NASA Releases Commercial Crew Draft RFP, Announces CCDEV2 Optional Milestones

[Space Pete]

RELEASE : 11-312
 
NASA Releases Commercial Crew Draft RFP, Announces CCDEV2 Optional Milestones
 
WASHINGTON -- NASA unveiled Monday an outline of its acquisition strategy to procure transportation services from private industry to carry U.S. astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The agency also announced the addition of optional milestones for the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) initiative.

"This is a significant step forward in America's amazing story of space exploration," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "It's further evidence we are committed to fully implementing our plan -- as laid out in the Authorization Act -- to outsource our space station transportation so NASA can focus its energy and resources on deep space exploration."

NASA's draft request for proposal (RFP) outlines a contract that will be awarded to multiple companies that provide a complete end-to-end design, including spacecraft, launch vehicles, launch services, ground and mission operations and recovery. The Integrated Design Contract (IDC) of up to $1.61 billion will run from July 2012 through April 2014.

"This IDC effort will bring us through the critical design phase to fully incorporate our human spaceflight safety requirements and NASA's International Space Station mission needs," said NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Ed Mango. "We look forward to strong U.S. industry response."

Bolden also announced Monday at a speech to the Air Force Association's 2011 Air and Space Conference that NASA will fund optional milestones pre-negotiated as part of some of the original CCDev2 Space Act Agreements (SAA) to help accelerate development.

NASA amended Sierra Nevada Corp.'s SAA to include four optional milestones for a total of $25.6 million, bringing the potential value of Sierra Nevada's SAA to $105.6 million, if all milestones are completed successfully.

NASA also amended Boeing's SAA to include three optional milestones for a total of $20.6 million, bringing the potential value of Boeing's SAA to $112.9 million, if all milestones are reached.

"All four CCDev2 partners are performing very well and meeting their milestones," said Phil McAlister, director of NASA's Commercial Spaceflight Development. "These additional milestones were selected because they sufficiently accelerated the development of commercial crew transportation systems to justify additional NASA investment."

For more information on NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial


http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/sep/HQ_11-312_CCDEV_Announ.html

[peter-b]

This is good news, especially the "multiple companies" bit! I know several people had voiced a concern that the downselect would be to a single provider.  I know that we're all cheering on our particular favourite horses in this race, but just the fact that there will be more than one winner is great for the industry and for HSF in general IMHO.

IIRC, both SNC's and Boeing's CCDEV contributions have Atlas V man-rating in their critical path before they can be introduced into active service. I've lost track of what the current status on that is...

[Chris Bergin]

Yep! All good there!

[joek]

Draft RFP documents can be found here.

[peter-b]

Draft RFP documents can be found here.

Argh, it's all MS Office droppings. Is there any chance someone could stick some PDFs somewhere, pretty please? 

[robertross]

Draft RFP documents can be found here.

Thanks.


Great news!

[robertross]

Draft RFP documents can be found here.

Argh, it's all MS Office droppings. Is there any chance someone could stick some PDFs somewhere, pretty please? 

All PDFs

Some are covers or blank tables (like the larger Excel spreadsheets)

[peter-b]

Oh wow, this is amazing. On my way to bed now, but I will give these a good going-over tomorrow! 

[joek]

This is good news, especially the "multiple companies" bit! I know several people had voiced a concern that the downselect would be to a single provider.  I know that we're all cheering on our particular favourite horses in this race, but just the fact that there will be more than one winner is great for the industry and for HSF in general IMHO.

Down-select to a single provider expected for Phase 2.  From 148508-DRAFT-001-005 (pg 50):
edit: Multiple providers may still be in the future for Phase 2, budget available, per Robotbeat's post below.

I.14    NFS 1852.217-71  PHASED ACQUISITION USING DOWN-SELECTION PROCEDURES (MAY 2000)
(a)    This solicitation is for the Commercial Crew Program’s acquisition to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost effective access to and from low earth orbit (LEO) including the International Space Station (ISS). The acquisition will be conducted as a two-phased procurement using a competitive down-selection technique between phases. In this technique, two or more contractors will be selected for Phase 1. It is expected that the single contractor for Phase 2 will be chosen from among these contractors after a competitive down-selection.

[snip]

(i)    The anticipated schedule for conducting this phased procurement is provided for your information. These dates are projections only and are not intended to commit NASA to complete a particular action at a given time.
Phase 1 award – July, 2012
Phase 2 synopsis – September, 2013
Phase 2 proposal requested – RFP release in October, 2013
Phase 2 proposal receipt – December, 2013
Phase 2 award – May, 2014

[Namechange User]

Down-select to a single provider expected for Phase 2.  From 148508-DRAFT-001-005 (pg 50):

Exactly.  No real surprises here though anymore and saw this coming.  I find it odd though that General Bolden and all can say they are sticking to a plan.  The "plan" as I remember it was to:

1.  Have redundancy
2.  Create a market that could exist in parallel and conjunction with NASA so that NASA could purchase from whoever via competition, etc
3.  Not do FAR-type contracting
4.  Create 10,000 jobs. 

[Robotbeat]

Congress also approved less funding than was requested for the effort (for this year). This obviously has consequences, and you're right it was foreseeable that one of the consequences of reduced funding is down-select to only 1 provider.

Also, there still will be redundancy, far more than at any time during Shuttle (which could not function as lifeboat).

Also, the skin-in-the-game requirement for CCDev (the development portion) means more jobs-per-NASA-dollar than other typical NASA endeavors (the money comes from the competitors).

[robertross]

Down-select to a single provider expected for Phase 2.  From 148508-DRAFT-001-005 (pg 50):

Good find.

That part's disappointing 

So, do we start a poll on which company will be the winner? 

