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Partnership Opportunity Announcement (POA) for Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s NASA Astrophysics Probe Program Concept Spacecraft, Instrument Integration and Test, Mission Operations, and Over... Partnership Opportunity Announcement (POA) for Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s NASA Astrophysics Probe Program Concept Spacecraft, Instrument Integration and Test, Mission Operations, and Overall Proposal Support 1.0 GENERAL INFORMATION Contracting Office Address: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Attn: Joseph Lendall, MS-22 60 Garden St. Cambridge, MA 02138 lendallj@si.edu Principal Investigator: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Attn: Ralph Kraft, MS-04 60 Garden St. Cambridge, MA 02138 rkraft@cfa.harvard.edu 2.0. INTRODUCTION / SCOPE This partnership opportunity pertains to the NASA Astrophysics Probe Announcement of Opportunity (AO), (Astrophysics Probe 2023), which is expected to be released in July of 2023, with proposals due in October 2023. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in collaboration with scientists at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is developing a mission concept to be proposed for this AO. The partnership opportunity is being issued to select a teaming partner to provide the spacecraft bus, instrument to spacecraft integration support, integration support for the spacecraft to launch vehicle, and spacecraft mission operations. The proposed mission is currently in pre-Phase A. This phase ends with a Step 1 proposal that will be due 3 months after the final AO is released. If the proposal is selected for implementation, the mission will proceed into Phase A. The following schedule should be used as a basis for responses to this opportunity: Revised Probe Announcement Release May 19, 2022 Partnership Opportunity Announcement released June 20, 2022 Respondent Notice of Interest due June 27, 2022 Draft NASA AO July 2022(target) LEM team presentation to respondents July 11, 2022 Responses due August 12, 2022 Respondents’ presentations to the LEM team August 15-19(TBD), 2022 Partner Selection announced August 26, 2022 Final AO Release Date July 15, 2023 Step 1 Proposal in response to AO October 15, 2023 Selection Announced (target) Mid CY 2024(target) Phase A Start Date Mid CY 2024(target) Phase A Concept Study Reports Due Early CY 2025(target) Investigation Selection for Flight Mid/Late 2025 Spacecraft Start Date Vendor Specified Instrument Delivery to for I&T Expected ~ June 2030 Launch Readiness Date Vendor Specified (NLT June 2032) 2.1 COST Total mission cost and cost fidelity are important issues for the mission trade studies. The PI-Managed Mission Cost (PIMMC) cap for this Astrophysics Probe AO is expected to be $1.0B (FY23), excluding launch services to be provided by NASA. This cost includes the instruments, spacecraft, instrument to spacecraft integration support, environmental testing, calibration, launch site operations, and mission and science operations for a minimum of 2 years (goal – 5 years), as well as required contingency (>25%). Launch vehicle costs will be provided by NASA. Reserves will be held at the Project level and not with the partner. There will be no exchange of funds between the teaming partner for the portion of this partnership opportunity dealing with the preparation of the initial submission (Pre-Phase-A, Step 1 proposal) to the Astrophysics Probe 2023 AO. Funding will be available for subsequent phases should the candidate mission concept be competitively selected for those additional phases. 2.2 DESIRED MISSION SERVICES SAO is interested in selecting a partner to provide the following services for the mission: Provide a spacecraft bus capable of supporting mission needs for up to five years in high earth orbit, an L1 orbit, or an L2 orbit. Accommodate, integrate, and test the science instrument and mirror assembly provided by NASA GSFC, SAO, and their partners and all other subsytems provided by NASA GSFC, SAO, and their partners to the spacecraft. Provide instrument-to-spacecraft integration and test support, spacecraft to launch vehicle integration and test support Provide mission operations for the spacecraft during launch and commissioning with a possible extension for the duration of the mission depending on success of initial operations and funding. SAO will provide science operations. All interested parties are required to respond to this POA in accordance with Section 4 below. 3.0 MISSION OVERVIEW The Astrophysics Probe Program conducts Principal Investigator (PI)-led astrophysics investigations. The goal of NASA’s Astrophysics Probe Program is to respond to the recommendation from the National Academies’ 2020 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics that probe missions be competed in broad areas identified as important to accomplish the survey’s scientific goals. In particular, this proposal responds to the recommendation for an X-ray Probe mission that would complement the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Athena mission, although we note that complementarity is no longer required by the revised AO call. The selected Astrophysics Probe mission will perform astrophysics investigations designed to address the following broad themes identified in the Decadal Survey: Cosmic Ecosystems - link observations and modeling of the stars, galaxies, and the gas and energetic