Partnering Opportunity for Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) vehicles Modular Assembled Radiators for NEP Vehicle (MARVL)

NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is hereby soliciting information from potential partners to participate in a proposal development activity that will design, develop, build, and ground demonstrate autonomous assembly of multiple sub-scale radiator modules with fluidic, mechanical, and electrical interfaces for Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) vehicles. Modular Assembled Radiators for NEP Vehicle (MARVL) project is an Early Career Initiative (ECI) sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and was released on March 1, 2023. The deadline for partnering responses is  May 3, 2023.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) LaRC is seeking participation with this partnering synopsis from all interested U.S. and non-U.S. organizations, including educational institutions, industry, not-for-profit institutions, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as NASA Centers and other U.S. Government Agencies. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Other Minority Universities (OMUs), small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs), veteran-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, HUBZone small businesses, and women-owned small businesses (WOSBs) are also encouraged to apply. Additionally, in support of the Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, NASA is also looking to advance equity or remove barriers for members of underserved communities to access procurement opportunities. Underserved Communities include Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.

Participation by non-U.S. organizations is welcome but subject to NASA’s policy of no exchange of funds, in which each government supports its own national participants and associated costs.

The Early Career Initiative is an internal NASA call for space technology development and demonstration proposals that foster the next step in the professional development of early career NASA technologists by providing cutting-edge hands-on space technology hardware development opportunities.  This initiative promotes creative joint partnering within highly collaborative work environments between the best and brightest NASA early career innovators and while teaming with world-class industry, academia, and other government organizations. 

Proposing teams will include a core team, including NASA and external partner members and at least half of the core team must consist of NASA early career employees.  A NASA early career employee must lead the project (Project Lead) and shall engage an experienced NASA mentor, and a STMD mentor who will be identified after selection of the project.  Other roles (e.g., Project Manager, Project Scientist) can be filled by team members from NASA or partner.  The general approach will be to employ agile systems engineering methods emphasizing working products, collaboration, iterative, hands-on testing, and responsiveness to change rather than formal process and documentation with milestone-based assessments including a continuation review at the development site and a final presentation to NASA Headquarters.  If a project wishes to involve a foreign organization, prior confirmation is needed. 

Teams must propose innovative space hardware-focused projects lasting no more than 2 years and costing up to $1.25M per year in total (25-45% for external partners) for all cost including procurement and labor.  

NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is seeking partners to participate in developing proposals for and collaborating on potential Early Career Initiative (ECI) projects. LaRC is pursuing several topic areas that align with NASA’s space technology priorities and involve a variety of technical areas that could benefit from partnering. The partner can propose to the technical challenge provided below:

• Long duration space flight is a requirement for missions to both the Moon and Mars. One candidate for propulsion is Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP). This form of propulsion generates high levels of heat and requires large scale radiators. NEP vehicles have the potential to be on the same size order or larger than the International Space Station (ISS).  The required radiating area, based on current mission requirements, will be the largest proposed space structure even conceived at around 2500 m2 (an order of magnitude larger than the radiating area on the ISS).  The large radiator size required for NEP vehicles negates the feasibility of utilizing conventional deployable radiator designs and will also greatly exceed current launch vehicle volumetric capacities. An alternate method to assemble structures of this size is to explore autonomous in-space assembly of modular units. Development of modular autonomously assembled radiators would not only advance NEP vehicle concepts but is also extensible to a multitude of other space and surface-based applications.

• The Modular Assembly Radiators for NEP VehicLes (MARVL) ECI project will address both the required design and in-space assembly, with a focus on autonomous assembly, of a potential radiator design. The project will conduct research and development efforts into radiator design for a candidate NEP vehicle. The team will then design small-scale modular units that can be assembled to produce the size radiator that is needed. The units will then be simplified for use in a ground demonstration of a modular assembled radiator. Utilization of prior knowledge of autonomous assembly or robotic assembly will be crucial for project success. This work will also include development in fluid loop and reversable coupler technology with focus on autonomous assembly. The following objectives will be addressed by the program:

• • Investigate the trade space for an NEP vehicle with in-space assembled radiators and propose configurations
  • Design and develop a radiator module for in-space assembly
  • Investigate and determine fluid/mechanical/electric coupler connection between radiator modules
  • Develop and concept of operations for autonomous in-space assembled radiators
  • Perform relevant subscale demonstration of autonomous in-space assembled radiator
  • Develop autonomous leak checking and verification of connections

The partner must provide expertise in at least one of the fields described below and must have the personnel and facilities required to perform any necessary software or hardware testing. The ideal partner may also contribute some, but not all, work or resources to the project in-kind, which should be described within the partner’s proposal submission.

• Ideal academic partner candidates should have experience in the fields of heat rejection systems, radiator design, autonomy, robotics and/or software development with personnel and facilities required to develop and test the autonomy packages using relevant hardware developed among partners.
• Ideal industry partner candidates should also have experience in heat rejection systems, radiator design fluid loop development, reversable fluid coupler design, autonomy, in-space assembly, and/or modular design. Knowledge in fluid loop radiator technology and build will also be desired.  

This partnering opportunity does not guarantee selection for award of any contracts or other agreements, nor is it to be construed as a commitment by NASA to pay for the information solicited. It is expected that the partner(s) selected would provide (at no cost to NASA) technical requirements, conceptual designs, technical data, proposal input, project schedules, and cost estimates. If the proposal is subsequently selected, NASA LaRC anticipates issuing contracts or other agreements to the selected partner(s) for the performance of the proposed tasks.

Partner selections will be made by LaRC based on the listed criteria:

1. Technical Qualifications of the External Partner (30 points): This criterion evaluates the technical expertise/capabilities; and innovativeness of the external partner in leading and/or executing activities related to the topics above; and the resources (skills and time) that would be allocated to the potential proposal development phase.
2. Management Approach (25 points): This criterion evaluates how the management approach is different from standard NASA practices, evaluates whether it represents a successful approach from another industry or organization and shows understanding of the alternative approach.  The criterion will also explain how the management approach applies to your project and the degree to which it increases the probability of successfully executing the work plan. Assessment of the practicality and efficiency of the project schedule and requested resources.
3. Teaming and Workforce Approach (25 points):  This criterion evaluates the integration of capabilities across the core team members relative to the work plan.
4. Agile Approaches Used in the Past (20 points): This criterion evaluates the external partner’s past experience in developing and utilizing agile development principles: using development methods that emphasize working products; collaboration; iterative, hands-on testing; and responsiveness to change rather than formal processes and documentation.

No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on SAM.gov.  Interested firms are responsible for monitoring this website for the release of any solicitation or synopsis.

Interested firms having the required capabilities necessary to meet the above requirement described herein should submit a capability statement of no more than 5 pages indicating the ability to perform all aspects of the effort. The responses should use 12-point font for each technical area of interest (i.e. offerors responding to one or more of the mission elements may submit up to 5 pages per each element). Responses shall also address each of the evaluation criteria listed above.  Resumes of key personnel and a cover page that clearly identifies the topic area addressed by the response do not count against the total allocated page count. Please advise if the requirement is considered to be a commercial or commercial-type product.  A commercial item is defined in FAR 2.101.

All responses shall be submitted electronically via e-mail to Octavia Hicks at octavia.l.hicks@nasa.gov and to Amanda Stark at amanda.stark@nasa.gov no later than 4:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time May 3, 2023. All procurement questions should be directed to Octavia Hicks.

This synopsis is for information and planning purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will the Government pay for information solicited.  Respondents will be notified of the results of the evaluation. Respondents deemed fully qualified will be considered in any resultant partnering selections for the requirement.