This proposal opportunity is in response to the NASA Announcement of Opportunity (AO), Earth Venture Mission 3 (EVM-3) element of the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program, which is expected to be released in September of 2019. NASA's GSFC is developing three separate mission concepts to be proposed for this AO. The partnership opportunity is being issued to select teaming partner(s) to provide a single (or multiple) spacecraft bus(es), instrument to spacecraft integration support, integration support for the spacecraft to launch vehicle, and mission operations support for launch and early orbit commissioning for any/all of the three potential missions.
The proposed missions are currently in pre-Phase A. This phase ends with a Step 1 proposal that will be due 3 months after the AO is released. If the proposal is selected for implementation, the mission will proceed into Phase A, per NPR 7120.5E. The following schedule should be used as a basis for responses to this opportunity:
Partnership Opportunity Document released June 19, 2019
Responses due July 19, 2019
Partner Selection announced July 26, 2019
AO Release Date Expected ~ September 6, 2019
Step 1 Proposal in response to EVM-3 AO Expected ~ December 6, 2019
Selection(s) Announced (target) Expected ~ August 14, 2020

Phase A Start Date Expected ~October 1, 2020
Spacecraft Start Date Vendor Specified
Instrument Delivery to for I&T Expected ~ October 1, 2023
Launch Readiness Date Vendor Specified
Expected NLT June 30, 2025

2.1 COST
Total mission cost and cost fidelity are important issues for the mission trade studies. The mission cost cap for this AO is expected to be in the neighborhood of $175M (FY19), including launch services. This cost includes the instruments, spacecraft, instrument to spacecraft integration support, environmental testing, launch site operations, and mission and science operations for a minimum of 1 year (goal - 2 years), as well as required contingency (>25%). Reserves will be held at the Project level, and not with the partner.
There will be no exchange of funds between the teaming partners for the portion of this partnership opportunity dealing with the preparation of the initial submission (Pre-Phase-A, Step 1 proposal) to the EVM-3 AO. Funding will be available for subsequent phases should the candidate mission concept be competitively selected for those additional phases.

2.2 DESIRED MISSION SERVICES
NASA'S GSFC is interested in formally establishing a partner to provide the following services for each of these three missions:
• Provide spacecraft bus(es) capable of supporting mission needs for up to two years in sun synchronous, low earth orbit.
• Accommodate, integrate and test primary science instruments provided by NASA'S GSFC to spacecraft.
• Provide instrument to spacecraft integration and test support, spacecraft to launch vehicle integration and test support, and mission operations support for launch and early orbit commissioning to spacecraft.
• Option #1: GSFC may be interested in having the partner provide mission operations support using the partner's existing mission operations facilities.
• Option #2: GSFC may be interested in having the spacecraft partner secure launch services under a delivery-on-orbit type of arrangement.
• Option#3: Use of GSFC integration and test (I&T) facilities may be considered as a basis should a potential provider not have adequate facilities for satellite-level I&T.
All interested parties are required to respond to this POD in accordance with Section 4 below.