SAM #SWGEO-EUVI-RFI

NASA RFI for a GRUVI/EUVI solar imager and Phase A study

NASA Goddard is gathering industry information for a solar-imaging instrument and early design study supporting a future NOAA space-weather mission. - Government buyer and mission - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), including its Space Weather Geostationary (SW GEO) project, issued the RFI. The project is for NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), within the U.S. Department of Commerce. - OEMs and vendors - No commercial OEMs, vendors, manufacturers, or product brands are named in the notice or attachment summaries. - Requested instrument - Geostationary extReme UltraViolet Imager (GRUVI), described in the technical attachments as an Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI); one instrument is specified in the requirements, with no part number or manufacturer identified. - Intended to image the solar corona and monitor coronal holes, filaments and prominences, active regions, coronal mass ejections, and X10-class flares for space-weather forecasting and alerts. - Key requirements include coverage from the solar center to 1.5 solar radii, spatial resolution of 5 arcseconds or better, signal-to-noise ratio of at least 10, and image refresh within 2 minutes. Instrument limits include 39.4 kg mass, 62.5 W average operational power, 94.5 W peak power, and 22.5 W survival-heater power. - Must support either an L1 Lissajous or geosynchronous orbit; some requirements and the final orbit remain to be determined. - Requested services - One Phase A EUVI formulation and risk-reduction study: develop a sensor design concept, perform trade studies and technical assessments, evaluate technology readiness and heritage, plan risk mitigation and implementation, and estimate flight costs. - Study outputs include a schedule and final report. Potential funded risk-mitigation or technology-development work and a possible six-month extension are described. - Notional later flight-project assumptions include one Engineering Development Unit and one flight unit with sparing; these are planning assumptions, not separately specified current order quantities. - Notable procurement context - This is an RFI to assess industry capabilities and interest, not a request for proposals or a product order. NASA is considering future formulation and risk-reduction work and instrument manufacturing. - The specified instrument design life is 9 years: 7 years of continuous in-orbit operation and 2 years for spacecraft integration and testing. A 3-year ground-storage period is also specified as tentative.

Description

THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. NO PROPOSALS ARE TO BE SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE.

This RFI seeks information from industry regarding capabilities, interest, and options for providing a solar observing Space Weather (SW) Next Geostationary extReme UltraViolet Imager (GRUVI) Instrument for a future operational NOAA Space weather mission that can resolve solar features, including coronal holes, filaments and prominences, active regions, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and X10 Class solar flares which will be used by the National Weather Service and the NOAA Space Weather Predication Center to generate and provide Space Weather forecasts and alerts. Solar GRUVI imagery will provide comprehensive situational awareness of the inner solar corona. Although there is no requirement for the number of GRUVI spectral bands, bands will be selected that are sensitive to different plasma temperatures within the range specified for feature and phenomenological discrimination. It is anticipated that at the conclusion of this Phase A study any industry partner will be prepared to enter directly into a System Requirements Review (SRR), approximately one month after Implementation contract award, followed by a Preliminary Design Review (PDR).

The capabilities required to perform this Phase A Study for the GRUVI instrument are not currently within the NASA/NOAA workforce, thus the government requires contractor support to perform this study. It is the plan that in the future the capabilities being sought by the RFI will be identified in house, which would allow the government to leverage using our own work force. In addition this RFI will allow the Government to assess contractor capability to manufacture the GRUVI instrument. 

The Government anticipates multiple awards for the Formulation/Risk reduction phase of the contract. Further, since this is planned to be a fixed price contract the government may authorize the use of priced, or unpriced option to add additional scope or extend the period of performance should the RFI result in the formation of the contract for the GRUVI instrument. The only unique attribute is that the Government will consider a pre-priced option proposed by a contractor to retire additional implementation risk.

All responses, comments and/or questions shall be submitted electronically via email to Kelly Lytton at kelly.r.lytton@nasa.gov no later than 5:00pm EDT December 3, 2026.

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