Presolicitation Notice for Tower Maintenance IDIQview on SAM.gov

The Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) program is a tri-agency joint effort of the Department of Commerce (DOC), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Transportation (DOT). The operational user agencies involved are: DOC, National Weather Service (NWS); DOD, United States Air Force (USAF); and DOT, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The NEXRAD Program has deployed 160 operational and 2 non-operational (training, test, and repair) towers supporting the Weather Surveillance Radar - 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) weather radar systems throughout the United States and various overseas locations. Currently only NEXRAD radar sites operated by the DOC and DOD are participating in this tower restoration contract. DOT has an internal depot team conducting tower maintenance on their towers. The WSR-88D Radar Operations Center (ROC) has support management responsibility for these radars for the tri-agency NEXRAD program. Part of the support management responsibility associated with these radars is the maintenance of the tower structure in a fully operational condition to ensure the mission of the tri-agency radar network can be continuously met. Timeliness of tower repairs, both routine as well as catastrophic failure recovery, is critical to the successful completion of the NEXRAD mission. Since the WSR-88D tower is a rigid structure which supports the critical transmit and receive equipment, the structural integrity of the tower must be maintained to ensure the availability of weather radar data under all circumstances. Factors such as corrosion, loose fasteners, damaged structural components or tower foundations, and others can contribute to the weakening of the tower system and may result in failure of the system to perform its lifesaving function. It is necessary to periodically inspect the soundness of the tower at all WSR-88D sites, which are constantly exposed to the environmental extremes. It may be necessary to conduct impromptu inspections of radar towers, which have been damaged or suspected to have been damaged by a catastrophic event. Additionally, some towers are located at remote mountainous sites with severe weather environments where the wind and ice loading are excessive. These sites are only accessible at certain times of the year for a limited period of time and require frequent maintenance. Timeliness of inspection and subsequent repair are critical in these situations to restore the WSR-88D tower to its original operational condition. WSR-88D radars must be 96% operationally available in order to meet the diverse meteorological missions of the NEXRAD tri-agency partners. The Government does not own complete data rights associated with the WSR- 88D Tower. The design and engineering data for the WSR-88D Towers are the proprietary property of Valmont-Microflect (CAGE: 29189). The Government does have data rights to the unique as-built drawings for each tower and detailed bills of material for each tower configuration. Th…