Rapid II
The RSDO Rapid II procurement maintains Indefinite Delivery
Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts with five spacecraft
vendors for providing Core System
Spacecraft, Options and Mission Specific modifications to
the Core spacecraft, and Non-standard services (studies).
By having contracts in place with the vendors,
acquisition time for spacecraft has been significantly shortened
by the use of Delivery Orders. Depending on customer requirements,
a Fixed Price Delivery Order can be placed in 30 to 90 days.
RSDO contracts are open and available to any US Government
Agent. The baseline contract documentation and formats are
available in the Customer
Resources page.
Spacecraft in the Rapid
II catalog have been mated and interface-tested with
the launch vehicle, including full approval from range safety.
Many spacecraft in the Rapid
II catalog also have flight experience (and in some
cases extensive flight experience owing to commercial programs
which have used the spacecraft previously).
Catalog spacecraft should NOT be viewed as fixed, immutable
items, but as starting points for potential missions. Because
every mission is different, mission-unique modifications
are made to spacecraft acquired under Rapid II in order
to accommodate the unique requirements of the mission, such
as in the areas of instrument accommodation, space-ground
communications, and operations; these mission unique modifications
are included in the spacecraft acquired under Rapid II.
The Rapid II catalog
includes recurring "on-ramps" through
which catalog and new spacecraft providers can propose additional
spacecraft during semi-annual opportunities.
Currently, there are 18 different spacecraft in the Rapid
II catalog.
The baseline scope of work includes spacecraft build and
test, interface control document generation and interface
integration, mission-unique modification design, instrument
integration and test, environmental test, shipment to launch
site, launch vehicle integration support, and on-orbit checkout.
Payload capabilities range widely, and can be seen in detail
in by viewing the Spacecraft
Capabilities Matrix. These capabilities are baseline
and can be modified to meet individual mission needs. Also,
additional busses with new capabilities will be added to
the catalog which may expand these baseline capabilities.
It should be noted that the RSA program is not a fit for
every mission, but is most appropriate for missions which
have the flexibility to wait until instrument and ground
system interfaces mature. Significant cost savings can be
realized without compromising reliability, performance,
or safety.
The Rapid II Contracts (extension) started 3 January 2005 and ran through
3 January 2008.
Currently, there are eight vendors in the Rapid
II catalog:
NOTE: Most of the documents are available in Portable
Document Format (pdf) which can be viewed using Adobe Acrobat
Reader. If you do not have this software, click
here to download Reader. |