Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2020-12-21
Buyer: MOD
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Restricted procedure
CPV classification: 73410000
Estimated value:  GBP
Submission deadline: 2021-01-22
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Military Research and Technology. On behalf of Army HQ, Defence Equipment and Support is seeking to procure a modular, event driven fully data representative satellite simulator for use in design, development, integration, test and operation of space segment assets; this will be used in support of the ARTEMIS mission.
ARTSIM, as the baseline deliverable, will provide a set of generic default satellite configurations which can be used for the analysis of a range of mission operations and capability objectives. The system must take a flexible, distributed architecture approach, providing for a range of spacecraft components to be simulated to a level of fidelity which can be determined by the team utilising the tool. The system shall utilise high quality GUI and animations to visualise satellite and orbit configurations. MOD require the capability to deploy ARTSIM as a stand-alone software process, running on a single machine, or as a VM deployed on a hypervisor, or as a cloud based application running in a container.
Simulation of the satellite systems, subsystems and interfaces in both real-time and simulated time, will provide an operationally ready capability, which is able to represent, as simulation instances, a range of satellite implementations (including constellations), with a full range of orbit configurations. ARTSIM shall enable user (local or remote) control of the simulation including setting parameters and starting/stopping the simulation. ARTSIM shall have a set of default underlying functions, but also enable user definition of system mathematical models including orbit function, satellite function and unit models. ARTSIM shall include interface connectivity functionality, enabling connection to hardware through electrical interfacing to support in the loop testing via a test harness. Software interfacing shall enable connection to external databases, networks or remote control i.e. TT&C databases and external Check-out systems
The ARTSIM product shall support the simulation of system level configurations in the different mission phases (off-launcher separation, and solar panel deployment), definition of the reference systems, the functional block diagrams of the satellite, payload and equipment layouts and functional paths.
The ARTSIM product shall support the development and understanding of satellite level system budgets including:
The authority reserve the right to ask for an indemnity, guarantee or bank bond if the supplier does not meet the required standard for economic and financial standing.
If a group of economic operators submits a bid, the group must nominate a lead organisation to deal with the authority.
The authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. If any contract documents are accompanied by a Security Aspects Letter, the authority reserves the right to amend the terms of the Security Aspects Letter to reflect any changes in national law or government policy whether in respect of the applicable protective marking scheme, specific protective markings given, the aspects to which any protective marking applies or otherwise.
The authority will apply all the offences listed in Article 39(1) of Directive 2009/81/EC (implemented as Regulation 23(1) of the Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations (DSPCR) 2011 in the UK) and all of the professional misconducts listed at Article 39(2) of Directive 2009/81/EC (see also Regulation 23(2) in the DSPCR 2011) to the decision of whether a candidate is eligible to be invited to tender.
A full list of the Regulation 23(1) and 23(2) criteria are at http://www.contracts.mod.uk/delta/project/reasonsForExclusion.html#dspr
Candidates will be required to sign a declaration confirming whether they do or do not have any of the listed criteria as part of the pre-qualification process.
Candidates who have been convicted of any of the offences under Article 39(1) are ineligible and will not be selected to bid, unless there are overriding requirements in the general interest (including defence and security factors) for doing so.
Candidates who are guilty of any of the offences, circumstances or misconduct under Article 39(2) may be excluded from being selected to bid at the discretion of the authority.
(a) Appropriate statements from the economic operator's bankers or where appropriate, evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance information will be sought through a formal pre-qualification questionnaire.
The estimated annual contract value is GBP 250 000. If the estimated annual contract value is greater than 40 % of the supplier’s turnover, the authority reserves the right to exclude the supplier from being selected to tender except where the supplier provides, to the satisfaction of the authority, evidence showing it has sufficient economic and financial capability, for example such evidence may include:

Eligibility requirements: (a) Appropriate statements from the economic operator's bankers or where appropriate, evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance information will be sought through a formal pre-qualification questionnaire.
The estimated annual contract value is GBP 250 000. If the estimated annual contract value is greater than 40 % of the supplier’s turnover, the authority reserves the right to exclude the supplier from being selected to tender except where the supplier provides, to the satisfaction of the authority, evidence showing it has sufficient economic and financial capability, for example such evidence may include: 1) any additional information proving it has sufficient economic and financial resources to deliver the requirement; and 2) stating whether the supplier is willing to provide the authority with an indemnity, guarantee or bank bond. A financial assessment will be undertaken on the supplier’s financial status. An overall pass/fail judgement will be made after considering areas such as turnover, profit, net assets, liquidity, gearing and capacity. This assessment will include the parent company where applicable. An independent financial assessment obtained from a reputable credit rating organisation may be utilised as part of this process.
(a) in the case of a supply contract requiring the siting or installation of goods, a services contract or a works contract, the economic operator's technical ability, taking into account in particular that economic operator's skills, efficiency, experience and reliability; (c) a statement of the principal goods sold or services provided by the supplier or the services provider in the past 5 years, or during a shorter period if necessary, and: (i) the dates on which the goods were sold or the services provided, (ii) the consideration received, (iii) the identity of the person to whom the goods were sold or the service were provided, (iv) any certificate issued or countersigned by that person confirming the details of the contract for those goods sold or services provided, and (v) where: — that person was not a contracting authority, and — the certificate referred to in sub-paragraph (c)(iv) is not available, any declaration by the economic operator attesting the details of the goods sold or services provided; (d) a statement of the technicians or technical services available to the economic operator to: (i) carry out the work under the contract, or (ii) be involved in the production of goods or the provision of services under the contract, particularly those responsible for quality control, whether or not they are independent of the economic operator; (e) a statement of the economic operator's: (i) technical facilities, (ii) measures for ensuring quality, (iii) study and research facilities, and (iv) internal rules regarding intellectual property; (f) a check carried out by the contracting authority or on its behalf by a competent official body of the member state in which the economic operator is established: (i) on the technical capacity of the economic operator, and (ii) if relevant, on the economic operator's study and research facilities and quality control measures; (g) in the case of works contracts, services contracts or supply contracts also covering siting and installation operations or services, the economic operator's educational and professional qualifications where the economic operator is an individual and: (i) if any, those of the economic operator's managerial staff, and (ii) those of one or more persons who would be responsible for providing the services or carrying out the work or works under the contract; (i) a statement of the services provider's or contractor's average annual number of staff and managerial staff over the previous 3 years; (j) a description of the tools, material, technical equipment, staff numbers, know-how and sources of supply (with an indication of their geographical location when it is outside the territory of the EU) available to the economic operator to perform the contract, cope with any additional needs required by the contracting authority as a result of a crisis or carry out the maintenance, modernisation or adaptation of the goods covered by the contract; (l) certification by official quality control institutes or agencies of recognised competence, attesting that the goods to be purchased or hired under the contract conform to standards and technical specifications (within the meaning of regulation 12(1)) identified by the contracting authority; (m) in the case of contracts involving, entailing or containing classified information, evidence of the ability to process, store and transmit such information at the level of protection required by the contracting authority; (n) a certificate: (i) attesting conformity to quality management systems standards based on the relevant European standard, and (ii) from an independent accredited body established in any member state conforming to the European standards concerning accreditation and certification; (o) any other evidence of conformity to quality management systems standards which are equivalent to the standards referred to in subparagraph (n)(i). The authority requires this information to evaluate technical capability sought through a formal pre-qualification questionnaire stage.