NASA Looks to Award $25M Contract for Infrared Satellite Instrument

NASA and Goddard Space Flight Center are looking for proposals for an infrared instrument intended to fly on the Geostationary Extended Observations, or GeoXO, according to a solicitation released Friday. 

GeoXO is the follow-on to the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites—or GOES-R—series. GeoXO is part of the next generation of weather satellites with a mission to continue and expand on the potential of the current GOES-R. It is expected to launch in the early 2030s.

According to the document, the hyperspectral infrared instrument—known as the GeoXO Sounder, or GXS—will give “sounding observations of the western hemisphere for the first time” and provide important information on the “spatial and temporal gradients of atmospheric temperature and water vapor” to be used for numerical weather prediction models.

The contract includes tasks and deliverables needed throughout the design, manufacture and support process, in order to assist mission operations for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Satellite Operations Facility. 

As noted in the filing, this request is for a cost-plus-award-fee hardware contract to develop one flight model FM1, two options for the build of FM2 and FM3 and four options for additional value at $2 million per option for engineering studies. The expected contract performance period is 10 years of on-orbit operations support and five years of on-orbit storage, totaling 15 years for each flight model. 

The total contract has a maximum total cost plus award fee amount of $25 million.

Responses should be submitted through NASA’s enterprise file sharing and sync box by March 17 at 3pm EDT. Meanwhile, questions about the RFP are due via email to the contracting officer by Feb. 21, 2023. 

The contract award and effective date is expected for late August 2023 with work performed at the contractor’s facilities, Goddard Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Flight Center.