NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Partnership Opportunity Document - Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration Concepts 2020

This proposal opportunity is in response to the upcoming NASA Announcement of Opportunity (AO), Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx 2020) element of the Planetary Science Division (PSD), which is expected to be released in October of 2020. The SIMPLEx program’s goal is intended to enhance science return of launch opportunities by adding secondary payloads to conduct planetary science intended to meet the science goals of the Planetary Science Division (PSD) as described in the 2018 NASA Strategic Plan . Mission targets could include planets and small bodies noted in the latest NRC Decadal Survey for Planetary Exploration The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is seeking small satellite mission integrators as partners for potential science mission proposals to this opportunity. SIMPLEx secondary payloads are limited to ESPA-Class SmallSats or smaller, including CubeSats. ESPA-Class SmallSats are defined as spacecraft that can be launched from a standard evolved expendable launch vehicle (EELV) secondary payload adaptor (ESPA). The SIMPLEx AO will be a two-step process, with the first proposal response primarily focused on the scientific merit and technical feasibility of the proposed mission and its associated scientific investigation. The initial submissions will then be down-selected after formal peer review, and the resultant subset of proposals will be funded to perform Phase A/B mission concept studies per NPR7120.5E NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements for a Category 3 mission. During Phase A/B, proposals will be expanded and refined to detail the entire end-to-end mission life cycle concept, with greater attention to engineering implementation, cost, and schedule. At the end of Phase A/B, another down select occurs. If selected for development and launch, the respondent will be the mission integrator responsible for the design, development, integration and testing of the spacecraft consistent with a Class D mission per NPR8705.4 Risk Classification for NASA Payloads. The partnership opportunity is being issued to select teaming partner(s) to serve as the overall mission integrator for an individual mission; perform initial/final mission design, navigation, and mission operations planning, provide flight-qualified ESPA-Class SmallSat spacecraft bus, instrument to spacecraft integration support, integration support for the spacecraft to launch vehicle, and mission operations support. GSFC intends to maintain an essential degree of insight into mission integration and will exercise essential oversight to ensure that the implementation is responsive to NASA requirements and constraints as are defined in upcoming SIMPLEx AO. NOTE: This is an expanded scope from previous “spacecraft-only” partnership opportunities. To that end, it is acceptable to respond to the “spacecraft-provider” role without the expanded mission architecting and proposal development responsibilities. Upon selection, GSFC may discuss and further tailor of the roles proposed by respondents in best interest of proposal. See the updated POD (dated June 1, 2020) for modified dates. Due date has been extended to reflect the dates outlined in the POD.