10 October 1999
Source:
http://151.200.109.45/attind/baa.doc
National Reconnaissance Office
Advanced Systems and Technology Directorate
Director's Innovation Initiative
Broad Agency Announcement # NRO000-99-R-0176
Released By: Date: 4 Oct 1999
P. Williams
DII Program Contracting Officer
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 INTRODUCTION *
1.1 DIRECTOR'S INNOVATION INITIATIVE OVERVIEW *1.2 BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT OVERVIEW *
1.3 BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT ELIGIBILITY *
1.4 ANTICIPATED BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT SCHEDULE *
2.0 PROBLEM AREAS of INTEREST *
2.1 INFORMATION SUPERIORITY *2.2 NEW DESIGN PARADIGMS *
2.3 SPACE-BASED INTELLIGENCE *
3.0 PROPOSAL PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS *
3.1 BAA VALIDITY PERIOD *3.2 INSTRUCTIONS, CONDITIONS AND NOTICES TO OFFERORS *
3.3 CONTRACT TYPE *
3.4 PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS *
3.5 CONTRACTUAL CONTENT *
3.6 PROPOSAL CONTENT *
3.6.1 COVER PAGE *3.6.2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY *
3.6.3 TECHNICAL/MANAGEMENT *
3.6.4 COST/PRICE *
3.6.5 SECURITY *
4.0 PROPOSAL EVALUATION *
4.1 CRITERIA *4.1.1 TECHNICAL/MANAGEMENT CRITERIA *4.1.2 SECURITY CRITERIA *
4.2 EVALUATION PROCEDURE *
4.3 STAND-ALONE EVALUATION *
5.0 AWARD *
6.0 QUESTIONS *
1.1 DIRECTOR'S INNOVATION INITIATIVE OVERVIEW
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has established the Director's Innovation Initiative (DII) program to provide continuous access to revolutionary concepts and ideas, broaden the developer base of advanced technology beyond that which has historically supported the NRO, and establish a risk tolerant environment in which to conduct high technical risk, potentially high payoff research that supports space-based reconnaissance. The DII program aims to provide "seed funding" to many different ideas with the goal of transitioning promising projects to other NRO offices or programs for further development.
1.2 BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT OVERVIEW
This BAA conforms to the Research and Development Streamlined Solicitation (RDSS) format as identified by the subject procedures, described in the Advanced Systems and Technology Directorate (AS&T) Acquisition Guide (AAG). Accordingly, the applicable proposal instructions and evaluation criteria are as stated at AAG A35.7004 Sections K, L and M (attached), with the modifications and clarifications specified below.
In order to meet the DII objective of providing "seed funding" to many different ideas, DII projects will be price and schedule constrained. Proposed efforts should be able to be completed in nine (9) months or less with funding requirements of no more than $350,000.
In certain cases, proposals that are not selected for contract award as part of the DII program may be candidates for sponsorship elsewhere within the NRO. Any proposals reviewed outside of the DII program will be considered as a proprietary "white paper" with no assurances of a contract award. Offeror’s will not be notified of any review outside the DII program unless the proposal is selected for funding as the result of such a review. An offeror may prohibit a non-selected proposal from being distributed to other NRO offices by indicating on the cover page of their proposal that the proposal is not to be distributed outside of the DII program.
This BAA is open only to organizations located in the United States that are not foreign owned or controlled. Proposals from foreign organizations will not be considered.
Proposals are sought from educational institutions, non-profit and not-for-profit organizations and private industry. Government Agencies or Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) proposals will not be accepted for this BAA. However, Government Agencies or FFRDCs may team with educational institutions, non-profit and not-for-profit organizations and private industry in submitting proposals for this BAA provided the eligible organization is submitting the proposal.
To be eligible for award of a contract under this BAA, a prospective offeror must have demonstrated experience with and knowledge of overhead reconnaissance systems and/or relevant basic and/or applied research areas. Furthermore, the offeror must meet minimum responsibility standards as set forth in FAR 9.104-1.
