Notice of Intent to Sole Source

THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT AND IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE QUOTES. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Glenn Research Center (GRC) intends to award a firm fixed price sole source contract under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 only one responsible source to:

JEOL USA, Inc.

11 Dearborn Road

Peabody, Massachusetts 01960

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is

334516.

NASA has a need for an analytical, high resolution, thermal Schottky type field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM).

- Both high and low vacuum modes of operation for organic and inorganic sample evaluation, with integrated ESD (Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy), particle analysis

- Stage large enough to image samples weighing up to 8kg without destruction of samples.

o Stage shall accommodate samples up to 100mm in height, and 200mm (or greater) in diameter without the need to remove any stage spacer or rotation module

- The FE-SEM will be used to evaluate polymer, metal and ceramic materials. An FE-SEM will allow for high resolution imaging of samples for high-cycle fatigue and reaction zones in high temperature testing and materials development.

- Must be capable of remote operation

JEOL USA, Inc. is the manufacturer of and only source available to provide the brand name product. It would take a great deal of additional work to evaluate other vendor’s alternate configurations to determine the impacts on equipment footprint, unit specifications, compatibility issues with existing equipment, and training. Without a thorough technical evaluation, the risk is substantial that an alternate vendor would provide a system with serious deficiencies leading to reduced compatibility, performance, and additional system administration labor. In addition to significant time needed to evaluate different brands, there is the potential impact to the processing time while the employees are trained efficiently on a new vendor/brand software. In order to meet the projected timeline, the Governments best option is to sole source to JOEL USA INC for the JEOL-JSM-IT800(HL).

This synopsis does not constitute a solicitation; however, if any interested party believes they can meet the above requirement, it may submit a statement of capabilities. The statement of capabilities must be submitted in writing and must contain clear and convincing evidence that competition of this requirement would be advantageous to the Government. Please note that if parties choose to respond, the Government will not provide reimbursement for any costs incurred from the preparation and submission of documents.

Capability statements shall be submitted by e-mail ONLY as a Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF attachment no later than TBD to the following addresses: kavina.patel@nasa.gov and michelle.m.downs@nasa.gov