NASA to Start Third On-Ramp on Rapid IV Spacecraft Contract in August
6/30/23
Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA, Kennedy Space Center. travelview – stock.adobe.com
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has plans to reopen and request proposals for the On-Ramp provision of the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition IV (Rapid IV) contracts. This will be On-Ramp III and all signs point to an August release date for the final solicitation. Proposals will then be due 30-45 days thereafter.
Rapid IV offers a contract vehicle for the GSFC, NASA, and other federal government agencies to procure spacecraft, related components, equipment, and services for scientific and technology missions. Rapid IV contractors provide spacecraft and related services that can be acquired through Government placed Delivery Orders (DO). The spacecraft designs, items, and services can be tailored as required to meet the unique needs of each mission, including the possibility of using commercial spacecraft via the inherited items process.
Rapid IV is listed under the NAICS 336414 – Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Manufacturing and PSC code 1555 – Space Vehicles. It has an award ceiling of $6 Billion. The Scope of Work covers all necessary efforts from the receipt of a Rapid IV DO for a specific mission, through the development, shipment, launch, and on-orbit checkout and acceptance of the spacecraft.
As mentioned above, Rapid IV allows for multiple on-ramping periods. This allows recurring reopening of the original solicitation to enable new vendors to propose flight-proven spacecraft designs. NASA first awarded 5 companies in 2020, then added 3 more awardees to the program in February 2022 via a second on-ramp. Vendors like these that are already awarded a contract can also propose additional flight-proven spacecraft designs and update their existing catalog designs via on-ramps. The current awardees are Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Maxar Technologies, Northrop Grumman, QinetiQ, Southwest Research Institute, The University of Toronto’s Space Flight Laboratory, and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.
The potential range of NASA missions is diverse in scope, type, and size. Missions like Landsat Next, Atmosphere Observing System Polar (AOS-P), Atmosphere Observing System Incline (AOS-I), NOAA Near Earth Orbit Network (NEON) program, and others are considering using the Rapid IV contract to acquire spacecraft. As a result, the Rapid IV contract seeks heritage spacecraft buses of various sizes, capabilities, lifetimes, orbit use, and mission suitability to be readily available to support a variety of mission needs efficiently.
To learn more about Rapid IV, the awardees, analyst information, and the upcoming on-ramp, sign into your EZGovOpps account and visit this page, or sign up for a 5-day trial for full access.