ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10059
Open Date: 18/10/2019
Closing Date: 03/03/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 19.156.04
Prog. Ref.: CIMR
Budget Ref.: E/E301-01 – CIMR
Special Prov.: AT+BE+BG+HR+CY+CH+CZ+DE+DK+EE+ES+FI+FR+GB+GR+HU+IE+IS+IT+LV+LT+LU+MT+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE+SI+SK+CA
Tender Type: C
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Products: Satellites & Probes / Payloads / Instruments / RF and microwave Instruments / Microwave radiometers
Technology Domains: RF Systems, Payloads and Technologies / RF Payloads / EO Instruments
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate of EO Programmes
Department: Earth Observation Projects Department
Division: Copernicus Space Comp Space Segment Prog
Contract Officer: Ipsilanti, Anna
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 31/10/2019
Update Reason: Loaded a new Clarification(English version)

The Copernicus programme is an evolution of the previous Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), an Earth monitoringinitiative led by the European Union (EU) and carried out in partnership with the EU Member States and the European Space Agency (ESA) established to fulfil the growing need amongst European policy-makers to access accurate and timely information services to better manage the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security. To ensure the operational provision of Earth-observation data, the Copernicus Space Component (CSC) includes today a series of seven space missions called ‘Sentinels’, which are being developed by ESA specifically for GMES/COPERNICUS, some of which have already entered their operational life, some are being commissioned, the remaining are targeted for launch in the coming years.While the deployment of the first generation of Sentinels is approaching its completion, the intense use and increased awareness for the potential of Copernicus have generated great expectations for an evolved Copernicus system (CSC Expansion programme). Emerging and urgent needs for new types of observations have been consolidated in a distinct set of requirements which are addressed by six new potential Copernicus Sentinel missions, so-called High Priority Candidate Missions (HPCM), as follows: Anthropogenic CO2 monitoring mission (CO2M), High Spatio-Temporal Resolution Land Surface Temperature Monitoring Mission (LSTM), Passive Microwave Imaging Mission (CIMR), Hyper Spectral ImagingMission (CHIME), L-Band SAR Mission (ROSE-L) and thePolar Ice and Snow Topographic Mission (CRISTAL). The Phase A/B1 for these six missions were conducted in the 2018-19 timeframe, allowing consolidation of the related mission and system requirements. While awaiting the subscription to the ESA programme (Copernicus Space Component Segment-4 (CSC-4)) at the Council at Ministerial level planned at the end of 2019 (Space19+), ESA is authorised to proceed with the release of the Request For Proposals (RFP) for the implementation of each of these missions. The attention of potential tenderers is here drawn to the fact that proceeding further with the placing of the Contracts will be subject to successful subscription of the ESA Programme at Space19+ as mentioned above. The Agency will release six requests for proposals covering the implementation of the Phase B2/C/D/E1 for each of the HPCM missions, encompassingthe procurement of both the prototype (instrument(s) and spacecraft), funded by the ESA Member States under the CSC-4 Programme, and the recurrent satellites, funded by the EU under the future MFF 2021-2027, where the recurrent satellites are offered at the same time as the prototype and are implemented as contractual options in a single contract. The resulting contract will be phased, with acontractual break point at the end of the Phase B2 (of the prototype satellite) that will allow the Agency not to authorise the start of the phases C/D and recurrent satellites production should the European Commission and the ESA Participating States so decide at the occasion of the programmatic checkpoint in mid-2021. Interested Tenderers are informed that a specific Evaluation Procedure has been established for this procurement, to be construed as a grouped procurement action, where in addition to requirements applicable individually to each Mission RFP, some requirements are applicable transversally to all six RFPs. The resulting Evaluation Procedure will be published together with the RFPs. The ESA Procurement Rules and Procedures will apply to this procurement, modified as required by the EU-ESA co-funded nature of this Programme. The present RFP is addressed to all European Union Member States, to all EU Copernicus Program Participating States and to all ESA Member and Cooperating States according to the following principles: A. Economic operators residing in all ESA Member and Coopeerating States will be allowed to bid and if by the time of contract award the state has become a participating state to the ESA programme – will have full access to all parts of the programme financed via the ESA Copernicus Space Component Segment 4 programme (CSC-4). To date, the ESA Member States and Cooperating States are: Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, and Canada. B. Economic operators residing in any EU member state or in any state participating to the EU Copernicus programme will be allowed to bid to those parts of the programme financed through the EU Copernicus programme. To date, the European Union Member States and EU States participating in the Copernicus Programme are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, SloveniaC. It should be noted that economic operators which are part of the ESA Copernicus Space Component Segment 4 programme (CSC-4) but that by the time of the activation of the contractual option for the recurrent satellites and recurrent activities financed by the EU will be neither an EU Member State nor a participating state to the EU Copernicus programme will not be allowed to be awarded work for the recurrent activities (and in general to all parts of the programme financed through the EU MFF 2021-2027).No geographical return requirements will be made applicable to the RFPs, with the only exception of the GSE, Containers and SCOE that will be required to be procured during Phase B2 under Best Practices for the selectionof subcontractors by Prime Contractors in the frame of ESAs major procurements (ESA/IPC(2012)65,rev.2). The CIMR Mission respondsto requirements originating from key Arctic users communities and form the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). The aim of the mission is to provide high-spatial resolution microwave imaging radiometry measurements and derived products withat least daily revisit in the Polar Regions to address Copernicus user needs. The CIMR satellite(s) will complement Sentinel observations with a passive microwave radiometer of unprecedented accuracy and resolution in wide range of frequencies bands: L, C, X, Kuand Ka. The CIMR performances in these bands have been derived in order to uniquely observe a wide range of floating sea ice parameters, in particular sea ice concentration, and serve operational systems in non-precipitating atmosphere conditions, day and night.This mission will provide improved continuity of missions monitoring floating sea ice parameters, notably in terms of spatial resolution, temporal resolution and geophysical accuracy. Additional measurement of Sea Surface Temperature and other parameters having global coverage, but with a focus in the polar regions, will also be included. The CIMR RFP is expected to be issued end of October 2019, with an overall bidding period of four (4) months. No extensions will be granted to the bidding period. The evaluation will be carried out between March 2020 and April 2020, with the objective to Kick Off the Phase B2/C/D/E1 of the missions by mid-2020.