Federal contract award

80MSFC19F0071

AEROSPACE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING SUPPORT - ARDES THE NASA STRATEGIC INVESTMENT DIVISION (SID) HAS ESTABLISHED A NUMBER OF INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE ITS COST ESTIMATES. THESE INITIATIVES WERE THE RESULT OF SEVERAL GAO AND OMB REPORTS THAT WERE CRITICAL OF NASA'S ABILITY TO PROVIDE REALISTIC COST ANALYSIS. ONE OF THE KEY SID INITIATIVES HAS BEEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A FORMAL DOCUMENT, KNOWN AS A COST ANALYSIS DATA REQUIREMENT (CADRE) WHICH IS REQUIRED BY NPR 7120.5E. THIS DOCUMENT CLEARLY DESCRIBES ALL THE IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROJECT AT FIVE POINTS IN THE PROJECT'S HISTORY. THE CADRE IS A MEANS TO COLLECT AND TRACK A PROJECT'S HISTORICAL PROGRAMMATIC, TECHNICAL, AND COST INFORMATION AND SERVES AS KEY SOURCE DOCUMENT FOR THE NASA SID. IN ADDITION, THE CADRE WILL BE INCORPORATED INTO THE ONE NASA COST ENGINEERING (ONCE) DATA BASE TO FACILITATE OFFICE OF EVALUATION ENGINEERING AND COST TOOL DEVELOPMENT. USING CADRE, A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT DESIGN CHANGES AND THEIR ASSOCIATED COST IN THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE WILL BE ATTAINED RESULTING IN MORE ADVANCED COSTING PRACTICES AND TOOLS. CADRE CONSISTS OF THREE PARTS: PART A IS GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION, PART B PROVIDES TECHNICAL DATA, AND PART C CONTAINS PROJECT COST DATA. THE STRATEGIC INVESTMENT DIVISION (SID) IS CURRENTLY DEVELOPING COST ANALYSIS REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENTS (CADRES) ACROSS ALL MAJOR PROJECTS. CADRE DOCUMENTS THE PROGRAMMATIC, TECHNICAL, AND LIFE CYCLE COST INFORMATION FOR BOTH FLIGHT AND GROUND SYSTEMS AND IS REQUIRED BY NPR 7120.5E. THE CADRE DOCUMENT IS USED BY BOTH THE PROJECT AND FOR INDEPENDENT COST ESTIMATING AND IS PART OF THE AGENCY'S FOCUS ON PERFORMING BEST PRACTICES IN COST ESTIMATING. UNDER THIS TASK ORDER, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY/APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY (APL) SHALL SUPPORT NASA STRATEGIC INVESTMENT DIVISION (SID) IN ANALYZING RECENT AND ON-GOING APL PROJECTS IN FOUR MAJOR AREAS: 1) SUPPORT DATA COLLECTION ACTIVITIES FOR CURRENT AND RECENTLY LAUNCHED APL MISSIONS FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEVELOPING CADRES. APL SHALL SUPPORT DATA COLLECTION EFFORTS CURRENTLY BEING CONDUCTED FOR CADRE DEVELOPMENT. THIS WILL INVOLVE WORKING WITH THE INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS TO COLLECT SOURCE COST AND TECHNICAL DATA AND DOCUMENTATION AND MAKE THEM AVAILABLE TO SID. 2) COLLECT HISTORICAL RISK REGISTERS AND POPULATE THE NEW RISK TEMPLATE. APL SHALL WORK TO OBTAIN THE HISTORICAL RISK REGISTERS (WHERE AVAILABLE) ON RECENTLY COMPLETED MISSIONS AS IDENTIFIED IN THE STATEMENT OF WORK. THE NATIVE PROJECT FORMAT FOR THE RISK REGISTERS IS ACCEPTABLE FOR INCLUSION INTO THE RISK TAB IN CADRE PART C. 3) SUPPORT COLLECTION OF SOFTWARE DATA FOR SID AND JET PROPULSION LABORATORY (JPL), PARTICULARLY FOCUSED ON SOFTWARE STAFF-MONTH DATA. SID IS CURRENTLY WORKING WITH JPL TO DEVELOP A DATA DRIVEN PARAMETRIC SOFTWARE ESTIMATING MODEL WITH MOST OF THE DATA COMING FROM JPL, APL, AND GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER CADRES. TO SUPPORT THIS EFFORT, APL SHALL BE AVAILABLE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ON EXISTING DATA THAT HAS BEEN DELIVERED AS WELL AS COLLECT ANY AVAILABLE EFFORT-MONTH OR STAFF-MONTH SOFTWARE METRICS ON RECENT FLOWN MISSIONS. 4) SUPPORT NASA COST COMMUNITY&PARTNERSHIPS APL SHALL CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THE NASA COST ANALYSIS COMMUNITY THROUGH SEVERAL SUPPORT FUNCTIONS BY PROVIDING INPUT FOR VARIOUS MODELING AND HANDBOOK UPDATES. EXAMPLES OF THE SUPPORT WOULD BE WITH THE NASA INSTRUMENT COST MODEL (NICM), PROJECT COST ESTIMATING CAPABILITY (PCEC) AND ASCOT MODELS. FOR THE NICM MODEL, APL SHALL SUPPORT FOLLOW-ON QUESTIONS WHICH MAY INCLUDE UPDATES FOR FINAL INSTRUMENT COST AS WELL AS FOLLOW ON INFORMATION FROM RECENTLY LAUNCH PROJECTS AS THE DATA BECOMES AVAILABLE.