processes that couple their formation, evolution, and destinies. Worlds and Suns in Context - observe exoplanets and stars to understand their formation, evolution, and interconnected nature, and to characterize other solar systems, including potentially habitable analogs to our own. New Messengers and New Physics - to provide temporal monitoring of the sky across the electromagnetic spectrum and wide-area surveys to probe some of the most energetic processes in the universe and also address the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and cosmological inflation SAO in collaboration with NASA GSFC scientists is developing an X-ray mission concept called the Line Emission Mapper to directly image and provide high resolution spectroscopy of the hot gas in the Circumgalactic Medium and the Intergalactic Medium. The science payload will consist of a single mirror assembly and a single focal plane instrument. The mirror assembly will be optimized for the bandpass of 0.3-2.5 keV and will have a diameter of ~1.5m and a focal length of ~4m. The focal plane instrument will be a high-resolution spectrometer based on X-ray calorimeters operating at ~50 mK, optimized to provide the highest spectral resolution for this bandpass. The partner will provide a dewar and associated systems to establish the thermal interface to a Government-furnished ~50-mK refrigerator for the calorimeter array with a very high fraction of cold time (>90%) to maximize observing efficiency. The satellite will be in a High Earth Orbit (HEO), or an L1 or L2 orbit. The observing program is expected to consist of directed observations to achieve the primary science goals and a robust General Observer program that will supplement and expand the science goals. The LEM team is in the process of obtaining formal GSFC management approval to support the proposal development. Potential Mission. Line Emission Mapper Mission Description. One Satellite with one instrument in a High Earth Orbit, L1 or L2 orbit 4.0 PRE-SELECTION SUPPORT 4.1 INITIAL PROPOSAL SUPPORT SOW: It is expected that the selected POA respondent will provide support using their own resources to help develop the required Astrophysics Probe 2023 proposal elements in response to the Astrophysics Probe 2023 AO in the following areas: a well-defined and documented spacecraft baseline, instrument accommodations, instrument to spacecraft integration support, spacecraft to launch vehicle integration support, and mission operations support for launch and early orbit commissioning and nominal mission. This will involve meeting with the Principal Investigator (PI) and other proposal team members to establish the system architecture, to help define both end-to-end and elemental performance requirements, to provide well-defined interfaces for the instruments, launch vehicle and ground system elements, and to identify any necessary technology developments and/or other risk areas that may affect mission success. These efforts will culminate in a Technical Baseline Review (TBR) approximately 30 days after SAO selection of an industry partner and will include cost estimation for all partner- provided mission elements and for all mission phases. The period of performance for this interval is expected to start September 6, 2022 until proposal submission. 4.2. DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT SOW: If the mission is selected for development and launch, the respondent will be responsible for the design, development, and testing of the provided mission elements. The respondent is responsible for identifying the spacecraft requirements and providing all aspects of the spacecraft (either directly, or through purchasing or teaming arrangements). The period of performance for this interval is expected to follow the timeline noted in Section 2.0. However, the respondent is encouraged to develop a schedule for completing the spacecraft bus that provides the best value to the Government. 4.3 POA RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRE-SELECTION SUPPORT SOW: The respondent shall: 1) Demonstrate understanding and flight experience in the design, fabrication, integration and testing of spacecraft: Identify assumed mission and system requirements for the spacecraft and a response to addressing those requirements; Highlight particularly critical or challenging areas for the design of the spacecraft; Provide a technical summary/description of the proposed spacecraft bus including relevant heritage; Provide a technical summary/description of the dewar and associated systems that will provide the thermal interface to the Government-furnished refrigerator; Describe what types of capabilities and cost benefits the spacecraft provides for the intended mission; Identify available design and modeling capabilities required to support development of the spacecraft; Identify fabrication and testing facilities that will be required to support development and test of the spacecraft; and Provide any recommended potential study topics related to the spacecraft. 2) Indicate what level of resources would be allocated to the proposal phase of support Discuss skills that will be provided, ideas on what level of conceptual design and important analysis and trade studies that might be needed. 