4 October 1999 Broad Agency Announcement Released15 October 1999 Last Day for submission of questions concerning the BAA
22 October 1999 Answers to questions posted on the BAA website (answers will be posted on a ongoing basis, all answers will be posted not later than 22 October)
17 November 1999 Last Day to submit proposals31 December 1999 Proposal Evaluations complete
31 January 2000 All efforts awarded
31 October 2000 All efforts completed
The NRO conducts an extensive and robust Research and Development (R&D) program in close coordination with other Government Agencies, Industry, and Academia. Prospective offerors are cautioned that the NRO may already be conducting, or have knowledge of others who are conducting, efforts that are essentially similar to an offerors proposed effort. Funding limitations of the DII program will generally preclude selection of the proposed effort in this case. Additionally, the DII program is most interested in investigating technologies uniquely applicable to the NRO. Once again, funding limitations of the DII program will generally preclude selection of a proposed effort that addresses technologies not uniquely applicable to the NRO, e.g., general propulsion technologies, general spacecraft bus technologies, launch technologies.
The DII program is aimed at developing system concepts and technologies that will substantially support the NRO mission. The DII program provides an opportunity for pushing the boundaries of technology, processes, and methods to improve NRO products by orders of magnitude. Any innovative design, method, process, technology, or technique with the potential for enabling: revolutionary and agile approaches that respond rapidly to new technological opportunities or emerging threats; a substantive NRO mission improvement; or resource savings applicable to the following problem areas of interest will be considered for this BAA.
The ordering of the problem areas of interest and their exemplar subareas does not imply any degree of relative importance. All areas are equally important. Additionally, the exemplar subareas are not all inclusive. The DII Program will consider any proposal that addresses one of the problem areas of interest.
Intelligence is playing an ever-increasing role in national security and continues to expand the circle of sources and methods. Information Superiority requires revolutionary approaches to all facets of the intelligence cycle. This problem area of interest focuses on all aspects of processing data and information into accurate, timely and useful intelligence products. Information Superiority areas of interest include:
This problem area of interest focuses on substantially lowering the cost of developing, acquiring and operating high performance, space reconnaissance systems. Also of interest are means to dramatically shorten "time to market" of these systems. New Design Paradigms areas of interest include:
Political and economic changes have exacerbated the need for worldwide access to a variety of potential threats and areas of interest and have resulted in an increased demand for space-based intelligence within a framework of integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. This problem area of interest focuses on challenges in all aspects of space-based intelligence gathering. Space-Based Intelligence areas of interest include:
Offerors interested in submitting a proposal are cautioned that only a Government Contracting Officer may obligate the Government to any agreement involving the expenditure of Government funds.
The Contracting Officer must receive all proposals not later than (NLT) 4:00 PM EST on 17 November 1999. Proposals shall be delivered to the following address:
National Reconnaissance Office
Attn: DII Program Contracting Officer, P. Williams
Room 14B16
14675 Lee Road
Chantilly, VA 20151-1715
AAG G35.7004, Section L applies (see Attachment 3). Additionally, the following apply:
The Government contemplates a Firm-Fixed-Price type contractual arrangement as described at AAG G35.202 (See Attachment 5, Sample Contract).
The Contract Line Item Numbers (CLINs) and pricing requirements are as follows:
| ITEM | DESCRIPTION | TOTALS |
| 0001 | To Be Determined (TBD) | (Not-To-Exceed $350,000) |
| 0002 | Data and Reports in accordance with the offeror’s proposal entitled TBD and dated TBD (See Note below) | NSP |
Note: The final review shall be presented at NRO Headquarters, Chantilly, Virginia and shall include a NRO Technology Seminar presentation of approximately one (1) hour in duration. One paper copy and one media copy (MS Word format on a Windows NT compatible 3.5" diskette or CDROM.) shall be submitted for each report. All media shall be virus checked with current virus detection software prior to submission. Proposals shall include an interim review, an interim report, and a final review and report. Recommended delivery times for a nine (9) month period of performance are: Interim Review 90 Days After Contract (DAC), Interim Report 180 DAC, Final Review 240 DAC and Final Report 270 DAC.
It is the Government's intent to incorporate the Offeror’s technical proposal by reference as the statement of work for any contract resulting from the proposed effort.
AS&T Acquisition Guide, Part G35.7004, Section L applies (see Attachment 3). Additionally, the following apply:
*NOTE: If an Offeror’s plans include using the Government courier system to deliver a proposal(s), then those delivery plans should be coordinated with Government courier schedules, as appropriate, to ensure delivery by the required submission date. The submission deadline will not be extended as a result of changes in the Government courier schedule.