I'm betting that Boeing & the CST-100 will be selected. Why? Experience in spaceflight.

[Robotbeat]

This is good news, especially the "multiple companies" bit! I know several people had voiced a concern that the downselect would be to a single provider.  I know that we're all cheering on our particular favourite horses in this race, but just the fact that there will be more than one winner is great for the industry and for HSF in general IMHO.

Down-select to a single provider expected for Phase 2.  From 148508-DRAFT-001-005 (pg 50):

I.14    NFS 1852.217-71  PHASED ACQUISITION USING DOWN-SELECTION PROCEDURES (MAY 2000)
(a)    This solicitation is for the Commercial Crew Program’s acquisition to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost effective access to and from low earth orbit (LEO) including the International Space Station (ISS). The acquisition will be conducted as a two-phased procurement using a competitive down-selection technique between phases. In this technique, two or more contractors will be selected for Phase 1. It is expected that the single contractor for Phase 2 will be chosen from among these contractors after a competitive down-selection.

[snip]

(i)    The anticipated schedule for conducting this phased procurement is provided for your information. These dates are projections only and are not intended to commit NASA to complete a particular action at a given time.
Phase 1 award – July, 2012
Phase 2 synopsis – September, 2013
Phase 2 proposal requested – RFP release in October, 2013
Phase 2 proposal receipt – December, 2013
Phase 2 award – May, 2014

Don't forget this:

Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the competition in Phase 2 may result in the award of multiple contracts if budget allows.

In other words, whether or not a down-select to just one happens depends on whether or not there there's enough money. No surprise there.

So, it's basically up to Congress.

[mmeijeri]

Don't forget this:

Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the competition in Phase 2 may result in the award of multiple contracts if budget allows.

In other words, whether or not a down-select to just one happens depends on whether or not there there's enough money.

Good catch! I'm slightly relieved, but not much.

[Robotbeat]

I don't find this encouraging (on page 52 in pdf, labeled page 54 in draft-001-005):

Small Business Utilization sub-factor summary: The Offeror‘s Small Business Subcontracting Plan and Commitment to Small Businesses will be evaluated. Phase 2 small business subcontracting goals will be higher than in Phase 1. The Small Business Utilization sub-factor will be more heavily weighted in the Mission Suitability point distribution than in Phase 1.

I am pro-small-business (I work at one, after all), but I don't think they need this in order to compete. Small businesses (if you don't burden them with red tape, which hits them disproportionately) can compete on price just fine.

What it does do is limit the ability for companies to cut costs through vertical integration and lowers the incentive for small businesses in aerospace to compete on price/performance. There is a small cottage industry of small business aerospace subcontractors, but many times they're not used to "cost" being a very important factor.

[robertross]

Don't forget this:

Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the competition in Phase 2 may result in the award of multiple contracts if budget allows.

In other words, whether or not a down-select to just one happens depends on whether or not there there's enough money.

Good catch! I'm slightly relieved, but not much.

I don't know...they could be referring to just Phase 1 and keep ALL of the original companies, and still down-select to the final (and single) provider.

[Robotbeat]

Don't forget this:

Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the competition in Phase 2 may result in the award of multiple contracts if budget allows.

In other words, whether or not a down-select to just one happens depends on whether or not there there's enough money.

Good catch! I'm slightly relieved, but not much.

I don't know...they could be referring to just Phase 1 and keep ALL of the original companies, and still down-select to the final (and single) provider.

Or, something more subtle, like picking CST-100 for primary provider, but still paying (a lesser amount) for testing and capability of crewed Dragon. Makes more sense with Dragon, since it may still be used with cargo delivery even if it loses on primary crew provider.

It really depends on what Congress does. If Congress doesn't provide enough money, there'll only be one provider. If they provide more, NASA will be able to afford two (better for the market, better for redundancy).

[joek]

I'm betting that Boeing & the CST-100 will be selected. Why? Experience in spaceflight.

Me too given the evaluation weighting...

From 148508-DRAFT-001-002 (pg 2):

Source Selection and Evaluation Criteria
Relative Order of Importance of Evaluation Factors: Mission Suitability and Past Performance factors, when combined, are significantly more important than Price factor. The Mission Suitability factor is more important than Price; The Price factor is approximately equal to the Past Performance factor.

From 148508-DRAFT-001-005 (pg 96):

Mission Suitability Subfactors (Scored Elements)	Weight (Points)
Subfactor 1: Technical, Crew Safety and Mission Assurance	650
Subfactor 2: Management Approach	275
Subfactor 3: Small Business Utilization	75
Total	1000

[Robotbeat]

So, 7.5% is small business utilization? What the heck? I guess somebody called a Congress person. I remember hearing about some subcontractors whining about how SpaceX wouldn't use their over-priced solution...

(I think they advertised on this site, actually... hope this doesn't get me in trouble!)

[robertross]

Don't forget this:

Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the competition in Phase 2 may result in the award of multiple contracts if budget allows.

In other words, whether or not a down-select to just one happens depends on whether or not there there's enough money.

Good catch! I'm slightly relieved, but not much.

I don't know...they could be referring to just Phase 1 and keep ALL of the original companies, and still down-select to the final (and single) provider.

Or, something more subtle, like picking CST-100 for primary provider, but still paying (a lesser amount) for testing and capability of crewed Dragon. Makes more sense with Dragon, since it may still be used with cargo delivery even if it loses on primary crew provider.

It really depends on what Congress does. If Congress doesn't provide enough money, there'll only be one provider. If they provide more, NASA will be able to afford two (better for the market, better for redundancy).

But they're already paying for Dragon. And now with all these CCDev payments, they have helped advance Dragon to a near-working state.

The big loser will be the Dreamchaser, unfortunately, as it has the furthest to go (IMO).