| As reported in the previous issue of the newsletter, the GPM Project continues to work with Goddard’s Rapid Spacecraft Development Office (RSDO) to accomplish procurement of the GPM Core Spacecraft. Last November, the vendors presented the Project with results from the first RSDO study—GPM Study 1—in which vendors performed early design work to determine how to meet requirements specifically addressing the accommodation of the GPM instruments. Currently, GPM and RSDO team members are working to prepare the Request For Offer (RFO) for GPM Study 2. This study will last ten months, and will require vendors to formulate the preliminary spacecraft design for the GPM Core Spacecraft. Approximately eight months into the study, vendors will be asked to conduct a Spacecraft Design Review. At the conclusion of Study 2, NASA will evaluate the vendors’ responses and select a single vendor to build, test, and launch the GPM Core Observatory during the Implementation Phase. NASA expects to release the GPM Study 2 RFO in April, with contract awards following approximately six weeks later. The Study will commence immediately after the award of the contracts. Original plans called for the Core Spacecraft to be built in-house at Goddard Space Flight Center, but due to programmatic limitations, NASA Headquarters instructed GPM to pursue the option of procuring the spacecraft through RSDO. GPM Core Observatory Manager Steve Horowitz remarks, “An advantage that RSDO offers GPM is the speed of its procurement process, which allows us to realize cost savings.” For further information, please contact Steve Horowitz, GPM
Core Observatory Manager at |