As adequate price competition is expected for this acquisition, certified cost or pricing data will not be required with your proposal submission.
Packaging and Marking requires standard commercial practices unless otherwise proposed.
The proposal should specify the appropriate inspection and acceptance as either Source or Destination.
The Government will furnish no material, labor or facilities.
For those proposals that successfully complete step 1 of the evaluation process (see section 4.2 below), the Contracting Officer will request that a completed Policy Statement for proposals from offerors seeking research contracts (Attachment 1), Representations, Certifications and Other Statements of Offerors (see Attachment 2), a completed payment plan form (Attachment 7), and a completed Standard Form 33 (Attachment 8) be provided prior to award of any contract(s).
The offeror shall include a proposal cover letter, signed by an authorized representative of the organization submitting the proposal, indicating the terms and conditions of the proposal submission. The offer shall be valid for a minimum of 90 days after the 17 November 1999 submission deadline. The cover letter shall explicitly state any exceptions to the proposed contract terms and conditions stated in the sample contract (See Attachment 5).
The proposal shall be submitted in a single volume consisting of a Cover Page, Executive Summary, Technical/Management Section, a Cost/Price Section, and a Security Section. Elaborate binding is not required nor desired. The entire proposal should consist of no more than ten (10) pages and stapling of the pages is the preferred method of binding. However, each section of the proposal shall begin on a new page so that the proposal is separable into separate sections. Offerors are advised that pages in excess of the stated page limits set forth below will be removed from the proposal and will not be evaluated.
The cover page shall not exceed one (1) page. Include the following
on the cover page:
The executive summary shall not exceed two (2) pages and shall present
an overview of the proposed effort to include a description of:
Offerors should keep in mind that the executive summary should be written to be a standalone document from which an executive decision maker would be able to make a funding decision.
The Technical/Management section shall not exceed five (5) pages. The Technical/Management proposal shall include:
Technical Approach. This section shall:
- Discuss the challenges of the general technology area and how the technology area applies to the NRO.
- Describe how the proposed effort addresses the Problem Area of Interest cited on the cover page.
- Describe the technology area to be investigated, objectives and/or goals, major milestones, and the period of performance.
- Identify relevant technical issues that the proposed effort will address. The proposed approach should be supported by theory, simulation, modeling, experimental data, or other sound engineering and scientific practices.
- Describe any capabilities the offeror has that uniquely support the technology area. As a minimum, the following areas are to be addressed: 1) capabilities and relevant experience; 2) previous or current IR&D work; 3) related government contracts; 4) related commercial efforts; and 5) facilities/resources.
- Identify appropriate specifications, standards, and other applicable documents.
- Provide a description for each of the tasks that represent work to be performed under the contract.
- Discuss facilities and equipment requirements and availability for the proposed effort.
- Provide a schedule for the proposed effort.
- Identify all equipment, hardware, software, information, and/or data to be delivered to the Government as a result of the proposed effort.
- Identify all intended reviews, including when and where they are to take place.
- Identify the number, type, and frequency of reports that shall be submitted as part of the proposed effort. Submitted reports shall be marked with applicable restrictive and security markings.
Program Management. This section shall:
- Include relevant contractor, subcontractor, and other organization charts, if applicable.
- Identify key personnel and describe their qualifications. No more than 3 individuals shall be identified as key personnel.
- Identify what effort will be performed by which party i.e., Prime Contractor, Subcontractor, others, etc.
- Describe how project risks will be managed.
The Cost/Price section shall not exceed one (1) page. However, the offeror may insert additional cost pages as necessary to comply with public law, e.g., in the case of Universities where FFP contracts cannot be awarded, additional pages may be inserted to provide required cost information.
The proposal shall identify the total cost/price of the project and the amount and source of project funding (e.g., funds requested from the NRO and funds to be provided by the proposing organization, or other organizations, as cost sharing, if any). If the period of performance spans more than a single Government fiscal year, then project costs for each fiscal year shall be separately identified.
The Security section shall not exceed one (1) page. This section shall,
at a minimum,
1) Overall project;
2) Underlying technology;
3) Offeror’s association with the NRO; and
4) Association of the technology/project with the NRO.
If any of these items are, or are proposed to be, classified at any level, i.e. CONFIDENTIAL,
SECRET, TOP SECRET and/or SCI, provide a brief justification.
