ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10004
Open Date: 04/10/2019
Closing Date: 18/02/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 19.156.08
Prog. Ref.: CRISTAL
Budget Ref.: E/E304-01 – CRISTAL
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 / Optical Instruments / Imaging radiometers / 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: Aouad, Nadine
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 04/10/2019
Update Reason: Tender issue

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 operationalprovision 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 operationallife, 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-TemporalResolution Land Surface Temperature Monitoring Mission (LSTM), Passive Microwave Imaging Mission (CIMR), Hyper Spectral ImagingMission (CHIME), L-Band SAR Mission (ROSE-L) and the Polar 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 awaitingthe subscription to the ESA programme (Copernicus Space Component Segment-4 (CSC-4)) at the Council at Ministerial level planned atthe end of 2019 (Space19+), ESA is authorised to proceed with the release of the Request For Proposals (RFP) for the implementationofeach of these missions. The attention of potential tendererss is here drawn to the fact that proceeding further with the placing ofthe Contracts will be subject to successful subscritption of the ESA Programme at Space19+ as mentioned above. The Agency willreleasesix requests for proposals covering the implementation of the Phase B2/C/D/E1 for each of the HPCM missions, ecompassing the procurement of both the prototype (instrument(s) and spacecraft), funded by the ESA Member States under the CSC-4 Programme, and therecurrent 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, witha contractual 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 decideat theoccasion 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 individuallyto each Mission RFP, some requirements are applicable transversally to all six RFPs. The resulting Evaluation Procedure willbe published together with the RFPs.The ESA Procurement Rules and Procedures will apply to this procurement, modified asrequired by the EU-ESA co-funded nature of this Programme. The present RFP is addressed to all European Union Member States, to allEU Copernicus Program Participating States and to all ESA Member and Cooperating States according to the following principles: A. Economic operatorsresiding in all ESA Member and Cooperating States wwill be allowed to bid and if by the time of contract award the statehasbecomea participating state to the ESA programme – will have full access to all parts of the programme financed via the ESA Copernicus SpaceComponent 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 EUmember stateorin 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, UnitedKingdom, 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 CopernicusSpaceComponentSegment 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 programmewill not be allowed to be awarded work for the recurrent activities (and in general to all parts of the programme financed through theEU 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 selection of subcontractors by Prime Contractors in the frame of ESAs major procurements (ESA/IPC(2012)65,rev.2). The CRISTAL Mission, subject of this Intended Requestfor Proposal, will provide enhanced retrieval of land ice sheet/glacier elevation, sea ice thickness and freeboard and ocean surface elevation, wave-height and wind speed by measurements implementing higher spatial resolution and performance. The primary high level objectives are to monitor critical climate signals: ice sheet, ice cap melting and sea level, as well as to monitor variability of Arctic and Southern Ocean sea-ice and its snow loading. Other objectives are to support applications related to coastal and inlandwaters and contribute to the observation of ocean topography.The primary payload envisaged for this mission consists of the Interferometric Radar altimeter for Ice and Snow (IRIS) and a Microwave Radiometer for the secondary objective ocean mission.The CRISTAL RFP is expected to be issued beginning of October 2019, with an overall bidding period until mid February 2020 (4.5 months). No extensions will be granted to the bidding period. The evaluation will be carried out between Mid February 2020 and April 2020, with the objective to Kick Off the Phase B2/C/D/E1 of the missions by mid-2020.