NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has changed the proposed contract structure for its Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics Support Services II procurement. The final solicitation permits both cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price task orders, expanding the pricing options beyond the cost-plus-fixed-fee arrangement described in the earlier draft.
Published October 21, 2026, the original final solicitation covers research and computing support within Goddard’s Earth Sciences Division. It proposes a five-year ordering period under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, commonly abbreviated IDIQ. The solicitation establishes a competition for services; it does not announce a contract award.
Research Across Water, Ice, Land, and Geophysics
The requirement supports Goddard’s Cryospheric Sciences, Ocean Ecology, Hydrological Sciences, Biospheric Sciences, and Geodesy and Geophysics laboratories. It also includes science, research, and computing activities in the Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory.
The work combines space-based observations, airborne and other field measurements, and laboratory technologies. Its subjects include water resources, land and ocean systems, sea-level change, ice, Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields, and the terrestrial reference frame used to describe positions on Earth.
This scope places scientific analysis and computing services within the same procurement. It concerns the work needed to develop and apply observations, rather than the purchase of a single satellite or instrument.
How the Two Pricing Methods Differ
Under a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, the government reimburses allowable costs and pays a negotiated fee. The fee is fixed at the outset and does not rise automatically with actual costs, although changes to the work can justify an adjustment. Federal acquisition rules identify research with an uncertain required level of effort as one potential application.
A firm-fixed-price contract establishes a price that is not adjusted merely because the contractor’s costs differ from expectations. The contractor bears responsibility for those costs and the resulting profit or loss. This changes the financial consequences of performing the agreed work.
The hybrid structure lets NASA use either pricing method for task orders under the contract. It does not mean every research activity will receive a fixed price, nor does the notice specify which future tasks will use each method.
New Space Economy’s examination of NASA mission-operations pricing explains the related distinction between predictable services and work whose effort is difficult to estimate. For HBG II, the concrete change is the addition of firm-fixed-price task orders alongside cost-reimbursement orders.
The resulting procurement can accommodate different payment arrangements within its stated research scope. The original release identifies the five-year ordering period, with individual task orders defining the work NASA purchases under that framework.
