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I. CAPABILITIES SOUGHT
The purpose of this Sources Sought/Market Survey is to identify interested parties capable of providing commercial solutions to meet NOAA operational satellite uplink and data recovery services needs. The primary areas of interest include:
-Low Earth Orbit multi-satellite data recovery,
-Low Earth Orbit multi-satellite commanding,
-Near real-time data distribution,
-Secure, highly reliable communications, and
-End-to-end low data latency to multiple data processing centers.
All information provided by the U.S. Government is for informational purposes only and should not be considered a requirement unless specifically stated in a follow-on solicitation. This information request is for planning purposes only, and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. This is not a solicitation for proposals and no contract will be awarded from this announcement. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.
II. SPECIFIC NEEDS
Operational service must provide:
Data Recovery Support: Reception of CCSDS data at a downlink frequency of 2258 MHz (TBR) and a data rate of 2 Mbps and 32 kbps from a compliment of world-wide locations to be determined by the service provider*
-Government supplied satellite data quantity is not greater than 60 Mbytes per orbit for each of 6 equally spaced satellites.
-Satellites will be in a 520 Km circular orbit inclined at 24 degrees.
-Satellites will be programmed to downlink data at 10 degrees above the station horizon.
-Data playback will be First-In-First-Out (FIFO).
-Each receive system shall have a G/T of no less than 13 dB/K at 10 degrees elevation. Performance down to 5 degrees elevation (when unobstructed) is desirable.
-The ground stations must utilize a CORTEX interface for command processing and real-time telemetry reception.
-The ground antennas shall be capable of automatic 5 minute turn around between satellite passes without loss of downlink data. Satellite orbit information (TLE's) will be provided if required. BPSK modulation, RHCP polarization and NRZ-M data format will be used in the uplink and the downlink.
-The ground stations must have adequate storage capability to store data on site for at least 24 hours.
* One site is already known, that being a site in Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. The service provider will not be responsible for this site, but should figure it into their response as available to receive data from every satellite, every visible pass.
Communications and Data Distribution: Current legacy ground stations utilize a broadband connection to the internet via VPN and Secure FTP capability. Upon receipt and file creation by the Contractor, data files need to be transmitted in near real time to at least four processing centers, two in US and two in Taiwan in compliance with ISO/IEC 27001, "Information Security Management Systems - Requirements".
Performance: Data latency is a key performance metric. The time from data collection by the satellite to data receipt at the processing centers needs to be no more than 40 minutes on a daily average basis. Interested parties should assume each satellite collects data uniformly throughout its orbit. An Operational Availability of no less than 98% (TBR) must be met on an annual basis (from data reception to data delivery).
Uplink support: At least one receive site shall also be able to support real-time uplink of commands at 32 Kbps that are forwarded from the satellite operations center in Taiwan. The Government currently expects real-time connectivity to the Taiwan operations center to be via VPN over the internet. The command site(s) should be a compliment to the Taiwan site at Hsin-Chu in that they would provide commanding opportunities on satellite orbits not seen by the Taiwan site. Uplink frequency must be 2042.8 MHz (TBR). Uplink EIRP must be 48 dBWi.
III. INFORMATION SOUGHT
Vendors are invited to submit a data package to [email protected] or by mail to:
E/OSD
Office 6218-A
NOAA/NESDIS/OSD
1335 East West Hwy, Building SSMC1
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Data packages are due by June 15, 2012, and should describe the vendor's specific capabilities to fulfill the USG operational data services needs described above. The data package should include the following types of data:
1. Corporate (or team) capabilities and relationships that directly apply to meeting the requirements.
2. Pricing model for the expected commercial services
3. Existing capabilities that address the requirements or that could be modified to include relevant services
4. Ground site locations (Lat/Lon) - identify as existing or proposed. Include assessment of frequency approval and landing rights.
5. Data latency performance.
6. An estimate of how many minutes per day are available at each site to support 72 degree satellite data recovery.
7. Communications architecture for how data will be provided to data processing centers.
8. A schedule that supports operational availability by mid CY2015 based upon funding that begins in FY14.
9. Any other relevant information.
Questions and comments are welcome via the e-mail address below:
No phone calls will be accepted.
IV. HOW THE GOVERNMENT WILL USE THE INFORMATION
NOAA will review all documentation provided by each responder. NOAA will use the information provided for several purposes to include present and future planning, and to determine technical feasibility. NOAA shall treat each response as proprietary in accordance with any page markings applied to documents by the responder. Responders are strongly cautioned against blanket exclusions from public disclosure, which may present NOAA with difficulty in making any future case for a new procurement. The information gathered through this process will be used by the USG to facilitate future mission and resource allocation planning. For example, depending on the outcome of the information received, the USG may decide in the future to issue a Broad Agency Announcement, with associated funding.
List of Acronyms
BPSK - Bi-Phase Shift Keyed
CCSDS - Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems
dB/K - Decibels per degree Kelvin - Units of G/T
EIRP - Equivalent Isotropically Radiated Power
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
G/T - Gain/Antenna Noise Temperature
ISO/IEC - International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
kbps - kilobits per second
Km - kilometer
Lat/Lon - Latitude/Longitude
Mbytes - Megabytes
MHz - Megahertz
NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NRZ-M - Non-Return-to-Zero-Mark
RHCP - Right Hand Circular Polarization
TBD - To Be Determined
TBR - To Be Revised
TLE - Two Line Element
USG - United States Government
VPN - virtual private network