ERC32 Products Evaluation Programme

INFORMATION NOTE
TO
PROSPECTIVE EVALUATORS

PROGRAMME SCOPE:

The ERC32 Products Evaluation Programme shall be regarded as a 12-month "opportunity window" (January - December 1997) availed for interested organisations to exercise and evaluate a selection of ERC32 products.
The evaluation proposal submitted by an individual organisation shall foresee a duration not exceeding 4 (four) calendar months and shall in any case be intended to complete no later than December 1997.
Within the assigned evaluation period, the selected organisations shall be provided with a limited-time free-of-charge loan of the ERC32 hardware and software products required for the proposed evaluation.

PROGRAMME PROCEDURE:

The selection of the candidate evaluation proposals shall be based on criteria of technical merit and strategic importance.
Pre-selected evalutors may be requested to readjust their proposal schedule for the sake of programme-level organisational reasons.

The selection of participants in the ERC32 Products Evaluation Programme shall be performed in two phases as follows:

1. In the first phase (November 18 - December 13, 1996), interested organisations will be contacted by ESTEC and invited to fill in and return (by e-mail or fax) a simple QUESTIONNAIRE TO PROSPECTIVE EVALUATORS.
   The information supplied with the questionnaire will be used by ESTEC/WS to perform a pre-screening of the most suitable candidates.
2. In the second phase (January 6, 1997 - February 7, 1997), the pre-selected organisations will be requested to submit their detailed technical proposal (3-4 pp. maximum) to ESTEC for evaluation and final selection.
   Notification of acceptance will be sent directly to the selected organisations along with the technical and contractual information necessary to formalise the execution of the proposed activity.
3. The Evaluation Programme will be effectively initiated on completion of the second phase of selection. It is intended that the selected evaluators may be enabled to initiate their evaluation exercise as early as end-January 1997.

The funding availed by ESTEC for a single organisation selected for the evaluation shall in any case not exceed 5 KECU (ROM) and shall exclusively support the costs undertaken to:

• generate one Evaluation Report at the end of the evaluation exercise for release to ESTEC (and, in principle, for unrestricted distribution, unless agreed otherwise)
• participate in the ERC32 Products Evaluators Workshop to be organised by ESTEC/WS at the end of the ERC32 Products Evaluation Programme.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Technical information on the ERC32 Product Items can be found on the ERC32 Home Page.

Further information on the ERC32 Products Evaluation Programme can be obtained by contacting:

Tullio Vardanega
ESTEC, Spacecraft Control and Data Systems Division (WSD)
Voice: +31 71 565 5331
Fax: +31 71 565 4295.