Next Mars Orbiter (NeMO) Preview – Update
Keith’s 4 May update: JPL has released Conceptual Studies for the Next Mars Orbiter (NeMO) Solicitation Number: MM-2672-911140 which says “For access to the RFP, please visit the JPL solicitation website at: https://acquisition.jpl.nasa.gov/bizops/“. When I go there and click on “Next Mars Orbiter (NeMO) Conceptual Study” at https://acquisition.jpl.nasa.gov/rfp/mm-2672-911140/ that site it asks me for a username and password. When I go to “Synopsis (DOCX, 21 KB)” https://acquisition.jpl.nasa.gov/files/mika.docx I get the same text in the RFP posting. In other words the public is not allowed to read any of this. No mention is made of ITAR, security, or other constraints placed on this information. I sent a request for access to the procurement person listed on this solicitation. Stay tuned.
Keith’s second 4 May update: JPL procurement got back to me rather promptly with a form that has standard ITAR boilerplate wording that I need to fill out (but won’t) that needs to be approved in order to get access to RFP materials. The reason I asked is that the publicly available URL in the solicitation sent me to a page that had links to password-protected webpage without any prior notification that the link was password protected or that it might link to ITAR-controlled information. One would think that this would be made clear on those pages so as to prevent people like me (media) from inquiring about access in the first place. Of course using the ITAR flag (or the threat thereof) for stuff that is actually ITAR sensitive allows lots of information that is not even remotely ITAR sensitive to be shielded from public view. Oh well. The charts I posted provide some basic information. NASA and JPL could provide a lot more about this mission than they are clearly inclined to do – because they don’t have to. So they don’t.
Keith’s 3 May note: JPL held a Next Mars Orbiter (NeMO) Industry day on Monday. They plan to put a RFP out on Thursday. Proposals are due 3 weeks later. This presentation gives a preview of the RFP. JPL has $400,000,000 $400,000 to spend.* The decks are clearly stacked such that only large aerospace companies who have done previous business with NASA are eligible. Also, although 100% of the cost of this spacecraft is being paid with NASA (taxpayer) dollars, JPL requires that anyone who bids on NeMO are required to sign a JPL “Waiver of Rights to Inventions” form – in other words, if they so desire, Caltech/JPL gets to keep all the intellectual property emerging from this mission – IP that NASA has arguably paid for. They do this because they can. Yet another example of a lack of interest in actually being innovative at NASA.
*My error. For some strange reasons the charts I posted say $400,000.00 – NASA never uses cents after their dollar figures – so I did not notice the decimal point.
“Proposers must meet the following mandatory qualifications by time of award in order to be considered a qualified source and thereby eligible for award.
– MQ 1: Within the last 10 years, the proposer shall have successfully developed and flown a spacecraft with a solar power system of at least 10KW at 1 AU.
– MQ 2: Within the last 5 years, the proposer shall have successfully developed and flown a spacecraft that operated in deep space (beyond Earth orbit) or geosynchronous orbit (GEO).
– MQ 3: The proposer (both the prime contractor and its major lower-tier subcontractors for this effort) shall be a concern incorporated in the United States of America.”
Oh well, leave landings to SpaceX. But nice to see Falcon 9 noted as a launch option. Pity there isn’t a Phobos or Deimos sub-payload included.
Actually, that’s a standard CIT thing. All employees (and students as well) in all departments (bio, chemistry, etc) have to sign it. I remember doing it 30 years ago as an undergrad, and had to do it again as an employee. There’s an office where you can strike a deal to retain a fraction of earnings from the patents. Most universities have stuff like this. Technically they can also exert ownership over data as well, had it come up once over some imaging I once did that a children’s book wanted to buy.
This is NASA (taxpayer money). Why Caltech gets to make that call still baffles me.
Just to forestall the obvious reply, yes, they probably can because it is probably in their contract with NASA (to manage JPL.) Now can someone explain why NASA would agree to such a term in the contract?
The Bayh Dole Act requires it. When federally funded research performed by educational institutions (and some others, but I can’t remember all the categories) that results in intellectual property, the IP rights belong to the institution: the government has a fully paid, non-exclusive right to use the IP for government purposes (e.g. they could pay someone else to use it). I’m sure that flows down to subcontractors as well.
For the most part, Caltech licenses this stuff out to qualified non-commercial entities for free (with a “you owe us any improvements in exchange” clause). There are also some rules about stuff like GPL software, and, of course, DoD has their own set of rules and exceptions.
This is the kind of crap I see in my business all the time, where it eliminates the possibility of new companies doing work for the county or state.
About the only way a new guy gets a chance is by first working for one of the big dogs on a project, then he can form his own company with a peppered resumé.
What exactly is wrong with requiring vendors be qualified for a task at hand? Especially given in this case there are multiple commercial vendors that would qualify? I’m counting four
No competition menas that they can charge top dollar and NASA expects that they will have to pay top dollar. No incentive for innovation – stagnation. Remember those two Lockheed Martin Mars probes that JPL crashed into Mars – back-to-back – in 1999?
Why do you assume no competition? There are four well qualified vendors in US that are world leaders of commercial satellite manufacturing industry. Industry that is about three times bigger than commercial launch industry for example, by revenues.
They are all clearly competitive, so much so that EU is worried about Thales losing a lot of market share.
Well, I’m curious where the numbers and details came from (10 and 5 years experience, spacecraft with solar power of over 10 kW, deep space _or_ geostationary experience.)
You could always give less stringent or less specific requirements for proposing at all, require proposals to address the issue of past experience, and then let the review/selection process decide if 9 years and a good proposal was enough. If you have someone specific in mind, picking five years for both requirements, five and ten, ten and five and ten for both, could allow or exclude particular companies. I don;t know if that’s what happened here, but it’s an old and relatively common trick.
Pretty much every major commercial comsat manufacturer would meet these requirements.
It will be interesting if some folks put their own orbiter around Mars in 2018 or 2020. They need to linked with a Dragon on Mars. Will NASA buy time on that orbiter or spend $400M on their own orbiter plus launch cost?
Keith, your pricing is wrong. It’s not $400M to spend. The slides say each successful bidder will get a fixed price contract of no more than $400k, and they have 18 weeks to perform. That’s about 1-1.5 work year worth of effort so it’s like 4 people full time, or more likely a team of 6-7 people for the 4 month duration.
It’s for a set of paper studies.
I’m putting 45 dollars on Lockheed Martin, 35 on Ball, and 20 on everybody else.
$20 bucks on Boeing BS-702SP, $25 on Space Systems Loral/SSL/MDA SSL-1300, $10 on Orbital GEOStar-3 platform
I wonder if SpaceX could rig a DragonLab to act as a Mars orbiter? SuperDraco-based MPS in the trunk and sensors looking out of the cargo hatch, CBM hatch and GNS bay. The only thing that really would need work is the long-range communications system and I’m pretty sure you could buy one of those off-the-shelf.
No need for anything that complex. Even @savuporo’s list of candidate comsats are way over capacity to future Mars communication needs. Never mind getting them to Mars will take a lot of lift, just check out what they need for GTO insertion.
Think some sort LEO comsat can be adopted for used as Martian relay with some minor scientific instruments. Just hope NASA don’t turn this simple communication orbiter into an over budget & behind schedule observation orbiter.