RFI: RADAR-AS-A-SERVICE

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS) is conducting market research on the technological capabilities of vendors to support the planning for a future generation network of weather radars to replace the aging Weather Surveillance Radar (WSR-88D) operated by the interagency Next Generation Radar (NEXRAD) program.

The NEXRAD WSR-88D is one of the most impactful observation systems in the nation and directly supports detecting and warning for severe weather including tornadoes, hurricanes, winter weather, and floods. Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 10 requires the Government to conduct market research before developing new requirements documents for an acquisition. Results of market research will be used to determine whether qualified sources exist.

The information obtained from industry’s responses to this notice may be used in the development of an acquisition strategy and future Request for Proposal (RFP). The Government does not intend to award a contract based on this market research or otherwise pay for information received. This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for information, planning purposes, and market research; it does not constitute an RFP or a promise to issue an RFP.

This market research does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service. NOAA will not pay for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement, or any follow-up information requests. Not responding to this announcement does not preclude participation in any future RFP. All submissions become the property of the Government and will not be returned. If a solicitation is released, it will be posted on the System for Award Management (SAM) https://sam.gov.

The North American Industry Classification System code for this RFI is 541715 – Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology). NWS envisions implementing and maintaining a backbone of weather radars that meet or exceed the capabilities and coverage provided by the current NEXRAD network. The NWS expects that the future backbone will consist mainly of S-Band radars.

Radar Next is exploring a Radar-as-a-Service (RaaS) model in which the Program will purchase commercial data (Contractor Owned/Contractor Operated) to incorporate into NWS operations. Overall, NWS's goals are a future generation network that will: Ensure continuity of radar data: Prevent disruption in the continuity of the Nation’sweather radars due to aging infrastructure, which would severely impact the ability topredict and respond to weather-related emergencies.

Address current gaps in radar coverage: Expand radar coverage particularly at low levels and meet Department of Commerce’s goals to provide the Nation with timely and accurate environmental forecasts and warnings.

Improve radar performance and capabilities: Create a network of radars that are more flexible and scalable to adapt to changing needs and technological advancements, providing a mix of observations for higher impact missions and supporting new business models and technology that, collectively, will result in improvements to radar capabilities and increased data accuracy.

This RFI aims to inform the feasibility of acquisition strategies that will meet the intent of Executive Order 14271 - Ensuring Commercial, Cost-Effective Solutions in Federal Contracts with respect to acquiring S-Band weather RaaS for further evaluation to meet the envisioned Radar Next requirements of a future weather radar network. Please see RFI:RADAR-AS-A-SERVICE in the attachments for complete details to this RFI.