the functional areas required to support the Roman SOC due to their prior experience with HST and JWST, including decades of experience with:
This includes the scheduling function performed on HST by the heritage software, and the event driven operations tested for JWST which maximize the efficiency of the observatory, essential for Roman to meet challenging observation requirements within its 5-year mission. Reuse of the HST and JWST systems provide an economical approach to meeting the data management requirements of Roman, and AURA’s expertise and experience provides a path to enabling integration of custom data processing which will be critical for Roman users. This makes AURA unique, and the only responsible source for this work.
AURA is uniquely situated to develop the SOC systems to satisfy the requirements and SOC design developed under their current contract to plan and execute the simultaneous planning and scheduling of wide-field imaging surveys, pointed imaging observations, and coronagraphic observations, perform Wide Field imaging data processing, and make mission data available via a public archive. AURA has extensive expertise with imaging surveys from HST. There are the three very large, long duration, highly optimized HST programs that began in 2010, which involved surveys. These include: the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey; the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury program; and the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey with Hubble. Having operated HST for more than a quarter of a century, AURA has unparalleled experience with General Observer (GO) observations and the design of the associated ground system elements for imagers, spectrographs, and coronagraphs. AURA’s experience with the technical and programmatic issues related to science operations center development, test, and operations for the HST and JWST missions will be very similar to those for Roman, and is unrivaled.
AURA scientists continue to demonstrate leadership in the field of calibration. Since the instruments on HST and JWST share many similarities with the Roman Wide Field Imager (WFI), AURA’s experience with these data-processing approaches and software programs is directly applicable to the development, test, and operations of calibration systems and efficient calibration observation sequences for the Roman mission. Based on their vast experience, AURA will save significant amounts of time and effort versus another source.
Roman intends to utilize the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), operated and maintained by AURA, to archive its data and make it accessible to the science community. Teaming with AURA will benefit the Roman mission directly from the existing infrastructure and synergies gained with the HST and JWST missions.
Community and science team engagement and support is another area in which AURA has unique experience and expertise. AURA’s extensive existing relationships with astronomers worldwide, developed through executing the HST science program for more than 30 years, is unique in both industry and academia. This position to engage the astronomical community is only deeper and more extensive by virtue of their leadership role in both mission and science operations of JWST. AURA’s successful methodology and communications infrastructure is already in place to immediately support Roman.
There are identifiable technical engineering areas where AURA’s developed expertise from the science and archive operations of other missions will uniquely support the development, test, and operations of the Roman SOC. These include: the reuse of designs and existing software from HST (3 million lines of code) and JWST (6 million lines of code); the reuse of methodologies (e.g., the data processing workflow, database management structures, and recalibration schemes, etc.); and the existence of experienced knowledgeable staff. It would be extraordinarily difficult for any other vendor to accomplish this work within the same time and cost constraints, given the head-start these existing systems and expertise provide to AURA.
The period of performance for this contract is October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2027.
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 electronically via email to Julie Janus at [email protected] not later than April 22, 2021 at 3:00 pm ET. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this acquisition on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this acquisition on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government.
NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html