3) Identify the pertinent missions for which the respondent has provided support for proposal writing in the area of spacecraft design, fabrication, integration and testing: Provide data on scope of the spacecraft design, the role played in the proposal process, and the portions of the proposal written or provided assistance in writing, and provide a customer reference POC. 4) Provide a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate and schedule for the design, fabrication, and testing of the spacecraft; integration of the GFE instrument module to the spacecraft; and observatory environmental testing. 5) While these ROMs will not be considered binding commitments, they will serve as an important consideration during the response evaluation and therefore some supporting justification of the ROM is required. Include previous experiences in the applicable area as well as cost/schedule performance with supporting data (estimated vs actual). Respondent should provide separate ROM cost estimate for providing mission operations support using respondent’s provided facilities. Two years of routine mission operations support shall be assumed (post- on-orbit commissioning). 5.0 POA RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS Potential respondents are asked to contact SAO’s Astrophysics Probe 2023 team by 5 PM EDT on June 27, 2022 with a Notice of Interest (intentionally not called a notice of intent). This Notice of Interest does not create an obligation to respond to the POA, but allows the SAO’s Astrophysics Probe team to disseminate additional details on the mission parameters and requirements (e.g. a preliminary Concept of Operations document) and to provide answers to questions from potential partners. All Notice of Interest respondents will receive a document containing additional details on the proposed Astrophysics Probe mission, which can be used to facilitate a focused response to the partnership opportunity. These details are proprietary and competition sensitive and are not to be shared outside the teams necessary to prepare a full response. SAO will schedule a teleconference on 11 July, 2022 to present the contents of the technical package to the respondents. After receipt of the mission document, respondents may send questions to the SAO’s Astrophysics Probe 2023 Team at the e-mail addresses listed below. Questions and answers will be made generally available to those who respond with a Notice of Interest. The source of the questions shall be held confidential. Questions and answers that contain information unique to a respondent’s proprietary approach will not be shared if they are identified as such. Notice of Interest shall be sent to lendallj@si.edu and rkraft@cfa.harvard.edu via email with “Notice of Interest” in the subject line, a simple sentence or two expressing interest, and an email address to send further information. For purposes of this partnership opportunity, the SAO’s Astrophysics Probe 2023 Team contact is Joseph Lendall, lendallj@si.edu, 617-495-7401 and Ralph Kraft, rkraft@cfa.harvard.edu, 617-496-7709. Responses to the Partnership Opportunity Announcement (POA) shall: Address all requirements noted in Sections 2.0 through 5.0 of this announcement; and Deliver the requested information in a standard presentation format (viewgraphs: such as Power Point or Keynote or PDF) that shall not exceed 75 pages. The font size for the text shall be no smaller than 12 point. Responses will be treated as proprietary information and controlled as such by SAO for the US Government. Upon request, a non-disclosure agreement may be negotiated and executed. Final presentation packages (electronic copy only, Portable Document Format {PDF} recommended) must be received by 5 pm EDT, August 12, 2022. Presentations are to be delivered to Joe Lendall, lendallj@si.edu and Ralph Kraft, rkraft@cfa.harvard.edu. Following receipt of responses, SAO will set up a teleconference for each respondent for oral presentation and questions and answers. The timeline of these teleconferences is expected to be the week of August 15-19, 2022. Teleconferences will be scheduled in the order that responses were received. Partnership Selection is expected to be made by August 26, 2022. SAO reserves the option to NOT select any teaming partners for LEM on the basis of materials received. SAO does not guarantee that a proposal for LEM will be submitted in response to the NASA Astrophysics Probe 2023 AO. The decision to proceed is an ongoing consideration. SAO assumes no liabilities whatsoever to any respondents, including selected partner, in the event that a decision is made not to propose. 6.0 EVALUATION FACTORS AND CRITERIA The evaluation team will use the following factors in selection and award: 1. Technical Approach (30%). Respondents will be evaluated on their ability to meet the technical requirements given in Section 2, 3, and 4. This includes demonstrated understanding of the requirements and proposed approach to meet those requirements. 2. Cost (45%). Respondents will be evaluated on their overall cost and on the reasonableness of cost and schedule estimates. 3. Relevant Experience and Past Performance (25%). Special emphasis will be given to demonstrated experience with similar missions, particularly with regards to instrument accommodations, spacecraft attitude control requirements, and mission communication requirements. 7.0 ACRONYMS AO Announcement of Opportunity ESA European Space Agency GSFC Goddard Space Flight Center PI Principal Investigator POA Partnership Opportunity Announcement ROM Rough Order of Magnitude SAO Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory SOW Statement of Work TBD To Be Determined