USAFA’s Dean of Faculty Research Office is announcing to business and academia the intent to solicit white papers/proposals for USAFA research efforts through this BAA. This strategy provides USAFA an acquisition tool with the flexibility to solicit proposals and make awards to develop technologies to meet present and future Air Force research needs as technology issues are identified. USAFA invites white papers and proposals for research in many broad areas. These areas are described in detail in Section I, Funding Opportunity Description. Additional information regarding USAFA Research Centers, Departments and Institutes may be found at www.usafa.edu.
USAFA is seeking unclassified research white papers and proposals that do not contain proprietary information. Requests for white papers/proposals are also transmitted via calls which may be published separately from the BAA at various times during the open period of the BAA.
This BAA supersedes USAFA-BAA-2015, which limited research to basic and applied, fundamental studies. USAFA-BAA-2021 uses DFARs 235.016 to expand research areas to the following:
1. Basic Research (budget activity 6.1)
2. Applied Research (budget activity 6.2)
3. Advanced technology development (budget activity 6.3)
4. Advanced component development and prototypes (budget activity 6.4).
This announcement remains open until superseded. White papers are reviewed and evaluated as they are received and may be submitted at any time. The white paper/proposal submission process is discussed in sections IV and V of this BAA. Proposals will be due according to specific instructions contained in a separate RFP notice resulting from favorable white paper evaluations or calls issued against this BAA. Calls may be placed against this BAA and specific information related to due dates will be provided in each call. Proposals or white papers submitted in response to calls should be submitted according to directions contained within each individual call and in accordance with this BAA. Late bid and proposal provisions in accordance with (IAW) Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) 52.215-1(c) (3)) will apply to this BAA.
Space Domain Awareness Grand Challenge – in situ Plasma and Event-Based Satellite Data
The overall goal of this call is to research the potential for a database of measurements, remote and in situ, that enable solutions to grand challenge problems in space domain awareness. Since space domain awareness involves an interdisciplinary approach, the research objectives addressed in this CALL cover aspects within three Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) program portfolios: 1) Computational Cognition and Machine Intelligence, 2) Remote Sensing, and 3) Space Science.
The due date for white papers submitted in response to this CALL is no later than 1630 MST on 11 May 2021.