AS&T Acquisition Guide, Part G35.7004, Section M applies (see Attachment 4). Additionally, the following apply.
Proposals submitted in response to this BAA will be evaluated in the following areas: Technical/Management and Security. Since all efforts are to be Firm Fixed Price, cost/price will not be evaluated but cost/price reasonableness will be determined.
AS&T Acquisition Guide, Part G35.7004, Section M, Paragraph M-2 (a) (1) (i) applies (see Attachment 4). Additionally, the following criteria apply:
AS&T Acquisition Guide, Part G35.7004, Section M, Paragraph M-2 (a) (1) (iii) applies (see Attachment 4). Security will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis only. Failure to pass the security related criteria may be grounds for eliminating a proposal from consideration. Additionally, the following criteria apply:
For this solicitation, the Technical/Management area is most important. The Security area will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. Since all efforts are to be Firm Fixed Price, cost/price will not be evaluated but cost/price reasonableness will be determined. The evaluation process will occur in two steps.
Step 1:
Upon receipt of the proposal, an evaluation committee will perform an evaluation, using only the proposal's Executive Summary, to determine the potential contribution to the NRO, the degree of innovativeness and the uniqueness of the proposal. Proposals found to have insufficient merit based on this evaluation will be rejected and eliminated from further consideration. The offeror will be notified in writing that the proposal is no longer being considered for funding. The notification will include general rationale for the non-selection of the proposal.
Step 2:
Proposals that successfully complete step 1 will be evaluated in accordance with the evaluation criteria set forth above. Offerors may be contacted during this phase by the Contracting Officer to obtain clarifications regarding their proposals. The Contracting Officer will make awards and/or conduct negotiations with offerors selected for award.
It is the policy of the NRO to treat all proposals as source selection sensitive information before award and to only disclose the contents for evaluation purposes. The offeror must indicate on the proposal cover page and each page of the proposal any limitation to be placed on Disclosure of Information contained on the proposal.
The selection or non-selection of proposals for contract award shall be unilateral and shall not be subject to offerors' protest or disputes. By submission of a proposal responding to this BAA, the offeror accepts these restrictions and consents to a waiver of any right to file a protest or receive a formal debriefing if the offer is not accepted.
The proposals will be evaluated based on the merit and relevance of the specific research proposed as it relates to the DII program objectives and other criteria described above, rather than against other proposals for research in the same general area or other areas.
Program initiation is dependent upon contract award, which will be based on the Government's evaluation, selection and negotiation of a sound technical/management, cost/price and security proposal. Award(s) will be made via AS&T streamlined contracting procedures to the offeror(s) whose proposal(s) conform(s) to the BAA solicitation and whose proposal(s) is (are) considered most advantageous to the Government, considering all factors. The Government reserves the right to make awards in some, all, or none of the research areas in paragraph 2.0 above. The Government also reserves the right to fund selected tasks from proposals. Moreover, the Government reserves the right to make a single award, multiple awards, or no contract awards, depending on technical quality, funding availability or limitations, and the ability to negotiate a fair and reasonable price.
Questions concerning this BAA should be addressed to the DII Program Contracting Officer, P. Williams, by facsimile at (703) 808-1623. Only questions submitted via facsimile will be addressed. Questions must be submitted within the time established in the BAA Schedule (see Section 1.3 above).
Source: http://151.200.109.45/unclass_industry.html
ATTACHMENTS:
Innovation '00 - Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for non-Government Organizations (e.g. Commercial Industry, Universities, Non-Profit Organizations, etc.)
The announcement listed below is the solicitation announcement for the Fiscal Year 2000 National Reconnaissance Office Director's Innovation Initiative.
Questions on this announcement will be accepted through 15 October 1999.
After 15 October 1999, questions will no longer be accepted. Please
send any questions to Dr. William Harter via:
email:
dii@nro.mil,
FAX: (703) 808-2646, Attention:
Dr. William Harter.
US Mail: NRO, WF1-14D00M, 14675 Lee Road, Chantilly,
VA 20151-1715
Answers to questions will be posted on this website Not-Later-Then (NLT) 22 October 1999.
PROPOSALS IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT ARE DUE NLT 17 NOVEMBER 1999.
For more information on the DII Program, contact:
Dr. William Harter
(703) 808-2213 voice
(703) 808-2646 fax