Jane Edwards
The U.S. Space Force awarded three other transaction authority agreements through the Space Enterprise Consortium to prototype an electro-optical/infrared on-orbit demonstration for weather imagery and cloud characterization requirements and is now seeking information on potential sources that could provide weather data as a service for the EO/IR Weather System.
The service plans to use the responses from the request for information to determine whether to competitively acquire the service using OTA or the Federal Acquisition Regulation, according to a sources sought notice published Monday.
“The Government envisions acquiring a service that provides an initial capability for operationally useable weather data and allows expansion to a more capable future service as a contract option,” the notice reads.
The service plans to release a solicitation for the effort in late fiscal year 2022.
The initial WxDaaS service is expected to be launched in FY 2025 with options that include improved performance through FY 2040.
Interested stakeholders should include in their responses a description of their system architecture and how it scales, the concept of operations, cybersecurity measures, expected performance with respect to the system requirements documents and their strategy to commercialize weather products.
Potential sources should also provide information on preliminary schedule and cost estimates for the program.
Responses to the RFI are due Feb. 24.
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